Azzaa's Mk1 VRS - MACH V!

[AaronMountford1990]

So after various discussions on here and with the Mrs, I have decided to embark on the fabia VRS journey!

 

I went to look at a few to be honest, the first of which was in bradford - we turned up..got the key..handed it back..and ran away as the car was falling apart - mostly held together with hopes and dreams

 

The dealer hung his head when i returned the keys as i think he saw my "please..say this car is mint condition again and i will put you through the nearest window" face

 

So on we went to the next one...which had every option going for under 4K!

 

Absolute beauty of a car..got everything you could ask for HOWEVER

 

we werent allowed to test drive other than a few tight corners where you couldnt get any speed up, the dealer was pushing for a sale and when i mentioned i was using an external finance company, he spoke to them on the phone and within 5 minutes got himself black listed from their database! #WOULD NOT TOUCH THIS ONE WITH A BAR POLE!

 

I'm sure if you look on auto trader you'll find the one to avoid from this

 

Moving on!

 

Next we viewed a yellow one with higher mileage from walsall

 

This car needed bits of work doing to it but for the price was pretty good [2750] - engine pulled well and everything appeared to work other than a few niggley issues - however the finance company then told me as i was about to purchase the car that they wouldnt deal with anything older than a 54 plate (this was an 04)..so that cancelled that one..

 

Finally i went to meet a guy called matt at total automobiles up towards stockport to view a silver one [if i could upload pictures this would help! how do you get around this..Ive got JPG's and the site doesnt like them!]

 

Car had been stood for 6 months but overall it seemed brilliant - FSH one owner from new..needs a few scratches and paint looking into at some point but its a hell of a lot more of a car than my elegance! (although i will miss the heated seats :( )

 

Just had

New front discs and pads

new rear pads

full service

12 month MOT

all as part of the purchase

 

Anyway thats the car I have purchased at present and when i went to pick MACH V up (MA06 CHV = MACH V ) I took a few snaps that i will upload when i can figure out how to upload on here

 

 

 

 

[AaronMountford1990]

rsz_2dsc_0573.BMP

 

Here's what mac looked like when she was collected last Friday!

 

I noticed the rear window doesnt go down..going to have that done under warranty..and the parcel shelf has warped and doesnt fit right..but overall im happy with the car

 

Ohh almost forgot !

 

21/06/2014 >> First fill up - Shell's V Power Nitro went straight in!

[Dark_Hero]

Welcome to the Vrs "brotherhood"

Hope you enjoy it

[AaronMountford1990]

Welcome to the Vrs "brotherhood"

Hope you enjoy it

 

Thanks Charlie

 

The car needs some work done to it before its in show condition..so i think first to be addressed will be the scratches from keys!

 

 

[AaronMountford1990]

26/06/2014

 

Work communiting - I now take the 9 mile over the 6 mile route, car showed 62mpg!

 

I had a laugh at a white van man who thought he could burn me from the lights..

 

I also had a fumble with a subaru yesterday..safe to say i may have overestimated myself...alot...:(

 

Noticed the car goes a bit funny on idle, every now and again when idling cold the engine makes a tapping noise..sounds kinda like a belt being driven - but it stops quite quickly and comes back every now and again until Mach's warm ... strange! Maybe worth a trip back to the garage..warranty and all!

[AaronMountford1990]

02/08/2014

So mac went back to the dealers recently to investigate why over two litres of coolant had disappeared, thank god for RAC cover!

Turns out needed a new radiator, which the garage argues is wear and tear but was done under warranty either way.

Doesn't seem a wear and tear item you don't drop your oil and radiator at the same time now do you!

I think problems left to sort on the car are aspects of the bodywork, the noise under the bonnet - sounds like the alternator tensioner is a bit worse for wear and the door rubbers (excessive water sitting there but doesn't affect the carpets yet).

Car averaging well over the 1.4s values as it's hitting 54mpg and above!

So at the minute the engine sounds good using the nitro fuel

More to come

Sent from my C6603 using Tapatalk

[AaronMountford1990]

23/10/2014

 

Totally agree remembering to post here is a nightmare as others have commented.

 

Fuel has gone through the floor MPG wise as ive moved 2 miles away from work..however as its cold im still driving in ^.^ !

 

Car had a mexican standoff with an ibiza PD130 recently..we both maxed out (at 70 mph obviously...) and could not pass one another

 

Car feels like it could do more, is this engine limited at all? Rev's seem to climb in 6th then it feels like it hits a wall and just doesnt climb any higher!

 

People keep asking me to remap it..as ive now found one of the limits of the car..i am intrigued!

 

Rough BHP /Torque figures for a map on the standard VRS ?

[sharkrider]

max speed is in 5th , unless you up the power so it can pull greater speeds in 6th (long ratio)

[PastyBoy]

Rough BHP /Torque figures for a map on the standard VRS ?

 

170bhp/400nm for £250

 

In all honesty those figures are probably a bit pessimistic.

My Jabba map made 177bhp with just a change of intake pipe

 

top speed wise i think a lot is to do with the aerodynamics.

i believe they were modelled on this:

 

[AaronMountford1990]

170bhp/400nm for £250

 

In all honesty those figures are probably a bit pessimistic.

My Jabba map made 177bhp with just a change of intake pipe

 

top speed wise i think a lot is to do with the aerodynamics.

i believe they were modelled on this:

 

 Sounds good, thanks buddy!

[AaronMountford1990]

UPDATE! 

25/10/2014

 

Fitted replacement headlights, only went for the halfords 50% brighter range as i get a massive discount.

Improvement isnt magical but its certainly noticeable!

 

 

[AaronMountford1990]

Update 10042015

I did something mechanical that had caused no lasting damage!

Clear your minds you dirty folk...

Swapped out the rear discs and pads, pads were OK as they were changed when I picked up the car but the discs were rusting and had a few deep scratches. That and the noise of crrshhhh crrshhhh (brake grinding noise...) was getting tiresome.

Now as I'm not rolling in money here I asked for advice and went to look in search of pagid!

Then I found Opie oils, ignored pagid based on price and got two rear discs (yes two!) for £20 and pads for £17, which is good value, for official brembo units!

[AaronMountford1990]

Update 13/07/2015

 

Had a mess around with Mach this weekend, noticably because i saw that my old elegance (ellie - i know right !) has a manual boot release, but the VRS' dont?!?!?

 

Now this baffled me, so i moved some of the plastic trim and looked at the boot lock and everything is there to wire the manual release straight in, so a mornings work and various bits of frustration as i damaged some of the cabin plastics (ill sort it later...), and i now have a working manual boot release in a VRS (gotta be rare right?)!!!!

 

Was really simple to do, the trunking and everything else is all there to just swap over, the only bit thats in any need of changing is the metal levers for the fuel flap as it obviously is only set up with one lever (thanks ellie for the dual lever version!), and the boot release has a metal block at the end of the cable to hold it in place, which is too big for the replacement metalwork so it needs drilling out slightly to make it fit, but all in all a really easy and effective mod - i shalt never need the emergency orange tab for releasing the boot! #Winning

 

The heated seat project is coming along, ive stripped out the heated element of one of the old seats and taken a large chunk of the engine loom away from the car to make up a harness that i can connect into the switched live - which i assume means no VCDS unless i use the official heated seat port in the fusebox...? The main idea is to retrofit the heated elements into the VRS seats (the actual replacing of the elements will be done professionally as i want them cleaned and minor repairs done anyway. But as far as the wiring goes - im training as an electrical engineer (well power electronics, electrical engineer to be critical), it shouldnt be too difficult

 

Passed the MOT last month too with no major issues, only failing on a headlamp alignment being wrong (which i assume is due to me replacing the bulbs for halfords and possibly knocking something). 

 

Still need the air conditioning fixing - going to book in with the garage as they said its still under warranty as they knew about the problem when it was - WINNER!

[AaronMountford1990]

Just fitted the calliper return springs Tonight, wow what a difference! Think I had one brake binding now and again as I noticed one side was a lot hotter than the other when driving normally and pulling over to Check. Will monitor these for a few weeks to see if the temperatures even out!

[AaronMountford1990]

Had a new auxilliary tensioner and belt on this sunday just gone as I think the altenator was rattling, this seemed to be a cheap first bit to fix, still trying to verify if its fixed it or not, if it hasnt then apparantley it could be a clutch in the altenator?

[AaronMountford1990]

Update 05-Dec-2015

 

Fitted Team Heko Wind deflectors!

[AaronMountford1990]

Wow. 

 

So.

 

This is old.

 

She's now got a VW MFD1 unit installed, I did have a disk but it's gone walkabout so I need to find that...

 

At some point I want a reversing camera install done, I've got most of the kit I just need to pay for the video adaptor.

 

Heated seats were on the cards until I had a garage clearout and threw all of the wiring and elements away in prep for putting the 205 in the garage...

 

Brake wise she's now on Mtec dimpled n grooved discs with EBC Greenstuff pads - night and day difference. 

 

She's now at just over 128K and still running fine. 

 

I say fine, there's a minor oil and coolant leak, oil leak I believe is the sump plug gasket and the coolant is the thermostat housing - both of which I'm ordering shortly as the cars been away for 12 months loaned out, I had an Accord EX-GT (2009) PN59YSV for a while but the supplying dealer sold me a lemon and yeah it turned into a right debate - in the end they purchased the car back from me 6 months later! So I'm back to reliable motoring  

 

Oh, and the central lockings going, and the passenger window doesn't like working, and the air con doesn't work - yay, stuff to do LOL

[AaronMountford1990]

Oh, and after doing around 100K on original suspension, and a bit on JOM Coilovers until they broke, she's now back on factory springs and I put all new shocks on, wish I'd have done that sooner!

[AaronMountford1990]

Trying to track down the DSP upgrades for the MFD1 at the minute - I've found there were two amps used, a nokia one and a harmon & kardon one - I'm trying to source the latter along with the wiring loom for it. 

 

I had thought it needed to come from a mk3 mk4 golf as it was in those, but I've found it's also closer to home in the MK1 superbs! 

 

Just need to find someone breaking one now who's willing to sell the wiring loom and amp :D, then I need another SE to be written off so I can buy the CD changer loom for under the passenger seat (shouldn't be too difficult considering how many keep ending up on their roof on the facebook groups...)

 

Replaced the thermostat & housing, turns out that didn't solve the coolant leak so I've temporarily fluid sealed it to keep her on the road, and I've ordered the next point of failure pipework which sits on the RHS of the engine near the air box, new sump plugs coming, service kit and a rear brake caliper from someone local - because that's decided to gush fluid too...

 

On the plus side, insurance market value on these is like 2-2.5k at the minute - yay value!