[Soundburst]

So I bought an official gear stick from Volkswagen because it's shiny and I thought it would be screw off the old. . .screw on the new! Well. . .long story short it took me two hours and I had to rip the entire centre console out of my car, and twist a safety bar holding the stick on until it snapped and then replace it all!

It looks quite nice though!

I've also bought new discs and pads (not really a mod) and I also have some LED bulbs I'm putting in tonight for sidelights and number plate lights!

My rear washer is broken though (water comes out somewhere along the bottom of the car ) so I'm gonna have to fix that but don't know whether to try it myself or not

I know there's a modified car thread but I thought this would be a nice fresh thread where you could post things you've done recently.

Fitted a new gear stick? Bumper? Other exciting things?

[alexs2]

There is a modified thread and if this becomes a clone I'd obviously merge them.

Until then.....

New clutch to deal with a bit more torque,followed by a titanium exhaust and rounded off with the boost and mapping being tweaked.

[IronGiant]

Originally Posted by alexs2

followed by a titanium exhaust

I shudder to think what it cost

Does it go all those gorgeous rainbow colours?

[alexs2]

Originally Posted by IronGiant

I shudder to think what it cost

Does it go all those gorgeous rainbow colours?

It will....when its been built!

Got to do the clutch first.

[s70rmp]

a few weeks ago I had the Hirsch upgrade on my new car Saab 9-3 Aero TTiD auto

Hirsch Performance - 200 HP Performance Upgrade 1.9TTiD '08-'10

and it's very nice and powerful now

well was powerful before but nicer now

[Soundburst]

Originally Posted by alexs2

It will....when its been built!

Got to do the clutch first.

Are you going to do the clutch yourself? My friend did and it took him 6 hours

[DVD-Man]

What kind and age of car do you have soundburst?

[Soundburst]

I have a 2006 Polo

I tried changing the sidelight there. . .Volkswagen have made it as impossible as possible. Not only did I fail to wiggle it out. . .but now it won't light so I assume I've ripped a wire.

I shouldn't be allowed near my car haha. I'm a massive douche when it comes to cars!

[namuk]

Genetic remap and some of them Phillips extreme vision bulbs, pondering on fluffy dice though.

[davidwatsonok]

All sounds very Volkswagen to me. Stuff breaking, more stuff breaking whilst fixing the first stuff, and even more stuff breaking of its own free will.

I'm having a new clutch fitted at the mo, partly because of learner driver abuse, and partly because of the 312 torques I shoved into the engine.

I too have water spraying out of my tailgate (common on all Polo chassis VW brand cars of that era), as well as many other faults. Not doing any more mods as I hate the car and want rid so will not spend anything other than the fortune it costs me to keep fixing stuff.

[namuk]

there is mods and extreme mods, only do them to suit the standard car if not you get issues but you have to look into theses first before doing them, also you always get little problems with cars if not were is the fun in it

[montybaber]

Originally Posted by IronGiant

I shudder to think what it cost

Does it go all those gorgeous rainbow colours?

I had one on mine (well 90% titanium other 10% carbon fibre)

[gangzoom]

Most of my mods aren't visible..
Quaife LSD to stop the TC light from coming on every time I put the foot down..

Custom made forged intercooler for a bit more power...

..and a simply plug in chip, again for a bit more power

Externally, have simply added a few bits to make the rear end a bit more interesting...
The orginal..

Now de-baged, roof and boot spolier, and carbon effect exhaust exits.

Car is virtually finished, do have some downpipes to install but have decided i've got more than enough power so selling them on flee bay instead.

eBay - The UK's Online Marketplace

May still get an aftermarket cold air intake, but sourcing one in the UK seems difficult, and than theres Birds suspension kit but need to do some serious saving up for it

[TRL]

Four Philips Xtreme Vision bulbs in my Merc. What a difference, and only £22.50 per pair, plus delivery. New tyres on the back soon, as 25k miles of 500Nm has taken its toll! Looking at Continental Sport Contact 3.

Tony

[paulk]

Pick up a Mazda 2 Tamura for the wife next Friday. The car is almost perfect for what she/we want but in standard spec is just missing a centre console and bluetooth.
Have sorted an official accessory Mazda centre console which isn't worth a pic as its just a standard console with leather pad.

Also have a Parrot Mki9200 with the Mazda lead on its way and auto electrician booked for the afternoon we collect the car. Have had my eye on these for a while and now they look to have ironed out the bugs with updates it looks a good piece of kit - especially with everything it can do.

[DVD-Man]

Originally Posted by Soundburst

I have a 2006 Polo

Originally Posted by davidwatsonok

I too have water spraying out of my tailgate (common on all Polo chassis VW brand cars of that era

If the Polo of that time is similar to the Fabia 1 then there is 4 weak spots for the washers, number one happened to my OH's Fabia.

The pipe will have disconnected in one of four places. You don't need a ramp for any of them. In approximate order of likelihood:

1) Behind the trim running along the NSR seat back. Fold the seat forward and pull the plastic trim away (two round clips will come off). Find the black hose running up from the floor into the boot, and locate the connector. Push the two sections together, and fasten with a cable-tie if required (at your own risk: the connector is a 'weak link' to protect against the hose itself bursting)

2) Behind the brake lines running to and from the ABS unit, on the engine bay bulkhead, approximately behind the top/right corner of the engine. There will be a stub hose coming out of the bulkhead, and the other section of hose will most likely be hanging loose. You will find it easier to unscrew the top of the air filter box and move it out of the way. Then reach in and connect the two sections of pipe. It's possible with one hand, although if you have small hands and arms, it will be easier to use both. Use a cable-tie if you wish, but the above warning applies. Make sure the engine's cold if you have to do this, as you'll be fiddling about next to some potentially very hot parts!

3) At the connector to the rear washer pump. The trim inside the boot lid pulls away (you may need to prop it open), and you can then access the pump. Re-fitting the trim can be tricky if you bend the clips, and don't forget the feed the pull handle through before you start putting it all back together! Again, you can cable-tie if you want, but it's at your own risk.

4) At the connector to the reservoir pump. Remove the Torx scews around the front edge of the NSF wheel arch, pull it back and use a bit of wood or plastic to wedge it open. You can then access the pump, reconnect the hose (and cable-tie at your own risk!)

[Soundburst]

Thanks for those instructions! Going to check that out during the week to fix it!

Put LED's in the number plates and got a mechanic I know to put in my LED sidelights to replace the crappy ugly yellow ones. He got them out easily. After having me told him it was impossible

[montybaber]

I was number 2 :0)

[alexs2]

Originally Posted by Soundburst

Are you going to do the clutch yourself? My friend did and it took him 6 hours

NOooo!

It's way too much spannering for me to be honest,even if I did have the time.

The gearbox has to come out,after the subframe has been dropped along with one of the driveshafts,plus it's a US sourced clutch,so we still have our fingers crossed on fitting.

It's a Spec Stage3+ which will take around 580lbs,then I can get on with the other plans.

[Soundburst]

Haha. Yeah I was questioning your sanity....my gear stick replacement involved two torn 15 screws and the breaking of a bolt and even that made me say : "No more self done modifications that require ANY tool".

[alexs2]

Originally Posted by Soundburst

Haha. Yeah I was questioning your sanity....my gear stick replacement involved two torn 15 screws and the breaking of a bolt and even that made me say : "No more self done modifications that require ANY tool".

My sanity's OK.....I leave all sanity related issues to these guys...

AMDEssex

Getting the auxiliary fuel pump and pressure regulator into the car caused skinned fingers and much swearing,but thankfully not mine!

I've always gone by trusting a company that can build and race cars.....I've seen their BTCC engineering,and what they've done to mine is very tidy and hasn't broken yet.

[Soundburst]

My gear stick kept twisting and it was annoying me. Anyway took everything back off and turns out I hadn't pushed it down hard enough to lock into place LOL. Thankfully I didn't die during that period and have fixed it.

See?! I'm even stupid at the most mundane of tasks.

[timus]

Just got some Renault Sport mats for my Clio 182.

[McFaber]

The dampers and springs are well and truly shot on my 11yr old Audi so I'm replacing them with Bilstein B6 sports and Eibach Pro Sport. I guess the roadholding should be slightly improved.

[G a f f e r]

OK, well some VERY cheap ones here from me:

LED Sidelights, NumberPlate Lights and Boot light

Thought I'd update my GE Jazz with better sidelights.

The problem is that the stock ones are definitely too dim to be useful imo, and whereas the sidelights in most cars used to be part of the light cluster (and thus, even though dim, would use the main reflector to light up the whole thing):

they're nowadays housed in their own discrete "housing" within the cluster. This means that they don't light up the whole thing at a low level, but instead glow very dimly as discrete spots of light.
I noticed that when a fellow Jazz was oncoming or following behind with sidelights on, they were a bit too inconspicuous for my liking.....so I changed 'em.

Here's the comparison shots between stock and LED:

...and here's a comparison with all lights on:

The LEDs are 25 LED lights for the fronts, but I also got single LEDs for the number plate to match the stock LED rear light clusters:

...and a double LED for the boot (which is otherwise far too dim to be useful imo - especially in the staff car park at night):

Overall, they came to about £4.39 each including delivery (I also bought a spare for the fronts too).
You can get them for cheaper on Ebay (down to half the price sometimes), but run the risk of getting cheaply made stuff that burns out after a few months, hopefully mine'll last a lot longer.


I wasn't intending to "match" the headlights by making them HID because I don't want to damage or interfere with the cabin light levelling mechanism, this was just to make the car more easily visible in overcast/rainy conditions when sidelights only are on.....the fact that they add a more "white tinge" to the headlights is a bonus .



...and....

[G a f f e r]

Fake Alarm LED

Another quick'n'easy mod here.

Noticed how your Jazz "acts" like it's alarmed (e.g. flashing the indicators on lock/unlock) but actually isn't? Well, I thought just to put a finishing touch in, I'd add a cheap fake flashing LED.
These come for a couple of quid off ebay all prewired and simply require connecting to the correct wires.

It works by connecting the positive lead to permanent (battery) positive, and connecting the negative lead to Accessory (Ignition) positive. This way, when the car is off, ACC+ is not live but PERM+ is so current flows and the LED flashes. When you sit in the car and switch on, ACC+ now becomes live but so is PERM+ so no current flows so the LED turns off.

The problem arises in that some circuits will now "go live" when you turn the ignition off as they're receiving a positive via the LED you've attached into their circuit (so when I tried connecting it to ACC+ fuse, the radio turned on....same as when I used Cigarette Lighter fuse). Alternatively, other circuits may confuse the ECU and result in Power Steering to switch off (e.g. using the rear wiper motor fuse).

So I ended up using an existing fuse for PERM+ (one that was already live on the multimeter whether ignition was on or not, the wire on the right), but for ACC+ I bought a spare 7.5A fuse and added it into a circuit that wasn't there ----- my Jazz doesn't have daytime running lights, so I simply "used" that unused circuit that has ACC+ power but isn't wired up to anything (the wire on the left of this picture):

The way I did it was to "curl" the bare wire end around the right hand blade of the micro fuse. This way, the LED is actually protected by that fuse (it's on the right side of the blade), but more importantly, it is very secure (fuse blade fits very tightly when there's a wire along it) and I haven't cut into anything and risked ruining wiring looms. Plus, if I want to remove it at some point in the future, I simply get a blanking plate from ebay for a couple of quid, and take the wire out from the fuses (remove fuse, unwrap wire, replace fuse)....so it is easily reversible and hasn't caused permanent changes to the electrics.

Wired into blanking plate:

The blanking plate is the only thing unused in my Jazz (I think it's where the comfort lighting switch would otherwise sit) so wiring it in here meant that it was a) near the fuse box and b) looks fairly "stock" (plus, as mentioned above, it's easy to reverse by putting a new blanking plate in).

Clear LED in discrete housing with ignition on.

When Flashing (ignition off):

It's nice and bright, but the only problem I have with it is that it flashes at about 2Hz, and I would've preferred something more along the lines of 1Hz, but it'll do for the time being

[namuk]

G a f f e r just ordered some white Led side lights i am looking for white interior lights ii have some saved but there is millions of different types and density i just do not want to turn into a chav over night picking the wrong kit,
were did you get yours as it is a different car but i just need a guide on the strength of light, thought it was only going to take me 20mins to sort this out but it is turning into a right job lol

[jerryjal]

Just fitted the XFR rear diffuser on my Jaguar xf 3.0d s.

I think it really improves the look.

Before and after below.

[G a f f e r]

Originally Posted by namuk

G a f f e r just ordered some white Led side lights i am looking for white interior lights ii have some saved but there is millions of different types and density i just do not want to turn into a chav over night picking the wrong kit,
were did you get yours as it is a different car but i just need a guide on the strength of light, thought it was only going to take me 20mins to sort this out but it is turning into a right job lol

Sidelights: I specifically wanted a brighter version so I went for 25LED bulbs. However, I ordered 3 separate times (one for left, then right and one spare) and actually ordered 30LED bulbs but the company I got them from sent me the wrong ones THREE TIMES. Even after asking for a return, they insisted on a tracking number but then refused to refund anything more than standard shipping - meaning I would end up out of pocket despite it being their mistake. As a result, I would definitely NOT recommend them (ultraleds.co.uk). In the end, it ended up being cheaper just sticking with the wrong ones they sent so that's what I ended up doing.

Number Plate lights: Simply out of pure luck I picked single LEDs which are pretty much the same luminosity as standard, just white in colour rather than sickly yellow. This was luckily exactly what I wanted

Boot Light: I need more visibility so may get even brighter ones at a later date - the advantage with these being that they do NOT need to be CAN-BUS versions and thus you have a wider selection available.

All the above lights are T10/W5W/501 10mm wedge bulbs 5W

All the interior lights (mentioned below) are 31mm festoon, 8w

Interior lights: I do not recommend changing these because interior lights tend to look too harsh when converted to LED imo and actually appear better as they are with the stock bulbs. Also, if your interior light "dims" on/off when unlocking/locking the car, that won't happen with LED replacements....they'll simply turn on/off at some point (I think the dimming looks quite good so have left them stock in my Jazz).

[namuk]

Originally Posted by G a f f e r

Sidelights: I specifically wanted a brighter version so I went for 25LED bulbs. However, I ordered 3 separate times (one for left, then right and one spare) and actually ordered 30LED bulbs but the company I got them from sent me the wrong ones THREE TIMES. Even after asking for a return, they insisted on a tracking number but then refused to refund anything more than standard shipping - meaning I would end up out of pocket despite it being their mistake. As a result, I would definitely NOT recommend them (ultraleds.co.uk). In the end, it ended up being cheaper just sticking with the wrong ones they sent so that's what I ended up doing.

Number Plate lights: Simply out of pure luck I picked single LEDs which are pretty much the same luminosity as standard, just white in colour rather than sickly yellow. This was luckily exactly what I wanted

Boot Light: I need more visibility so may get even brighter ones at a later date - the advantage with these being that they do NOT need to be CAN-BUS versions and thus you have a wider selection available.

All the above lights are T10/W5W/501 10mm wedge bulbs 5W

All the interior lights (mentioned below) are 31mm festoon, 8w

Interior lights: I do not recommend changing these because interior lights tend to look too harsh when converted to LED imo and actually appear better as they are with the stock bulbs. Also, if your interior light "dims" on/off when unlocking/locking the car, that won't happen with LED replacements....they'll simply turn on/off at some point (I think the dimming looks quite good so have left them stock in my Jazz).

sorted now but thanks , all bulbs ordered and re ordered some due too the Boot/glove box are different sizes and got a Canbus one that was too long for the map lights, all are the SMD type i tried one in the interior main light and that dimmed fine i will see how the rest turn out, got a 9 led for the side lights it is brighter but not as bright as yours in the pic unless that's the was the photo was taken,
it is a bit of a bloody mine field out there i can tell you