We wanted to check how much power our Project GTi had lost over the 10 years & 200,000 km since it left the factory, so we brought it down to
Blackchurch Motors and put it on their Dyno under the watchful eye of independent technician and engine tuning specialist, Joe Power from
TDR Performance. The drive over to Blackchurch was actually the longest trip we'd done in the Golf since we bought it a few weeks ago and we noticed the temperature gauge was hovering around the 70 degree mark and would only reach normal operating temperature if the car was left to idle. The thermostat was the likely culprit, they have a tenancy to stick open which isn't a major issue but won't be doing anything for our fuel consumption figures, so that's something we'll have to fix in the coming weeks.
Check out the video to find out how we got on:
We assumed the car would've had plenty of things wrong with it for us to fix and we were going to show you how we got all that missing power back! But as you saw in the video it made virtually the stock power figures of 197bhp and 207 ft/lb of torque - which considering the age of the car and the mileage, is impressive! However, we still have the thermostat to fix, we'll be giving it a full service including
oil,
filters,
spark plugs and
ignition coils. The
diverter valve which is a common fault on these engines seems perfectly ok (poor low-down torque would be an indication of a faulty/leaking diverter valve) Our car made 207ft/lb of torque and 194bhp which is a great base to start from if we want to add power in the future.
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