Fixes - Part Four (+ update)

I ended up spending all Thursday at Matt's workshop. Louis was kind enough to drive me down as he was heading there himself to have his car fitted with H&R coilovers - and fuck, they go lowww. He has about 2 inches of thread left on the coilovers and he's already tucking tyre. However they're not damper adjustable (as claimed by Louis) and their currently pretty damn stiff. The strut body was bloody thick as too.

Anyway, I ended up taking out the crank angle sensor out of the wrecked Mk3 myself. I figured Matt will be busy and can't be fucked doing it so I might as well do it myself so I'll have some confidence replacing the sensor on my car. The process was straight forward, but is damn long for what I was after... it was a damn wire! Screwed in by an Allen key, it can only be taken off with the transmission mount (front engine mount) out of the way :@


Come Sunday, I managed to fit the new sensor on without any major hitches. I finished with a small bolt and washer lying around that I don't know which part of the car that it belonged to, but it should be OK :P Here's the comparison between the two:

I taped up the one from the wrecked car as I do not want to replace it ever again. The sensor wire were originally only wrapped by rubber insulation which has naturally cracked under the immense heat it's exposed to when situated so close to the engine and transmission housing. I managed to tape up about half of the sensor wire of the old one before it finally died on me, but this was basically how it looked throughout the length of it:

Some nasty shit right there, with bare wires exposed and vulnerable to shorting out and gaining very high resistance with the lack of insulation in some parts. I'm guessing this was why the car ran like shit when it was only warm.

I also bought a dremel bit to clean my spark plugs which have been fouled yet again due to the weird signals sent to the ECU when the sensor was fucking up. Once everything was in, the car started like a dream - honestly it felt like a new car to me haha. Gave it a quick drive with both the bumpers off as I'm still doing the custom bodywork :) More on that later.

So finally all the repairs are done. With many other sensors and electronical components replaced (see previous posts), I am definitely not expecting the car to fuck up on me again. Fingers crossed. Now, finally on to the exciting bit...

UPDATES!

So, for $300 I ended up buying the Work Equips :) Louis was kind enough to let me store them at his place for the time being - he has helped me out a lot the past few weeks and I'm very grateful for that! My plan now is to take them back home when the BBS RS are on the car, so I can restore them. I'm heading towards the polished path for the Equips, and only spending money on new centrecaps if I can't get them looking good again. Once they're done (hopefully by the Nats next year), I'll have the BBS RS refurbished and re-done in a different way :)

A week later after visiting UpGarage for the Equips, Kevin (my friend's brother's friend, haha), his Lexus SC400 and I met up to take another trip down there for a set of 18" Enkei wheels he fancied. He let me drive it down and wow, what a cruiser. Very different to how the Golf drives. Anyway, the Enkeis were in good condition with your usual wear but they were 3-piece, 9" wide, and had some decent tyres - Yoko Advans. He snapped them up for $950 and to my surprise actually looked SICK. They suit the car perfectly in my eyes and are the best looking 18's I've set my eyes on. There's a JDM flavour to them - that said, I don't think they would work as well on a VAG vehicle, though I can be wrong. Looks were deceiving as far as their website pics are concerned; they had a classic race look to it. They're bloody wide too - they were poking in the front even on the Lexus. Kevin had his guards rolled while he was down there - $40/guard. Not too bad I think, and they did it properly with a fender roller, not the ghetto hammer. Not that there's anything wrong with using the hammer, provided that it's a professional panel beater that's handling it. I think I'll be taking the Golf down some time soon for its own fender rolling. Anyway, here's the Enkei wheels:


Yeah, he needs to lower it haha.

Speaking of UpGarage, had a pretty cool experience down there. When Kevin and I were test-fitting the Enkeis, Team Peer dropped in with their Onevia (S13 with a 180SX front) drift car. Part of the team were there: Darren Appleton, Leighton Fine (who complimented the Lexus with its new wheels) and their pit team. I was (still is?) a fan of drifting and have followed it religiously after watching the Initial D series. Since owning a VW though, I've forgotten all about it, but it's interesting to see that there are very different cultures within the car-modifying lifestyle.

Back to the Golf - after a month of thinking, I pushed the trigger and now have a set of GC coilover sleeves with 300 lb/250 lb F/R springs being sent over to me. The shipment was sent last Monday so it should be arriving some time late this week hopefully. It came out to be ~$500AUD. If the Koni springs will sell for ~$250, the GC kit will turn out to be a great value-for-money upgrade. Plans for suspension later will be a rear sway bar from Neuspeed (undecided between the 25mm or 28mm). I'm just gonna give myself some time before upgrading again.

Finally, I have some adapters on the way :) Thanks to Mike Templeton of SubtileCommunication, I'll be able to rock my BBS RS and Equips soon. I've chosen AdaptItUSA as their prices were the cheapest by far. They are 5x100 --> 5x114.3 with studs pressed out, two separate pairs being 1" (25 mm) and 1.3" (33 mm) thick and come with lugs. Made with 6061-T6 billet aircraft aluminium and recommended by Vortexers, I'm confident they will last a long time without breakage. They are being sent to Mike as we speak, and soon he will be able to give me a quote on shipping internationally. In due time, in due time!