Need help finding mods? got money to spend.

[01 vr6 jetta]

i have about 1200 bucks to spend on my 2001 volskwagon jetta vr6 and i wanted to kno if u guys could help me find some real bang for the buck horsepower adders. i already got an intake and exasuht so what else could i get? like a chip mabey but nothing to extreme becasue i dont want t ohave to change anythign inside the engine. so any ideas guys?

[Mr_Diesel]

Definitely get a chip next. If you don't want to mess with the engine, that's pretty much all you can do short of what you have already done.

Some other things you can do to increase your performance is weight reduction. How for out of town do you usually drive? Do you have road side assistance? Ditch the spare tire and jack. When and if you upgrade your wheels, make sure you get the lightest weight wheel possible that fits your wants. A heavy wheel will KILL your off-the-line speed.

To get anything else from your car, you'll need to start messing with the engine. Cams, turbo, port/polish, headers, short runner intake, big throttle body, valve train, etc...

[01 vr6 jetta]

i already fully stripped out the trunk to bare metal and took out some useless nick nacks from under the hood and the itnerior so there aint much else i want to do in that department. i defintly want to get a chip what wpuld be the best chip to get the most perfoamce that i cna get?

[Mr_Diesel]

You can get radiacal chips that require the use of high octane gas (usually 91-93 minimum). If you ever use cheaper gas you can actually cause knocking that the ECU can't compensate for... So you are in for the long haul if you go with a high octane chip. Most the time chips will increase your redline by a few hundred rpm, advance your ignition timing and add a bit of fuel.

I would recommend:

GIAC: http://giacusa.com/programs.php?mpid=69

2001 Golf®/Jetta® VR6® 12 valve (Auto)

021906018Q

91-93 Octane
Performance
Stock
100 Octane Performance
Valet
Kill
Privacy Firewall

That particular chip offers a "performance setting, stock setting and 100 octane setting." IIRC a certain combination of button pushing will put the ECU into the desired mode. You still have to use 91 octane in stock, but atleast you have the option of going up to 100 octane and using blue gas.

GIAC claims 7-10 hp and 10-12 ft-lbs gain. So you will definitely notice that.

[01 vr6 jetta]

sweet man thats exactly what i was looking ofr and i have already looked at these before and i thought they was the best. i dont kno much about mods u can do to these cars (new to the german modifying seen) so if i get annoying sorry lol. i always run the premum 93 octane pump gas anyway and i do go to the drags so i will run blue grass then so this chip suits everything about mt to a tee! thanks u very much.

another question is the stick tranny i have a stout one? is it a strong tranny not prone to problems?

[Mr_Diesel]

Hey man... it's no problem. It's very difficult to annoy me. I quite enjoy talking about cars and wasting time in here. Even if it has been discussed before I still think of it as an oppertunity to learn more, find different approaches or cover stuff that perhaps wasn't covered the 1st, 2nd or 3rd times over.:)

Anyway, I know as much about automatic transmissions as I do on how to break into Fort Knox.... Nothing, in other words. The Mark IV automatic is much much better than transmission of past. The old B3 passats VR6's with automatics were pure rubbish. I know that performance modification will shorten the life of the transmission, but how much is another question. Zukgod1 should be able to tell us what parts in teh auto tranny will die and what we need to beef up.

[01 vr6 jetta]

cool man. well zukgod1 needs to get in her and let me kno lol. got another qustion for u mister diesel....so iwould buy the chip itself and what is this flashloader stuff it says that it is compatible with?

[Mr_Diesel]

I did some research on the GIAC chip for your car. It's "capable" to run different programs, but you need the flashloader to load them on. I have seen chips where you can fiddle with the cruise control button or whatever. The check engine light would flash a code that tells you what program the chip is in.

I still recommend GIAC though. Since it sounds like you have some money to burn, you can still get the GIAC chip and the flashloader. Read about the flashloader and download the Windows flashloader program here:

http://giacusa.com/flashloader_handheld.php

They say all you need to use the flashloader is the program, a Windows PC (laptop) and Ross Tech's interface cable. You need the K-Line, not CAN cable:

http://www.ross-tech.com/vag-com/interfaces.html

You can also get a handheld flashloader... they detail that on the GIAC flashloader page above. I think you can purchase those at a GIAC dealer. See if there is a dealer in your area:

http://giacusa.com/dealermap/

If you don't want to buy the stuff to flash it yourself, most dealers will flash it for free, granted you purchased it there.

[01 vr6 jetta]

cool i dont think there is anymore questions u have helped me alot. i lookedo n their site last night and found a dealer in batavia ohio which is about a half an hour away from me. so i woukld go to the dealer and buy the chip and flashloader from them and have them install both? then what do i do about the programs i need to download on my computer?

[Mr_Diesel]

To my understanding you don't need anything else if you buy the GIAC handheld flash loader. It believe it comes with all the programs pre loaded. If you decide to use a laptop, you'll need to download that flash loader program and buy Ross-Tech's cable.

[01 vr6 jetta]

cool. all i have is a laptop so i will be having to download the software and buy the cable but that dont matter to me. so i buy the chip and the flashloader and have the cable and software downloaded on my internet and im good to go? sounds awsome and thank u for all ur help again mr. diesel.

[Mr_Diesel]

No problem! Keep us posted so we know how your mods go.

[01 vr6 jetta]

im also doing some suspension mods soon such as sway bars, strut tower bar and things like that.

[Mr_Diesel]

Do you really enjoy/need the automatic transmission? I know sometimes you have to just roll with what you've got, but do you even want a manual tranny?

[01 vr6 jetta]

i dont mind having an automatic tranny. i orginally went to buy a eclipse gsx from a dealer in milford ohio, about an hour drive from where i live but when i go to this dealer they had alrady sold the eclipse. i was pissed cuz i hgad aited a week with no car to buy this car nad now it was gone and i really wanted a car. so on the way out my mom drove past a ford dealership and we looked at the used cars nad i didnt really like anything but i rember somewhere that a vr6 jetta was a quick and very nice car so i test drove it and really liked it and drove it away. thats how the car cmae about. why do u ask if i enjoy or need it?

[01 vr6 jetta]

i was talking to a guy today that knows some people from a local euro tuner shop in my area called dtr performance and i told him i was planning on getting a GIAC chip but he told me that a GIAC chip and the chips from adr or something like that do nothing for the car. he said they barely increase horsepower and dont really have any perfomance gains. he said that the ones they tried did more damage to the car than they did good .he said a buddy of his was running 45 pounds of boost or sumthing with aa GIAC chip and he blew his motor cuz the chip, but i think that would just be beacuse of the massive amounts of boost. has anyone heard anything like this? and what other chips would be better in this case?

[stinkysGTI]

It sounds like that guy had a lot more going on that could ruin his motor than the chip.

Everyone I've talked to at every shop and friends who know about chips from experience have all said the same thing. GIAC is pretty much the best chip for VW's. I got mine done a while back and the overall performance increase was the best for the money when compared to other parts. It made a huge positive difference. Not only do you get more horsepower and torque, but the responsiveness of the engine is much better.

Now maybe the chips from ADR are crap, but not GIAC. The person who owned my car before me put some crappy AutoAuthority chip in it and I can tell you, that did nothing. When I bought it, I had no idea it was in there till I went to get it done right. Then, like I said before, there was a huge performance increase.

Be careful who you talk to. There's people who have hooked up cars, yet know nothing about them. It was a good idea for you to get more opinions ;)

[Mr_Diesel]

i was talking to a guy today that knows some people from a local euro tuner shop in my area called dtr performance and i told him i was planning on getting a GIAC chip but he told me that a GIAC chip and the chips from adr or something like that do nothing for the car. he said they barely increase horsepower and dont really have any perfomance gains. he said that the ones they tried did more damage to the car than they did good .he said a buddy of his was running 45 pounds of boost or sumthing with aa GIAC chip and he blew his motor cuz the chip, but i think that would just be beacuse of the massive amounts of boost. has anyone heard anything like this? and what other chips would be better in this case?

He was running 45psi on stock engine management (chipped?) with 45psi and he's blaming the engine blowing up on the CHIP? Wtf?

[zukgod1]

i was talking to a guy today that knows some people from a local euro tuner shop in my area called dtr performance and i told him i was planning on getting a GIAC chip but he told me that a GIAC chip and the chips from adr or something like that do nothing for the car. he said they barely increase horsepower and dont really have any perfomance gains. he said that the ones they tried did more damage to the car than they did good .he said a buddy of his was running 45 pounds of boost or sumthing with aa GIAC chip and he blew his motor cuz the chip, but i think that would just be beacuse of the massive amounts of boost. has anyone heard anything like this? and what other chips would be better in this case?


45 lbs of boost and he blaims the chip.?? :eek:

GIAC is top notch you wont be disapointed.

stinkysGTI has it correct.

45 lbs of boost, hahahahahahahahahahaha!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Mr_Diesel]

45 lbs of boost and he blaims the chip.?? :eek:

GIAC is top notch you wont be disapointed.

stinkysGTI has it correct.

45 lbs of boost, hahahahahahahahahahaha!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

45psi MUST be nearing the 800-1000hp range.

[zukgod1]

45psi MUST be nearing the 800-1000hp range.


Exactly, and it was the chips fault it blew up...

WOW!

I'm not picking on you 01 vr6 jetta, just the guy you talked to..

[Mr_Diesel]

Yeah... me as well. I'm not picking on you, I just get a little frustrated when I hear about people giving poor advice. Granted, I've given poor advice before (everyone makes mistakes), but I truely believe that he didn't know what he was talking about... the GIAC chips are excellent! The best gains (and best tune) come when you add a chip with other mods... like cams, exhaust, etc.... JUST a chip might only get you like 5hp (or whatever), but everythign together really does make a difference.

But anyway, the reason I think it's bad advice because I have experienced the benefits of a GIAC chip for myself (in my 95 GTI VR). A basic chip increases your redline a little bit, advances your ignition timing and some modify the fuel maps. It's well known (since time began) that advancing your timing on a gasoline engine increases hp. And a few hundred more rpm up top never hurts either. The fuel maps are usually custom depending on your mods... (fuel maps for say... cams/exhaust/bigger injectors... more fuel is added to take full advantage of the extra airflow, etc).

You know what I mean?

[01 vr6 jetta]

thanks a ton for the advice guys. i just wanted to make sure i wasent the only one who thought this sounded dumb. 45 psi would defintly not be the chips fault it blew lol. i was gonna say somthing to this guy but decided just to keep my peace lol. i agree with u all i just wanted to see what your guys opions would be on this. i have a good intake and an a good exausht. im getting the chp soon so i should see good improvemnets from what u guys say and a high perfomance valetrain is in the near future. cams and titanuim valve springs and retainers.