As I've said elsewhere, I'm pleased with the car, but you can always improve the driving experience:)

From my investigations under the bonnet this morning (what is the point of that big sheet of '20V TURBO' plastic covering the engine???), It appears that the stock intake is quite a small diameter pipe which sucks in air from inside the front wing, passes through the air filter, the MAF, the turbo, right around the back of the engine into the other wing and around to the inlet manifold at the front.

It all appears quite contorted and I would suspect that fitting a K&N filter element would make very little difference on a mild (presumably artificially limited compared to the 225 TT/A3) turbo engine like this.

Are there any simple, cheap & effective mods to the airbox or inlet to improve throttle response?

fitting a vent in the wheel arch behind the intercooler helps alot i've read on here... its a common mod referred to as 'Pikey Mod' if you search for it there should be quite a few posts on it and 'how tos'

Hope that helps

Replacing the very restrictive paper filter element does make a difference, especially at high rpm (over 5000) where the standard filter cannot flow enough air.

Also replacing the standard exhaust with a more performance orientated system such as a Blueflame or Miltek exhaust will also help with responsiveness. I currently have a Blueflame cat back system and a green cotton filter on my Octy and they make quite a noticable difference to its performance especially in the mid range

Adding a cold air intake, which replaces the standard airbox, will be of even more assistance than just replacing the standard filter as would having a full turbo back exhaust system (down pipe, sports catalyst and back boxes). You can also get replacement turbo inlet pipes (with a larger diameter) and also less restrictive intercooler hoses.

Part of the throttle response issues come from the fact that it is a 'drive by wire throttle' i.e. no throttle cable, its all controlled by electronics.

So, to answer your question, replacement panel filters can be purchased for around

possibly ditch the dual mass flywheel for quicker revving too

Cheers for the info. I'm now off down the road to Awesome GTI for a panel filter.... Oh dear, I've only had the car for about 36 hours.....

It's a dangerous place to have locally ,that Awesome. They almost flogged me a re-map too.... ::eek:

with the replacement panel filter in place you can modify the airbox further to make the airflow smoother. there are a number of veins in the airbox that you can remove to make the air flow better through to the filter. i would recommend adding some sort of hose / pipe work from the front of the car to feed air to the intake of the filter as well.

i have a Jabba Sport induction kit on mine (think there are pics in my gallery) and that deffo eased the revving of the engine. i have added 70mm piping from the front bumper to the inner wing where the standard intake for the filter box sits, this feeds air from the front of the car straight to the filter, one big problem with induction kits is heat soak from the engine so adding this type of air ducting is essential, the standard intake only feeds from the inner wing, there is no feed to the front of the car. The Jabba filter sits inside a stainless housing that encloses the filter in a box (for want of a better word) when the bonnet is down.

An aftermarket recirc can help as well as this will dump the boost off better when your changing gears in a hurry (not everyone likes the noise a recirc and induction kit gives though)...

next on my list is a TIP (turbo intake pipe) from Forge and venting in the drivers side arch liner for the intercooler. Why Skoda didnt do this in the first place where the technique is proven on the TT is beyond me. it allows air to pass through the I/C rather than being blocked by the liner.

ultimately i think a remap is the only way to truely improve the throttle repsonse as the ECU controls the engine revs from the position of the throttle (as you'll no doubt already know) so "tweaking" this in the mapping is the way to go.

i do plan to have mine remapped at some point but wanted to replace all the parts that can be changed on the intake side and exhaust before the mapping. makes more sense in my view, that way the remap makes the most of whats already there and saves you having it mapped again once these sorts of things are changed later on.

fitting a vent in the wheel arch behind the intercooler helps alot i've read on here... its a common mod referred to as 'Pikey Mod' if you search for it there should be quite a few posts on it and 'how tos'

Hope that helps

Not really worth doing it on an octavia though

Not really worth doing it on an octavia though

why not ?

Yes, I did notice the lack of a cable to the throttle!

I've used flexi-hose in the past on normally-aspirated cars to direct air from the grill and it does seem to aid response. Dealing with Turbos is new to me, so I'm unsure as to what does and doesn't work.

I saw the replacement inlet pipes at Awesome the other day, which were circular in section. The original equipment pipe appears quite 'oval' in profile -exaggeratedly so. Is that for changing gas velocity at the tubine inlet?

There's not a lot of room to see the turbo arrangement. Is the standard re-circ valve plastic? Can it be improved?

I Fitted A Bmc Cda Box And Miltec 3"cat Frt Pipe,supersprint Racing Cat Back.

Wot A Differance Wow Climbs To 6k With No Noticable Loss Of Power, Great Throttle Respose Aswell Throughout The Rev Range And A Great Engine Note As Well

yep, standard valve is plastic

don't worry about goochie he's just sore about losing to a scoob by a bigger margin than me even witht he scoob going easy on him off the line

the standard recirc is made by bosche and is plastic, they do fail in the end as well and dont release boost as well as aftermarket units.

i run a bailey on mine from Jabba but the Forge ones are popular as well. Awesome, JBS, Jabba and more can help you out in this area.

check the vendors section of the site.

note though: you need a recirculating valve not an atmospheric.... atmos valves work on standard cars but not on remapped... something to do with them holding the boost IIRC.

I've had an insurance quote for just a re-mapped engine:

11-20% (upto 216 horses) power increase +179quid

21-30% (upto 234 horses) power increase +245quid

I'd be looking for 210-215bhp to keep it within the cheaper cost.

What are the relative merits of the various 'simple' re-maps? Are they a generic flash or tuned to be specific to the car when run on a rolling road?

Awesome are only down the road I suppose that would be a good place to start, although they appear to have gone home as it's Xmas Eve!