DieselMonte's 2012 Monte Carlo Project.

[DieselMonte]

This is my 2012 Skoda Fabia Monte Carlo,

It is a 1.6 TDI 105 ps model with 89k miles.

I bought it on the first of February and have imported it into Ireland since,however it has sat for since due to it being a pain to get insurance.

Since it didn't need anything I only clayed and polished the paint,hopefully I will be able to get a remap in the coming months to about 140 ps but I have no other plans for the car. I can't justify doing anything right now as everything on the car is in good condition. 

[seanders]

Lovely car man, she looks mint. I've got a TDI Fabia in Ireland too and I can highly recommend putting it on lowering springs/stiffer suspension as well as some wider alloys to really take advantage of some of the nice back roads we have (in Cork anyway). It completely changes how the car handles, eliminates body roll around corners and roundabouts. Gives you a lot more confidence to have a bit of fun with the zippy little things.

[DieselMonte]

Have done my first few things recently.

I took off the intake and had a look,when I was in there I removed the Flow transformer that was installed as part of dieselgate. Also, i removed a cotton blanket that was around the air filter, I removed it as I haven't seen any other car of mine use it and figured it was just to dampen noise. I put the intake back together and went for a spin. Happily,it seems as though my efforts had produced some results, the engine feels a little more responsive and I can actually hear the turbo now. I have put money aside for mods but that might have to go towards figuring out the problem thats creeped up with the seatbelts. Essentially,the wont unreel from the mechanism. While it is not completely unusable it would fail its test so i'm as well to sort it now.

[DieselMonte]

On 28/03/2020 at 10:40, seanders said:

Lovely car man, she looks mint. I've got a TDI Fabia in Ireland too and I can highly recommend putting it on lowering springs/stiffer suspension as well as some wider alloys to really take advantage of some of the nice back roads we have (in Cork anyway). It completely changes how the car handles, eliminates body roll around corners and roundabouts. Gives you a lot more confidence to have a bit of fun with the zippy little things.

Thanks for the input, I'm not planning on doing much to the suspension as I find it is already stiff for our roads but the tires are only cheapo chinese tires so it could equally be them causing the poor ride. I noticed a set of octavia vrs wheels on Donedeal recently going cheap so I might pick them up providing there is nothing expensive with the seatbelts. Worst case If I pick up the wheels i could always put them on my other fabia if they don't suit the monte carlo

[AMD87]

46 minutes ago, DieselMonte said:

Have done my first few things recently.

I took off the intake and had a look,when I was in there I removed the Flow transformer that was installed as part of dieselgate. Also, i removed a cotton blanket that was around the air filter, I removed it as I haven't seen any other car of mine use it and figured it was just to dampen noise. I put the intake back together and went for a spin. Happily,it seems as though my efforts had produced some results, the engine feels a little more responsive and I can actually hear the turbo now. I have put money aside for mods but that might have to go towards figuring out the problem thats creeped up with the seatbelts. Essentially,the wont unreel from the mechanism. While it is not completely unusable it would fail its test so i'm as well to sort it now.

tried funature polish?

[DieselMonte]

8 hours ago, AMD87 said:

tried funature polish?

On the seatbelt track? No but i might give it a go. Gonna have a go at installing mudflaps and such next week, i'll have a proper look at it then. Don't really want to take it apart now because I don't have much in the way of tools here.

[DieselMonte]

On 14/05/2020 at 18:38, AMD87 said:

tried funature polish?

Have it sorted now, seemingly just needed to adjust the height of the top part of the seatbelt. The drivers side works 100% but the passengers side can still be a bit stiff. Don't know why this seems to have fixed it but at least I haven't had to replace the seatbelts.Yet.

[seanders]

On 14/05/2020 at 17:55, DieselMonte said:

Thanks for the input, I'm not planning on doing much to the suspension as I find it is already stiff for our roads but the tires are only cheapo chinese tires so it could equally be them causing the poor ride. I noticed a set of octavia vrs wheels on Donedeal recently going cheap so I might pick them up providing there is nothing expensive with the seatbelts. Worst case If I pick up the wheels i could always put them on my other fabia if they don't suit the monte carlo

 

I'd love to find a set of the VRS spiders as they really suit the Fabia, currently have Japan Racing JR11's on mine and they match well to the car but I do agree that the ride is a bit rough on some roads with lower profile tyres + stiffer suspension

[DieselMonte]

Done some good work on the monte carlo as of late. Installed a a set of mudguards, painted the rear drums,Removed the intake flap and installed vrs intake piping. Not a bad week. It would appear that most of the exhaust from the downpipe back is rotten so I probably should get a new one in time for the cars nct in august.

[DieselMonte]

It would appear that I cant upload photos more than .08 mb so I cant get a compressed enough photo to upload.

Shame.

[DieselMonte]

Pic of the sheer difference in size from a standard intake and a vrs one. Was trying to reuse the old intake on my sdi and found that the part that mounts to the airbox is too big on the 1.6 to fit the sdi airbox. Even then,the hole for the piece that goes on the other end of the airbox is the same diameter so It wouldn't make any difference anyway.

I found that while the Vrs one does fit it needs a bit of fettling to get to sit flush.

(I know the pictures shows them in the wrong configuration but This was just a quick side by side before I properly installed the vrs bits. Also have a picture of the flap removal, it came out a lot better after smoothing out some rough edges after the photo was taken.

[DieselMonte]

Spent the evening getting the intake piping looking 100% factory. I took it all out and ended up putting a black screw either end of  the front of the pipe where it meets the plastic dirt deflector and put a black screw under the part that joins to the airbox. Also modified the part the dirt deflector clips into so it would hopefully feed more air. After that I took of the rest of the piping down to the turbo and checked all. The Turbo is fine with little play,I realise my car only has 89000 miles but I felt while I was there I should check to be sure all was good. The intake piping however was slimey and gunked up with oil from the pcv ( or ccv) I cleaned it all and put It all back together again but I'm strongly thinking of deleting it and just venting to atmosphere for the time being.

After that was all put back together and sorted I moved the wires for the injectors under the hard lines and polished the hard lines with some metal polish. For not much effort it gave the metal pipes a good shine and left the car looking fresh(er) under the bonnet. You can see in the photo the difference it made between between the polished (left) and unpolished (right) pipes.

 As an aside,this car sounded amazing with just the turbo sucking in unfiltered air,but I didn't want to leave it like that for long so I put all back together.

[shyVRS245]

Reminds me of the 2013 Monte Carlo in White with a Black roof I bought the wife used in 2014 with about 9,000 miles on the clock. Even though it was never modified (unusual for me) it was good fun and she enjoyed driving it.😄

[DieselMonte]

12 hours ago, shyVRS245 said:

Reminds me of the 2013 Monte Carlo in White with a Black roof I bought the wife used in 2014 with about 9,000 miles on the clock. Even though it was never modified (unusual for me) it was good fun and she enjoyed driving it.😄

Seemingly the previous owner did the same.bought it from a dealer as the second owner,his wife drove the car to and from work in town and that was about it. It was serviced at the right intervals and from the looks of the service history it was never left needing bits,anything that was required to be done was done. I couldn't ask for a better car.

[DieselMonte]

Got a midpipe and backbox off ebay for 80 euro shipped. Its only a replacement for the standard one for now,just to pass its nct come august. After that I'll have 2 years until its next nct so I figure I can mod away once it goes through.

Pics of the new and old exhaust,no way the old one will pass and atleast the new exhaust will clean things up underneath. Plus,it has a 30 month warranty. All things considered, for 80 euro I'm happy with the quality

[DieselMonte]

My car is mostly ready for its nct but I need to do a few things to it. Firstly I need to do the exhaust, then I need to get standard license plates, lastly I need to find a way to free up the seatbelts some more but I believe if I leave the seatbelts clasped in They will pass. After that I have 2 years to do whatever I want mod wise.

[DieselMonte]

Bit of bad luck today, a truck coming the other way kicked up a chunk of rock at the windscreen. Thought it would go through considering the massive bang it made. Don't know how to go about fixing this. The marks aren't too deep and it almost looks like it could be polished out, or Maybe one of those glass repair kits could work,but the marks aren't actually that deep.

Has anyone got any advice on what I should do?

[DieselMonte]

Small update this evening,Got sick of the tatty centre caps on my wheels so I got some stick on ones and put them on.

Tried my best to align them with the valve cap and top lug bolt.

[DieselMonte]

Also took the time this evening to Put some generic heat reflective tape on the side of the airbox nearest the turbo. I want to keep the car looking near standard so I just used silver heat reflective tape instead of gold.Not bad for an hours work,but I doubt it will make any significant difference. Also,continuing on the "near standard" approach. You can see that my Vrs intake is mounted with just a few black screws on either end of the portion near the bumper and two screws into the side of the airbox,aswell as one in the bottom of the airbox to keep it firmly in place and looking standard.

[DieselMonte]

Did this the other day, Noticed the piece where the numbers are was looking very dull to I decided to take a gamble, pop off the cap and polish it with a compound. That took away some of the dullness and I then polished it to give it a deep shine. After that I used an old primer grey touch up pen and filled in the numbers, waited and hour for the paint to harden up a bit and then got some petrol on a rag and wiped off the excess. Finally I polished the chrome ring on the knob and put back on the cap. The pictures dont quite show the difference but in person its night and day, and it cost me nothing since I had everything there.

[DieselMonte]

I had it booked for its NCT today, the only date I could get was November 4th as every other NCT centre was booked until February.Not good as my NCT was only extended to December. The car was serviced a few weeks ago, The oil was changed and the exhaust was put on. Apparently the exhaust was completely wrong! The tailpipe was too long so it had to be cut and re welded back on. Also it sits a little too low so you can just see the tip from the back of the car but I actually like how it sits so it'll stay that way.

[DieselMonte]

It actually failed but only on the headlights. Everything else it passed with flying colours,even the stiff seatbelts. Apparently when the headlights were adjusted they were set when they were in the lowest setting on the dial so when they were raised for the test they were way too high! I checked them but I thought since they were level they were fine, I never adjusted them because they were level when I got the car. No wonder I keep getting flashed! I have it booked for a retest in a week but I'll have it fixed by then.

[DieselMonte]

Passed NCT second time round. Now it has NCT until late December 2022. The NCT extensions carry over so I get 4 months extra on top of the 2 years. Happy days!

[DieselMonte]

Did a thing the other night.

I was going through old threads on briskoda and found one where someone had bought a spare turbo damper to modify and replace with the stock one. I researched futher and found that darkside makes a replacement piece, about £50 iirc. I also found that people have done this mod on tdi golfs. So I decided to do it myself. Pic related is the damper in question, just on the outlet into the intercooler.

 

[DieselMonte]

Pic of the damper off of the car. Hose was a MASSIVE pain and took an hour to get off of the car and then damper without breaking it. I ended up using a tool to remove bike tires to separate the hose without breaking it.

 

Pic of the damper off the car with part no. You can see that the hole is much smaller than what it could be.

These pics are showing the inside of the piece.

Edited 28 November, 2020 by DieselMonte