Jay's Golf Coupe "racek0r" project

[xjay1337]

Kind of, I was like, oh great, 300 yards from the busiest frickin roundabout in Basingstoke was not the one I have to admit.

Damn clips provoking troublesome and worrying situations.

Glad it was just a minor issue.

Exactly, minor but annoying, when a 10p part fails and strands you.

Gave the car it's yearly wash and decontamination.

IMG_4136-3 by Fat Bear Photography, on Flickr

Just a gentle polish, combination of Scholl S20 Black and Megs 205 on a mediumy pad (Green Hexlogic if you're interested).

IMG_4142-6 by Fat Bear Photography, on Flickr


Coated with Gtechniq Crystal Serum light which was a breeze to be honest.

IMG_4153-15 by Fat Bear Photography, on Flickr

Thanks to Elite Car Care for the use of the unit :-)
And dan for touching me.



I have a trackday on Friday at Bedford SEN. See how we stand with the oil cooler and suspension tweaks. (the H&R Rollbars and also fitted an UltraRacing underbody brace.

After that I am collecting a Blue Needle cluster. (mine has Red needles. Blue came on some R-Line models)
And also getting a braided clutch line done at AKS cos it's 5 minutes away, which completely removes the risk of having the OEM line and connections fail.
Annoyingly when we did the oil cooler we were going to do one but ran out of time.


I have sourced some additional parts as well with the help of Bobby, to help with power. My cylinder head is back with us now and the turbo is ready.

I have headbolts, just need a head rebuild kit with all the gaskets etc and some pipework and then the tear down will begin.

[xjay1337]

Did my first trackday of the year.

(Footage from my first session at my first time at Bedford, I got a lot better but didn't take footage, I will explain).

I wanted to test out my oil cooler. It worked. I could go for about 6 or 7 flat out laps which is about 15 minutes, which is about as long as I do in any one sitting anyway.

Unfortunately, the car had other ideas.

20170120_144416 by Fat Bear Photography, on Flickr

The car decided to overheat, luckily caught it before it was too severe, and dump it's coolant onto the track / pits.
Despite this, there was no obvious leak. There was a sh*t ton of water around the reservoir, but it was also all over the engine bay, so no obvious point of egress.
I topped it up, bled it, seemed ok for the next session.
Then my third session, it did it again. So I stopped.

I went to AKS Tuning after, we fitted a braided clutch line.

20170120_163016 by Fat Bear Photography, on Flickr

Didn't really do much, slightly more feel which is good, but the main point is it eliminates the failure parts of the OEM clutch pipe.

We tried to find the water leak, but Alex nor I could see any obvious point of egress. Very annoying.

20170120_162300 by Fat Bear Photography, on Flickr

After further investigation, and an 80 mile drive today, it seems fine.
I suspect a couple of things may have happened.

1) Cylinder head lift (typical on big turbo TDI's).
Oem bolts are 10.9 tensile strength, at high boost and high heat situations you lift the head off the block which allows exhaust gasses into the cooling circuit , pressurising it.

2) A weak/failing O-ring on the coolant temperature sensor.
This seems to have some amounts of coolant on the pipe past it. We think this is the only obvious point of failure as there are no splits or leaks in the system . The o-ring / CTS will be replaced when we re-build the head.
I did go to see Bobby, my tuner, today as he needed to test a known-working Lambda sensor on another car he was tuning, while I was there, we pressure tested the cooling system and there was no leaks. The pressure tester was not 100% but we got to about 17psi and nothing was coming out with engine off or running.

I've parked that issue for now and just avoid extended high speed driving.

I also fitted a new dash cluster. As I had wanted blue needles for a long time and finally got around to getting them done.

Here is my OEM cluster.

20170120_055218 by Fat Bear Photography, on Flickr

and here's the replacement, it's from a Golf Mk6 GTD, but the needles were swapped and the SMD's on the dash cluster themselves were replaced to give the correct OEM blue type needles.

20170122_163922 by Fat Bear Photography, on Flickr

20170122_163944 by Fat Bear Photography, on Flickr

So not all bad news.

That's it for now. :)

[Shoduchi]

Nice to see you having fun on the track! Just pity about the coolant leak issue that spoiled the day. I hope you can sort it soon so you can fully enjoy your beast!

The new cluster looks great too!

[Dan_FR]

Before I even got through half that post - head lift came to mind! Especially since it was fine and not leaking afterwards under less extreme conditions.

 Any chance of sourcing some upgrades to rule out?

[Pesky jones]

Watched your video through, your wobble/reaction and your wave when passing Dan made me laugh  looks fast! Looks like a good day for it as well. Shame about the coolant, at least you have a starting point.

[xjay1337]

Nice to see you having fun on the track! Just pity about the coolant leak issue that spoiled the day. I hope you can sort it soon so you can fully enjoy your beast!

The new cluster looks great too!

Thanks :D it was good, i enjoyed the track, and lots of run off :) i will go back for sure.
i hope we can fix it soon, i'm sure with rebuild it will be better 

Watched your video through, your wobble/reaction and your wave when passing Dan made me laugh  looks fast! Looks like a good day for it as well. Shame about the coolant, at least you have a starting point.

Haha yes, it was a lot of fun :)

I'm just sad I didn't get footage later in the day when it had warmed up and I knew the track, my lines especially around the long right handers were a lot better so could carry more speed!
was a beautiful day, just a bit cold , but sunny, couldn't have had it better, 2 years before it was snowing!
i got footage from dan's car as well, he can share that on his thread if he likes. we are just chatting and giggling like a bunch of girls.

Before I even got through half that post - head lift came to mind! Especially since it was fine and not leaking afterwards under less extreme conditions.

 Any chance of sourcing some upgrades to rule out?

we are rebuilding the top end with ported head etc middle of february.
we have found some better studs, and we will torque them to two dugga duggas 

[xjay1337]

No major updates.

Friend and I took the whole front end of, as the car was over heating with hard driving, and while I think it's the HG and cyl head studs failing (pressurising coolant circuit) I also had symptoms of a blocked radiator.

We wanted car 100% before we begin tuning so for the small cost decided to fit a new Hella unit.

Also there's a coolant circuit that I have looped due to my oil cooler installation. The hose is not ideal and was only a temporary solution, so I have measured the outlets and gotten an appropriately sized ASH 180 degree silicone hose.

20170208_192931 by Fat Bear Photography, on Flickr

Also ordered some additional silicones up for the upcoming work.
We are beginning strip down on Friday 3rd of March so new cyl head, upgraded valve springs, hybrid vklr turbo and some other cool bits are going on.
Hopefully smash the 300bhp barrier.

It has been very frustrating sourcing parts from europe and getting details for example finding the right upgraded valve spring but thanks to Bobby were have everything we need now.

[Tfsi_Mike]

My new oil cooler (HEL with Mocal adapter) does away with the oem oil heat exchanger. Do you think I will end up with coolant system issues???

[Shoduchi]

Love reading your updates! Always very interesting and knowledgeable.

[xjay1337]

Thanks :) I'm glad you enjoy reading the updates haha!

My new oil cooler (HEL with Mocal adapter) does away with the oem oil heat exchanger. Do you think I will end up with coolant system issues???

No, can't see why..?

I have no coolant going to my oem heat exchanger anyway.

The kinked pipe is not ideal, but is temporary and solved with a suitable U-hose. but I believe the issue is due to my head gasket / head studs failing. as i said previously 10.9 tensile studs and 2.4 bar boost is a recipe for disaster.

[Tfsi_Mike]

I must've miss read something further up. 

[xjay1337]

I must've miss read something further up.

I think the layout is different on the TFSI.

On this, you can't run coolant lines to OEM exchange as there's not enough room.

[ashtdi]

When you remove the cylinder head check across all 4 cylinders with a flat metal ruler and a bright torch shining against it to make sure the block isn't warped. If its warped then you will see the light shining under and out the other side of the flat ruler etc as you move it along the top of the block.

One of the lads at darkside with a 2.0 CR with GTB2260 had the exact same problem as you, head were lifting causing coolant to leak when on track due to heat and abuse. When he took the head off it had warped the block! His car is a 170 CR but the blocks are pretty much all the same.

He tryed some evans waterless coolant in and ARP head studs but the damage was already done and it still lost coolant on a track day the week after.

I reckon your block will be warped dude :(

[xjay1337]

Will do mate - fingers crossed its just the head.
Cheers.

[th3_f15t]

Saw your car at UD this weekend, looks rather tasty mate. Keep the updates coming, love seeing a bit of diesel tuning.