My Black Magic Fabia Vrs

[chris205]

I bought my fabia a couple of months ago and have been doing a couple of things to it so thought I would put some pictures up of it so far. I went for a fabia as I had a baby on the way and felt a 5door was a better choice than my 2 Mk2 golf gti 3dr's and mk4 golf anniversary.

 

I bought the car with 59,000 miles on it, owned by an elderly lady for 8 years and 1 owner before that, I negociated a price due to it being due its cambelt and waterpump. When I got the car home I got the parts ordered from TPS and had my brother fit them for me (he's a technician).

 

I pic of it outside our new house with its current stable mate

 

 

 

With the piece of mind that the cambelt and waterpump was done I had the car booked in at Rtech to get a map done. It made 145 bhp standard and 171 bhp remapped. Torque figure is 301 lb.ft .

 

 

The car drove a load better, having previously had a mapped ibiza cupra tdi it started to feel a little similar again which was awesome. Heres a quick video of performance after

the remap

 

http://vid69.photobucket.com/albums/i75/Chris_fidji/fabia/F0FAE4E1-93CF-4DB4-9AA8-31B927D3DBF0_zpsy8pqqnkt.mp4

 

 

 

 

One of the next things i did was get cruise control fitted. I got messed around by a guy local to me (north east) so I had a look around the forum and saw that techie was well renowned for his work on vag's so decided to bite the bullet and make the 450 mile round trip and get it done by him. He was even willing to do it one night after work, I arrived at his place around 8.30pm, he got straight on the job and it was done by 10.30pm and I was on my way back up north.

 

I grabbed a couple of crappy pictures during fitment, then it started raining so no other pics

 

 

After this was all done I was thinking of things I could do to improve the appearence of the fabia. I know there are many 'mods' you can do to improve this however I decided first of all you need a good base to start from.

As I detail as a hobby, I decided to get in touch with my friend and see if I could borrow his unit and give the paint some medium correction and improve its depth.

 

Process was:

Snowfoam

Badges, shuts, petrol flap etc cleaned with G101

Wheels cleaned with Bilt Hamber Auto wheel

Rinsed down

Washed with Autobrite purple velvet and wash mitt using 2BM

Towel Dried

De-tarred using Autosmart Tardis

De-ironised using Bilt Hamber Auto wheel

Clay Barred

Washed again using 2bm

Taped up

Machined using rotary polisher, 3m Blue soft pad and Menzerna pf4000

Sealed with Jet Seal

Wax - Collinite

Tyres dressed with Autosmart highstyle

Exhaust polished with wire wool and the britemax twins

Headlight wet sanded using 2000,3000,4000 grade pads. Polished back up with Menzerna pf1500 and menzerna hard pad.

 

So this is the state of the paint before I started:

 

I took a couple of 50/50 shots, although I dont agree with sectioning off panels to show the difference, I thought it was worthwhile with this

 

 

This is the finished article.

 

 

[chris205]

I was then feeling the need to do something with the handling of the fabia, the body roll was a bit of a joke so after many hours of deciding whether to blow a fortune on kw's, I decided to go for the AP's instead. A friend has AP's and I've been impressed with them. I got in touch with Damian at DPM Performance who got me a set out in a few days, thanks for that

 

 

I fitted new drop links and pinch bolts when the suspension was fitted, a quick pic of it.

 

 

When I was detailing the car I noticed a small paint bubble on the rear tailgate, I took it down to MSB skoda in Darlington who took a look at it and sent the images off to skoda, hopeful that it would be covered under the anti-perforation warranty. After a couple of weeks It was given the go ahead by Skoda Uk and the car was booked in with RMB Auto's in Yarm to get the tailgate repaired and repainted. I was also informed the badges would replaced as well which is great as I planned to do this anyway.

 

I cleaned it before I took it to the bodyshop so got a couple of pics when I picked it up.

 

 

 

I had been looking around the forum to try and solve one of my biggest problems with the fabia...... CUP HOLDERS!

 

I was sick of just being stuck with the centre cup holder so found that some guys on here had fitted the lupo/arosa cup holders. A quick call to TPS and I had ordered the cupholders

 

 

I found the fitting a bit of a pain as the space behind my headunit is limited due to having a connects 2 aux kit connected, i eventually got it fitted

 

 

 

I've got a couple of other bits to fit to it:

 

Leon cupra R splitter

Ibiza Cupra PD160 intake

Engine Bay detail

Interior wet vac and detail

[Alex529]

Looks great mate look forward to seeing the updates

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[V5-Steve]

Looks good, are they ap coilovers or shocks and springs.

[chris205]

Hi Steve they're ap coilovers. I would definitely recommend them for a daily driver they're not much different to standard and better than other coilovers I've had on previous cars

[sharkrider]

is it a BLT engine? they always make good standard power I saw an unmodified one make 152bhp once!

[chris205]

It's an asz engine mate according to the build spec sticker. Still must be quite healthy. I've heard a few people mention that the blt makes gd power standard

[chris205]

I've got quite a few updates to do on this iust struggling for time. Some of them are quite small updates and also a change in wheels.

[chris205]

Ok. so I've been busy making some small changes to the fabia, hoping that it will make the car's quality that little better. As its 9 years old now some things have worn and perished. So in the best order possible...

 

Old Front Badge:

 

 

Decided i would replace the front badge and at the same time paint the grill surround in black magic

 

 

New Badge

 

 

All Back together

 

 

I have a new 'V' Badge to fit as I realised it had also discoloured slightly.

 

New Rear Wiper fitted:

 

 

 

Pd160 Intake. difference shot

 

 

De-flapped the front section of the intake, not the tidyest of jobs however I had limited tools

 

 

Washed down with G101

 

 

And fitted:

 

[chris205]

Some will notice that I fitted my leon cupra r splitter and cut it to fit

 

I also Gave it a clean, it was quite disgusting from my own standards

 

 

50/50 from the jet wash

 

 

 

Cleaned all the nooks and crannies

 

 

All washed and dried off

 

[chris205]

My rear numberplate bulb blew, so I felt it was a perfect opportunity to upgrade to LED's

 

I took a quick difference shot, much brighter now

 

 

One thing that has really annoyed me about my fabia since I bought it was the brown stains down my numberplates from the screws :( I finally got an order placed with fancyplates.com and made them a custom size to just cover the drill marks in my front numberplate plinth and a one to be smaller on the rear as well.

 

So i took the car up to my friends detailing place and borrowed some of their stuff and gave the car a once over, removed the plates and front 'V' badge then cleaned everything behind the plates etc:

 

 

New Front plate

 

 

New Rear Plate

 

 

New 'V' badge yet to be fitted

 

[chris205]

Which brings me up to my favourite update:

 

I got in touch with vrsburks and enquired as to whether he would be willing to sell me his BBS Rw's, also known as Polo Dune wheels. Ever since I first clapped eyes on a polo dune many years ago the standout thing for me was the wheels, which always made me want to fit them onto something....que the fabia.

 

Luckily for me he had just bought a new car and was going to return his car back to something more standard. We worked a deal out and I was on my way to Rotherham to pick them up at silly o'clock in the morning (Thanks again mate).

 

Sadly Luke had kerbed one of the wheels, this wouldn't ordinarily be a problem however Luke had previously had them refurbished in a customer silver with blue pearl. This was going to be an issue getting a colour match, so the day after I bought them I dropped the 4 whees off with RS Alloys In Hartlepool and agreed to have them refurbished in 'Hyper Silver'.

 

Whilst this was being done I decided to drop the car down another inch, I removed the rear adjusters and dropped the front end down, I have around 8-10mm left to drop the front and now maxed out on the rear.

 

Some pics

 

Collected from RS Alloys

 

 

And Fitted:

 

 

I will get some better pictures of it as soon as I can

[DanielBurton]

Did you dechrome your grill before you painted it bud?

[chris205]

I just rubbed it down so I could key the primer onto it mate, it's not a bad finish but need to do it again as the gritters have caught the lacquer and damaged it

[chris205]

Just a heads up for those interested, I'm going to be putting the car back to standard in the next coming weeks so if you would like anything then please give me a shout

[superandy]

Looks great bud! I'll take the splitter and swap the grille surround for original if you want?

[superandy]

Also, where did you find those cup holders? I do a lot of motorway journeys and they would come in proper handy

[g11vgb]

Just a heads up for those interested, I'm going to be putting the car back to standard in the next coming weeks so if you would like anything then please give me a shout

 

ill take both the cup holders and the splitter mate, pm me a price. 

[mcfunbot]

Looks awesome buddy keep it up

[Cvrtis]

Are the alloys for sale mate?

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[ibedrooms]

 

loving this look, would love a set for my fabia

[GeeVRSman]

nice mate.. nice to see someone else knows how to look after paint work.