It didn't take long - the mods begin!

[Deleted member 48395]

I've owned my car (1.6 S) for nearly a year and left it alone, been on here a week and I have a list of things to do to it

Unfortunetly I don't have a lot of money to put into the car at the moment as I am trying to save up to move into my own place. Still, a few bits won't hurt I think most mods are going to be cosmetic, as my insurance is already expensive without adding performance mods.

First things first, got the Fabia wiper installed on saturday, so much better than the standard its unbelieveable. Ordered my white dials of eBay earlier this afternoon so I'm hopeful they will be decent and not too tricky to fit. Next up will be mats (I currently have none) and I will be replacing the interior door gab handles, either with standard ones, or re-painted/wrapped ones and also a leather handbrake cover.

Now comes the more fun bit! I would like to get thefront and rear bumpers colour coded, most likely doing the black side strips as well. Unfortunetly this one depends a lot on how much it is going to cost, but I will cross that bridge when I come to it.

Finally I am considering a change in air filter and maybe an induction kit. In all honesty I'm not exactly sure of the ins and outs of how they work, cold air feeds etc so a lot more reading to be done methinks. Is changing the air filter alone going to achieve anything?

I have a few more items on my list (TT pedals, HID kit...) but I can't do it all at once, so see how I get on.

 

[Seat Gooner]

you got the bug mate

 

[Willie]

Changing the air filter will give you some induction noise but in actual performance gains it won't be worth the money.
You be better off smoothing the inside of you OEM air box and fitting a freer flowing panel filter like K&N Pipercross etc.

Painting/colour coding would be cheap done on a homer or potentially expensive done through the books.
You could do the removal and prep work yourself then all you need a garage to do is to spray the top coat and laquer, that would save you alot.

If you wanting LCR door handles PM me

 

[Deleted member 48395]

I plan to have a poke under the engine cover (once I figure out how to get it off!) and see about the airbox/filters etc. Can't PM at the moment, but will do once my account is upgraded!

 

[Willie]

The engine cover, if it's the same as the LCR one, you have to remove the oil fill cap, unbolt the front two bolts and slide the whole cover straight forward.
Any upward pull will break the two tabs on the back.

Shame Seat technicians don't know this either.

 

[Deleted member 48395]

As far as I can tell I have no bolts! I think it may just be a yank it off jobby, but not something I want to get wrong!

 

[Willie]

Take a picture and post it up through photobucket and we'll have a look

 

[Willie]

http://www.seatcupra.net/forums/showthread.php?t=44849&highlight=removing+engine+cover+1.6

 

[Deleted member 48395]

Aha,I hadn't managed to dig out those threads! Cheers, I will have a try later and see what I find.

 

[Deleted member 48395]

I'm also considering a partial de-badging, but have quite a stupid question! If I was to go for the L E O N lettering on the back, is that just the original letters respaced or do people use new (I assume larger) letters from dealer / ebay?

 

[Fox god]

I'm sure i saw a thread on here about the L E O N lettering ages ago, it had all the measurements for spacing and everything. I guess the dealers would be the way to go, but to be honest most people remove those badges anyway as the back looks a lot better without but thats just my opinion

 

[Deleted member 48395]

I know the one you mean, had looked at it before http://www.seatcupra.net/images/leoncupra_guides/debadge/spacing.jpg though I hadn't paid enough attention to noticed it had the letter dimensions on as well

 

[Willie]

Also so much easier to polish without badges on any panels
All I have is the cupra badge on the driver side rear of the boot

 

[Deleted member 48395]

After some further reading I get the feeling that doing any performance mods on the car will end up with minimal (if any) gains for what is potentially quite a bit of cash. Is this a fair view? If so I will spend the cash on tidying up the car (colour coding and possibly new wheels) while stashing money away from the other half to buy a cupra in a few years time!

 

[Willie]

TBH your right.

Even driving a LCR compared to the new MK2 LC is disappointing.
The new ones are far ahead of the MK1's.

but you will get more performance out of a LCR for £5,000 than you will spending £3,000 on your car.

 

[Deleted member 48395]

With that in mind I will probably leave those ideas to one side for now.

As for removing engine cover, I had a tug at it today to no avail, and I wasn't sure if I should keep trying! Engine bay pic below, should I keep pulling or do I need to undo something?

 

[daboy3000]

Where's the air box on them? There seems to be a big hole where mine is

 

[Deleted member 48395]

From what I can gather the airbox is under the engine cover I think