famous: 

 

http://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&f=23&t=1448094&i=999999&nmt=RE: Skoda Octavia vRS: PH Carpool

 

I thought it was yours when the link popped up on fb

Cheers Paul.

The engine cover is from a TT-S, from memory they work out to around £60 from TPS with the fixings and then you either have to be handy with the paint or pay to have the Audi badge removed and smoothed over.

The intake is £360 IIRC, but if you're interested I night part with it as I want to try something else.

yeah i wouldnt mind one of them!!

Haven't looked on here for some time, I haven't exactly lost the love for the car (actually, there wasn't much in the first place...) but it's not been a priority.

A few things to cross of the list

 

Clutch

Turbo

Investigate knocking of some description

Service/brake fluid/etc

Polar FIS+ (so Columbus will let the Maxidot cycle when Nav and/or audio menus are in use and will display climate)

New parcel shelf (strings broke)

Vertical boot net

Bloody good clean

Sort out calipers (or go bigger.....)

Rear brake upgrade

Rear OPS retrofit.

 

Eventually Helix pulled their finger out and got sorted with the clutches, I think it was the back end of October when the car finally went down to AKS to have a clutch fitted, the turbo removed and rebuilt and an oil service carried out. The turbo went down to Beach Buggy to be rebuilt, mainly because of this:

 

Untitled by jonnyguitar, on Flickr

 

Apparently that generated a fair bit of debate and conversation, with it seemingly agreed that it got that hot that the heated killed it. Fortunately the bit that broke off would have gone straight out of the exhaust. It ran from April through to the end of October, still boosting (although probably marginally down on performance). The new turbo has a similar compressor housing (as I understand) but has a revised compressor wheel and some K04 parts (including a K04 mani), with the revised map it's currently making 330 bhp and 400 lb ft at 1.6 bar. A little bit more exploratory mapping will be done and it's expected to be able to run 1.5 bar to the red line and show 360 bhp. It was terrifyingly fast before but the midrange now is just scary. It doesn't really have the grip off the line as I have still not gone down the slipper route (£900 for a Peloquin or similar).

Don't know what the clutch is rated for, I am assuming 400+ lb ft as it's not been bothered by the torque so far.

 

Untitled by jonnyguitar, on Flickr

 

The knocking noise came to nothing and may have just been a loose clip or something driveshafty, as these would have been taken out when fitting the turbo and put back together properly, thus solving the problem.

 

Brakes - well the paint job from Brake Caliper Refurbs (this is the second set) has also turned out to be not very good, with the paint coming off the edges on the second time I washed the car after they were fitted. I wrote to Johnny who didn't seem terribly interested so I'll just go somewhere else next time. I managed to pick up a set of S3 rear calipers and carriers to go on the car, I've got discs and pads and just need the backing plates/dust shields now and then I'll send them to be refurbed, probably with the fronts so that they all match (and I may go for a crazy colour this time). I also toyed with the idea of the Aston DB9 kit for the front as you can use these with a 360-odd mm disc or with a 343 off an Audi TT-S (I think). They're still Brembo 4 pots but the kit comes in relatively cheaply and, as the calipers are shared with a few other cars (I think one of the Evos uses them amongst others), the pads are quite cheap as well. I might get them done black so if I do go down the AM DB9 route, I can just get a set of black calipers and know they'll match without having to fork out for red on the new ones.

 

What else?

 

Finally got the carbon mirror caps fitted:

 

Untitled by jonnyguitar, on Flickr

 

I didn't want to sacrifice the original silver mirror caps so bought some pattern parts off ebay for less than £15 and stuck the carbon onto those. They look alright, but I could have done a better job.

 

Last tax disc ever last year, shame about my vRS tax disc holder, but I can't be bothered to put anything else in there:

 

by jonnyguitar, on Flickr

 

I think this is the last time the car was clean, just before How Fast in August:

 

by jonnyguitar, on Flickr

 

My wife had some upsetting car news earlier in the year and ended up using the Octavia for most of the Summer and into the Autumn, but I'll write more about that, so I didn't get much of a chance to give it some love and it currently looks like this (filthy):

 

by jonnyguitar, on Flickr

 

by jonnyguitar, on Flickr

 

by jonnyguitar, on Flickr

 

(Oh yeah, my brother bought me some wind deflectors for Christmas).

 

I think that's it really. As of today, I've had to go and buy yet another rear washer nozzle due to the old one (second or third in my ownership) getting blocked up. I can't be arsed to try and pry all the crud out, but I may try with the one I took off. It actually looks like they oxidise as the new one has shiny silvered nozzles, whereas they have discoloured (and you'd think they were brass) on the old. It might not be worth it as my time is worth more than the £7.40 + VAT they cost at TPS (since when were they £7.40 + VAT?).

 

The list now stands here. Sort of:

 

Polar FIS+ (so Columbus will let the Maxidot cycle when Nav and/or audio menus are in use and will display climate)

New parcel shelf (strings broke)

Vertical boot net

Bloody good clean

Rear brake upgrade

Rear OPS retrofit

OEM Bluetooh and MFSW*

Sort out the brakes

Paint**

 

*My Fiscon is sh*te. That's the best way to describe it. Having had the use of plenty of cars over the summer with 7P6 Bluetooth kits fitted, I want one. But to make it work, I think I need an MFSW to go with it (I'll have to ask Eddie to confirm - I know that the addition of the Polar will allow a 7P6 kit to work in a pre-FL Mk2 ). The buttons on the wiper stalk are knackered anyway, so having steering wheel controls would be much better. However, I don't want a wheel with paddles, I don't like the facelift steering wheel and I don't personally think that the new MK3 wheel (which looks very nice in the MK3) looks good in a MK2. So what to do?

**I have a couple of dings in the car which were sort of my fault, the rear bumper needs to be aligned properly from when the PDC was fitted and there are some rusty stone chips on the sill. I figured it's never going to add anything to the value of the car, but I intend to keep it for at least another 2 - 3 years and, with the mileage rapidly approaching 100k, I thought I might as well make it look nice again.

 

I'd love an updated/black interior but I just don't have the funds for the one on eBay unless I can source some money quicksharp.

 

And I think that's it for this car for now. In an idea world the paint will cost £300 and the brakes will cost £200 to sort out but they won't and, with the addition of a Polar FIS+ and a 7P6 kit, I doubt I will get much change from £1200 and I can't spend that right now.

 

Back in June, Mrs j0hn's car went very badly wrong. Spot the hole:

 

by jonnyguitar, on Flickr

 

Number four rod broke and went straight out of the side of the block on her 2007 1.9 PD105 Golf at 114,000 miles. She'd had it from nearly new and had put 101,000 on it herself with full service history and everything done when it needed to be done. More research into this subject suggested that these weren't quite as bullet proof as everybody thought and more had gone wrong in exactly the same way in all manner of different circumstances. We talked about what to do and in the end decided that, if we could do it for the right money, we would replace the engine. I tried to get a recon but most reconditioners want an exchange unit without a hole in the block or they put a big premium onto the price and it all of a sudden stops being worth it. Bummer. In the end I spoke to a company in Norwich who sold me an engine for £1k delivered - allegedly from a car with less than 60k miles on it. It was a rotten engine from the word go, but we hoped that fresh oil at 1000k and decent running would see it improve and then we'd go from there. In retrospect it probably needed a bottom end rebuild first as less than 10 weeks of it being run in the car later, it shat itself. The bearing shells fell to bits and distributed themselves liberally throughout the engine. I tried to find out what my rights were and ended up getting a threatening telephone call from the **** (and I don't usually use that word but it is the ONLY appropriate word to describe the vendor) I bought the unit from. I won't pursue it, not formally, as we just wanted rid of the car in the end and sold it as a non-runner.

 

It's been replaced with this:

 

by jonnyguitar, on Flickr

 

by jonnyguitar, on Flickr

 

by jonnyguitar, on Flickr

 

It's a Leon FR CR184 and it's fair to say Mrs j0hn loves it.

Full Tech Pack (LED headlights, DAB and Nav), convenience pack (auto lights, wipers, dipping mirror) and optional 18s. It goes like stink and the XDS is bloody remarkable. It's also nice that it's got an independent rear end as well, it's a really sharp handling little car. She picked it up about a week before Christmas and we've only managed to put about 600 miles on it so far. I suppose at least one good thing had to come of the Golf's demise. It went to a company that buy non-runners and I expect they will have a new engine in it now and have moved it on for about £4k. Ah well.

Nah I've already decided, the brakes are staying red (or painted a brighter colour) and if I do end up with a set of DB9 calipers, I'll just have to bite the bullet and have those painted the same colour as well.

I also want the windows tinted now. I like the privacy glass on the Leon, I like the look of mine with darker rear windows but the blinds are starting to get on my nerves a bit now. I'm also thinking of selling all the stuff I don't need and won't use and trying to buy a black/red interior.

A set of facelift tail lights would also be quite nice along with a de-badged rear end, but we'll ponder on that for a bit longer.

Leon's looking well John

 

Would seriously consider one of those, when it's that time again.

The Leon is properly lovely. I picked one up in the summer (an ST version) when I was working and immediately decided I would be very happy driving one.

I'm very pleased that she decided to go for this over a 1.6 Golf Match or even a GTD. We did briefly look at a Rapid Spaceback and whilst it looks quite nice from the outside, the interior plastics didn't feel especially premium and it definitely had the feel of a car that comes from the Polo sector, even though it's defnitely pitched above that.

car is looking great john. it's just about spot on as it is now i think, great brakes, suspension, wheels, power etc i wouldnt change a thing - just drive and enjoy.

seat looks nice too - tbh i'd not really looked at that brand much in the past, but it looks like interior quality is improving (just like it did with skoda a few years back). A cupra ST is a strong contender for my next tool.

Cheers Rob, the brakes either need to be bigger or to have an angrier set of pads back in them as they're just a little too dull on OE pads.

I've kind of toyed with the AMDB9 brake idea, but it's more money and, at the age it is now, I'm NEVER going to see any of it back.

 

I really need to start making a list of what I need to repair/replace, the costs and what I can get back for the stuff I want to get rid of.

 

Leon is ace - we went to VW first and almost fell over at the options to buy the offered us. A Leon is SIGNIFICANTLY cheaper and I'm glad we went and looked. The process was a bit painful and cringe at times but I think we got the Motability guy as he sits nearest the door. He's one of these that directs all his questions to the man, so I kept reminding him that it wasn't my money going on the car.

Hi john, love the car mate. Which pads have you found best compliment the Porsche brakes on the Octavias mate? I've got a kit to fit to mine after the winter and can't decide on pads..... Dale

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Dale I've only tried EBC Bluestuff (not E rated or whatever the equivalent is so not technically allowed for use on the road), standard spec Pagid pads and the Mintex M1155s (which I believe are in the same came as the Bluestuff).

 

The Blues were rubbish - despite claims of them low noise and low dust, they were noisy, dusty and they needed a good stamp from cold to get a bit of heat into them. Then they got too hot and fell to bits. Rubbish.

The OE stuff is fine for road use, although I can tell my car was driven hard during it's mapping sessions as the first time I applied the brakes with force at speed, there was an almighty judder which suggested they had gone through a few heat cycles recently.

The M1155s were actually very good, good bite from cold, very little fade, dusty when they were bedding in but after that comparable with any other pad really. Also they worked out about £115 per set, which is double the price of the OE Pagids, but about half the cost of a set of Pagid Blues. I did only get about 8k miles out of a pair of fronts with a couple of track days thrown in.

I have been torn between pagid and mintex, 8k isn't too bad including track days, I've dusted pads in a day before now. Funnily enough they were EBCs,

I pity anyone who has been convinced that EBC make good brake pads. I hate them with a passion, and the little spec sheet regarding fade, bite and dust may as well be written in Spanish on tissue paper in the wind. Meaningless.

Where in the uk are you from mate? (On mobile so can't see)

Dale

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I won't have another set of EBC pads full stop. The discs were good and I got them at a good price, so I'd definitely have another set.

 

I'm not far from you Dale, I'm in Leicester.

 

I went to Autosport yesterday and on the way home was encouraged into a bit of fun with a Focus RS (that looked decidedly non-standard). Now I don't normally condone this sort of behaviour but I am pleased to report that the vRS is properly quick and seemed to hold its own, certainly way past when my bottle went.

Ok mate, let me know if there's a Midlands meet you're attending in the future. Be interested to see how the hybrid runs!

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Where did you get the carbon mirrors from mate

Leon is a great looking car and that one looks stunning. Colleague has a white one and it drives lovely with plenty of poke.

Did I notice yours the other day with a bike rack on the roof?

The Leon is a lovely Si, I agree!

A guy pulled up in a white one outside our house last night on the standard 17s. I did feel a little bit smug, but it does look nice in white. CR184 engine is amazing.

You may well have seen mine with the bike rack on, that was before Christmas and I think I finally took the bike rack off on the Saturday before Christmas.

Ok mate, let me know if there's a Midlands meet you're attending in the future. Be interested to see how the hybrid runs!

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I tend not to go to many meets Paul, a couple of shows and the national meet is normally enough for me, but if you ever fancy coming for a ride anyway, let me know and I'll take you out.

Where did you get the carbon mirrors from mate

Don't know Paul to be honest. I bought them unused from here but they may have come from Superskoda.

You may well remember this:
 

 
It's tight, but they don't catch. Barrie has warned me that there may be potential for the caliper to expand when it heats up, so I will have to be careful about that.

I'd forgotten to write about what happened next. As per Barrie's prediction.....


image by jonnyguitar, on Flickr

Anyway, with that in mind, they're coming off in the next couple of weeks and are going to be repainted. Again. I've had two sets done by Brake Caliper Specialists and they've both been crap.
Hands up, the big heat-expanding-related scrape down that one was my fault, but the first time I washed them, the paint came off all of the edges. BCS told me they're all lacquered and there was no reason for the paint to come off, but I've had enough and won't recommend their painting again.
 

If you're interested in this, bear with me because there's a lot of text and not many pictures. I'm finishing off my degree so 6,000 words is nothing to me. Stick the kettle on!

I also wrote a list - well I can cross a few more things off that now:
 
Polar FIS+ (so Columbus will let the Maxidot cycle when Nav and/or audio menus are in use and will display climate)
New parcel shelf (strings broke)
Vertical boot net
Bloody good clean
Rear brake upgrade (ongoing)
Rear OPS retrofit
OEM Bluetooh and MFSW*
Sort out the brakes
Paint**


I got my arse into gear a bit in the last week or so. A while back I bought the Polar FIS+ and fitted it - it wasn't a pain, it goes in the same way as the CANBUS gateway (i.e., under the scuttle panel/wiper motor) and is connected between the car and the CAN gateway. The primary purpose is to show lots of data on the Maxidot display, kind of like the measuring blocks in VCDS - you can set up screens within the Polar FIS+ menu (which occupies its own separate menu in Maxidot) and add parameters to those screens - things like temperatures (oil, coolant, ambient, outside, intake, radiator, engine, etc), cylinder angle delay, boost pressure requested and actual, same for fuel prpessure, pedal position - you name it. It also does a couple of other things like mirror drop in reverse (haven't tried it), VIM if you have a Columbus, puts the OPS display in Maxidot and so on. I won't say it's the sole reason I bought it, but one of the main factors that influenced my decision was because I was told that it would let me move off the Nav and Audio menu in Maxidot that I would otherwise get stuck on in use and have to switch off the unit to exit. I got this info from somebody who also has a MFSW fitted - something that I don't. Anyway, to cut a long and annoying story short, I've spent the last few days on VWNavi, trying the fix for A5 platform cars that have had RNS510 fitted and, after much confusion and swearing, I finally got it to work yesterday and all of a sudden I'm not bothered about FIS+ any more.

 

What else have I done? A few weeks ago (well before UD2015 anyway), the ABS decided to pack up again. Scanned the car to get another G47 fault on the front nearside, where the wiring had previously been broken by a shovel handed idiot at C.G. Cars in Leicester and bodged back together (and by bodged I mean twisted back together and wrapped up with electrical tape). Alex at AKS had then repaired it properly but with the caveat that it might not last forever - OK, fine.

Car duly booked in with AKS for him to take a look, brain starts going, "Well if it's mechanical failure, that's more likely to be the hub than the sensor/wiring, isn't it....?" and ordered a hub and a sensor from GSF. Who sent a hub for a Mark 1 and then sent a hub/bearing assembly for a Mark 2 two days later. On taking the brakes apart and knocking the drive shaft out of the bearing, it became apparent that my car has a 4 bolt fixing to the hub and the one they had sent was the 3 bolt fixing (kind of looks like the rotor inside a ****el engine). GSF send out another one and the its put on the car and the Snap On Verus tablet PC diagnostic thing connected up to check the operation of the hub. This thing is actually quite cool - I don't think it does exactly what VCDS will let you do from a coding and adaptation point of view, but it autoscans and reads codes, but also displays measuring blocks live on a graph, so you can get a car on a 2 poster, spin all the wheels by hand and check the operation of all four ABS sensors/hubs at the same time. New hub in, wheel turned, no reading, bugger. New sensor in, wheel turned and all is good. It's also worth noting that AKS's wiring job looks like factory wiring. There's nothing wrong with that. This also fixed another problem.

 

Rewind about a fortnight ago and I had been getting increasingly annoyed with the switches on the end of the wiper stalk not working properly. They hadn't worked properly since I bought the car three and a half years ago and I'd had a replacement switch from KBPhoto sitting in a drawer in the house for the last two and a half years. I got the airbag and steering wheel off, got stuck with the slip ring and working out how to remove the controller to be able to remove the slip ring, pulled the stalk out and put it all back together. Happy days. Ignition on, go to reset the steering angle sensor and all of a sudden the steering has gone very heavy and won't centre itself. There was another thread on here from somebody who had a similar problem which righted itself. I guess this is because their ABS fault was intermittent and when the fault cleared itself, the steering also sorted itself out as well. I couldn't sort mine out at all, because of the shonky ABS but as soon as it was all fixed and put back together, hey presto the steering was fixed.

 

I also removed the Van Style blinds and sold them to Wood7y as I've booked the car in to get tinted from the B pillars back. I wasn't going to do this initially but I like the tints on Mrs j0hn's Leon so much, I want something similar. That's happening Saturday.

 

I got around to buying a new parcel shelf. I was about to pull the trigger on a £40 one on eBay and did a bit more searching, which yielded a black vRS parcel shelf in good nick for £18. Result.

 

Untitled by jonnyguitar, on Flickr

 

Also, as if that wasn't good enough, I was over at Mr Jonny5ive's house when he reminded me that I was after a vertical boot net. It came out of a Roomster but it seems to do the job perfectly well.

 

by jonnyguitar, on Flickr

 

You'll think I'm taking the **** but I've never been so happy to have boot 'furniture' like this. To have self-lifty-uppy parcel shelf function back again was enough, but the boot net was the icing on the cake. And besides, this post needed pictures.

 

And the list continues:

 

Bloody good clean

 

I need to order some bits out of one of the detailing companies - pre wash, pre wax cleaner/prep, something else I've forgotten.

Rear brake upgrade (ongoing)

Sort out the brakes

 

This is happening imminently - I've got the S3 calipers and carriers as previously mentioned and I've also got the 310 mm S3 rear discs to go on. The guy doing the repaint job is going to fit a new set of sliders to the caliper that is missing them and then all I have to do is source a new set of pads and bolt it all up. After I've repainted the splash shields and bent them back out of the way (you can't get a replacement shield for retro fitting a rear S3 brake setup due to the 4WD on the S3 - the OE ones on the S3 won't fit onto the Skoda's hub). I just need to get a new set of pads and discs for my fronts. Yeti Man has a plan to fit Cayman S pads to the Boxster calipers which mean shaving about 1 mm off the pad thickness, but that's not really something I'm going to be able to do myself. Caliper colours though? Decisions.....

 

Aside from the regular red (whatever colour Skoda or Porsche use), these are on my list:

 

 

 

 

 

But I just don't know.
 

Rear OPS retrofit

 

One for Eddie, need to sort out a date and time.

OEM Bluetooh and MFSW

 

Now I'm using Spotify more and more, I want to be able to listen to music with my phone rather than just the MDI that my iPod is connected to. I have an aux socket, but I don't think my MDI loom caters for it (it doesn't work anyway) and besides, I don't want to have to fart around with unplugging the iPod every time I want to listen to the phone. So I thought about a new BT kit that would allow me to stream music, which initially led me to the 7p6 modules. I believe these would only work with facelift cars, then I was to understand that it would work with the Polar FIS+, but I don't want that anymore, so.....

 

This leads me to the MFSW - I don't want a facelift steering wheel and there wasn't one available for the pre-FL. I also don't want a VW or Audi badge in the middle of my steering wheel. I like the MK3 vRS wheel, mainly because it's got buttons and the right badge, but I also like the shape and the perforated leather. I'm not convinced it looks right in a Mk 2, but I'm prepared to learn! Having posted up a question about whether it would work, it appears that I would need a facelift cluster to get the full functionality, which means more cost, but should also maybe mean that I can fit a 7P6 module after all and not have to worry about having a Polar FIS+ or the Kufatec kit behind the heater panel

 

Paint

 

Got a quote to do everything I want, which pleased me sufficiently to decide to do it. I was kind of thinking that I should probably have the bumper painted before Eddie does the OPS.

 

Nice post there John. Think that brings everyone upto date

Ouch on caliper rub.  It must have been seriously close.  I am glad of the (compared to that) relatively good clearance my D2 wheels have on all three sets of my alloys without spacers.  There would need to be 5mm+ of expansion before I risk the same.

Yeah it was very close Jason. The Neuspeeds have lots of clearance for brakes - indeed a Zenith wheel has plenty of clearance by comparison. I really didn't think it would cause a problem, but the paint job from
Brake Caliper Specialists was so crap it's no hardship to get them done properly with a decent guarantee. Lesson learned.

OK, so disaster is maybe a bit melodramatic, but I did this on Saturday :(



My fault, I was looking in my mirror for half a second too long at something behind (a big Merc or something) and when I looked forwards again, I just came up on a concrete island and hit it straight on. I've not checked the car for any other damage yet but I was surprised the airbags didn't go off and very lucky that my lack of attention didn't harm somebody.

My Polar FIS+ unit is in the for sale section to raise the funds to get this sorted out. A new one is currently £250 from Awesome. [/sadface]

damn, that's a shame john - but good that you didn't do any more damage i guess and the wheel looks fixable maybe?

I haven't looked yet Rob. I don't know yet to what extent the suspension components have been affected. The impact instantly affected the wheel alignment, hopefully that's the only thing that needs sorting and I haven't bent a strut.

I think the wheel will need welding and I'd be more inclined to buy a new one.

Well, or this.....

Or this....

I was expecting toe to be out (3 degrees roughy), but caster is out by 1/2 degree and camber out by 10 minutes - not massive numbers and I am hoping that sorting the toe will pull it all back together.

So far the bill is at £96 for a new tie rod and tie rod end, plus the cost of an alignment (£45). Add to that repairing/replacing the wheel and it's getting a bit expensive.

I have form for this - sort of. Shortly after starting my new job at Next, I came out of the head office car park and was caught out by the straight on not being a straight on, but a right/left kink. So I went straight over the kerb at the right/left kink without going right/left. That bent a nearly new Bilstein B4 strut and a hub carrier. My Focus had ABS (optional on a 2002 car and something of a rarity), which meant tracking down a hub from a scrapyard all the more difficult. Hopefully I haven't done that sort of damage this time.

Sad times John. But at least it's not any worse.

Fingers crossed that the repair costs are as small as they can be