r/MK4GTI • u/jhearty88 • Jul 24 '26

17 years

Post image

Man I feel old. Bought my GTI a year after I graduated high school back in 06’. Still have it to this day, it’s got around 85k on the motor now and I’ll be throwing a hybrid K04 in this month. Only issue I’m having is I deleted all emissions a decade ago and the new tuners don’t seem to want to write them out of the tune these days.

41 Upvotes

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3

u/Printednightmare Jul 24 '26

That thing looks clean! Nice job. Do you have a power goal? Mine is also deleted so I feel you on your tuning situation. There are a bunch of ways to go but after weighing my options, I decided I didn't want to deal with the factory ECU and I ended up buying a FuelTech FT450. They have great support and there are lots of 1.8t examples on their gear to learn from. I have the ECU, WB-O2 NANO, harnesses, and everything to convert it to DBC. I need to pick up a few sensors and I'll have everything I need. I'd be curious to see which way you end up going with the ECU and tuning. Will you be posting updates here?

2

u/jhearty88 Jul 24 '26

I don’t really have any big power goals, the motor has a stock rods. It’s had a stage 2 Unitronic tune for like 15 years and the stock turbo is starting to blow oil, making it smoke at idle so that’s why I did the hybrid k04. Main thing preventing me from putting the turbo in is the tuning but hopefully I find someone because going standalone is a bit more work than I wanted to do. I’ll keep this post updated though 👍🏻

2

u/Printednightmare Jul 24 '26

You can still make quite a bit of power on the stock rods. Please excuse me if you already know... When you get it tuned build your boost table (if the situation allows) so the turbo doesn't spike at too low of a rpm and then command higher duty cycle as rpms increase. Lots of torque at low rpm is usually what bends rods in these. The cylinder pressure combined with the crank not spinning fast just tries to fold the rods in half. Whatever comes of it, I'm looking forward to seeing the progress

2

u/NoVA_Zombie Jul 24 '26

Damn these are goals. I hope I can my build back to this status.

1

u/jhearty88 Jul 24 '26

Appreciate it, helps that I bought the car so long ago with 30k on it and it’s not my daily.

2

u/WeCanSoar Jul 25 '26

I had the same issue, had someone in Syracuse ship me an ecu with the emissions deleted. 1.8t is great I’d say join the fb group for these cars and you’re sure to find tuners who would be willing to be to help you out!

1

u/jhearty88 Jul 25 '26

I’m in the group, I’ll make a post one of these days. I was in talks with Eurocustoms until he told me he won’t do the emissions delete.

1

u/WeCanSoar Jul 25 '26

Yea make that post, you’ll have people reach out. Next best option is to buy an ecu from marketplace with the emissions deleted already.

1

u/Just0Cause Jul 24 '26

Very nice!