Welp... it's official. Astrid is going BIG TURBO!
Long story short I was almost going to buy a CTS Boss600 kit off of someone that was barely used for really cheap, so I went ahead and sold my KO4. Well, the deal with the BT kit fell through. Seeing as buying another KO4 would be really dumb, I decided to shop around for a big turbo kit. I was torn between a 2867R and a 3071R. I wanted the top end of the 71R but the response of the 67R. In comes the new Garrett G25-660. It's advertised as the successor to the 67R, but flows 12lb/min more. Being that it's a relatively new turbo, nobody has gotten this turbo to work with a VAG car yet that I am aware of...so it's somewhat uncharted territory. Since I was going to have to go with something custom, I decided to approach ForceFed Engineering. After some back and forth, I decided to pull the trigger on their fully custom tubular manifold, which will be v-banded to the new turbo. In addition, he will build me all the necessary charge piping, downpipe, etc to make this work. The hot side, manifold, and downpipe will all be swain coated to reduce underhood temps. I will be going through Stratified for tuning and will utilize their aux fuel kit as well. My goal is 430-440whp on E blend. I will eventually have a single nozzle water meth system (prometh hardware and a torqbyte cm5) that will connect at the bottom of stratified aux fuel pipe for IAT cooling purposes.
The kit will be ready in about 6-8 weeks. During that time I have to get my ass in gear to get this car back together. The plan is to get the car fully ready so that once the kit is ready, I will bolt it on to the motor, throw the motor in the car, and tow the car down to FFE where they will complete the fabrication. So in the last couple of days, I basically ordered everything to get the motor fully refreshed. Timing kit, cam bridge, water pump, new DMFW, all new gaskets, new alternator, belt & belt tensioner, HPFP refresh kit, fuel filter, coils & plugs, an idler pulley to go where the A/C used to be, and gruvenparts A/C and tensioner lightweight pulleys. In addition, I am still waiting for my Verkline tubular subframe and control arms, 034 spherical end links, new & stiffer springs from Eibach for my R2s, my rebuilt vorshlag camber plates, a new APR dogbone to replace my 034, and 034 track mounts to replace my XLR8 mounts. I also ordered APR's DQ500 DSG catch can for the RS3 because I am almost 100% certain it will fit the DQ250 trans.
I've never done really any extensive engine work, so I bought a 2nd motor to "experiment" on. It's likely blown so I got it for cheap, but who knows, maybe I can fix it up and have it as a suitable spare someday.
Since I have a couple of weeks of downtime before all of these parts arrive (thanks corona), I decided to drop the entire rear suspension to take care of some rust. My Hoosiers wore off the finish on my trailing arms, so I wanted to address that as well. I ordered ECS Tuning "beefier" rear shock mounts, and bought a rebuild kit to repair my 034 trailing arm spherical bearings, which after 2 years of track abuse have started to show some wear (my 034 upper control arms and toe arms are still in good shape). I am waiting on some "rust encapsulator" and "extreme chassis black" paint from Eastwood that will turn my rusty rear subframe, trailing arms, and rear lower control arms into brand new. And because what is freshly painted parts without new hardware, I got all new hardware through 1stvwparts which had it for significantly cheaper than ECS/dealership.
Also on the docket I have to finish rebuilding my brembos, which thankfully Zeckhausen was able to source the necessary parts despite the supply chain issues right now with corona.
Finally, I will be refreshing my cooling system. I ordered a spulen coolant hose kit that replaces the black plastic coolant pipes under the intake manifold, as well as a forge motorsports coolant hose kit. That basically leaves the heater core hoses. **interesting fact, because I am deleting my SAI, and because I no longer have the factory DSG cooler, I will be converting to the CCTA 6speed heater core hoses. This will eliminate several unnecessary coolant connections that are no longer being used and will decrease the likely hood of leaks down the road. Because I snoozed on buying ECS Tuning's new aluminum radiator, I will be getting a new CSF radiator (OE spec).
Some other things to still button up:
- Going to buy an Innovative Motorsports ECB-1 Gauge, and 2 MTX-D gauges (oil temp/pressure & water temp/voltage). FFE will weld in a bung on the downpipe for the wideband.
- Need to get my hands on some MK7.5 Helix headlights.
- I sold my ED35 bumper and I am torn between going with a R400 bumper or going with a Golf R bumper. Reason for that is the fog wells are much bigger and can more adequately flow air to my DSG & Oil coolers.
- Going to build my own custom catch can setup. More on this later.
- Still have to finish bolting in my roll bar and install my harnesses
That's it for now! Sorry no pictures this time, but will have plenty to share in the coming weeks.
