Category Archives: Cars

Yesterday I gave in to opportunity (lol). I dropped in to V-Sport out at Arndell Park (next door to Eastern Creek raceway) to fit up Tendy’s “spare” set of Brembo brakes.

I’ve heard a bit about V-Sport through the Golf forums (all good things) and the guys were friendly and the workshop was super clean and full of EVO’s (boss drives an X and the rest were 6’s).

Crazy rally evo driven by “Samantha”.

Tendy (his car is sporting a new black roof) came along to introduce me right and to keep me company during the install (what a champ!).

They had a really nice display room chock full of race toys.

Drool. AP Racing pedals.

The boys got working on my car right away.

Goodridge lines.

Brakes fitted.

Old brakes weighed twice as much as the new set-up (despite the new set-up being larger!).

I also picked up these goodies. A decent tyre pressure gauge for track days and some aerocatch bonnet pins which I’ll get fitted up soon.

The brakes are amazing. Where the stock brake pedal had a lot of travel and felt like mush these Brembos feel the exact opposite. If anything the brakes feel exactly the same as my GT-R set-up. I’ve got a track day at Eastern Creek next Monday so I’ll put the brakes to the test then!

My Recaro Pole Positions which I sourced through Ian at Rennenhaus have landed. Unfortunately the side mounts which I need in order to get these babies installed are on back order and will take another 3 weeks to come so I’m going to have to sit tight. I’ve bought a pair but here’s a couple of shots of one of them:

The seats weigh a weenie 6.94kg each (excluding seat hardware which I will weigh up once it’s all here).

Photo by Felix Alim.

Christina and I are pretty happy today. The last VWGolf.net.au meet has been featured on the largely popular US car culture blog Speedhunters. Massive thanks to Charles and Felix for covering it.

View the feature: http://speedhunters.com/archive/2010/07/20/event-gt-gt-vwgolf-net-au-meet.aspx

BSH (USA) Complete Billet Mount Package.

BSH Pendulum Mount and Torque Mount Insert.

Forge Motorsport (UK) catch can installed.

Greddy (Japan) sensor adaptor.

52mm Defi Gauges (Japan) in NewSouth (UK) pod holder.

Lights on WHITE.

Or RED!

Review and issues

– Gauges are so awesome and change the vibe of the cabin enormously (much more serious!). I’m still torn between the red and white settings. White’s a lot clearer but red better suits the rest of the interior lights and displays.

– As soon as I started the engine I felt a lot more vibrations (to be expected of-course). The once small rattle from the passenger side door rubbing up against where it meets the dash is much louder now and what’s most changed is that I can actually hear the engine. It’s loud and sounds like kinda like a truck. It’s amazing how much engine noise is now transferred to the cabin because of the new engine mounts.

– Car feels more responsive off a standing start.

– I’ve lost a LOT of power. The battery was disconnected today (to install the gauges) so I instantly assumed that I had lost my REVO tune. I pulled over, turned the car off and on again and nothing, no power at all. I did a lot of googling and found that indeed my REVO tune has reverted out of performance mode and into a stock like mode. I’ve read I can buy a REVO SPS controller to switch it back myself whenever I unplug the battery or I can just drop in to see George at VW Village (where I got it flashed) and he can do it without charge (now I understand why people suggest to go with a tuner close by!!!). To be honest it’s nice to feel the difference between the stock ECU and the REVO tune which is absolutely light and day, so much so the car now feels mega retarded.

– Seats: I thought I had everything ready to go but I’m missing the side mounts! Sorting it out though so they should be all good to go soon.

Before

After

Last night I lost hours of sleep. I did a Google search for a mobile rim repairer and found this guy at the top of the list:

http://www.mobilealloywheelrepairs.com.au/

I called the number, spoke to a guy named John and explained the damage as a light scuff on a gunmetal grey rim. He booked me in for tomorrow but called a few minutes later to say that a booking had been cancelled and that he could come over in half an hour!

John spent about 20 minutes on the wheel and when I inspected the wheel I couldn’t tell where the repair had been done at all. In fact I pointed to the opposite end of the wheel! I had a few little nicks in the wheels too from my semi’s kicking up stones and he fixed them up on the house (nice!).

All up it cost me $150 and I have to say that I’m super happy with the result.