Because Racecar- 19Birel's Budget MK7.5 GTI Build

[19birel]

TBH I thought this forum was gone, last time I tried to log on at least it was. I only happened to rediscover it the other day when I accidentally clicked on an old bookmark, and surprise Stance Works forum is back! Figured I'd do my part to keep the forums alive and post my latest build...

So first a little back story. The fastest car I have owned is my B8.5 Audi A4 which some of you may have seen on here. It's stage 2+ (JB4 stacked on IE remap) meth injected etc. and basically full-send for a stock turbo B8.5. It's pretty quick and tends to give the usual modded Subaru crowd a good run for their money. That said, despite being quick for what it is, it's not fast. Sure I could go K04 but it would still just be quick for what it is and not legitimately fast, and I had a serious itch for a fast car. I also wanted something that could handle the occasional track day because the A4 isn't really suited to it, and thrashing my 118k mile daily on track sounds like a great way not to have a ride to work that week haha.

In my eyes the choice was simple, a MK7 Volkswagen GTI. The EA888.3 motors can make serious power, the cars are nice to drive and nice to be in, and they handle well too. I've also helped my dad rebuild two MK7s (a GTI for him and a Golf 1.8T for my sister) so I'm familiar with wrenching on the platform. The plan was to buy a wrecked 2016 or 17 model from the salvage auction as I did with my A4, fix it, and mod accordingly for a really budget friendly setup, initially my only requirements were a manual gearbox and the Performance Pack (VAQ Limited-slip Diff & bigger brakes from Golf R/S3).

However, prices for 70k mile 2016/17 cars were more than I wanted to pay. So I looked at spending a little more for a lower mileage cars in that year range, then reasoned that if I was spending more I should also get a car with the Pano moon roof and upgraded headlights. Then I figured that if I was spending more for creature comforts, I should really bite the bullet and get a MK7.5 because the facelift cars look so sharp...you can see how slippery this slope became I lucked out and found a 2021 MK7.5 GTI SE in White Silver Metallic, with the 6MT & Performance Pack (all '21s in the US had the Perf pack) and Pretoria wheels in black which are easily my favorite OEM option. All with just 18,700miles and a little undercarriage damage!


Here she is arriving from Tampa (no it wasn't in the flood haha)

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Shoutout to my parents for letting me keep the car at their house for the rebuild (my dad has way more tools than me haha)
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And the damage...
Core support and front lip were knackered


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This is the worst of it

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Drove it around the block, and it drove straight with no warning lights!
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Basically it just need some patching on the floor and a bunch of new plastic bits to be road ready again so the rebuild process should be pretty easy.

One of the first this I did was mending the core support, only the bottom bit where the under tray screw into was damaged so I just made a bracket and now it's probably stronger than it was before.

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I also pounded a dent out of the passenger footwell which I forgot to document.

This concludes part one, I'll continue to get this up to speed as I have time!

[19birel]

Okay so I continued to crack on with the repairs. I took care of the missing paint on the control arm with POR15, I figured I'd refrain from replacing it until I could get an alignment to confirm whether or not the damage was just superficial (later an alignment showed that everything was fine!)



Began fixing some of the gashes in the floor


Some areas that got beat up needed re-seamsealed so I took care of that too






Plastic welded the slightly damaged fender liner


New front valence- note, that VW parts bag in came in makes a great mat to lay on when you're working under the car, I never toss those haha


I also replaced the missing OEM plastic skid plate with an ECS street shield


This thing is pretty solid, but you have to get the the bracing kit for it, otherwise the mounting points are too flimsy for it to really be effective IMO




Now there is a small gap in my pictures I replaced one of the side plastic under tray pieces but can't find any pics on my Flickr of that. At this point the car was fixed!

Unfortunately I had to wait for some paperwork before inspection and was also told that the tint would cause it to fail, so I got the car moved from my parents' place to mine and removed the tint (i plan to have it redone this summer)


Most important addition was a fresh set of OEM GTI Monster Mats haha


Trying to keep my excitement at bay whilst I waited, I also ordered some sequential turn signals from amazon. Top are stock, bottom are the new ones




Then finally the day came to get her inspected; she passed with flying colors so after a quick wash I took her out for a photoshoot!


Feat. Mia Wallace peeker haha




I couldn't have been happier with the result, this is the newest car I've ever had and it felt darn good to pay less than half of retail for it by just putting in a little bit of work! I felt that I had a far better basis for this project than I had anticipated.

[19birel]

So as I started driving the car there were a few things I didn't, like mostly related to pedal feel that I really felt I needed to sort in order to "Stage 0" the car.

First, the drive by wire throttle didn't quite feel responsive enough, this is a comment I make of every DBW car with a manual gearbox, so I'll say this is probably me moreso than the car. Easily solved though with a Burger Motorsports pedal tuner. I have one in my Audi as well and love it so it was an easy choice.


The next issue was in regards to pedal position. The brake pedal is so much higher than the gas pedal that heel toe is really difficult to achieve consistently. Luckily a little company called WCT performance makes a really nicely machined spacer for the gas pedal. Takes literally 1minute to install and makes a world of a difference, a must have on a manual MK7.


Lastly, everyone knows that MK7s are notorious for having absolutely zero clutch feel. I started to mend this by removing this spring from the actual clutch pedal it self, doing so made it possible to actually feel where the bite point is, nice improvement for a free mod!


After this I noticed that whenever I would shift quickly it would almost feel like I was inadvertently dragging the clutch. I never owned an automatic car in my life so I figured this was the vehicle not me. These cars have a delay valve in the bleeder block for the clutch that slows down the clutch action to make things easier for people new to driving a manual. You can remove this valve from the OEM bleeder block, but I just replaced the whole unit with a nice aluminum one from ECS tuning, problem solved.


Now the car was feeling great. In the mean time I also convinced my buddy that the ideal replacement for his wife's Nissan Rogue was a MK7. I'd also been singing the MK7 song to him for a while but me getting the GTI got him to really start searching for one haha. They ended up getting a nice '17 Golf Sportwagen 4motion DSG car, naturally we took the cars out for some pics together haha.





Now I mentioned wanting to do 1 or 2 track events this year, and I heard about one in Febuary at VIR. I figured it would be good to at least to do one with the car bone stock, so I signed up. For context, I've raced karts since I was 9 competing in a number of national events etc. so I'm not new to being on track, but this would be my first venture into HPDE. Naturally though the car needed prepped.

I started with brakes, EBC Yellowstuff pads and Motul RBF 600 fluid. The EBC pads aren't the ideal choice, but the next step up (some Ferodos that people rave about) are twice as much at ~$500 a set so I decided the EBCs would be fine lol


To help with brake cooling I also picked up a set of OEM Audi RS3 brake ducts




Then I needed some fresh rubber. The stock tyres are Pirelli P7 all-seasons which absolutely suck, even at street speeds you're constantly running out of grip so I knew they'd be a mess on track. Assuming they didn't eat themselves lol. Naturally I needed another set of wheels too, so I picked up a set of Apex Race Parts SM-10 wheels in Graphite. I downsized to 17s, they are flow formed and ~19lbs/wheel.


Wrapped them in Toyo Proxes Sports, Discount Tire gave me a killer deal on them and it was short notice too. These are very much a street oriented performance tyre, but are perform well enough to have fun on track though they won't set any blazing times.


4x4 stance, I know, lowering it and adding a little bit of camber for a nice motorsport inspired stance is in the plans


Last but not least I drain the crap 0W-20 VW uses and replaced it with some fresh LiquiMoly Synthoil 0W-40


Unfortunately I discovered that my helmet was out of date for the event, so I bought a cue ball off amazon as a temporary solution until I can commission another custom one.


I really ***** the plain white lid, so I got some vinyl wrap and went to town, not perfect, but at least it's not plain anymore haha


All packed up for the 7hr drive to VIR, I rode down on the stock wheels and swapped to the Apexs once I got there so I didn't risk getting a flat.


Posted up in the paddock


Some pics the photographer took




Had an absolute blast, the car handled great and exceeded my expectations. Day 1 was dry and was mostly spent learning the car and the track, day two was lashing with rain, but as I had learned the track and gotten comfortable in the car I was laying down some consistent and fast times. I was told anything under 3mins in the wet is respectable, and cranked out a best lap of 2:49.8 so I was happy!


A couple pics from the drive home, stopped on Lover's Leap to take a couple pics

It was after this I realized I had been a bit delusional in my plans for this car. How did I think I, after racing my whole life, was going to do 1 HPDE and be satisfied for the rest of the season? My goal was to make this somewhat of a roll race car that could handle the occasional track day, but I don't even roll race so suddenly that plan seemed daft. My revised goal became clear though, get the car at a conservative & reliable yet rowdy power level 400whp (450ish to the crank) so that it's fun on the street but still usable on track. with a goal of hitting as many tracks as I can, I've wanted a track car for a while, and while I'm not gutting this and go full send, it will be functional and still nice to street drive. No EQT Vortex for me anymore, but my new plan seemed far more entertaining.

[19birel]

So where are we at now? Well I'm planning to do a few more events this spring before I start really diving into the big turbo setup and supporting mods. That said I have done a couple things here and there to keep the mod bug under control.

Stock this car feels quick enough on track but on the street I longed for more power. I found a used JB4 on another forum's classifieds so I scooped that up, installed a bluetooth dongle, and made that my temporary tune setup. Currently working on a custom map 6, but the car really scoots. 60-120 it decimates my FBO A4 and this is with just a JB4...can't wait for more.


My foglights were a little hazy so I polished them and put some yellow tint on them for protection. at first I was a little unsure about the yellow, but I love it now




Since VAG uses the EA888.3 motor in literally everything I thought it would be funny to get a 2.0T Macan engine cover and slap it on

Before


After

I think it actually cleans up the look of the engine bay a bit

Some random pics




So that's us up to date!