(Lively music)
[Autrey McVicker] This is our '22 Mk8 Volkswagen GTI
that we've done pretty much everything you can do to.
[Rob Dahm] I've never had the chance to modify a brand new car.
That's a whole new world for me.
It's really fun, you should do it at least once.
[Rob] This car still have a warranty?
No comment.
(Rob laughs)
[Rob] Meet BMP Tuning, Volkswagen tuning shop
and aftermarket parts distributor.
Why are we here?
The Mk8 GTI, the newest version of a car
that, for many owners, has been their introduction
to bolt-on tuning.
So it starts its life as the eighth generation
of the Golf GTI?
Yes sir.
OK, this is a lot quicker than my build,
but from the stock car months ago,
how far away from stock are you?
Interior wise, not so much
but everything else, as far as you can probably get.
Pretty much every bolt has been removed
at least once, at this point.
Near motor removal at one point.
[Rob] Yeah, as you said, I think that this is
actually the best definition of full bolt-on.
Just short of like, you've went out of your way not
to pull the engine.
Yeah, there's absolutely nothing
on the market right now that's not on this car
or hasn't been on the car. So, it's insane.
Like I said, run me through.
We've got a lot of visual beauty,
a lot of things have changed to the outside.
But there's also a lot of drivetrain
and suspension modification.
Absolutely. So we have the full Verkline catalogue,
so, front tubular subframe, rear tubular subframe,
all of their arms as well as airlift suspension on the car.
And then as far as motor's concerned,
we've done all the charge piping, intercooler,
intake, turbo muffler delete, inlet,
all of it, right? Down to the coil packs and plugs.
Really?
OK and then visually, you've got splitters,
side skirts, whatever else...
[Autrey] Oh yeah, so, Flow, in Australia,
sent us their splitter kit
and we have that matched with their side strikes
and the Golf R side skirts.
And then we did the Golf R rear bumper, Golf R rear wing
and then a Aerofabb rear diffuser, to tie it all together.
That's awesome.
And I'm assuming your very first Volkswagen
that you got into, you didn't do all of this?
- No. - Yeah.
It generally starts with an intake downpipe tune
and then you just kind of go from there.
Suspension, wheels – that's the general, you know, avenue
that people go.
You gotta take a step back mentally
to step into a car like this, because it wasn't
until 32-years-old, did I ever touch a welder.
In my 20s, I was looking for... what parts is
somebody else using that I can buy and bolt on.
Almost everybody's journey starts the same way
or at least, all myself and my friends did,
is that you get a car you can barely afford
and you start with the same couple of things.
You're focused on the air intake, the exhaust,
the intercooler, maybe even a tune.
But those couple parts are really a gateway drug,
including this one right here.
So this is the cold air intake for the Mk8 Golf.
And what you see here is, it actually matches the
design of the car.
And it's really impressive because not only is there an air filter
inside of here, but it also is bringing in cold air
from the front of the car.
So getting cold air into the car is only half
of the equation.
If you've got a turbocharger, you're gonna need this.
Now this looks like a radiator but it's an intercooler,
and they work in the exact same principle.
So in this case, this is hot air coming
from the turbocharger, which can be 200, 300 degrees,
if you're really at full tilt.
And through here, it cools down to maybe 20 degrees
over ambient temperature.
Colder air is more dense,
more dense air makes more horsepower.
That is not a light piece.
Stock exhaust systems are very restrictive
on almost every car, for a lot of reasons.
So I remember I Googled like, what downpipe can
I buy for my car?
And I bought three different ones,
because the first one didn't sound good,
second one didn't sound good.
Thankfully with the internet and video being so prevalent
now, you can, for the most part,
get an idea of what you're getting yourself into.
Something like this, which is a downpipe
from the other side of the turbocharger, exhaust coming
out of the turbocharger does not like back pressure.
And so, you see there's a pretty nice and clean setup,
a flex tube because your car hits tons of bumps
and you don't want your exhaust system to crack.
O2 sensor connector, pretty standard
for just about every car.
Now if you've done too many modifications
or you're thinking ahead, the next step is tapping
into the computer and that's where a cable,
like this, comes into play.
This plugs into the OBD2 port,
and allows you to connect to the stock computer.
So when you modify a car, you don't realise
that, you know, everything comes at a cost.
And I'm not talking about money,
I'm talking about the... the change
in performance of the vehicle.
You're kind of undoing the bureaucracy
of a retail car, but then once you get outside
of that little special zone,
you start just messing the car up.
This point is the beginning of that waterfall
into absolute insanity.
So we'll stop there for this section,
but that is the beginning of almost every car
in starting its tuning process.
What's your personal favourite part about this?
It's still the Seibon hood, just because
we got pre-release hood from them
and they allowed us to paint it, which was really cool,
because usually they want to display all of the carbon.
OK, that looks really good that way.
I noticed that the inside of this wheel is a stock wheel?
[Autrey] Yeah, so the factory Pretorias off of a,
in this case, Mk7.5 Rabbit,
an 18-inch that we had cut and turned
into 20-inch three-piece wheels.
[Rob] It's incredible.
There's a lot of work that goes involved in that.
Oh, yeah.
- Yeah, believe, it’s wild. - Yeah.
And this is certainly a car that I think,
in the Volkswagen community, would inspire others
to be like, "Oh, I want that hood or I want that part."
I certainly wish, for me, I just build
within my own capacity, right?
So the more money I make, the more wild my builds get.
Now that I'm into the Euro community
or the Euro market, it's really cool to build things
that other people appreciate.
The community is so much better
than any community I've been in.
Everyone wants to bring everyone else together.
Whether it's finding super rare parts for your car
from overseas, or shipping you something from the dealer
because they work in the parts department,
that's super rare or just come out.
[Rob] Yeah.
[Autrey] Everyone's always got everybody's back
and it's super important in this community.
It's the reason why I don't think I'll ever leave it.
[Rob] So my world is always just pure performance.
My cars look like absolute trash.
In this case, you can have your cake and eat it too.
You've got a lot of work done to the engine.
Oh, absolutely, between all the bolt-ons
that we've done on the car, which is all of them,
And then all of the beta testing that we've done
for all these companies that are launching software
for the car, this car's been on the dyno since 150 miles
and it hasn't stopped.
[Rob] With some new ECU upgrade software to beta test,
we're taking the GTI to a local dyno shop
to see what kind of power and torque improvements
we can get.
This is like the final boss of tuning.
You avoid going to the dyno for as long as possible.
You're trying to street tune it,
but I will tell you something that is absolutely
mind-blowing.
It is so much easier to dyno tune than it is to street tune.
So a couple intimidating things about the dyno.
One, do not ever use your own brakes to slow the thing down.
This drum is massive, it's got a lot of weight,
a lot of mass to it.
And so you use your own brakes,
you're gonna absolutely annihilate your brakes on here.
So you always let the drum, there's a little button
that'll have a brake, slow the drum down,
you put the car in neutral.
But the other thing is, you always have
to calibrate the car to the dyno computer.
This computer has no idea what speed your car is at.
It knows the wheel speed but it doesn't know
your engine speed.
So typically, you get the car up to about 3,000rpm
in like, a fourth gear, and then they synchronise
that to the machine and now they know,
hey, 3,000rpm is this fast on these wheels.
So now, you're ready to take your first pole.
(Engine revving)
It's a little loud, not too bad.
Yeah, it's not bad.
[Autrey] So this is the Unitronic Stage 2 file, 93 octane.
So this is a beta file.
Yeah, yeah.
Normally speaking, this car on 93 would make
about 420 torque. Given this file's new,
they're just making changes and...
Trying new things.
Just trying new things, yeah.
Since the car's still new. - But it's way...
..it's still way above stock.
[Autrey] Oh yeah, stock on this car,
I think we put down like 270 torque...
Yeah.
[Autrey] ..265 torque, something like that.
And 240 horsepower or something like that?
- Yeah, yeah, yeah. - Yeah.
So it's way, way beyond that now.
We're gonna do another pull almost immediately,
back-to-back, just to see what happens.
Is it consistent?
(Lively music)
[Autrey] Nice and hot.
They just did three back-to-back,
and you can see the effects.
Nonetheless, these numbers are consistent.
It's just that this is the effective heat soaks,
it's solid.
My car wouldn't have been able to do that.
It would've been nose dive, so...
Yeah, it does make torque and power very,
very low in the power band, which is super peppy, super fun.
Yeah.
Even stock, but once you add power with Unitronic
or any other software that's available,
you just flash the car, bring it to the dyno
or don't, and enjoy.
From a drivability standpoint, though,
I could still have this as like my daily driver.
You could, it would be pretty annoying with the,
we have BFI Stage 3 mounts, a solid dogbone,
and then all the tubular suspension.
Like it's, it's pretty annoying, but it's fun.
Yeah, I mean, that's the thing,
is that if, if that's what you wanted...
- Yeah. - You could do it.
You could, theoretically,
drive it every day...
- Yes. - ..and be annoyed every day.
You were saying that you have spherical bearings
in the suspension, so it should be like, firm, like,
a race car.
Exactly, every single component from end links
to rear trailing arms is all spherical.
[Rob] Wow.
So yeah, it's annoying and amazing.
(Motor idling)
[Rob] Spherical bearings are
often used on suspension links,
replacing rubber bushings that automakers use.
You get more direct handling,
but the trade-off is a rougher ride.
Man, you were not lying about feeling every bit
of that, good or bad.
Yeah, you can feel it all.
- Yeah. - It's fun.
(Autrey groaning)
[Rob] No, it's funny
because the suspension is good, it likes to communicate.
[Autrey] It tells you everything.
[Rob] I've only had spherical bearings
on the four rotor and like some aftermarket parts,
but not full blown, you know, new car.
Yeah, in a new car,
I mean you pretty much ruin it 100%, but, you know...
[Rob] It looks good doing it.
[Autrey] Yeah.
This one's hit the dyno so much
that I think if V-Dub corporate actually plugged it in
they'd be pretty upset with the flash counts and everything.
(Rob laughs)
None of this stuff is for the faint of heart, y'know.
There's a sweet spot around, like, 3,500rpms
that it just loves to pop.
[Rob] Yeah, I have a love/hate with, like, factory burble tunes.
I have a love/hate with burble tunes, in general.
Yeah, OK, I was being... I was being subtle.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I feel like for something like this, for me,
where I get in the car and drive it a couple times a month
and I'm super-aggressive with it, it's a lot of fun.
I've had it on a daily and it's not fun.
Good point.
But these companies make the crackle and pops
or whatever they want to call it,
and then they get upset because the kids say,
"Oh, I... you know, I need more, more, more."
Yeah, yeah.
And it's like that "Star Wars" meme...
More!
..you know, where Kylo's like, "More!"
(Motor purring)
[Rob] It is.
(Car signal dinging)
(Air whooshing)
(Rob laughs)
Forgot it's got air suspension.
(Motor purring)
[Rob] Now right there, is what I love
about the torque curve that we saw earlier
in the dyno is that this car has got power
to daily drive without a problem.
It definitely shows you how good bags
and air suspension has gotten over the years,
that I wouldn't even notice, other than the squeakies,
and the air pressure popping and dropping,
I wouldn't have known that this was on air.
I guess other than the fact that it is a Volkswagen,
by default, it's probably on air.
(Lively music)
Oh yeah, that is another thing.
That was, I think my third modification,
was a blow off valve.
Unfortunately, this Tesla that I'm passing right now,
can't do that.
But on this car, a blow off valve, not too obnoxious,
just that nice little whistle reminds you
of a nice-working turbocharger.
That's for me, icing on the cake.
I think that this type of driving is actually the best
for a car like this.
This thing looks badass, this thing looks cool,
and it's not my cup of tea,
it's not the car I would've bought, but you can't deny that,
I mean, this is a pretty sharp car.
If I needed to be well-rounded with a car,
I've got all of this space, I've got all this power
to jump on it.
I've got so many things, all in one vehicle,
and especially as technology improves,
you can do so many things with one car.
And I think that's something that I've
always had a chip on my shoulder about,
is you don't just make a car like this a drag car.
You don't make an RX7 a drag car.
You don't make a Corvette a drag car.
You can make it a car that's capable
of going to the drag strip.
You can make cars capable of doing all these things,
but it's more fun when you make it well-rounded.
No doubt, the Volkswagen GTI is a car
that sent many a VW nerd down the tuning rabbit hole.
But for a tuning shop, every new model generation,
means a bunch of new products to bolt on, try out,
and beta test.
Imagine being the one testing all those gateway drugs,
and all the drugs that come after that, and so on.
Metaphorically speaking, of course.