Mo's Black Mk4 Ibiza Cupra 1.8T

I'm back in another sporty SEAT, those who remember me will remember my old mk1 Leon Cupra (http://www.seatcupra.net/forums/showthread.php?t=277598), since then I've owned a fair few V.A.G's including a few SEATS, a Cupra R, Mk3 Ibiza Cupra, Mk1 TDI to name a few, finally settled for the wee Mk4, I've always liked these so saw one pop up on my group and thought why not, worth a punt. So here she is:



300+ mile round trip to pick her up, seller advertised the car befitting from a brand new clutch and flywheel, namely a Techniclutch G60/VR6 carbon kevlar clutch with a lightened and balanced flywheel, receipt to prove and less than 200 miles on it, here's what happened 130 miles in to the journey back home:



Driving along at 70mph without going in to boost (as you do to save fuel) clink clonk clatter... lost all gears, coasted the car to the hard shoulder, had to foot a £150 bill to get it recovered home (which was 10 miles away, circa 2 junctions) Nice!

The next day I was on the phone, back and forth to Techniclutch and the seller who's name the receipt was in, dead deal, they wouldn't honor any warranty due to change of ownership. The seller who all of a sudden transformed from friendly to a$$ hole when I requested some reimbursement for the costs i'm about to be billed with, all in all a poor experience, lesson learnt, Techniclutch are utter rubbish and don't be fooled by a first impressions. Anyway on wards and upwards, knowing I've lost any hope of retribution, I sort to get it sort at my own expense and I knew it wouldn't be cheap, off to my mechanic:



Once there we had loads of 'experts' buzzing words around like clutch release bearing, gearbox, this and that, panicking mechanic got me to buy a gearbox as his diagnosis told him for certain without removing the box that's it's the gearbox..... right so new box bought, removed the current box to diagnose and low and behold:




New box:



One word, or should I say company name 'Techniclutch'; carbon kevlar my a$$... having inspected the rest of the kit, the flywheel was fine, release bearing fine but still mechanic 'insisting' it's the box too... ok new box provided, new clutch kit, this time by LUK, all fitted car back up and running:







Let the fun begin....

Now that that's out the way here's what the spec sheet or so the previous owner states it has:

Engine

BBU 1.8T Engine
Green cotton filter
Forge Turbo Intake Pipe TIP
Forge 007p Black 'Awesome' branded Diverter Valve with Yellow spring
Forge intercooler hoses
PCV Removal (or at least the previous owners attempt at doing so!)
SEAT Sport front mount intercooler (stock item)
4 Bar Bosch Fuel Pressure Regulator


ECU Engine Management & Remap:

APR Stage 2 map, 227Bhp and something ft according to the dyno seet


Exterior

Standard


Interior

Replace standard head-unit with a high spec Sony MP3 player with external USB input
Nomad twin pillar pod
Boost gauge
Oil pressure gauge


Suspension & Wheels

SEAT Sport 'AP Racing' 4 pot brakes (stock)
17" stock cupra wheels refurbed in gun-metal grey
TA-Technix coil-overs


Exhaust

3" Down-pipe with 200 cell sports cat
Custom 2.15" cat-back exhaust with oval tail pipe


Sounds all right doesn't it?.... :

I must say I do like the interior in these, feels way more modern than a mk1 leon / mk4 platform car, almost on par with the mk2 Leon, a nice place to be in:

Right so it's got a turbo-back eh... let's have a look at the downpipe:



seems good enough, ok now let's check out the 'custom' cat-back: ....



Looks ok eh? ....








Holy mother of god.... if this is 'custom' by a pro then i'm a senior level pro fabricator ... D.I.Y jobby, mish mosh of pigeon poop welds, mish mosh of varied pipe sized, out came the angle grinder (as it was in one piece) ....

Replacement sourced:







2.5" Turbo back, de-cat Milltek exhaust

Right now let's sort out scene boy ride hieght, can't be too difficult now, as everyone swear's by budget coil-overs especially one's that have been wound right the way down for over a year, so out comes the adjuster...erm no go, out came the 22" monkey wrench.... erm no.... out came a chizel...erm no:





In the end I had to Dremel the spring nuts off, replace them with new ones and raise the suspension, problem solved? ...

R4cup said:

Nice car Mo, whats your plans for it?

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Hows things bro, well first and foremost getting it driving, handling and performing like it should and then tidy it up to my standards, give it the respect and treatment it deserves.

Marcus_550 said:

looks like a nice car, shame that it hasn't bin looked after, that battery looks huge and the exposed wires and fuses doesn't look good, got many plans ? this is what the standard battery n that looks like in mine

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Car is mechanically very solid, bodywork is clean, it's had some money spent on it but sadly the key modifications were skimped on, the exhaust & the coil-overs being the obvious culprits... I noticed the battery being large but doesn't bother me. You need to tidy that bay up a little, far to much bends to the tip otherwise nice. My plans are to work my magic on it, isn't that evident already new box thrown at it even though it didn't need it, new clutch kit but yeah I have a mini list in mind:

1. Full service, ground up, new oils, filters, everything
2. Properly remove the PCV system
3. Plum the oil gauge in correctly
4. Fine tune the handling
5. Over-sized TIP coupled with a brand new fresh filter
6. Bigger cooler pipes to maximize the flow of the SEAT Sport cooler
7. 4 Wheel alignment and corner weights
8. SEAT Sport strut brace
9. Re-re-map by the legend that is Niki

The car will be my daily drive or if the mrs likes it after I've done with it, she can have it.

Next up BC Racing BR Type RN with 30 way adjustable damping:



Yes, I don't muck around

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Lavery said:

Looking good mate, where did you source the decat milltek?

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Thanks bud, Milltek is courtesy of Mr Dan Holiday, it flowed well considering he was running 250+Bhp on his Mk4 Ibiza Cupra and i've had a lot of previous experience with Milltek so knew what to expect.

Was a nice day to clean today so got the whips out, my Mk4, mates mk2 Cupra and my Evo 3:





Sadly no cleaning was done, just hooning

R4cup said:

Thing are good as can be, good to see you back on the vag scene like the old days

Sent from my Lenovo B8000-F using Tapatalk 2

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I've never left the VAG scene or wider still the car enthusiast scene. In fact I've been more involved than ever before in the background, just got rid of some dirty laundry filtered out the brain dead morons.

Veyron said:

Cars looking nice mate I've had 4 mk4 ibizas now!

Is that peter's mk2? Looks familiar!

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Thanks bud, yes that's Peter's MK2, it's awesome, insane power delivery.

But first.... time to have an attempt to resolve the suspension issue's

Right so suspension locking nuts were seized, nothing major, tried to source some replacement front and rear set's from TA Technix to no avail, removed the strut that was seized, sourced some new locking rings tested the shock, came up a tad bit slow but seemed ok, ordered a single set from Unit 5:



it's amazing how they still manage to distribute in the UK, when speaking to their representative:

Took it for a test drive down the road thinking this should resolve my 'clonking' issue's, and of course the fact that my car was bouncing around like that fat chicks having an orgy in the back..... so there's me thinking suspensions sorted when... clonk, bang and bounce once again. Having had enough of breaking my back each time I drove the car over a 1mm sized dip, ditch, pothole, bump, stone on the road, I thought I'd remove the all suspension and have a good look around to see what the issue's are, after all everyone swear's by budget coil-overs right, the scene boys be like 'I HAZ SLAMMEDZ ME RIDEZ ON DE JOMZZZ AND DA TECHNIXXX N ITZ SIK (sorry can't keep writing like a retard)...... :





You see the shock / damper on the right hand side.... they haven't popped up for over 2 weeks now, I thought I'd give them a chance for another week, sadly no go.

Time to overhaul the complete suspension....