The Finishing Touch
Given I had the day off, I decided to pop into my local VW stealer and see if some back-ordered parts had arrived.. I was in luck!
As the Lupo GTI doors are mildly different (other than being Aluminium..
) to the standard steel doors, the covers from my original doors did not fit here:
£25 and a few weeks of waiting, I now have these:
A quick dusting of Ed China's favourite satin black, and it was job done:
Also on the agenda for today was getting the little beastie weighed following the weight removal and redistribution process during the rebuild.
Last year, the car weighed in at 910Kg, with 116bhp.. making the power-weight ratio 129.52 BHP/ton
This year, the car now weighs 890Kg (and I assume, still has 116bhp).. giving a power-weight ratio of 132.43 BHP/ton
A decent enough improvment, but the question is - can I notice it? The answer is definately, the car is a bit sprightlier under acceleration, but the main improvement has been handling. With the battery relocated from the front, and a chunk less concentrated weight between the wheels (thanks to the doors) the car feels even more planted, and 4-wheel drifting around roundabouts has become the norm
Summary of Progress to Date:
The car is now fully developed when it comes to weight reduction and redistribution.. there will be no plastic windows or dash removal as the dash has already been thinned out, and the windows weigh little and hence it's not worth the inconvenience of perspex windows.
The jury's out on fitting an ATB LSD as I need to see how the car performs on R888's first, and then there's the ~£1000 needed to supply and fit one.
Then there's power, despite the many calls to fit a 1.8T it ain't gonna happen! I'm not about to screw up the excellent handling for the sake of more power.. therefore the 1.4 16v will be staying. The ECU has yet to be remapped, but this would be a chip-de-soldering operation due to my non-reprogrammable ECU, hence is likely to cost ~£700.. when gains may only be ~5-10bhp. Then there's supercharging, this would easily get me into the 150-190bhp range, of which the lower end of the scale would be my chosen route in order to attempt to maintain reliability. Either way you look at it, charging the engine will result in £4000+ expenditure and greatly reduced turn-key and drive reliability. Turbo's are out of the question as I drive a TDI daily and in the track car would prefer the instant power and additional low-down grunt that the 16v engine currently lacks.
So, that's the lay of the land. As I see it, the car is immense fun to drive and it's therefore time to get back behind the wheel and enjoy it!
![[B)]](/forums/styles/seatcupra/oldforumsmileys/shades.gif "Cool [B)]")
