How To Modify Your Golf GTI | THE ULTIMATE GUIDE

I'm assuming you're watching this video because either you own a Mark 7 Golf GTI or you want to buy a Mark 7 Golf GTI and you want just one video that's going to tell you everything that you need to know on how to modify your car well you have come to the right place in this video we're going to cover Wheels tires exhaust suspension intakes tunes and all the other mad mods that are specific to the Mark 7 golf platform plus we're going to hear from some experts on how you can get the most out of your golf's wagon this is how to modify your Mark 7 Golf GTI proudly brought to you by us Mighty Car Mods [Music] the Mark 7 golf platform was made between 2012 and 2021 and the GTI version of this car has become one of the most popular cars in history to modify why because they're good how good really good I've owned over a hundred cars over the years and lots of them have been golfs I've had a Mach 3 4 5 6 7 and an eight and for some reason I keep coming back to the vag platform but what is the best of all of them it's a 7.5 GTI dammit if you don't check the comments we made one of the fastest Mark 7 Golf hours in Australia in Street trim it did the quarter mile in 11.2 seconds and zero to 102.8 but the Golf GTI is the superior vehicle they're more affordable they're lighter they're arguably more fun they meet the definition of a hot hatch being front-wheel drive and with just a flash tune it's just as fast as a golfer anyway how do we know because we hired a racetrack got a professional race car driver and a Mark 8 Golf R and a mark 7.5 GTI with a flash tune when they've got the same tires their lap times are the same let's be honest your average car buyer doesn't know the difference between front-wheel drive and all-wheel drive anyway and to prove the point I'm going to call my mum who's not an average person but she probably has about an average knowledge about cars so let's see what she has to say what kind of car would you prefer out of a front-wheel drive or an all-wheel drive car front wheel drive ours are absolute rubbish that's why I drive a Subaru if you've already got a Golf GTI then you know exactly what I'm talking about but if you don't have one yet and you're in the market which one do you buy you head straight on down to your corner store you get a plastic bag full of one cent lollies and you grab yourself a performance pack 7.5 you can get them in three door and five door but the three door looks weird they got the proportions wrong Five Doors better and more practical the performance pack used to be a performance upgrade that you could pay for from the factory as an option but from 2019 onwards in Australia anyway it became the standard trim so what do you get power's up from 169 kilowatts to 180 kilowatts and you get a limited slip differential you get big ventilated brakes off the Golf R and a top speed of 250 kilometers an hour the interior of the mark 7.5 is absolutely incredible it's this nice dark space there's blacks and Grays everywhere there's real buttons the down audio sound system is one of the best sound systems I've ever heard in any car ever and these tartans seats they're just the best so you've got your car now let's talk about mods [Music] wheels and tires are pretty much the first thing that anyone wants to change when they're modifying their car it can drastically alter the way that the car looks plus the kind of tire that you choose can help with your acceleration cornering and braking there are lots of wheel options available from Japan and from Europe and there's even ones available from China but when someone says check out my JDM Wheels they're probably from Japan look at my wheels made in Germany they're probably made in Germany when someone just says check out my wheels they're probably from China if you've got a mark 7.5 Golf GTI this is everything you need to know about wheels and tires the stud pattern is five by one one twelve the Center Bar is 57.1 millimeters the thread pitch is 1.5 millimeters and make sure you use a ball mount wheel bolt not a cone Mount because they're two totally different things make sure you're using something that's compatible with your wheels that is all the nerdy information that you need take a screenshot of it right now one of the most common aftermarket wheel fitment options for the Mark 7 golf is an 18 by 8.5 with a plus 45 offset that gives you a nice little bit of flushness over here but if you don't want to spend lots of money on an aftermarket wheel you can also use a wheel that is an upgrade from a different line of car from the same manufacturer so this here is an 18 by 8 this is a Pretoria wheel this here it doesn't have as an aggressive fitment which might mean that you need some spaces in Volkswagen land they call it a flush fitment kit it's not a flush fitment kit it's just spaces but more on that later this here runs a 225 by 40 Tire you can also go 19s if you want but depending on the quality of the roads where you are and 19 May mean that you sacrifice some comfort when it comes to your tires what do you use this here's a pilot support 5 one of the best all-around tires that you can get but if you are spending a bit more time at the track you can also look at getting a Michelin Pilot Sport cup 2 you're going to get a little bit more performance in the drive but you're going to lose a little bit of performance in the way if you do have really wide wheels and tires and your car is lowered you might need to do what Volkswagen enthusiasts call the fender bolt removal mod there's a little bolt just under here that's holding the fender to the guard here and if you go really low that can cause some scrubbing so all you need to do is remove it but it's not just remove it it's the fender bolt removal mod just like the spaces are not spaces they're flush wheel mount kits is this a non-vertical mod because I'm sitting down no I'm just sitting down but if your car's low and your wheels and tires are wide you might need to remove that so your car doesn't rub these are some of the things you have to deal with when you become part of the Volkswagen Community if you're straight out of low cash but you do want to give your car a bit more of an aggressive stance with its Wheels then the cheapest way of doing it is using a flush mount kit which is basically getting the factory wheels that are on your car and spacing them out a little bit more so that they fill the guards a little bit better now you can buy spaces from eBay for like 20 or 30 bucks but I would recommend if you are going to do this to actually get some flush mounting kits from a reputable brand but be prepared to pay like five or six hundred dollars for them now on the front they're going to be 15 mil wide usually and on the back they're going to be 20 mil wide it's up to you whether you want to use them or not they might be illegal in your country so make sure you do your own research heaps them in information on Facebook groups heaps of information on forums so check that out that should be your wheels and tires sorted now let's move on to exhausts [Music] PTI you got format main options number one a resonator delete number two a Cat-Back exhaust number three a dump pipe and number four a full turbo back exhaust and I'm going to explain each of them to you in detail the absolute cheapest exhaust modification that you can do is a resonator delete so that is getting the factory system that already exists on your car taking it to an exhaust shop and getting someone to chop out the center resonator and replacing it with a piece of straight pipe but don't just take my word for it let's hear from someone who does this for a living res deletes 10 minute job I've done it thousands of times if you delete the center resonator your golf's going to sound good if you delete your rear Muffler it's going to sound like and your neighbors are going to hate you probably the most common exhaust modification that you can do yourself at home is a Cat-Back exhaust so that is something that goes from the factory catalytic converter all the way back you'll get a little bit more volume and you'll also get some mad exhaust tips and you don't need a flash tune to make it work for those looking for performance the other option is keeping the factory system but replacing the dump putt this does need a tune it is going to make you more power and in some states now it's illegal to do the dump pipe modification therefore a stage two may not be available anymore which brings us on to the last option which would be a turbo back system it is definitely the best way if you want the most amount of power but it's also going to cost you the most amount of money it's a complete aftermarket system that goes from the turbo all the way out the back of the car but you'll definitely need a tune to get the most of it your exhaust is done let's move on to the intake [Music] of time one of the most important modifications that anyone can do to their car is giving it a hectic intake sound it's why people have been doing it for years 500 years ago people were doing this why were they doing it because they can make their cars sound mad like how much power though are you actually going to make by replacing your intake well we have done extensive testing over the years we've done turbo cars we've done non-turbo cars we've done pod filters we've done different intake systems and the answer is well it's a little bit complicated it turns out with modern cars the intakes are actually pretty good but there are still gains to be made particularly if you tune for it and what's not in dispute is how mad you can make your car sound the simplest and cheapest intake mod that you can do is a performance drop-in filter it's a filter that replaces the OEM filter and is designed to give you performance how much power will you actually make nothing we've done some testing and in our tests we made absolutely nothing the Box may tell you otherwise but what I will say is a drop-in performance filter that's new is probably going to give you more performance than an old out of date OEM filter moving on from there you get a proper open pod filter with a full intake system that's actually designed for performance for your car and with a tune these can actually make some power but on this platform while you're at it you should also look at your turbo inlet pipe there's some huge gains that can be found there and if you're playing around down that part of the engine that's probably a good time also particularly if you're running some boost to look at upgrading your DV valve when it comes to choosing your intake all of the major tuning houses have different intake options some of them are using silicon some of them are made out of carbon fiber and the prices can range from a couple of hundred dollars through to thousands of dollars there's heaps of videos out there and heaps of information so do a bit of research and so you can find it actually fits your budget but one thing that is an important consideration is is that in some countries in some states it's illegal to have an open air filter like this but people do love the sound of it so there is an option to get something like this that's open but then you can also fully enclose it like this which means you've got a street option and a track option all right people that's your intake now let's move on to suspension the mqb platform is renowned for its agility and its handling but that doesn't stop people wanting to have a play around with it particularly when it comes to ride height now normally what people want to do is just drop a little bit off and the standard kind of load spring that you'd get would lower around 25 to 35 mils all the way around and if people want to do more than that then they would use a coilover one consideration though is that if the roads where you are are rubbish and your car has the Adaptive suspension you're going to want to go with a lowered spring again because that means you get to keep the adaptability of your suspension so the other thing that people also want to do though when they're out at the track is they want to try and fix some of the understeer and what can greatly improve the performance of your car on the track and when driving hard is a rear sway bar but what does it do and how do you install it good question so here is a white line rear sway bar for the golf specifically this is the 22 mil version two point adjustable as you can see biggest bang for buck handling upgrade that you can install all at home in my opinion it's going to improve the roll stiffness in the rear of the vehicle giving you more turning more cornering grip and improving your lap times so it's going to feel better on the track but it's also going to feel much better to drive on the street there's also a trend these days of people just enjoying their cars ride exactly as it came from the factory in the past obviously people used to lower them massively but now people have a much more utilitarian view of their car and they want to be able to use it every single day which means stock ride height if you go to different car groups and Enthusiast groups you'll see now there's stock height gang where people go around posting photos of their stock height car certainly with my Mark 8 Golf R I originally had lowered Springs in it and I eventually put the stock Springs back in because I just wanted to be able to drive around all the crummy roads that are around Sydney so stock height is definitely a thing that is your suspension sorted people now let's move on to the important one we're talking about flashes yes Tunes [Music] foreign do you want to put your cars servicing longevity and warranty in the bin well you've come to the right place people because this is what your manufacturer would have you believe if you run a flash tune on your Golf GTI but what is a flash tune a flash tune is essentially pulling the memory out of the factory engine management system then jumbling it all up modifying it optimizing your Boost tables your ignition tables your fueling tables your torque tables then putting that memory back into the engine management system riding it in with a special tool with a special version of software start the car up if it's a stage one essentially the car will have no modifications at all but you can gain up to 20 30 40 more torque resulting in more power there's a couple of options of how you can install a flash tune onto your car's ECU you can go down to one of the Distributors of one of the major tuning houses in your country go to the workshop and they'll actually plug your car in make sure it's got constant battery power and then load in your stage one two three or 99 tune depending on what other mods are on your car alternatively you can get something like this an access port which you can buy online and plugged into your OBD2 port you can actually download the programs down into your car's ECU yourself you can also choose crackle Tunes you can have valet modes there's all sorts of different features that it can unlock depending on which brand you're using and what it does but a stage one tune is going to be the best bang for buck performance you can do with your Golf GTI but what's going to complement your tune perfectly is also a TCU tune a transmission control unit tune or a TCU tune or a DSG tune is basically software that is affecting how your gearbox responds and reacts based on the input from your right foot it is the perfect complement once you're going stage one and above and I reckon it's a must for your GTI foreign stock or whether it's modified changing the oil is the number one thing that you can do to maintain the integrity and longevity of your engine in the case of the Mark 7 Golf GTI its oil is specified as Castrol it even says it on the cap here we use 5W30 LL this here is the only oil that we would put in this car if you're doing your own oil changes use this if your car's actually being I worked on by a shop buy the oil yourself take it down there and go please service it with this this is the only oil that we run in all of our cars Volkswagen and otherwise it is made for performance it's what Castrol Edge is and it's the only thing you should be sticking in Your Mark 7 GTI if you've followed all the steps in this video then right now you should have a mad fast car that sounds good it looks good plus has all the practicality and safety and comfort that your golf's wagon is known for but you've got your main chili dish and you want a couple of little spicy sides here are a few other common modifications that people do weather Shields are a really common modification plus they're practical as well you can crack your windows when it's raining to get some air in without water getting into your car Golf R tail lights are also a really popular modification you can buy OEM but they're really expensive or you can get some aftermarket replicas and they massively update and upgrade the look of the rear end of your GTI black badges are a really common modification as is body kits and lip kits there are so many different options out there so do some research yourself and see what styles you like but what do you do from here if you want to squeeze your banana even harder well the next logical step is a Turbo upgrade the Turbo from the Golf R the is-38 is a direct fit to the Golf GTI which can give you major gains and if you want even more than that you can look at something like the revo hybrid turbo which is capable of up to 500 horsepower but then dive down the rabbit hole you go because you've got to need a better fueling system cooling system front mount intercooler coils Sparks plus you're going to want to also upgrade your brakes because you're going to be going so quick and that is an expensive exercise for your daily but there it is hopefully this video has given you a little spicy taste of what is possible for your mad Mark 7.5 Golf GTI as far as we're concerned it's one of the best daily drivable performance cars that you can buy and we hope you enjoyed this video if you've got any more comments that you think could help other owners of this car please dump them down below and it can be a compendium of mad badge Wagon in information a compendium of wisdom of all of the Volkswagen owners out there we hope you enjoyed this video there are going to be more in the series of other popular cars I'm Moog from Mighty Car Mods see you next time for another episode of how to modify your car [Music]

Channel: Mighty Car Mods

Views: 408,536

Keywords: mighty, car, mods, mcm, MCM, moog, marty, turbo, jdm, how, to, diy, do, it, yourself, nissan, subaru, supercharged, race

Id: JuUkS_uCXJI

Length: 17min 15sec (1035 seconds)

Published: Wed Aug 09 2023