Author Archives: Justin Fox

Today I attended a Burrows Day at Eastern Creek.

Burrows Days have been held by Luke O’neill for years now. They’re invite only events and I’ve been to a few of them (maybe 6 or so days with various cars) but I hadn’t attended one in over 4-5 years.

They’re considered a driver training day (so people can get insurance to cover the day). There’s strict rules regarding overtaking and there’s no lap timing allowed. Awesome coffee is served all day, muffins, bottled water and a huge feast for lunch as well.

As soon as I turned into Reservoir Road it started raining. At that point I wished I had taken the GT-R instead of the Golf! The first 3 sessions were wet and I struggled to get any sort of grip at all (it was so slippery out there). The car would happily understeer for metres, the traction control did nothing about it (it only kicked in when I stabbed the accelerator and then the tail would pop out). I had a timer (don’t tell Luke!) and my times were woeful (I was doing 2.30’s to start and 2.18’s in the 3rd session).

During lunch the sun came out and our next few sessions were great!!!

I had my dampers set to 8 front and 12 rear and the car felt so much better than how it felt at Wakefield (set to 8/8). DSG behaved much better at EC, sometimes it didn’t want to get down into 3rd from 4th but that was about it. I even felt the rear wanting to come out in some situations. I had a lot of grip and best of all the brake bleed did the trick! My brakes were great!

I ended up with a lap time of 1.59 which I was pretty happy with.

I had a bad night’s sleep so I called it a day at 3.40pm and I’m glad I did as it started to rain again when I was leaving.

All in all a great day and god damn I love the GTI!!! It’s such a great little car and I’ve almost got it set up to my liking (more brakes would be nice!).

You can view all the pictures and commentary of the day here:
http://www.vwgolf.net.au/showthread.php?1427-Photos-Burrows-Day-at-Eastern-Creek

Weather was super nice yesterday, chilly but the sun was out so Christina and I hit Centennial Park for a few laps.

Doing laps of Centennial Park usually gets pretty boring but on a Sunday it’s as intense as a downhill trail! You’ve got kids weaving left and right, joggers and people walking dogs on the cycle path, sometimes the wrong way too, cars overtaking parking cars by swerving into the cycle lane and worst of all, Sydney yuppies staring you down and crossing the road at a snails pace (WTF is with that?!). /vent.

PS: I left the UNIbrace on and still managed to get 2 bikes in the back easily. I did have to take the front wheels off on both bikes though (easy done as they’re both quick release wheels).

20mm H&R bolt on spacers. Bolting on the spacers to the hub is easy as the right bolts are supplied but my aftermarket Kics Project wheel bolts were a tiny bit too long. Luckily the front OEM rotors have extra holes drilled out of them (no idea why) and this allowed me to use the longer aftermarket studs except one, which was blocked by a torx bolt that holds the disc. I had to grind that one bolt down 2mm to get it to fit but the end result is perfect!

The 2 pulleys, new and old. The Neuspeed kit weighs an amazing 1.39kg less than the stock one.

All installed.

Neuspeed says their kit gains 5-7HP. I can tell you 100% for sure that the car now has better response. That annoying tiny bit of lag when you accelerate with only half throttle is now a lot less annoying! VERY VERY HAPPY :)

Next up I wanted to get rid of the rubbing noises I’m getting from the rear. On close inspection I was really wearing away the carpet like fender lining in the wheel arch. I decided to rip it all out!

All ripped out. I took off the front brake heat/dust shields too for better brake cooling when I hit the track.

Here are my adjusted weight savings:

Lightening
———————————-
Antenna: -20g
Golf Manual: -818g
Tool kit: -3.78kg
Parcel tray: -1.82kg
Rear floor: -1.62kg
Rear seat bottom: -4.96kg
Rear single seat back: -6.46kg
Rear double seat back: -17.48kg
Spare wheel: -14.34kg
Rear wiper assembly: -1.02kg
License Plate surround + fog light block-off panel -300g
Rear floor matts: -572g
Osir carbon bonnet -6kg
Rear boot trim panel: -1.74kg
Rear boot trim: -2.57
Amplifier cover: -170g
Undertray: -880g
Exhaust heatshield: -560g
Oil filler neck -35g
Battery box -646g
Fog Lights -420g
Rear fender lining: -1.5kg
Front brake heat shields: -720g
———————————-
+10.80kg (H&R swaybars/Cross Coilovers)
-3kg (Miltek Turbo Back Exhaust)
-200g (Neuspeed Turbo Discharge kit)
+1.2kg (Forge Twintake)
– 12kg (Advan RZ + Toyo R888)
+395g (Kics lug nuts)
+1960g (H&R + ECS Wheel Spacers)
– 464g (new MKV rear hatch mechanism)
– 4.58kg (Odyssey Battery)
+ 400g (Unibrace)
– 1393g (Neuspeed pulley kit)
———————————-
= -73111g

Yesterday VWGolf.net.au hit Eastern Creek for a Volkswagen Advanced Driver Training course (which was amazingly free of charge!).

An awesome day was had by all, so many funny moments! You can check out the rest of the pictures and commentary here

My GT-R has finally passed an engineers certificate. The car is now “legal” and I can drive it on the roads without being overly paranoid about being defected.

With the stock airbox back in the car and a new quiet Fujitsubo exhaust I’ve passed emissions. I’ve taken the roll cage out and the carpets are back in too. I now have to go to a blue-slip station with the certificate and from there I can take the new blue-slip to the RTA and I’m all set.

New boost controller running 1.3bar now (was on 1.4 before).

In comparison to the last tune the curve is a lot less aggressive. Indy says the stock airbox is to blame, it just can’t suck in enough air quick enough.

Grrr M5.

My mate Dave was there. He’s still bitter about me not showing up to his B’day party last year (Hi Dave!). We had the traditional Hungry Jacks meal on the way back home too.

The Golf had lots of power but no brakes, at all.

Yonas and Zi were out too. Zi did a 1.07 today (daym!).

I made my return to the track today. Not in the GT-R, but in a VW Golf (funny how things work out!). I think it’s been about 2 years or so since I’ve been on the circuit. Usually I get nervous the night before, but not so this time, even Christina was up for taking her car out on the track (so proud of my baby!).

Clear weather but damn cold (hey great for the turbo cars!) we got caught in crap M5 traffic (the tunnel again!) and when we finally got to Wakefield we were a little upset at how many cars there were in street class. Luckily there were so many of us that they set up a new group which made the day feel more like a private track day (nice!).

I managed consistent 1.13’s all day despite having absolutely no braking power at all. My best time was a 1.13.07 (oh so close to a 1.12!). I’ll have to now look into bigger brake$$$$$$$.

You can view a lot more pics and commentary here:
http://www.vwgolf.net.au/showthread.php?1275-VWGolf-net-au-TRACK-DAY-pics%21-Wakefield-Park-11-6-2010

Out of curiosity I hit the dyno today.

I suppose I was dreaming to think I’d net a 50kw gain out of the REVO Stage 1 tune, having said that my mate Kevin with a GIAC Stage 2 tune only got 1.6kw more than I did. Considering my car was on semis (apparently less power on a dyno as they’re so sticky) and that I chose to go for a mild rather than wild Stage 1 tune I suppose I should be happy.

More photos from the dyno day today here

I hit the track (Wakefield) this Friday. I’ve not been on the circuit in sooo long and I’m pretty excited about it (I even had a dream last night that I drove all the way out to Wakefield only to realise I forgot my helmet and gloves at home!).

In preparation I’ve done a few things to the MKV:

I had a one on one session after hours with George from VW Village in Kensington. He REVO tuned my car. He says it’s making about 50kw more now!

“Flashing” an ECU sure seems a lot easier than tuning a car on a dyno with a Power FC. It’s a simple matter of plug, upload and you’re done. Despite asking for a very safe and mild tune, the results are insane and my MKV is a completely different beast now. Too much power for a front wheel drive car in my opinion!

I’m trialing some 20mm spacers up front for wider track. The car feels a lot flatter now. If I kill my guards this Friday on the ripple strips at Wakefield I’ve got no-one to blame but myself!

Yesterday was one of those days. I had a billion things to do; meetings, more meetings and car stuff too. Everything took a little longer than I thought and that put me smack bang in the thick of peak hour. Getting caught in the M5 tunnel sux ass.

Rear green stuff pads are now in and damn they’re punchy. I’m surprised at how much the rear pads work on the GTI.

My shortened end links are in too so I’m all set!

Brad’s JUNKA Drag Beetle.

Brad’s desktop background, yup that’s him.

This Beetle is so cool on more than a few counts. It’s owned, built and driven by Brad Young who owns and runs Westside Mufflers in Padstow NSW. I got to know Brad when I worked upstairs from him with the JDMyard guys a few years ago. Like all of the best he’s ridiculously hard working and a super nice guy.

I’ve always known him to be a beetle fan. He’s shown me pictures of some of his old cars but being the busy guy he is (he’s a family man too!) he rarely gets time to work on his own cars.

A few years ago he started work on a new Beetle Project. He aimed to get the weight down and hit 10’s at the strip. Over the past few years I’ve heard about this thing being built but I only got to lay my eyes on the finished product at the recent VW Nationals.

I dropped in to see Brad yesterday to catch up (and also ask him to help me out on the snapped sway bar end links for my Golf), he was actually working on his car and also shared this video too:

Yup, nuts huh?

I then dropped in to JDMyard and caught up with the boys and Zi, who’s back! (man hugz!). He’s sporting glasses now (wayfarers?!) and a new cat (?!!?! so so so cute though in real life ahahaha).

Pretty chuffed today! Charles Kha and Chris Brasher covered the last JDMST EOMM at JDMyard for SPEEDHUNTERS.

You can check out the feature here:
http://speedhunters.com/archive/2010/06/03/jdmst-end-of-month-meet.aspx