DieselMonte

Bumper came off, did the mesh and put all back together. Only problem came from the metal bumper clips being rotten. I sanded them bare and painted them to keep what little metal left from rusting.

I happen to be doing poly wishbone bushes and ttrs balljoints on my car soon, I'll let you know how I get on. I would be careful doing the dogbone bush with a 3cyl, could be too harsh.

The vrs intake is the plastic pipe and piece that goes from the front of the car to the airbox, I've a picture attached to show what i'm on about. I also have a pic of the difference between the two. And finally a pic of the deflapped airbox of mine. Theres usually a big plastic flap there and by removing it it should free things up a bit. Theres also a small drain at the bottom of the airbox and if you remove it you can get a bit of induction noise. If you're going for a bit of power people have put 1.8t engines into mk1 fabias, cant imagine a mk2 is much different, i'm pretty sure someones put a turbo on a 1.2l recently if thats more appealing.

A Few Months ago I got bored, I couldnt think of anything that needed done on the mk1 fabia so I decided to try something I always wanted to do out on this, Mesh Grilles. Being on a farm, there was reams of wire mesh lying about, I had a dremel, grinder and all the tools needed to do it so I figured this car would be as good as any to try it out. I removed the top grille easily and ended up removing most of the vertical slats from the plastic structure behind it. I removed as much as I could while still leaving a little bit behind to let it hold its shape. It was an easy job to do, and I quite liked the silver mesh showing from behind the grill. After I had the grill put back on I got to thinking about how the car would look with the whole front done with mesh.

One of the subframe mounts is rotten and has been since I got it, its not let go or gotten any worse in all this time but it is there. The brakes are useless and the clutch occasionally slips (I presume its air in the system) Overall its continued to be a great car in spite of its problems,

Since I have my mk1 fabia and my mk2 fabia on here I figure I may as well put my Matrix on here too. This car was got a few weeks after I wrecked the mk1as its replacement. It was bought for 100 euro, like the fabia and even had a month of tax left on it. It was got with around 95000 miles on it. It is a 1.6l gls model with 105hp. Mated to a 5 speed box that is surprisingly short geared. It has a bluetooth silvercrest headunit with a broken volume knob and one of those Nokia handsfree kits installed. I was physically shaking first time driving this, wrecking the mk1 made me lose my nerve for driving but I spent a lot of time practicing and getting my confidence back. It seems stupid but I definately owe this car for allowing me to regain my confidence. It had some pirelli winter tyres on it and I wore them down to the steel thread in about a month of driving, the alignment is fine I just drove it so hard I rubbed the tyres clean off. The brakes also couldnt handle my poor driving, they would overheat after not a lot of driving and would let go completely, I wore the pads down to the backing plate after a few short months also, one of the calipers seized too. I should say that this car was mostly driven around the yard rather than in the fields so it probably did take more abuse cause of this. It also ****ES blue smoke out of the exhaust when cold, more than likely valve guide seals, and I found out one of the ht leads is taped up where it goes over the spark plug. On top of this I at one point completely removed all of the airbox and just had an open throttle body drawing in air. It sounded godly but on hot days it was very noticable the loss in power cause of heat soak. In spite of all this, it is honestly a nice car. It has electric windows and a sunroof that all works, a black cloth interior in good shape (the centres of the seats have a confetti look to them) I gave the car a much deserved polish and it came up a treat, the dark metallic blue paint just pops under the right light. When it came to fixing the mk1 this car came in clutch carrying all of the bits I had taken off of it and moving it over to the big shed. I even managed to get the bonnet in the back of the car with little effort.

Any rarb massively improves handling on these cars, They are pretty cheap to get new but I would imagine you could find a used rarb off of a fabia/polo/ibiza being broken and buy it for this car. A htp might not be a powerhouse but that just means you can keep the throttle pegged everywhere you go, and with a rarb you can push into corners with confidence. A vrs intake could be a good shout too for how cheap they are, might free things up a bit. If you have a dremel you can get free up the airbox a little by removing the big flap in it, if its the same airbox my car has. Its a weird thing to compliment but I like the look of the heater controls in your car, mine are the same as a mk1 but I think your cars look like a better job.

Weird what you said about the front right coil breaking on vrs'. Thats the side that broke on my (standard) mk1. I would've thought the passengers side would go first cause of the extra weight of the power steering and battery on that side, on top of potholes and what not being more likely to be on that side of the road.

So you still have the fabia then 32KOFDATA?

Happy easter everyone, I'm thinking again of getting my monte carlo remapped, I think a bit more oomph wouldnt go amiss pulling onto some of the roads near me. Its gotten to be a great car at carrying speed through corners, but I cant help but feel its holding back when I need to floor it coming onto a main road. I thought I'd ask if theres any place anyone can recommend. I'm in Co.Monaghan myself, but i'd be happy to drive most anywhere to get it mapped if I knew it would be done right.

Bit of a boring update, Gave the car a much needed wash. Got it filthy driving it around the farm. Cleans up well considering. Also got some briskoda stickers on it, something i've been meaning to do for a while.

Thats the same video I used. The instructions are indeed a little wrong in regards to the two bolts. Iirc the allen bolt went into the damper. I got my whiteline tail end of last year and it had those fancy greaseless bushings. They seem to hold up fine on my car. The greaseless ones are black instead of the oldstyle yellow ones.

Lidl had 2 2tonne axle stands for 15euro last week. Wish i got a set but they sold out quick.

I have to try this out, gamechanger if it works.

It would seem so.

I think 32k of data managed to get some red and white led bulbs so he could have 2 reverse lamps and just run the same bulbs for rear fogs. Fabia 2s have the reverse light on the passengers side, left side for rhd and vice versa for lhd. Similar story with fogs. The mk1 has 2 reverse lights so I have to wonder why the mk2 only has the one.

Mine were together on my mk1. Passengers side near roughly where the power steering is. VW must use the same horn in everything, I'm pretty sure I heard a leon with the same horn as ours and theres no way anyone would willingly put that horn into something.

It is a bumper off job, but the horns themselves are easy to do, just make sure you have the spade connectors and what not on hand rather than needing to go in the middle of the job and get them. Knowing what they sound like I was half tempted to put them in my Monte Carlo and just put that horn in my mk1 but the front was off of my mk1 at that point so it was easiest to just do it then and there.

I bought them a few years ago and only got to fitting them a few months ago so I've don't know the exact listing. I do know that I got them from either aliexpress, banggood or wish and they came packaged properly as a set. They only came out to 10 euro or so i'm pretty sure. https://a.aliexpress.com/_mOELa6b That link goes to ones that look very similar in design and branding to the ones I bought. I can't remember what hz the horns were, but it does say on them what they are. They were dead easy to install, just cut the connector off for the stock ones and get some spade connectors for the end of the wires. Easy as.

The brake lights dont work with the ignition off in the mk2 if mines anything to go off of. Horns arent meant to work with the ignition off so far as I can tell either. The horns on these are weak anyway. I have a set of twin cheapo aliexpress horns in my Mk1 cause the original horns were broken when I crashed. Lucky I'm stood next to the car so I recorded the horn sound of the cheap Aliexpress job in case you need to change them: https://youtube.com/shorts/NdWpogGoBJE

I think theres a fabia with porsche brakes in the project section? I want to say its Lofty's yello fabia that has them.

Would you consider doing 312mm brakes from a mk1 octavia vRS?. Apparently they're a straight swap with 288mm brakes (i.e vRS brakes) Would be cheaper than porsche brakes I suspect.

All I did in my mk1 was practice oversteering through a corner. It didnt take much to get sideways on dirt and if I timed it right I could use nearly 0 countersteer and just straighten the car with the throttle. My first few times in the wet were just a blur of violent spin outs at 40-50 mph. Of course doing sort of stuff is what caused me to wreck it but still. It didnt even have a whiteline, and the front arb was useless as the bushes just let it flop side to side on a transition.

I havent gotten any oversteer with the whiteline on my mk2. It just now handles better, very predictable and stable even at high speeds. Knowing now the difference in having one I can't help but ask why I didnt get one sooner, they are just that good of an upgrade.

Every little helps.