Daily Driven 1.8T Build

[cmdshft]

Eurgh, this is so damn beautiful man.

Hehe, it would be better if I had all the supporting low mods done already and didn't have curbed wheels on... But soon, it will be much better.

[SebastienPeek]

Eurgh, this is so damn beautiful man.

[cmdshft]

Install looks great, good choice on hiding the manifold up there

Thank you, and yeah that is my favorite part of the install.

I fixed the sagging top section in the rear by the door with a little spray glue and changed the rear half of the false floor to a plaid design. It's a little off center because I had to trim off a portion of the side because it was extremely difficult to take in and out and would not lift easily. I don't really care too much because I will end up changing it up at some point in time.



Drove to 7 Lakes Drive park in New York and got this decent shot.



I have a few maintenance things to take care of, I'll be putting in new wheel bearings and changing the fuel pressure regulator because there is a really strange hissing noise coming from the fuel rail area when the fuel pump primes... After that, a trip to Maine for VAGFair with some friends and then I'll be getting some exterior bits from Optikworks which I am extremely excited about.

[hinrichs]

Install looks great, good choice on hiding the manifold up there

[cmdshft]

Part 2











































I think that honestly, my favorite part of this whole install was where we hid the manifold. I didn't have a CD-changer but I did have the bracket so it was a no-brainer to put it there away from everything else. We also turned the battery around up front and ran the compressor connections to the body and to the fuse panel and hid it all off to the side. Very clean setup for the most part.

Up next is to flip the tie-rods, do wheel bearings (I have play up and down in both wheels at the hub... yay), IDF control arms and centering plates, flatten the pinch welds above the wheels in the fender, remove the rear fender liner and ultimately get new wheels and tires.

[cmdshft]

Random air suspension installation pics part 1













To be continued.

[cmdshft]

Trunk setup isnt bad, be ready to want to redo it multiple times. I know in my old GLI I redid mine 5 times lol.

Yeah, I got the floor from someone else so I am just working with what I have the best I can do. I eventually want to go through a place called EuroKreations to get some nice floor work done with the tank setup. Possibly hardlines as well with a nice display for the manifold or something. Not sure yet. Been trying to look up other people's designs for inspiration.

I cant wait to see this thing planted

You and me both! This was supposed to be done months ago buuuuut people got sketch so I had to wait.

[190Evan]

I cant wait to see this thing planted

[hinrichs]

Trunk setup isnt bad, be ready to want to redo it multiple times. I know in my old GLI I redid mine 5 times lol.

[cmdshft]

Hopefully, this Saturday I will be getting the air suspension finally installed. So today, I started to mock up some stuff.

This is how I truly wanted things to be mounted.



But as I did some measuring, I realized it might be a bit more difficult. The upside is that I had a false floor already made and partially installed, the downside is that since I didn't design and build it myself, I had to work with someone else's sloppy measurements and hope it all works out.

Part of the problem was that the rear-seat replacement side floor was only supported close to the drive/pass seats and not supported by anything in the rear section of it. So I had to measure up the height I needed.



I got some wood and cut up small supports with L-brackets and got really lucky that they held up exactly as I needed them too where I screwed them in at.

I also realized that my leader line from the comp is kinda short. So I had to turn the tank around and because the person who built the floor put the support section on at an angle instead of straight, there was less room on the left of the tank than the right, so I had to put the comp on the other side. No big deal really.



Here's the simple support I made for the hatch section of the floor. As you can tell, I am still intending to use the wheel tub for storage space and where the manifold is in the photo I will also have space for stuff if need be. So I am not losing too much space, actually.

This is how I am thinking of mounting up the manifold on the rear board. Airlift says this is okay, so I will go with it. Will give me the ability to reduce any kinks in the lines because mounting it on the board like the previous pics would really strain the air lines and that's an obvious no-no.



It's not perfect because of that little gap but really don't have any other choice right now really. But, this is all temporary until I can figure out a better setup down the road. I will also be fixing up the carpeting a bit so there wont be any wrinkles and I will also be shaving down the sides of that half so it's not so damn tight trying to lift it up to access the stuff under it.



I'm definitely thinking of going with a more professional floor install that can accommodate the tank, comp and manifold and possibly some hard lines too, maybe even a simple display window as well. But that's another day.

[cmdshft]

Sorry for the lack of any updates whatsoever to anyone who's actually paying attention to this thread. I've had to deal with a lot of adult related stuff...

But, there is some stuff I can post.

Further testing on the replacement ECU show that it's passing all monitors after a week or two except for the SAI and catalytic converter monitors, making me believe that the rear O2 sensor directly controls the SAI testing as well. I had put a new exhaust in and when I had the shop install it, I asked them to not lose the spacer that I had for the rear O2 sensor... Well, guess what? They never moved that spacer onto the new exhaust. Since I never realized it and never had to clear codes or reset anything since then, I always saw that the monitors were still passed so I let it be. I did a VCDS test on the catalytic converter system (even though I have a test pipe) so I could read what the sensor was seeing and it was .77 on the reading, passing the test has to be lower than .50, so I am assuming that's why it wont pass the two tests. So I ordered a new spacer and will try installing that soon and see what happens.

I also haven't had time to install the air suspension still. I am hoping that my friend can get me on the lift the end of next week. I still have to measure up the rear hatch area and buy wood and stuff to get it all mounted. Hopefully I'll have all that done in 2 days. Can't wait to hear it running and see where I am height wise all aired out. Then I can focus on ordering wheels.

I also had the unfortunate pleasure of someone hitting my driver side fender and bending it inward. I'll post a photo later on, it's not terrible but hopefully a little PDR can take care of it.

[cmdshft]

Tuner says ECU is likely shot, doesn't think reflash will fix it.

75 quid for a replacement ECU and my tune installed on it. I'm down for that. This will be my second ECU, tuner believes that maybe the O2 sensor died internally and somehow took out the ECU with it when I started getting the O2 code on and off.

Also ordered a new throttle body wiring connector to replace mine which has a broken clip so it doesn't seal against moisture well currently. Should stop getting EPC issues when washing/raining/really wet.

[cmdshft]

The plot thickens. I may be in for a new ECU again...

I replaced the resistors and nothing changed...

I took the battery cables off for a few hours today to try and hard reset the ECU.

I reinstalled the cables, did a throttle body adaptation and then sat and waited to see if any adjustment occurred. None actually occurred even after running for about 45 minutes at idle.

I turned the car off and cleared out the ECU again with the scan tool and then did another TBA, sat and let it idle again and the idle trim came up to 2.60%. I drove the car for about another half hour and pulled over to check trims. Long term trim was still at 0%...

I reset the ECU and did another TBA again and instead of letting it sit, I started to drive it again... The idle trim topped out at 1.12% and the long term trim came up and stopped at 7.81%. No further up or down adjustment on either trim occurred. This was after about 5 minutes of driving.

I did the same procedure again and the trims stopped about the same again and also stopped after about 5 minutes of driving.

I am going to go out to the tuner's shop in PA again this week and have them look at it and maybe run some logs and possibly reflash the ECU and then log some more data and see what the issue might be. Hoping the issue is the tune and not the ECU itself...

[SebastienPeek]

Oh so keen to see this all come together, gotta get over there for H20i this year somehow!

[cmdshft]

While I am waiting for my resistors, I decided to start working on the false floor and mock up where I want the air tank to be. I managed to sell my rear seats to a friend for $50 who also gave me his extended false floor. I re-upholstered it with some better fabric and reinforced the setup with brackets. I have the other half as well but since I am going to most likely end up cutting the wood to fit the tank better, I didn't upholster it the way I want yet.