Buying bits and Tuning tips for GTti

PLEASE BE AWARE THEHEAD GASKET KITS BEING OFFERED ON EBAY ARE INFERIOR QUALITY. FROM WHAT I CAN GATHER THEY APPEAR TO BE MADE IN CHINA BY "KING SEAL"! I HAVE HEARD OF ONE ONLY LASTING A MATTER OF WEEKS.After a few recent GTti items i have spotted being sold on Ebay, some fetching silly over the top money,I thoughtit's worth a quick guide to help you decide what hot and what's not when it comes to Tuning upGTti's.These cars are easy and cheap to tune-up, but because knowledge is often fairly limited and performance parts are scarce, people tend to get carried away when a unusual item appears on Ebay...often claimng big power increases.First of all, Throttle body. Recently there was one being sold which had been mirror polished up inside, and it claimed a power increase of 3-6bhp! The only way you will gain worthwhile power increaseis if the throttle body is bored out to it's max size of 39mm, and a new butterfly is made to fit. Just polishing alone would hardly do anything and certainly you wont notice any real gain.You may have heard of some peopleusing a throttle body from another car (Toyota MR2 Mk1 is similar looking but much bigger). This wont work very well using the standard ECU, the airflow into the engine will be so different to standard. But its something to consider doing if you change the ECU to a programmable one (or a piggyback such as E-manage)DRS Ecu's....These appear every so often, andI sold mine last year for a fantastic price. Be aware that everyDRS i know of (apart from the one i had) is a 1 bar / 15psi DRS, In other words it ismapped to run about 15 psiboost pressure, many will still have a safety fuel cut but set at just over 15 psiinstead of the standard ecu's 12.5psi.These offer about 30-40bhp gain over a standard GTti, and they simply plug in just like standard ECU. However you won't really be able to re-tune it easily for even more poweras there is no software or computer hook-up cable available to remap them.The chips insidecould be removed and read by a chip EPROM reader/Writer, butthis means you cannot tune theDRS whilst car is running on a dyno. So it wouldbe a longwinded process.Also,you can get just the same amount of power for very little money byraising the boost to 14/15psi, and using a Fuel cut defender to defeat the standard ecu safety cutout.These are often hated as its seen as a bit of a bodge..but in reality if the car is setup well it should be perfectly OK if you can set the boost to 14/15psi and not be tempted to raise it up further!The DRS i had was a little different in that it was mapped to suit more boost (18psi), and also came setup to run with a new uprated MAP sensor. This gave it about 50-60bhp gain over a standard car.DAD ecu's (Dawson Auto Developments)These are a UK modified standard ECU used on the old Uk rally GTti's, similar to the DRS butthey seema little more crude.They tend to be setup to run very rich fuel mixtures (for engine safety)so i would not suggest running one for everyday road use.Heavy fuel consumption and even black smoke is likely.The Greddy e-Manage piggyback (blue version) is a great easy way for proper tuning, and once installed will have far greater scope for tuning than a DRS or DADecu, and for much less money.You can adjust fuelling and ignition timing via a laptop and installation is really easy, about 8-10 wiresT's intothe standard ECU harness and its ready to go! The car will start and run identical to standard until you start to play about with the setting of the e-manage, so there is no problem driving the car to a tuners/rolling road to be setup.Air filters / Induction kits...for max power the golden rule with a turbo engine is to fit the biggest free flowing air filter you can manage to fit under the bonnet!Thereare so many brands / shapes and sizes out there.The latest Stainless Steel Mesh type flow the best, although filtration quality is not as good as cotton or standard paper,K

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