What have you done to your Mk6 today then?

[Adammk6]

Got a pair of seat inserts. Will have installed pics up soon

[Nino]

I am not usally one for putting "kits" on my cars but I have always had alittle gripe with VW on the stlying of the Edition 35 and have always felt they got lazy with it.

They made an effort with the front bumper by creating the bottom center section gloss black and adding the front spliiter lip and the gloss black mirrors but that's where it ended.

We got the standard GTi Spoiler and rear defuser. I came across the ECS tuning rear lip spoiler and what I liked about this over the cheap £40 ones or the Maxton designs ones is it looked more OEM+ and more like what VW did with the Edition 40. I also like that it fits well and it's easily reversable too.

I will likely fit the Reiger gloss black rear defuser next as I feel the ECS one looks far to aggressive and the Reiger is more OEM+ and thankfully also ALOT cheaper.

LINK: https://www.awesomegti.com/shop-by-car/volkswagen/golf-mk6/bodystyling/ecs-rear-spoiler-in-gloss-black-golf-mk6-gti-r/?cmp_id=23716263986&adg_id=&kwd=&device=c&gad_source=1&gad_campaignid=23716279190&gclid=CjwKCAjwnZfPBhAGEiwAzg-VzCO4Krc-JFFhjnA8EP7XlcqfE56yMyoajI5BXqSFG3WoxjW9b9Av5xoCe6EQAvD_BwE

Before


After

[Nino]

Spent the weekend installing my new sub setup and getting everything dialled in properly.

I was previously running an MTX Thunder 8" sub which, to give it credit, sounded awesome. Being an 8", though, it was more punchy and I wanted something with a bit more depth, so I decided to move up to a 10" and go for more of an OEM+ look.

As you can see, I had previously made a custom false floor section to house the MTX and stop it moving around.



I made a little false wall for the amp using some MDF offcuts I had lying around. It gives me somewhere solid to mount the amp, hides all the wiring and I've raised it slightly to allow for some extra ventilation behind it.

Of course, it wouldn't be one of my installs without something annoying going wrong! 

I didn't realise I'd put the ground cable through the wrong hole until I'd already cable-tied the corrugated sleeve into place. I'll sort that at some point because I already know it's going to bug me every time I look at it!

I also learnt something new while researching the install the gain control on an amplifier isn't simply a volume or "more bass" control.

The gain is basically used to match the amplifier to the signal coming from the head unit. Rather than just turning it up until it sounds loud enough, you can work out the voltage the amp needs to produce the desired power and then use a multimeter to set the gain accurately.

In my case, I'm running a HELIX M ONE X amplifier with my HELIX 10" subwoofer wired to 4 ohms. The amp can produce 400W at 4 ohms, while the sub is rated at 300W RMS.

To work out a sensible target voltage for the sub, you use:
300 watts × 4 ohms = 1,200

Then you take the square root of 1,200, which gives 34.6 volts.

So I set the amplifier's gain to around 34–35 volts using a multimeter.

The amp is capable of 400W at 4 ohms, which would be 40 volts, but because the sub is rated at 300W RMS, there's no real reason to set the gain to allow the full 400W. Setting it around 34.6V keeps the target much closer to the sub's rated power.

It's a much better way of setting the gain than simply turning it up until it sounds loud enough. The gain isn't a bass boost or volume control it's there to match the amplifier to the input signal and set an appropriate maximum output.

Overall, I'm really happy with how it's turned out. It's a pretty big upgrade over the MTX setup and I much prefer the more subtle OEM+ look.

The extra size of the 10" sub gives me the deeper bass I was looking for without turning the boot into a complete boy-racer setup.

[Adam T7]

Love seeing mods like that, very neat. I’m not really into car audio to a great extent but that job looks very cool.

[Nino]

Love seeing mods like that, very neat. I’m not really into car audio to a great extent but that job looks very cool.

Thanks Adam! I know what you mean. I'm in my 40s now, so I've definitely moved past the days of having the boot rattling  , but I've always loved music and having a decent sound system in the car is something I really appreciate.

I think going forward, when the time comes to replace the Golf with something newer, I'll probably just make sure it has the Dynaudio package or an equivalent factory upgrade. It would certainly save me having to pull half the car apart to achieve decent sound!