Coming from a remapped and slightly modified Fabia MK3 I wanted something a bit more sporty with a lot more oomph!

Originally I had set my sights on a Meteor Grey Octavia, but when I saw my pop up on Auto Trader I didn't hesitate and a week or so later she was all mine!

I hadn't planned on this being a project car but once the mods start they're hard to stop!

The first thing I tackled was the stock air filter as I wanted to make the car sound more sporty, even though the challenge model supposably has a more sporty exhaust being a GPF model it was far too quiet for my liking. I decided or a Forge Carbon Fibre Intake Kit with a Foam Cone Filter(Found Here)

I had my first mishap when installing this as the holes on the intake just wouldn't line up with the car and the bolts wouldn't screw in fully. I ended up stripping both rivet nuts so they were just spinning in place.

I managed to fix this myself, rather than sending it back to Forge, by purchasing a cheapish rivet nut gun from Amazon and replaced both nuts and used some new bolts. This time it went in like a dream, thankfully!

Next on the list was to fix the interior lighting. Not sure why the car didn't come with LED interior lighting as standard as the old style bulbs made the cabin dark and with such a vast boot made it impossible to see in it at night. I replaced all the bulbs in the car with LED ones and the footwell and boot lighting with LED units (Similar to these)

I also change the red front door lights for projection ones, just because they look cool and were cheap to change (Found Here)

Another interior mod I made courtesy of an Ali Express special, is to install paddle shift extensions (Like These). I was really surprised how good quality they were considering the price and they are yet to come unstuck after about 2/3 years of use, buying cheap sometimes pays off!

On 02/04/2025 at 01:00, sirhc93 said:

Next on the list was to fix the interior lighting. Not sure why the car didn't come with LED interior lighting as standard as the old style bulbs made the cabin dark and with such a vast boot made it impossible to see in it at night. I replaced all the bulbs in the car with LED ones and the footwell and boot lighting with LED units (Similar to these)

I also change the red front door lights for projection ones, just because they look cool and were cheap to change (Found Here)

Improved boot lighting is so much better, this photo was taken when it was pitch black outside.

Next job on the list was to make the car look more sporty from the outside, think Skoda missed a trick not putting any factory splitters on the car to make it look more aggressive.

I purchased a full kit from Maxton; front splitter, side skirts and rear splitter.

Install wise they weren't too bad, luckily I have a raised drive so can get under the front and back of the car by hanging it off the edge.

The side skirts were a little more tricky as I noticed when doing a test fit I would loose all the sill jacking points. Think I didn't end up doing them for over a year as I was afraid to cut them and kept putting it off.

The next thing to tackle was tyres. Although P Zeros are meant to be a decent enough tyre they just felt too slippery for my liking even though they had plenty of tread left in them. Decided to switch all 4 for Pilot Sport 4Ss and what a difference it made, it felt like driving a different car especially in the wet. There was so much more grip and they give you the confidence to really push it around corners. Sold the old P-Zeros om eBay so not all was lost.

Just my luck a few months later I hit a moon crater of a pot hole and my lovely new tyre was no more! Good job they're only £170 a corner!

Edited 3 April, 20251 yr by sirhc93

Next we have badges, out with the chrome in with the black!

I originally only changed the wheel hub covers to VRS branded ones, again these were purchased from AliExpress and again the quality was pretty decent for the price. Eventually thought the red and green paint faded to white, probably through washing with wheel cleaner. I perceived though and ordered another set of the same ones, however this time I PPF'd each one before putting it on the car and to this day they look like they did when I first bought them. My wheels take 56mm caps like these.

Earlier last month I decided to change all the badges to black, I had purchased them ages ago and just never got round to doing them.

Skoda front and rear badge both 90mm

VRS badge front and rear

Skoda and Octavia lettering, the listings get removed very quickly probably for copyright issues.

I had a issues with the front and rear logo badge, the built in sticky pad was sticky and stuck well but after a few days of getting rained on it failed. I tired legit 3M automotive pads but these also failed after a while, I think it maybe to do with the curvature of the badge to the body of the car. In the end the solution was to remove all the stick pads and just use good old tiger seal.

The sticky pads on the lettering and VRS badges has been spot on and seems to be of the same quality the factory badges used. I was very meticulous when cleaning the area using Bilt Hamber cleanser fluid to remove any excess material left behind when remove the original badges. Making sure the area was taped off and marking the edge of every letter to make sure I got the spacing as accurate as possible.

The only badge I haven't change is the front grill VRS badge. The ones from AliExpress are the same size as the stock rear, however the stock grill badge is significantly smaller. I was reluctant to change this as I feel the one I have purchased will look too big on the grill and I cannot find a smaller version that matches it.

Edited 3 April, 20251 yr by sirhc93

Just picked up a 2014 rallye green estate and this post is great for inspiration. Your car looks 👌

20 hours ago, s-Master said:

Just picked up a 2014 rallye green estate and this post is great for inspiration. Your car looks 👌

Thank you I really appreciate your comment. ☺️There is a lot more to come, once I get round to posting more! I just so happen to have been tinkering today with some new mods and upgrades.

Keep me updated with the progress! I'm flying out to America in a week and a half and can't wait to get started on mine when I get back!

On 03/06/2025 at 21:26, s-Master said:

Keep me updated with the progress! I'm flying out to America in a week and a half and can't wait to get started on mine when I get back!

I'm off work for a couple of weeks so will hopefully have time to post more soon. Enjoy America-land!

Next up we have mudflaps. I am a bit of a clean freak when it comes to cars, as detailing is a hobby of mine, so I was getting annoyed with the dirt spray up the side of the car. I was deciding between OEM ones or something more aggressive looking like Rally Flaps. Decided on just the OEM ones for ease of fitment. Had to do some research as I don't this standard Octavia ones fit the VRS, so ordered these from eBay.

So when I finally got round to fitting my side skirts I came to realise that they now wouldn't fit due to the front mud flaps being in the way! I considered cutting the side skirts around the mud flaps but decided against this in case I messed it up. It was then a toss up between the 2 and as the side skirts were £100ish I went with those and cut my loses on the front mud flaps.

Installation was a pain in the behind, I had to mark out where the sill jack points would fall and use a multitool cutter to cut enough clearance so I would be able to fit a jack puck or use jack stands in the future. Once I'd done this I applied a decent amount of Tiger Seal across the full length of the skirt where it would make contact with the underside of the car. I was careful not to use too much as I didn't want it to ooze out everywhere when compressed, which luckily it didn't. Now having never used tiger seal before I thought it would have a good initial grab, however the skirts were too heavy and gravity kept doing its thing and the slowly pulled away when I wasn't holding them.

This is where I ran into another problem as the self tapping screws provided, weren't very self tapping! In the end I had to juggle holding the now Tiger Sealed side skirt to the car while I drilled 10 small pilot holes with a HSS drill bit. Finally got the screws in and that was that, obviously I learned my lesson and the other side was a breeze.

Mine came with PZero's and I never liked them either. Side walls were made of paper and the grip was questionable.

Switched out to PS4's and have never looked back.


Love the black badge work, never considered it till seeing yours but straight on the list to update.

On 16/06/2025 at 11:02, littleredduck said:

Mine came with PZero's and I never liked them either. Side walls were made of paper and the grip was questionable.

Switched out to PS4's and have never looked back.


Love the black badge work, never considered it till seeing yours but straight on the list to update.

I felt the same, they had plenty of tread left but couldn't get on with them when pushing the car. On paper there shouldn't be much difference, but I just didn't have the confidence you get with the PS4s.

Thank you, even though its a small detail it does transform the look significantly, not bad for a couple of quid from China!

Next up are brakes! Well these where the bane of my life for a few months and I have only just sorted them out over the past few days. I wont go into too much details here as there is a whole topic on it here.

I upgraded the standard discs and pads with this brake bundle from Awesome GTI.

I also replaced my rear calipers as they were seized and in poor cosmetic condition. These were pretty pricey especially from Skoda directly, I ended up buying them from LLLParts for a lot less, although delivery took a few weeks.

Edited 2 July, 20252 Jul by sirhc93

Remap time, how could I forget! This is out of order as I had this done a few months after buying the car.

So, after much deliberation I went with a Revo Stage 1 on both the ECU and TCU mapped to run on 99 ron. Performance gains are night and day, although I have never had a dyno run we are definitely in the realm of 300+ bhp. Track Addict runs are reporting a very respectable 0-60 in give or take 5 seconds.

The Octavia with the remap suffered terribly from wheel hop. I'd never even heard of a dog bone mount insert until recently, but honestly apart from the remap, its the best upgrade I have made to the car by a long way. I purchased the Racingline Lower Engine Mount Twin Dogbone Insert (Version 2) coming in at just over £100 its not cheap for what looks like on the face of it is a small piece of metal, but what a difference it makes. It transforms the car launch as though the wheel hop never existed. Yes there are some harsher vibrations in the cabin to begin with although these almost disappear once its broken in and any slight cabin vibration after is 110% worth the performance increase.

If you fancy this upgrade then you'll also need to get a new bolt like this one, as it needs replacing every time you take it out.

I have never really serviced a car fully before but I thought seeing as I no longer had a service plan with the dealership that I would do it myself for the first time. Of course on the way I would be making upgrades rather than just replacing OEM parts.

Ignition coils - Probably didn't really need replacing but they cool in red and tbh the engine has been running so much smoother since installing them. I purchased and installed these before anything else on my service to do list, so these alone improve the engine running on there own.

Spark plugs - Again probably didn't need doing, but they are recommended after 4 years. On replacing there was a little bit of corrosion on the old ones so maybe a worthwhile change.

Oil/oil filter/sump plug - I bought the service pack on Progressive Parts as it was reasonably priced and made it easier to get everything at once. Went for the Genuine oil filter, Millers Oils EE Performance C3 5w30 oil, Racingline Magnetic Drain Plug.

Air filter just needed cleaning and I had done the cabin filter last year and it still looked in good condition so wasn't needed this time.

With the service pack I also treated myself to a Racingline Turbo Muffler Delete and a Racingline R600 Hi-Flow Turbo Inlet Elbow.

These where a bit of a pain to fit as you have to do some hand contortionism to get the muffler delete bolt in and out. The elbow also wasn't straight forward as the hose that's connected to it is on there good and you have to give it some real force to get it off.

I am glad I installed the elbow as I noticed the bolt that holds it on was completely loose. I have never touch that part before so no idea how it had managed to come so loose it was nearly falling out.

Performance wise, I cant really tell any notable difference. Noise wise, the two combined with my induction kit has definitely increased the turbo noise and hiss.