Started looking at new wheels, wanting something able to hit 300Hp+ on std turbo, potentially AWD, with a good tuning market.

Was looking at

Mazda 6MPS

Volvo S60R

Vectra VXR

Leon Cupra

i then started to back track and began looking at renault clios, for the chuckability and power to weight performance instead.

And somehow i ended up with this

Skoda Fabia vRS 1.4TSI(180)

Candy white, black roof and alloys

Cruise control

heated seats

Reverse parking sensors

Climate control

7Spd DSG

IPOD connectivity etc

and all for £14200

Had it dyno'd. Got a pretty good plateau of torque

I was speaking to Ben @ Shark Performance and he asked me if he could use the golf cart as the development car in exchange for a free remap (only 800 miles on the clock ) but i went for it.

Took it up to him, but was on a tight schedule, and ended up leaving the car with him for a couple weeks, and leaving in his wives 1.8T A4 Avant, no longer with plans of just going stage 1, instead we were going for a decat OEM downpipe and a slightly watered down stage 2 map.

Dyno'd again on DD rollers.

Red Curve = Stock software with Decat OEM downpipe

Blue curve = Stage 1+/2 remap with decat OEM downpipe

Chuffed to bits with the gains although not 100% on the accuracy of the torque as it was substantially higher on those DD rollers compared to my most recent run @ JKMs DD rollers.

Whilst at JKM i decided to fit my new black front grill surround

Before:

After:

Bought a Forge intake from Jason on SCN for the tidy sum of £80, and a spare OEM downpipe to stay legal when not on track.

Most recent rolling road day from JKM

Also got marginally better figures than an Ibiza Cupra with stage 2 revo & full TBE on the day as well as well, so considering his outlay of around £1700 im chuffed to bits with my results for what is only a total of £140 outlay by myself.

Got invited to turn up on Shark Performances Stand, so i popped her 1/4 mile cherry on the Saturday of GTI international, and spent a fair wack of money going up and down the strip. *Weather wasnt ideal on the saturday, nice and cool, but with the headwind and sporadic rain. *Not 100% happy with my times compared to the 1.4TSI 1/4 mile leaderboard but they are all times from crail and santa pod, so not sure how comparable. *On the day she seemed to be holding her own anyway.

Got spanked by a twin turbo R32 with circa 500hp, i saw his 1/4 time flash up by the time i had got the the electronic notice board halfway up *:grin:

Beat

Mk2 leon cupra stage 2,

stripped out mk2 Golf with VR6 engine,

Stage 2 De-DPF vRS stage 2,

Justins stage 2+ GTI twice,

Stage 3 mk1 Fabia twice amongst a few others. *

Heres some of the results of the day

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VDxf1HN0ncw

Me and nick perry in his stage 2 De-DPF vRS

http://s756.photobucket.com/albums/xx202/simonskerton/?action=view¤t=SDC12821.mp4

Done with power mods for the minute, although im considering a hybrid as id like to make around 210hp/ton. *

Mods to do

Intercooler

Uprated radiator

Rear ARB

Uprated suspension of some sort

4 pot 312mm front brakes and 282mm rear upgrade.

Uprated coil packs and spark plugs

Heat tape for the downpipe (bought but not fitted)

Been looking into some weight loss options. *Thinking about the braile battery, lightweight wheels etc *

Potential savings

3kg/corner for wheels so circa 12kg saving

lighter front *brake calipers/discs around 2.5kg per corner lighter so circa 5kg saving

Remove the weight ballast in rear bumper 25kg saving

Lighter battery 15kg saving

Supercharger sound-proofing 2.5kg

So everyday weight saving of 59.5kg

Then for 1/4 mile and track days the rear seats, spare tyre, and tool kit are 49.5kg so potentially 100kg of weight loss which should make quite a difference.

Awesome car Si!

It is scary fast

I saw this when I was up at shark the other day. Very tidy motor.

He did indeed!

10/10 it pulls as smooth as you like...

As soon as I find £499

tried to get my mums credit card from her but failed misserably

I really need to stop reading these threads about recaps and tuning!

Very tidy car sy, lots of work gone into it and gives inspiration to the rest of us!

I really need to stop reading these threads about recaps and tuning!

Very tidy car sy, lots of work gone into it and gives inspiration to the rest of us!

Yeah lets all recap!

That's a beaut- power to ratio would be improved but it's all extra cost :S

Yeah lets all recap!

Remap...damn iPad autocorrect.

Very nice man

Doing a few track days, I'd have thought you go coilovers but I remember saying you didn't fancy them again.

Be interested to see what 4 or 6 pot calipers fit under the wheels tbh. You leaving brakes till later?

Affects of ballast removal are going to be hard to counter I think.

Stheresnothing to counter. Less understeer is the only result IMO. Brakes im thinking just uprating the front and rear brakes with the 312s and 282mm setup from the mk4 golf GTI. That'll be a big improvment onon their own. My insurance were being pathetic want ing a huge amount of money for uprating tthe brakes to big brake kit. Might still get coilovers......exhaust and intercooler coming very soon

Depends where the ballast is located by default. Never found out how the 3 ballast "lumps" where arranged. If they're spread evenly across the bar, should be no problem.

Update time

I've been saying for ages on the forums, the biggest problem with these engines is the heat they produce. VAG and alot of tuners believe the heat is a contributing factor of the misfiring as the block gets to hot, which cooks the plugs amongst other things.

Less heat = more power, also the cooler it all runs the more reliable it should be.

So my car is now in with Pace products for development of an uprated intercooler and radiator.

Originally the plan was to get the intercooler fitted now, and the radiator after xmas when funds allow, but do the full &D for both now.

Change of plan by them, they want to do a combined package instead, as its very tightly packaged and could have ended up being a compromise. Going to be more expensive than a normal intercooler system, but it will be alot more efficient than it would have been.

This is how she is looking now and its not a pretty sight:

Plastic end tanks will be replaced with alloy which is great for cooling.

I guess this is the new core. He said they plan on the core being 10 mm thicker and 45 mm taller, which combined with the new alloy end tanks should make a fairly large difference.

Is that a flatscreen HD 42 " TV

Looking an sounding promising, so will they offer them separately to the public or will it be a package, do they have any ideas on costing yet?

How much heavier will it be?

How much heavier will it be?

Im not entirely sure to be honest. Id imagine it will be heavier as its bigger, but cant see it being by a huge amount. Its something i will ask them if they can do

I'm guessing somewhere between 5-10 kg, shouldn't be more then that atleast.

Looking forward for your progress on the car, keeping my eyes on this !

How's it going mate must be nearly time now!

Picking it up saturday

Nice one, have then done any dyno testing yet?

I like this thread!

keep up the good work bud

My new Pace Products Intercooler and radiator package are now fitted to my car. Very impressed with the final product.

Definite improvement in response, and most importantly the power not only felt stronger, but i never noticed any power loss at all, which i normally do after 3-4 WOT runs. Its most noticeable at higher speeds though.

I gave the car a really good workout after picking her up, and im pretty certain there's a notable temperature drop in the engine bay compared to normal. Granted its colder outside than before but im pretty sure its better than it was by a fair margin.

And to put the icing on the cake, not only did they wash and clean my car, after i had explained to them that my oil temps were hitting 130degrees on track and was abit worried so they also replaced my oil with Motul 300V 5W/40 oil which has a much higher temperature range than the stock oils. As well as this they swapped my coolant for Motul MoCool to help keep temperatures in check.

The good news is they are pretty certain this is going to be well under £1000, and potentially will make the forge intercooler option look like a rip off. They are not 100% on prices yet as they need to account for it all now its complete, but they believe it will be pleasantly surprising.

Stock IC Dimensions

80mm Tube Width

96mm Stack Height

617mm Tube Length

= 4.73 litres

Pace Products IC Dimensions

90mm tube width

145 stack height

550mm tube length

= 7.17 litres

= 35% increase

Cant find the pics of the Rad at the moment, will post them up tomorrow.

Next plan is once i have the exhaust fitted in january, ill go back to shark performance get my map tweaked as ill now be able to run more boost and timing then see what power gains i have. Im expecting quite a bit as i suffered quite a bit of heatsoak on their rollers last time

very nice that intercooler looks huge lol