GOLFMK8
GOLFMK7
GOLFMK6
GOLFMKV

SuperSkyline89's Timeline

Das Gespenst

Go Kart Champion
Location
Glen Ellyn
Oh man its not fair, the new MK7's are ridiculous. The R with a tune is just barely shy if not at 400whp (depending on dyno), GTI with an IS38 swap is about the same. Friends stage 2 MK7 GTI is just as fast as my K04 until the top end. K04 still pulls harder in the higher RPM.
 

SuperSkyline89

Das Schiesse
Location
Earth
Car(s)
2008 CW GTI
Oh man its not fair, the new MK7's are ridiculous. The R with a tune is just barely shy if not at 400whp (depending on dyno), GTI with an IS38 swap is about the same. Friends stage 2 MK7 GTI is just as fast as my K04 until the top end. K04 still pulls harder in the higher RPM.

That's right where my other friend with stacked tunes is, somewhere around 380-390whp. I don't know which brand but it's a Stage 2 of some sort with the JB4 piggybacked on top.

That's just the brutal truth about cars though. If you really want to go fast you can't commit to one car, you have to jump generation to generation and constantly have the newest thing. I'd rather not have car payments and just put money into a car I actually own. And the one thing I like about not having the newest model is that as people abandon the MkV it just makes mine all that much more unique. At this point I can't think of a single one around here remotely similar to mine.

The engine build I'm planning though, it'll give my car enough of a different character to make it a very different experience so even if the newer stuff destroys it with power I'll be happy with it. It'll still have a unique character to it.
 

clownish

just clowning around
Location
OH.
Car(s)
VWs
It's like people with Mk4s that now have very cool cars. This one is stripped, caged, bagged and the bay is a big turbo hand built shaved etc. it's really nice.




Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 

SuperSkyline89

Das Schiesse
Location
Earth
Car(s)
2008 CW GTI
I took my car in for an alignment and corner balancing last weekend. Corner balancing was something I've wanted to do for a while but I had heard that you need adjustable end links to do it properly so I never bothered. I went to a shop called Apex Motoring that I had been given a tour of last year. They specialize in Nissan GT-R's, they work on the quickest ones in the country including one with 2000hp. They also do a lot of work on track prep so I wanted to give them a shot at my car. The shop is owned and run by younger guys that were really nice and enthusiastic about the work they do. I got an alignment that's slightly different from my previous one; I'm still at -2° of camber all around but now I only have toe out in the rear. The front is toe neutral and the rear is 0.4° out.



I drove up to Barrie the next day to autocross and see how the alignment and balancing affected my car. The difference was mind blowing. My race seat likely played a role through driver confidence but my car was on the verge of drifting around every corner. I've never been so happy with how it drove but I'm starting to see hints of traction control freaking out and becoming intrusive. I'm going to see how my next autocross event goes but I might consider pulling the fuse for autocross.





My first time attack event with CSCS is next Sunday. I'm really excited for it but I've also been getting annoying by how horrible they are at communication. I registered for the whole season last month and the only email I've received is a PayPal confirmation. I talked to some friends that have run these events before and they all said that you just sign up and show up on the day of the event. That's just insane to me because I can only assume that I'm actually classed the way I think I am and I have literally no clue what the schedule is for the event. It's really unprofessional to be honest.

My car doesn't need any more mechanical prep before the event so all I need to do is give it a proper clean today. I went by a race shop on Saturday called Paragon Competition to pick up some driver gear. I got a pair of OMP shoes and Puma gloves. I wanted to get a reflective yellow visor for my helmet but they said they couldn't get anything from Bell because of some logistics problems. I'm going to see if I can get a visor through a couple other people/shops I know this week. I also need to pick up a low profile jack so I can adjust damper settings at the track. The jack I have at home is just a normal one so I have to use 2x4's to get it under my car.



 

SuperSkyline89

Das Schiesse
Location
Earth
Car(s)
2008 CW GTI
I spent all day the day before CSCS prepping and got my car packed and ready to hit the road early Sunday morning. Normally it's an hour and a half to Mosport but since I had to pick up my photographer friend it added another hour to the trip. I woke up at 3AM and hit the road at 5:30. We got to the track fifteen minutes before the gates opened to competitors and there was already a line of about a dozen cars. First in line was a fifty foot RV and enclosed trailer, which I later found out was James Houghton in his 660hp K-Tuned sponsored Integra Type-R. If you haven't heard of him do yourself a favour and Google him. He's the second fastest time attack driver in North America right now, behind another Canadian (William Au Yeung) in a 770hp Vibrant Performance sponsored Civic.



Once we got in the gates I unloaded my car and taped up my plates before going into tech inspection. It was pretty basic, they just checked my brake lights work and made sure the battery was clamped down. They also gave me the decals they require competitors to run. There's a windshield banner, two Pirelli stickers for the fenders, and door card magnets. After I put them on there was the obligatory drivers meeting and then qualifying sessions started. Although there are four classes under each of the three drivetrain classes they ran qualifying in three groups based on how quick cars were. Each group got five fifteen minute sessions throughout the day with drifting qualifying and competition splitting it up a little.



I didn't qualify for the final timed competition but I blew away my personal best from Ontario Time Attack last year. The fastest lap I managed last season was a 1:48.822 and by the end of my day I got it down to a 1:46.653. As long as I'm improving on my own times I'm happy but I never thought I'd knock that much time off it. The slowest car in my class to qualify did a 1:43.877 and the fastest did a 1:41.499. I can definitely see myself getting to those times eventually so I'm really happy with how the day went.



CSCS is like the Canadian Gridlife so there are a lot of people spectating and checking out the show cars that are also there. Once the time attack ended all those people started leaving so once the crowd died down we left too. I drove to Markham for dinner with five other cars and got some rolling shots along the way. By the time I dropped my friend off and got home it was 10:30 and I was completely exhausted so I passed out. It took me a couple days to recover while attempting not to fall asleep at work.



I took it easy this past weekend but I'm back at the track on Saturday for Ontario Time Attack at Cayuga. It'll be my first time running timed laps there so I'll just be looking to set a baseline to improve on through the year. OTA is also running decal packages now so I'll be doubling up on the stickers with another windshield banner and set of door cards.
 

SuperSkyline89

Das Schiesse
Location
Earth
Car(s)
2008 CW GTI

Ontario Time Attack went great last weekend. I got to the track ten minutes after it opened and got registered. Since I didn't do the best job applying the CSCS windshield banner two weeks before I took it off and put the OTA banner in it's place. I ordered a new CSCS banner and I'm hoping I can fit it between the OTA banner and the sightline of my dashcam.

During the first practice run my car felt a little floaty because I had taken a click of compression out of the dampers but I got used to it quickly. I tried taking two clicks out once last year and it was so stiff I got nauseous just driving to the track but one click worked well. Despite that I've realized that the progressive springs that came with my coilovers just don't cut it for serious track work so I absolutely need to get myself a set of linear springs. I'm not going to do that this season though because I'm going to strip the interior out in a few months and I want to base my spring rates on what my car ends up weighing after that and a cage install. For now I'm going to adjust my front sway bar to full stiff and see how that feels at the next CSCS event next weekend.

These are the results from the class I was in. OTA has a really good classing system that imitates how cars are classed in video games like Forza. Each car has a number of points stock and each mod adds a set number of points. That allows complete freedom to do whatever you want and results in classes with all kinds of cars competing against each other. There was a Mk7 R in my class so for now I think he's my target

1st RX8 R3 - 84.155
2nd Miata - 84.913
3rd Golf r - 85.744
4th Celica GTS - 86.532
5th GTI - 88.491
6th Mustang - 90.325
7th MX-5 Miata - 91.522

Here's a video from my tow hook during my second timed run. One out lap, three hot laps, and an in lap, with a drive through the paddock at the end



The air conditioning died the day after OTA so I've talked to my mechanic about having that fixed before next weekend.

I've been thinking a lot about the future and I've come to the conclusion that a tow rig is going to become a necessity quickly. I'm going to start saving up now but I haven't settled on what to get yet. I like the sound of a Chevy Colorado Diesel because it's not a behemoth of a full size truck but it tows the 5000lbs I need it to. I heard that Ford is coming out with a Ranger Diesel also so that's in the running too. The biggest unknown is just the whole dieselgate thing and how that's going to affect the rest of the industry. I'm hoping pickups aren't going to be negatively affected by it but I'll just have to wait and see. I was talking to my mechanic about this yesterday, the F-150 Ecoboost he picked up a few months ago can tow 10,000lbs but it's a big boy and scary expensive. Plus I really don't need to tow that much anyway. All I'm looking for for myself is the ability to tow one stripped and caged car, store my tools in the bed, and set up a sleep area in the second row of a crew cab. A Colorado or Ranger should be able to do all of that for me.
 
Last edited:

Das Gespenst

Go Kart Champion
Location
Glen Ellyn
Awesome to see the car really coming together for you. Absolutely love the way she looks right now!! Also great to hear you are having success with it, makes the time and money well worth it when it comes together and you can experience the difference. I was hoping our car would have been a little quicker time wise but that's the outcome of a stock K03 and a stage 2 tune.

My wife and I are in the same boat tow rig wise. I will not drive it to the track anymore especially since most of our events are 2+ hours away. Should have bought the wife a truck like she originally wanted instead of the Passat. Live and learn I guess, now the hunt for a truck in our price range and figuring out what to do with the Passat begins.
 

SuperSkyline89

Das Schiesse
Location
Earth
Car(s)
2008 CW GTI
It's been a while since I posted, I've just been so busy. The season's going great but I had a setback that drained my funds for any new parts or additional events I haven't already registered and paid for. The A/C died on my GTI and I got a massive evap leak on the Kia so ended up spending thousands of dollars fixing them both. They're both good now but I won't be getting a passenger bucket seat this season now.



I've done two CSCS events since my last post. They were both at Cayuga but the second was a new layout that ran the track backwards and added two chicanes to the main straight. I managed to take over a second off my best lap at the first of the two events by getting down to a 1:27.419. That puts me 2.419 seconds away from my goal of hitting a 1:25 flat. I'm still confident I can reach that goal but with only one more event at Cayuga I don't know if I'll have the chance to get there before the season ends. I had a minor issue at that first event when the DV recirc hose ripped off the hose barb in my intake manifold. I got it fixed and got back on the track but I talked to my mechanic about it afterwards and he agreed that the hose barb supplied with the intake is too big for that size of hose. Also at that event I plastered the side of my car with the logo of the car club I'm in. It's the same logo I use as the watermark for all my pictures. It's not perfect yet (the part over my windows isn't very visible) but we're going to work on something different for next season and leave this as it is now.

[/url]

The second of the two events was really interesting. It's a new layout that's never been run before. First off they ran the track backwards. Since that meant cars were now heading straight for the pit lane exit at anywhere from 160-200+ km/h they added two chicanes on the main straight to slow them down. I was worried that we'd see cars having their rear ends get loose and hitting the wall but there wasn't a single incident all day. For me the chicanes were the most fun track experience I've ever had. They used those giant construction cones to make them so you couldn't just shrug them off like an autocross cone. After going through them a couple times though I was confident enough to get nice and close to them. I knew I was putting my car where I needed to be because I'd hear my mirrors flick the arrow signs taped to the cones. My autocross experience really paid off because I saw a lot of drivers turning a lot through the chicanes. I was braking hard into the first chicane from the top of third gear and got right back on the throttle hard once I was past the first of the three inner cones. The exit of the second chicane put us right on the inside of Turn 1 so we were forced to sacrifice it and make the Turn 1 and 2 combo a very tight v-shape to get on the throttle out of them as soon as possible. I managed to do a 1:30.933. The only reference I have is that I went 3.5 seconds slower than the normal layout which is consistent with the drivers I'm judging myself against. The quicker guys lost 4-5 seconds on their normal times but I think my lack of power made my time difference less drastic. The chicanes favour my build strategy so the loss of a straight actually benefited me.

[/url]

Unfortunately I've realized that tire stickers don't seem to be made for the kind of track work I do. My left rear is being ripped apart by the fender. My rear tires only just fit under the metal so the added thickness of the stickers is just that little bit too much. I'm only having this issue on the left because all the tracks around here are clockwise so the left side is seeing more compression than the right. Up front I lost the last two letters of the stickers. I think it's down to the tire expanded and contracting due to heat cycles and lateral loads. That stretching is probably ripping the glue apart so my front left now says HANKO instead of HANKOOK. I'm probably going to rip the leftovers off all the tires because I want to flip them on the wheels for the last event and I don't want letters possibly flapping around on the inside

[/url]

I went to Shannonville yesterday to practice for the next round of CSCS. A local drift group runs mixed lapping and drifting events a few times a year so I signed up to re-familiarize myself with the track since I've only run it once last October. That might sound a little sketchy but it was actually a really well run event with a mature down to earth crowd. Since drift lap times are really slow anyone that was lapping caught them really easily and they'd just let you pass on the straight. That also meant we didn't have to worry about anyone coming up from behind, we were the quickest cars on track by far. It was a lot of fun to see drifters from that perspective and I got some good practice in for CSCS on the 20th

This was my quickest lap of the day. I was chasing a Genesis on Continental take-off slicks. He had some suspension mods but a stock engine just like me. It was also his first ever time at the track but his dad was coaching him which was perfect because he drives the Genesis race cars for Hyundai Racing Canada. The slicks were actually from his race car. I don't know how much pace the slicks had left because he corded one of them by the end of the day but we were running very close to each other all day.



I also got a couple videos of me catching and following some drift cars going at it



I've got two more CSCS events, after which I'm going to properly ruin my car by ripping out as much of the interior as I can. The VW club I'm in is looking at setting up one last track day in October so I'm hoping to make it out to that to test my car with it's weight reduction. After that it'll go to sleep for the winter. Over the winter I'll probably just work on cleaning up the interior as much as I can and possibly having some reinforcement plates welded under the car to prepare for a bolt in Autopower half cage. I was thinking of a welded in half cage but was advised not to do that because upgrading to a full cage would require peeling the roof off which is a serious thing to do on the MkV. That advice led me to go to bolt in road for now so I can finally run harnesses.
 

SuperSkyline89

Das Schiesse
Location
Earth
Car(s)
2008 CW GTI
My 2017 season is over. I'm going to put the car away later today but I'm actually going to work on it quite a bit over the winter.



This year was light on mods and heavy on learning. I learned a new track (Cayuga) and managed to set a pretty good lap time. I played around with using tire pressures and throttle application to affect the balance of my car. I got a bunch of practice "drifting". And I'm pretty confident that I'm effectively using the potential of my tires.



I managed to get out to two autocross events in September and used them as "drift" practice. With my rear tire pressures set higher than the fronts I get serious lift off oversteer so I took advantage of that to practice recovering from slides. I've been running the same pressures front and rear at the track all year but I'll be setting it up to oversteer a little next season so this was a good chance to get comfortable with it.



I got a friend and former member here, freshpots, to do a photoshoot a couple weeks ago. I don't know if he's ever posted his stuff here but he's an incredible photographer.




A local VW club held it's last track day of the season on Saturday so I went out to see if I could set a good time. I had been shooting to get my time around Cayuga down into the 1:25's and I managed to do a 1:25.72 so I was pretty happy about that. Harry's Lap Timer was giving me trouble so I actually had someone time me on a stopwatch and then I used Adobe Premiere to manually split a multi-lap video into pieces and use the time stamps to figure out what time I did. By the stopwatch I did a 1:25.75 which is amazingly close to the 1:25.72 that the video showed





As for the winter plans, I'm going full race car. I've already stripped most of the car behind the front seats down to bare metal and did a rear wiper delete. Over the next few weeks I'm going to strip out all the carpet, take out the passenger seat (and replace it with a bucket in the spring), take out the headliner, and replace the radio with a Samsung tablet. All of that is to prep for an Autopower four-point cage and Schroth harnesses. As for the rest of the car I'm going to vent the hood, get a set of linear springs for the coilovers, and a set of reverse staggered Hankook R-S4's.


 

Das Gespenst

Go Kart Champion
Location
Glen Ellyn
I've said it before, I love your car man. Coming along nicely, looking good and it's awesome to hear your lap times are coming down with just some driver mod.

I will say, I'd highly suggest not going reverse staggered. We've seen a few guys try it and it severely unsettled the car. On paper and in theory it makes sense, but in real world it doesn't do you any favors. Stick with a square setup when it comes to tires/wheels.
 

SuperSkyline89

Das Schiesse
Location
Earth
Car(s)
2008 CW GTI
I've said it before, I love your car man. Coming along nicely, looking good and it's awesome to hear your lap times are coming down with just some driver mod.

I will say, I'd highly suggest not going reverse staggered. We've seen a few guys try it and it severely unsettled the car. On paper and in theory it makes sense, but in real world it doesn't do you any favors. Stick with a square setup when it comes to tires/wheels.

Thanks man, it's been a great year and I'm really happy with how my own driving came along. I've learned more in one year of time attack than I did in the previous three years of track days put together.

I've been talking to a few people about the reverse stagger. And you're right, it can make the car hard to handle. The tracks we have here are all completely flat and pretty low speed. My highest speed at Cayuga for example is around 150km/h. A reverse stagger helps quite a bit there. But, if I were to go to Mosport GP again that'd be different story, I definitely wouldn't want anything but a square setup there. Same would go for any of the big tracks you guys have down in the States.

A friend I ran CSCS with have been talking about setup and he's been running a pretty aggressive stagger on his Mk7 for probably half the season now, 255 Front/225 Rear Trofeo R's. He got some one on one instruction from James Houghton (the guy with the 598whp K-Tuned Integra Type-R at Gridllife) a couple months ago and that was one of the things he recommended. He runs 295 Front/225 Rear on his own car at the tracks we usually go to but has wider tires for the rear for the bigger American tracks.

I'm just doing 245 Front/235 Rear next season. It'll be a small enough stagger that I can use tire pressures and alignment specs to tame it if I need to.
 

SuperSkyline89

Das Schiesse
Location
Earth
Car(s)
2008 CW GTI
Did a little more work on the interior this weekend and then weighed everything I've taken out so far. Total came to 111lbs. I've been throwing all the fasteners and small pieces straight into the recycling bin as I take them off so they aren't included.

Center Console Lower Trim - 1lb (x2)
Door Sill Trim - 1lb (x2)
Rear Seat Base - 14lbs
Rear 40% Seat Back - 14lbs
Rear 60% Seat Back - 40lbs
Rear Seat Belts - 2lbs (x2)
Rear Armrest Panels - 8lbs (x2)
Cargo Area Floor - 4lbs
Cargo Area Side Carpets - 1lb (x2)
Cargo Area Latch Cover - 2lbs
Cargo Area Privacy Cover - 3lbs
Hatch Main Panel - 4lbs
Hatch Wiper and Motor - 4lbs

I've got both OEM seats sitting in the basement so I weighed them while I was at it and they are seriously heavy

OEM Driver Seat - 64lbs
OEM Passenger Seat - 62lbs

I'll probably pull my Sparco out next week to give me room to work and weigh it then. And I'll weight whatever passenger seat I get when I get it early next year

Next step is to take out the headliner


 

Das Gespenst

Go Kart Champion
Location
Glen Ellyn
Ditch the center console or swap fother the OEM Rabbit if you really want one. With the addition of the wing this winter I think I'm going to fully gut the rear up to the front doors like you. Also keep tossing the idea around of deleting the sunroof this winter while I'm at it. I already have the delete plate.
 
Top