Niceyellow vrs' nice red VRS

[niceyellow vrs]

Greetings,

 

Not so much of a project this, more of a maintain and enjoy sort of thing.

 

Anyway, this is my second Octavia vrs. I sold my first yellow one to my Dad a few years back as I fancied a Fabia VRS. The Fabia was a massive sack of **** so I sold it in bits and as my Dad wouldn't sell me the yellow one back, I bought a red one. I went for red 2nd time around as my Dad said he would've had a red one if he had a choice of colour

 

I bought this one in April 2014 and apart from a gearbox bearing seizing and spliting the casing, it's been very reliable. Despite it now being 14 years old this year, it still looks great and is in really good nick.

 

It scrubs up well but it's not a show queen and I've no intention of making it so, it's a car and is there to be used for whatever I need of it. Sometimes I need to carry a lot of stuff and the room in the back is always useful

 

 

It's lightly modified but not excessively so. I want to keep it fun to drive but also a nice place to be and most importantly reliable.

Inside is nice with a black carpet and the previous owner had the seats and door cards retrimmed with a nice black leatherette material which replaces the white mesh stuff that constantly looks grubby. I retro-fitted cruise control to it and that makes it very pleasurable on long journeys.

Perfomance wise it has the following:

 

Jabba remap running 215bhp and 225ftlb across a nice range. It's grunt is smooth and relentless.

Carbon intake and some generic recirc valve. It runs much better with the generic valve than it did with the Forge 007p I had on there.

Full stainless exhaust with 200cel sports cat and no middle box. 

Baffled sump.

G60 solid flywheel and VR6 clutch setup.

Golf GTI EVS gearbox. I went for this as it was a much cheaper option when the gearbox broke. The ratios are the same except for a tiny difference in final drive which has actually improved the car as there's no noticable difference in acceleration but it does dropped a couple of hundred revs on the motorway so fuel economy is better. I regularly see around 42mpg on a motorway run.

Audi TT front suspension set up with quick rack.

Whiteline adjustable rear anti roll bar.

Polybush dogbone mount.

 

 

So as you can see, not mad on mods, just stuff to make it that bit better all round without compromising general use.

 

Recently, I've just treated it to a new set of shock absorbers. At just under 140k the originals were done. I went for some Bilstein B4's and it's made things much more comfortable. I've also replaced the cambelt and water pump last weekend. Surprisingly turned out to be easier to do that I thought it would.

 

 

It also had the wheel alingment sorted out yesterday. It definitely needed it after I'd had everything apart for getting the shock absorbers in. Goes in a straight line again and the boys in the garage said they like working on my cars as they can always get things apart easily due to me always copper greasing when I put stuff back together.

 

Going forward, it'll be getting a front mounted intercooler when I help my mate break his Octavia for parts. It also could do with a pair of tyres soon and I want to get the wheels rufurbed this year as the paint is starting to bubble and flake a little bit. Apart from that, it'll be general maintenance to keep it going. No plans to ever sell this one, it's a good one and I intend to keep it that way.

 

 

[HarleQuinn]

Following this, I am also #TeamRed but a mk2 so I am always interested to see what people do to the red Octavias. This is a beautiful car, the alloys work really well!

 

I do find the ride a bit bumpy on my car, 100k miles now so would consider a change of shocks. You would recommend the Bilstein B4 highly then?

[skinnyman]

2 hours ago, HarleQuinn said:

I do find the ride a bit bumpy on my car, 100k miles now so would consider a change of shocks. You would recommend the Bilstein B4 highly then?

 

I've got them on mine and they work really well. They are fitted in conjunction with the Eibach lowering springs and it seems to be a good all round package.  I did look at the B6 and B8 shocks but after a bit of research I went for the B4 option.

[niceyellow vrs]

3 hours ago, HarleQuinn said:

Following this, I am also #TeamRed but a mk2 so I am always interested to see what people do to the red Octavias. This is a beautiful car, the alloys work really well!

 

I do find the ride a bit bumpy on my car, 100k miles now so would consider a change of shocks. You would recommend the Bilstein B4 highly then?

 

Indeed. I ran them on my BMW compact and liked them. Reasonable firm but still comfortable which is what I wanted. Also, they're not too expensive either. I got the full set brand new delivered for £190.

[sharkrider]

I'll give you £100....... :P

[niceyellow vrs]

3 minutes ago, sharkrider said:

I'll give you £100....... :P

 

I think you should keep your £100 for the next time one of your vehicles inevitably breaks again.

This car has reliaility that you can only dream of

No amount of money would ever buy this car anyway, it's just too good to ever part with.

[niceyellow vrs]

So the other week I nearly lost the car. Pure carelessness on my part. Whilst refurbing the injectors, I managed to completely bugger two of them causing them to stick open. In mucking about with them trying to establish the problem, vast amounts of fuel got sprayed everywhere and a larger than I was comfortable with fire started in the engine bay

 

Only just managed to get it extinguished before it really took hold but it was a bit of a tense couple of minutes which resulted in having to replace quite a bit of wiring and some of the vacuum pipes under the inlet manifold along with the crank sensor too. After I'd patched it all back together, it smoked all sorts of colours for about 15 miles before things finally settled down. Thankfully there doesn't appear to be any lasting damage.

 

Couple of little jobs done this afternoon as I got home early from work. I replaced the turbo to downpipe gasket and the coolant temperature sensor o ring as both were leaking slightly. Nice easy jobs which didn't involve anymore fires. Also booked it in for an MOT in a couple of weeks time. I don't envisage any issues. Rear brake discs could probably do with replacing as they're past their best but apart from that it should fly through.

 

Got a couple of goodies coming next week from my mates Octavia that'll I'll be helping him strip but more about that next time.

Edited 19 March, 2018 by niceyellow vrs

[niceyellow vrs]

Spent a nice Good Friday afternoon, in the passing down rain, giving the car a service and check over in preparation for it's MOT next week. Fresh oil, oil filter, plugs, fuel filter and pollen filter along with a brand new pair of brake discs on the back. The old ones really were knackered. 

 

 

 

so MOT next and then I have to find time to replace the turbo actuator and fit my front mounted intercooler and with a supersize turbo intake pipe.
 

[niceyellow vrs]

Not been doing much to the Skoda recently as everyting on it continues to work as it should and I've got an MG ZS competition car to build.

I did however get the wheels sorted out as the paint was flaking and bubbling and starting to look quite tatty so I had then shot blasted back to bare metal and powder coated in a nice gun metal grey colour.

 

Looks much better now but I've never had perfect looking wheels before on any car I've had so I'm currently terrified of kerbs

 

[hussair5]

On ‎22‎/‎01‎/‎2018 at 19:09, niceyellow vrs said:

 

Indeed. I ran them on my BMW compact and liked them. Reasonable firm but still comfortable which is what I wanted. Also, they're not too expensive either. I got the full set brand new delivered for £190.

 

 

was the suspension specifically for mk1 vrs?  where did you buy it from?

[niceyellow vrs]

12 minutes ago, hussair5 said:

 

 

was the suspension specifically for mk1 vrs?  where did you buy it from?

 

Yep. Specifically for the mk1 vrs hatch. I bought my set from tdc automotive via their ebay shop. They look to be out of stock of the hatch set at the moment though

 

https://www.tdcautomotive.com/bilstein-b4-gas-front-rear-shocks-dampers-skoda-octavia-mk1-vrs-1-8t-hatch.html

[hussair5]

22 minutes ago, niceyellow vrs said:

 

Yep. Specifically for the mk1 vrs hatch. I bought my set from tdc automotive via their ebay shop. They look to be out of stock of the hatch set at the moment though

 

https://www.tdcautomotive.com/bilstein-b4-gas-front-rear-shocks-dampers-skoda-octavia-mk1-vrs-1-8t-hatch.html

thanks mate.   what springs are you using with the shocks?

 

any pics of how the car sits?

 

 

[niceyellow vrs]

4 minutes ago, hussair5 said:

thanks mate.   what springs are you using with the shocks?

 

any pics of how the car sits?

 

 

 

Standard springs, I wanted to retain the comfort.

 

Most recent suitable picture is the one a couple of posts up from the 6th of August.

[niceyellow vrs]

Haven't updated this for a while, mainly because I haven't had to do much to the car apart from drive it.

 

Talking of driving, I took it on holiday to the North of Scotland last month. 1700 miles in a week and apart from the ABS light coming on, (which has now resolved itself by ignoring it 🤣) it didn't miss a beat.

 

 

More recently, it's had a bit of maintenance and a couple of upgrades. I broke another VRS for parts and one of the bits I kept for myself was a 3 inch downpipe with decat. Nice easy upgrade and for free so even better.

 

 

Greta is not overly impressed, but she has anger issues anyway.

 

 

Over the christmas break, I've had a bit of time on my hands so I replaced the two dodgy door lock mechanisms, again using free parts from my breaker. I also found the time to finally fit the front mounted intercooler and custom pipework that I aquired when my mate broke his Octavia. It's all been sitting in my garage for months. The pipes came in a mix of chrome and dodgy blue so I bought some high temp red paint for better colour coding.

 

 

With it being a custom made setup, it all slotted together without much agro. I'd even kept the front panel off my mates car which already had the mounts for the cooler fabricated on. Cat was impressed.

 

 

Whilst the bumper was off, I fitted a set of air horns. The standard horns had to come off to make way for the pipework anyway. Just a couple of small trims to the back of the bumper to stop it hitting the pipework, but it all goes back on without any external changes, definitely didn't want that half arsed pipes hanging out look.

 

Whilst I was in Scotland, the very dark, wet, twisty roads really highlighted how poor the headlights are. I've been holding off adding extra lights, as I was worried it might spoil the look of the car, but not being able to see properly at night has been getting dangerous so I've fitted my Hella Comet 500 spotlights that I had in the garage. Fabricated some brakets from some good thick bits of metal from an old tow bar and got them mounted on.

 

 

Now they're on, I think they actually really suit the car. All wired up properly with switch, relay and triggered with the main beam, I can now see at night 😁

 

 

Final job last night was to give the rear brakes a bit of a clean up as they were getting a bit sticky. Pads out, cleaned and re-greased along with the caliper sliders too, everything moves freely again.

 

Think that's it for now.

Edited 28 December, 2019 by niceyellow vrs

[Paul thornton]

Nice one. I once took ours on a trip from northern to southern France and at night I literally couldn't see anything even with the main beam and fog lamps on!

[kentdale]

Looking good,and yes they are for driving , I remember when we bought the last of the line reduced price new Octavia elegance hatch pd 130, still miss that car, took it to France camping a few times loads of space, had some real low rev shove, always fancied a vrs but wifey objected.

 

[niceyellow vrs]

Been making stuff red because bling bling.

 

[niceyellow vrs]

So whilst all this Corona stuff has been going on, I've been at home with not much to do so on the odd occassion I've found some motivation, I've carried on doing stuff to the car.

First was to sort out the MOT advisories, pair of track rod ends and a wheel bearing, nothing to taxing. Whilst I was on maintenance, it was due a service aswell so once I finally got my delivery from Eurocarparts, it was all back to tip top running order again.

 

As above, I started adding red bits under the bonnet. This has continued with battery cover, oil catch can pipework and for an added touch, I painted the top of the coil packs. It now looks like this:

 

 

 

You may also notice that an Audi TT strut brace has appeared. It's been sitting in the garage ever since I found it on a scrap yard trip and paid very little for it. I needed to adjust the intercooler pipework slightly as it was sitting too high and would clash with the brace. I was able to trim about and inch and a half off the silicone joiner at the turbo outlet and that gave me the clearance required.

 

 

I also had a lower brace sat in th garage so I gave that a clean up and respray before popping a couple of rivnuts into the subframe and bolting it on.

 

 

Whether it makes any difference or not, not really bothered, it's just one less thing to trip over in the garage if its on the car.

 

Aswell as making stuff red, I've also been sorting out some of the contrasting black bits too. The front grille surround and rear spoiler were looking a bit dull so gave them a rub down and fresh coat of matt black plasticote. Whilst I had the black paint out, I decided to respray the mirrors black as one was a bit scratched up anyway. I also noticed the wiper arms weren't looking too great with a fair bit of paint bubbling. I found a tidier set in one of my spares boxes so  gave them a fresh coat of satin black and one of the Fabias I stripped recently had a nearly new set of flat blades so I've utilised them.

 

 

With all the external black bits refreshed, the paintwork was looking a bit dull so it got a full on was, clay, t-cut, polish and wax to bring a bit of shine back. Bonnet really wants a respray as the proper polish up really shows up the 156000 miles of stone chips but that sort of thing can wait for now. It still came up pretty reasonable. I do like the black mirrors 🙂

 

 

Since those pictures above, I've also replaced the front and rear Skoda badges and the 16 year originals were looking a bit tired.

 

I've also started to do a bit of prep work for future developments. I've got a spare rear beam from one of the breakers I've had recently. I've stripped it all down with the view to having it sand blasted and then powdercoated red.

 

 

I'm steadily collecting replacement parts, new bearings, back plates, abs sensors. Stub axles are good so I've cleaned and painted them. I've also got another front subframe ready for coating too and whilst that lot goes off I'll get my rear anti roll bar redone aswell. Contemplating getting the front strut brace done red at the same time but I'm gonna give the slam panel a fresh coat of satin black so I think it'll match up better if it stays black.

 

Today's little project was a few engine bay deletes. Being as there isn't a cat on the car anymore, it's pointless having the secondary air intake system on there to help with cat heating on cold starts so that all came out. Whilst that was happening, I did away with the N112 valve, as that controls the combi valve for the now removed SAI and the N249 valve and pipework so the DV now works off direct vacuum from the inlet manifold rather than ECU control. Quite a few bits of useless stuff now out the way.

 

 

That's about it for now. Next up will be respray the slam panel and then get on with the underneath stuff once the powdercoating is done. Oh, it needs a new windscreen too as there's a crack creeping up from the bottom but as it's not going off the drive at the moment it's not a mega pressing issue.

Edited 6 May, 2020 by niceyellow vrs

[niceyellow vrs]

Did another little job that's made a nice difference. The front slam panel wasn't looking it's best, dull paint and a fair bit of surface bubbling, so it was time for a freshen up.

Stripped it down, paint/surface rust bubbles given a tickle with a flap disc on the grinder before masking up and spraying with a fresh coat of satin black. Came up rather well I reckon.

 

 

 

 

 

[skinnyman]

You've done a few jobs I have on my list.  The deletes are up there and my slam panel is looking decidedly ropey too.

In terms of the deletes, how long did it take to do both jobs?  

Also, my windscreen went in the same place and the crack worked it's way up from being a tiny 1cm annoyance to just under half way up the screen in about five days.  Strange thing was that it was sitting on the drive and didn't move in that time!?!

[niceyellow vrs]

1 hour ago, skinnyman said:

In terms of the deletes, how long did it take to do both jobs? 

 

 

Took me a couple of hours all in.

Used a handy guide on here for guidance

 

[Dean]

2 hours ago, skinnyman said:

You've done a few jobs I have on my list.  The deletes are up there and my slam panel is looking decidedly ropey too.

In terms of the deletes, how long did it take to do both jobs?  

Also, my windscreen went in the same place and the crack worked it's way up from being a tiny 1cm annoyance to just under half way up the screen in about five days.  Strange thing was that it was sitting on the drive and didn't move in that time!?!

 

 

1 hour ago, niceyellow vrs said:

 

Took me a couple of hours all in.

Used a handy guide on here for guidance

 

 

Quite weird as this is what I'm tackling today on my black vRS as it's stage two and has the deletes already mapped out but I haven't got round to deleting them, but I only want to bypass, so I won't be cutting any pipes. So with that in mind, I'm going to follow the Cupra guide - https://forums.seatcupra.net/index.php?threads/the-correct-way-to-do-an-n249-bypass-the-full-guide.372006/

 

The only thing I'm worried about is overboost and turbo flutter as I don't want to cause any damage. I've read a few articles, but if R-Tech recommend doing it, it must be for a reason?

Edited 13 May, 2020 by DeanVRS20VT

[skinnyman]

2 hours ago, DeanVRS20VT said:

The only thing I'm worried about is overboost and turbo flutter as I don't want to cause any damage. I've read a few articles, but if R-Tech recommend doing it, it must be for a reason?

 

 I'm in a similar position where the car runs really well.  If I mess around and cause an issue then I've shot myself in the foot for no reason. 

 

edit : Mine's R-Tech as you know but I have no idea if things have been mapped out.  Did you contact them to find out?

Edited 13 May, 2020 by skinnyman

[skinnyman]

3 hours ago, niceyellow vrs said:

 

Took me a couple of hours all in.

Used a handy guide on here for guidance

 

 

I had a look at that and then chickened out.  Ideally I'd like to tackle this with someone who has already done it and then there's a safety net in case I do something daft and disable the car.

[Dean]

1 hour ago, skinnyman said:

 

I had a look at that and then chickened out.  Ideally I'd like to tackle this with someone who has already done it and then there's a safety net in case I do something daft and disable the car.

 

1 hour ago, skinnyman said:

 

 I'm in a similar position where the car runs really well.  If I mess around and cause an issue then I've shot myself in the foot for no reason. 

 

edit : Mine's R-Tech as you know but I have no idea if things have been mapped out.  Did you contact them to find out?

No I didn’t check, but I left the plugs connected instead of using resistors.

 

Well I done it on mine, and noticed no different. Maybe a slight improvement on throttle response buts that about it.

 

The only reason I was happy to try it out is that I didn’t cut any the pipes and just pulled them off after loosening them horrid because clips. Plus the fact I have my old engine in the garage so I can take things off if I sod it up. So if I want to add it back I can just reattach the pipes. I’d recommend reading the seat guide but obviously don’t cut the pipes. It is actually pretty easy and takes about 20/30 if you just take your time and double check everything.