My new ride. A 2004 Jetta 1.8T GLS, 46,000 miles. Needless to say, I love it.









Mods:

Neuspeed exhaust
TT downpipe
K&N filter
Forged diverter valve
4 bar fuel pressure regulator
REVO stage 2 ECU tuning kit (increases performance from 180 horsepower, 173 ft-lbs to 207 horsepower, 232 ft-lbs).
Upgraded front brake pads and rotors

Was this the one your friend had for sale?

Yep.

Looks pretty clean. Have fun with it.

Bra removed:

LIEK OMG!!!! Its a jetta !

I liked the dashboard and interior of the Mark IV jettas, esp the gauge colors.

I don't see a clutch, did you get an auto?

Nope, it's a manual. Just a funny picture.

looks good.
keep the bra off

Your foot is on the brake?


Then I like it

Congrats man, I've always had a soft-spot for that shape Jetta. Looks classy, great color, and I bet with all the extras, it's a lot of fun to drive. Enjoy it.

Very nice car I love it

Oh so you went with the mods? Last I heard you had decided not to. Anyway, it'll be more fun that way. Looks much better with the bra off!

Congrats and keep us posted with tales of glory

Nice! Sell the Subie?

Most things tend to be better that way...

Working on it.

Not sure what you mean. I decided not to mod the Legacy, which I had been considering doing. These mods were pre-existing on the Jetta, installed two years ago by the original owner.

TRUTH.

Is that 207 to the wheels or to the crank?

Nice Bora.. sorry Jetta

Not a fan of the chrome on the bump strips though but all else good

Cheers

No clue, but it goes like stink compared to my Legacy, or the Civic before that.

You were debating whether or not to buy the mods for the Jetta from the guy for an extra $x and I thought you had decided not to?

I agreed not to pay extra money for the mods, but he was going to leave them on the car either way. I paid KBB "excellent condition" value for the car, and not a penny more. In retrospect, though, that deal turned out to be a bit generous to him, as I subsequently determined that the car should have been "good" condition, not "excellent" (a couple small paint chips, a two-inch-long dent in the hood, a broken temperature gauge, a crack in the windshield). So I'd say that I effectively ended up paying him about $700 for the mods.

well it is a pretty decent set of mods that wont' really have an effect on longevity. nice to see people actually running the 4bar FPR with stage 2, a lot of people skip over it and never notice their shit isn't running right.

Revo is good software, second to GIAC in my eyes.

what diameter downpipe is it? 2.5" or 3"?

my roommate just bought another 1.8T with pretty much the same mods: Revo Stage II software, 4bar, 3" DP to 3" exhaust, filter-on-a-stick, Samco TIP and some other goodies and a big fucking front-mount. It pulls hard. I will say, Mitlov, if your car is running the stock clutch you might want to start saving some cash. With a few mods the stock 1.8T clutch bites the dust after a few months. I'd recommend a VR6 clutch/ G60 flywheel combination - definetely up to your power output, as i have a friend running a BT 1.8T GTI with a GT2871RS on a VR6/G60 and it's been holding up well, so just basic bolt-ons it'll definetely be fine.

pretty clean looking car, not really a fan of the color though. Long Beaches look great; you should do something about that ride height ;-)

edit: "and dont' forget the roxy sticker!!"

I'm 97% sure it's a 3" downpipe, but I don't have the paperwork in front of me.



I'll keep that in mind. Though these mods were done a couple years ago, not a month or so ago. I'll go back through the paperwork to see if the clutch has been replaced. It's worth noting that the previous owner did these mods, but certainly didn't "drive it to the limit" on anything close to a regular basis. He's a middle-aged attorney who used it as a commuting car.



Not a chance. As the father of a one-year-old, ride quality is as important to me as handling, and good luck maintaining good ride quality with a slammed car on Oregon's crap roads. Plus, and this is just a personal taste thing, but I think lowered cars look bad. I like the look of a wheel centered in the wheel arch, not at the top of it. It just looks odd to me when the wheel and the wheel arch aren't concentric.

3" exhaust on such a lightly modified car is ridiculous. Though I think the Neuspeed is just 2.5, which is good.

With the ~220 HP at the crank you're pushing compared to the ~190 or so you can expect from a stock 1.8T AWP, I don't think a clutch is going to be an issue. If it is, an ECS Tunning 228 mm VR6 flywheel w/ stage 1 clutch would be worthwhile if replacement is necessary, but I sincerely doubt a couple dozen extra ponies is going to destroy your stock 210 clutch (assuming it's stock).

stage II (chip, dp, ECU, exhaust, dv, 4bar FPR) WILL toast the stock 1.8T clutch, as I've seen/heard from quite a few of my friends who have those mods on the car. It's not an "oh my god better fix it quick" situation but it will go out eventually.

yeah the 3" exhaust is sorta pointless. A 3" downpipe is good for spool-up, but a 3" exhaust is just a noisemaker in most cases. I generally like the way the 2.5" or 2.75" exhausts sound on 1.8t's; 3" doesn't really have any tangible benefit.

as for which clutch; i'd just see whether the OEM Sachs VR6 clutch or the ECS one is cheaper; both would do the trick ;-)

and Mitlov, good point about ride height with a kid. I think modern VW's look ridiculous on stock suspension. I don't like the slammed to the ground but i don't think the wheel is "centered" in the wheel at stock ride height.

I'm no professional detailer, nor a professional photographer, but here's the car in the sunlight after a hand wash and wax:





It's at 53,000 miles right now and running beautifully. The rear left shock started losing fluid. I thought about doing the whole Eibach springs and Bilstein sport shock route, but given that I use it to haul around a toddler a lot, I decided to stick with stock springs and use Bilstein HD shocks. Still gives better body control than the (admittedly worn) stock shocks. If he gets older and/or we move somewhere where they actually repair the damn roads, I might revisit the springs-and-shocks issue.

I was just looking at that gen Jetta in the parking lot the other day, and I still think it's a great looking little sedan. Probably the best there's ever been. Btw, do you have a dent in the hood?

Yeah, that's what the previous owner had been hiding under the ugly-ass car bra. Don't know how it happened, but only the hood is dented, not the grill. The paint is undamaged, and I don't have the cash to fix a purely cosmetic issue like that right now.

I think it's a great-looking compact sedan, but for me, the "best ever" title goes to the facelifted E46 3-Series (when they got rid of the black rubber strips on the doors).

When I was talking about compact sedans, I was thinking of the lower-end econobox end of the market. Not premium sports sedans such as the E46.

Gotcha. In that company, I think it's a close race between the MkIV Jetta and the 2006-2007 Impreza sedan with a low spoiler:

I'd go with the MKIV Jetta/Bora or the Mazda3. Can't say I'm a big fan of the way those Imprezas look.

do you get a CEL with the aftermarket downpipe ? Im thinking of getting the Milltek exhaust for my car but not the downpipe.

Nope. No CELs. It was the previous owner who had the performance mods done, though, so I don't know if there's anything they did in particular to avoid that.