Hawke's Build

[HawkeAssault]

Going through everyone else's builds I figured I would post mine, even though I've already had the car a year and have done plenty already.
I'm going to go over what I've done at this point and outline the future.

The start, late august of last year I got my GTI through Carvana. A bare bones 2015 two door SE.

And now today it has the following:

Exterior:
- Helix MK7.5 Headlight replicas
- BEC Ed's MK7.5 LED Tails
- Dynamic Mirror blinkers with scanning light
- Power Folding Mirrors
- Maxton Design Side Skirts (Subject to removal)
- Custom Vinyl stripes done by a local shop
- Clubsport S Muffler
- LED License plate lights

Interior:
- MIB1 to MIB2.5 Conversion with Navigation
- 9.2" Face lift infotainment screen
- Active Info Display (Digital Dash)
- Auto Dimming Mirror with Home Link

Performance:
- Nothing yet unfortunately

Future plans:
- 7.5 or 7 Golf R Bumper
- EQT Stage 1 TCU & ECU
- Carbon or Clubsport steering wheel
- Digital Climatronic controls
- Belvedere Wheels

 

[HawkeAssault]

First thing done was swapping out the headlights.
It was a relatively easy process. Just rather annoying having to take everything on the front end off.

Removed the wheels and walls inside the fender

Bumper and grille removed

light removed

in with the new

and the final result.
Only took us a couple hours to do so.
Really love the aggressive nature of the facelift lights.
These are Helix brand and I don’t recommend too much as the clear coat failed prematurely and the DRL modules went out within a year and both in the same week.
luckily I was sent replacement modules at no extra cost.

 

[HawkeAssault]

After the headlights came the tails. One of the best exterior mods in my opinion.
I didn’t take many pictures during the install but there are a couple after.

We got the lights in but the driver side was mis aligned and even after messing with it all day we could not get them aligned.

So about a week later we tested the lights on my brothers TDI and they looked fine.

So we then ripped off my bumper and brackets to re-align them.

After a bit we finally got the outer light to sit as best as we could.

And we where finally happy with the end result.
These are the BEC Ed 7.5 Replicas. Got them for like $580 or so with the wiring harness. Wish I took images of running the wires but I didn’t unfortunately.
Running the wires was a process because I had to read the damn instructions like 8 times before I finally understood what they where saying. But overall it was a simple install. Highly recommend these.

 

[HawkeAssault]

Shortly after the lights I was messing around in Forza and came up with this livery. I liked it so much I got a local shop to add these stripes.

 

[HawkeAssault]

Up next we hacked off the original muffler and swapped in the Clubsport muffler. I did not take many pictures.

 

[HawkeAssault]

Next up we got the Power Folding Mirrors with puddle lights and an aspherical mirror on the drivers side.

Didn’t take many pictures unfortunately but we had to remove both door panels and run the cables of the mirrors. And replace the mirror adjustment switch on the driver side.

After installing we had to change a couple lines of code. Then go into the infotainment and actually enable the settings for them to work.

 

[HawkeAssault]

After we got the folding mirrors in it was time to swap the rear view. Got this one from ShopDAP as it was on sale.

The new mirror we had to run a new cable to. Ran a splitter from the headlight switch to give it power. It is now Auto Dimming, frameless, has garage buttons and will display the direction you are heading in the upper right hand corner.

 

[swcrow]

I want to know more about the cost and effort it took to swap in the folding mirrors.

 

[HawkeAssault]

I want to know more about the cost and effort it took to swap in the folding mirrors.

The mirrors didn’t take too long to swap over. Firstly we had to remove the door panels. There are about 10-15 clips holding the panels in. We got out pry tool and started from the bottom and worked our way towards the inner door handle. Then disconnected the handle mechanism and the door panel was free.

After that there are two screws or bolts I believe holding the actual mirrors in place on the door.Take those out and the mirror is almost free.
You then go and follow the cable that is mostly in the actual door it self and follow it into the door controller module. You need to open the wiring harness to pull out the connector. After doing so you feed the cable up and out through the door.

Next part was the worst part. Putting the new cable and mirror in. Getting the cable to actually go in properly was a little annoying, luckily we had a snake tool. But you have to pull it all the way through and pull the cable out of a small circular hole and then reconnect it to the controller. Then bolt the mirrors and and you are essentially good to go.

These are the mirrors I purchased.
https://www.shopdap.com/mk7-gti-golfr-folding-mirrors.html

But for the most detail, we followed Deutsche Auto Parts video.

 

[HawkeAssault]

A couple months later or so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I ordered an MIB2 Conversion kit from EuroZoneTuning. Since my car was an MIB1 this was a vast improvement.
Original MIB1 with no navigation.

Removed the brains and having the new unit sitting in the glove box. Running the new USB port to go in the little tray there for CarPlay connectivity.

Took off all the surrounding trim and vents

Removing the screen

Quick comparison between old and new brain. MIB1 on top, MIB2 below.

New screen

New trim installed

Sound issues lol

Had to switch from Fender to Dynaudio, even though my current system is Fender. This is due to having the Gen1 Fender amp.

Final result.

Overall I don’t recommend going through EuroZone since these are hacked EU units and don’t have SirrusXm capabilities. So no live traffic updates or XM radio. And then just weird nuances here and there. And just pricey in general. Would recommend sourcing parts locally.

 

[HawkeAssault]

Up next was the digital dash! The item I wanted most. I bought the instrument cluster from Camelback VW and at the time it was the only dash on hand in any VW dealers in the valley. Then it took me a couple months to actually schedule a time with Avondale VW to code it properly.

Fresh from Camelback

So being curious after scoping out the forms I put the digital cluster in without the dealership coding and thought I killed my car lol. Every light except for the check engine came on. I was aware it had component protection but I didn’t realize it would drop three whole modules of code in the car unfortunately.

Pic of my stupidity.

But after some help from others online we where able to recode using an auto scan I took a week earlier and then recalibrate the other items.
Then I scheduled the appointment with Avondale and got the dash correctly installed.

After the drive home from the dealership. Still had the regular golf theme and blue color.

We then coded the GTI theme and red color, and the little car now has two doors instead of being a four.

Overall probably my favorite modification. Dash at the time only cost like $830 from camelback. Avondale only charged me $241 for labor. It took the guy maybe 2 hours at most to do it. Had to bring both keys with me and get the mileage coded in.

 

[Square1]

The car looks good. I love the 3 door.

 

[Righteousness]

Update on the front bumper mate?

 

[HawkeAssault]

Update on the front bumper mate?

I decided against buying the CS bumper as it's insanely expensive to get over here in the US.
Current plan is to potentially get a 7.5 R Bumper and get some 7.5 Fenders and replica headlights to get it all correct.

 

[Righteousness]

I decided against buying the CS bumper as it's insanely expensive to get over here in the US.
Current plan is to potentially get a 7.5 R Bumper and get some 7.5 Fenders and replica headlights to get it all correct.

Thanks for the reply. I understand what you mean by pricing. It did put me off too. Why not invest in a 7.5 instead? Those panels will tally up the budget real high. I’m also certain you’ll need to get a bonnet too.