Hi guys, A big Mk3 GTI fan from Bulgaria here. After owning a Golf 3 2.0 8V for many years, I bought myself a Mk3 ABF and decided to run a small valver project. The car I bought is a black GTI 16V, built January 1996. It has got the red stitching interior and the white/grey clocks, it also has the so called tubular exhaust manifold, but it has got the 280mm brakes, and it is NOT the 20 Jahre Jubi edition, merely a GTI edition of some sort. My goal is to improve the performance a bit, without spending a ton of cash on the car, keeping it on the cheap side. The Golf is the second car in the family, it is a city drive ONLY, and it is intended for my driving joy only. No racing, no messing around with other cars, simply driving the car for the pure happiness of doing just that. To put it simply, I am trying to built my dream Mk3 GTI without going bananas with the money, mostly improving the "feel" of the car and adding a bit of an edge to the standard GTI 16V. My plan for now is to put the 288mm Jubi brakes on the car, I'm also running the stock GTI suspension. Soon enough I will add a gutted stock airbox to the car, improving the induction a bit. What I have done so far was removing the cat on the stock exhaust, also removing the huge middle silencer and replacing it with a Golf 2 GTI middle silencer by Walker. I believe that last change actually improved the speed of the exhaust gases, so I am happy with the kind of stock, but improved exhaust system. Next steps will surely be replacing the stock CDA gearbox with a 02A CEW gearbox with a 3.94 final drive and probably adding a light (but not too light) flywheel. And a few questions I currently have: - Would a light flywheel really improve the feel of the car or I can go without it and stick to the OEM one? Anyone on here selling a good and "proven in action" 02A/G60 flywheel? - After doing the subtle breathing mods and adding the 3.94 gearbox, is it better to go for a custom remap, or giving the incremental changes made to the car, a simple ebay off the shelf generic chip will do? Please feel free to hit me with any advise or criticism you might have. Thanks a lot.
lighter flywheel allows the engine to rev up a bit quicker, the downside is you loose a bit of inertia. In the real world you wouldnt really miss it, main thing it helps with is driving up hills. I've had mine done and its great a remap is always the best way forward, will get the very best out of your engine. a generic chip off ebay would have the best map only for the car it was developed on
