I decided to buy a replacement pipe for the “pancake pipe”, trawled the net and found PSI Tuning, spoke to Adrian and when I quoted Briskoda he was kind enough to give me a good discount. The part arrived within a couple of days and looked shiny/well made from good quality stainless steel.

Now the bad news:-

Put the car on ramps, and attempted to fit it, very quickly I found that the front arb link arm fixing fouled on the pipe body. As you will see from the attached pictures below it looks like they have moved the single fixing hole inboard thereby moving the tube body closer to the road wheel and arb linkage and together with its increased body size = big problemo !!.

My car has standard front suspension, wheels and tyres, I am 99% certain that if you try to fit the THS replacement pipe, (in its present configuration), to a standard suspension vrs the same problem will occur. You have been warned !!!!!.

Now the good news –

When I spoke to Adrian at PSI Tuning, after looking at a Vrs they had in their workshop he confirmed the potential problem and immediately offered a full refund and collection free of charge (happened today).

So 10/10 to PSI Tuning for their after sales customer service and speedy response.

Pic showing fixing hole different position (new & existing). This doesnt really help the clearance problem.

O/all length is about spot on.

Note: New pipe bolted in position

This pic shows the relationship between the new pipe and intercooler input, its about in right position.

Could have told you it didnt fit

Lol

Yep that is why folks don't fit any aftermarket pipe there as they do not fit correctly to the VRS. They will to Golfs as anti roll bar set up different.

I made that mistake too, but my car is lowered. You may of got away with cutting your anti roll bar link bolt down as you have more space than i did. I angle grind-ed my bolt thread right back to the nut and still no good for my lowered car. Went right through mine.

Big Jase

Bloody hell didnt that make a bit of a racket??

Bowders:

I do have a angle grinder and did consider grinding the bolt back, the trouble is I don't know how much the arb can shuffle side to side. I am surprised at this that user problems are not fed back to the manufacturer, assuming of course that they are in the UK.

I bought the intercooler of a member on here 2nd hand and thats how it turned up so i never fitted it! Pipe is still air tight as its stainless so im going to put it on ebay, im sure you could bash it out i suppose with some heat there £100 new so even if i get £30-£40 its not terrible going

How much real benefit do you see out of that pipe though?

Its ment to be around 5-10bhp as the stock pankake is a bottle neck

What would happen if you heated the bend up and pushed it in.

Would it fit a 4x4 as the front arb mountings are different to the vRS?

How much real benefit do you see out of that pipe though?

I actually felt a noticable benefit with my Forge FMIC, as the pancake is very restrictive.

Would it fit a 4x4 as the front arb mountings are different to the vRS?

probably would fit if your set up of ARB as it is per a Golf or none VRS, type set up.

Could you not just do away with the pancake pipe and have a silicone hose instead?

Would end up with the same problem as the ths pipe

Damn I really can't remember this being a issue on my old vrs! I had made a hard pipe which only had a silicone pipe joint at turbo and and Intercooler!!

Would end up with the same problem as the ths pipe

But couldnt it be routed higher then and it would go over the issue not next to it? Bit like an "S" bend....

How much real benefit do you see out of that pipe though?

None!

Its ment to be around 5-10bhp as the stock pankake is a bottle neck

Sorry but that is madness!

IT IS A GIMMICK!!!

The air capacity of the pancake pipe is nigh on exactly the same as the THS pipe, hence the shape of it. The change in design to the pipe will make no difference to the pressure the air being forced through.

I still run the OEM pancake pipe with NO issue and I’m pushing a lot more air through – and that’s at over 2bar. To make any kind of difference you need to change the whole of the turbo outlet (boost side) pipework to the larger stuff off an AGU... But with a K03s its pointless, you'd actually loose power, sorry to say.

Spend your money on the ever rising cost of V-Power or something else that IS worthwhile!!

Regards,

Steve

Edited 21 April, 201214 yr by Steevie Wonder

The only worthwhile way to replace the pancake pipe it to get rid and route the pipes over the top right of the engine and straight to a front mount or twin side mounts

Couldn't agree more with Steve.

There's a reason that the pipe is that shape....

A team of engineers designed, tested and developed the standard pipe. I doubt the aftermarket ones see any engineering.