my leon cupra

i was originally planning selling the leon but after doing an online valuation and looking on autotrader my car has dropped in value by a £1000 within a year :amazed: plus the £3000+ i have spent on it so i have decided im keeping her and going the full hog and making her even better

engine wise i am with the performance at the moment but in the future the next step would be a turbo upgrade but this wont happen for a long time yet

so im going to be looking at spending my money on looks and handling this is what im aiming for on the front i have received the light eyebrows just waiting for the grills to turn up then will decide about the lower splitter then its of to a mate of a mate for colour coding and judging from my mates car the bloke does a good job and all for the price of £200 wich sounds pretty good to me :D

IMG%5D

and when i can find the time i will finish my wheels off these are the few changes ive made so far
when i bought them


then changed the inserts and centre cap black


then after putting them on the car realised they were to bling for my liking so changed them again to this body coloured with gloss inserts and matt faces not the best pic but i think you can get the general idea


and then being over fussy their was some orange peel on 2 of the wheels so rubbed them down as gentle as i could did th first 1 perfect but on the 2nd rubbed a bit to far and down to the primer so instead of going through the hassle of all the masking up again i decided just to go for a black gloss finish and this is how they sit in the garage at the minute awaiting a few more coats of lacquer




IMG%5D
 
cheers mate !!
here are a few changes i have made to the car debadged


my grille first time ever using fibre glass resin i liked it at the time but after a few harsh words of my mates i began to see the light


the smoothed foglight covers also underneath the second air intake i added


the fmic just after fitting


the 2x4" air feed to the airbox might not look much but alot of work went in to this moving the battery tray over 10mm alot of trimming to get it to sit flush with the airbox adding the bracket from the original part spraying it matt black to fit in with the rest of the bay


a few interior pics



 
Looks good mate. The only thing I would change is the rims...if you are sticking with black for the colour of the car, I'd go for black rims as well. But hey, personal opinion and all that. Nice job, make sure you post up some more pics as and when you take them. :bigsmile:
 
Looks good mate. The only thing I would change is the rims...if you are sticking with black for the colour of the car, I'd go for black rims as well. But hey, personal opinion and all that. Nice job, make sure you post up some more pics as and when you take them. :bigsmile:

hi mate the final colour i settled on for the wheels was gloss black and i will keep posting pics with the progress im making ;)
 
looking nice mate.
how much hassle was fitting the intercooler? did it require much bumper trimming.

Turbo upgrade - what way are you looking K04 or BT route bearing in mite that the 04 is only recommended to 280bhp otherwise theres a danger of overspeed
 
looking nice mate.
how much hassle was fitting the intercooler? did it require much bumper trimming.

Turbo upgrade - what way are you looking K04 or BT route bearing in mite that the 04 is only recommended to 280bhp otherwise theres a danger of overspeed

cheers !!

the actual fitting of the ic is quite easy cause i got the full kit from forge but im still not 100% happy with the bumper fitment the bumper does need alot of trimming but not wanting to take to much of at a time its time consuming as well but i think i have it finally sussed im going to redrill the holes on the bumper iron to move it over slightly to the left that way i wont have the slight overhang on the o/s bumper its just me being over fussy again but i know its there so it will have to get sorted

tbh mate not looked to much into the turbo upgrade just yet as i am happy with the performance and also i know the costs will be high and having a 6 week old daughter who is taking all my time and funds (cant see this changing for a while yet :lol:)
 
Looks fantastic - a 6 week old daughter and you still find time for your car. Amazing!

cheers waynne but this is the main problem at the moment i dont get much time for the car babies are very time consuming

thats a sweet car, must have cost a fortune

cheers mate the car and bits have cost quite a bit but dont tell me mrs :lol:

a lot of work seems to have been done on the car.
great work man!
cheers and yes a few man hours have been spent on the car
 
time for a little update since having my daughter time and funds havent really been readily available. so not much has happened over the last 6+ months. but over the last 2 weekends i have removed the front bumper (hopefully the last time)

got the mesh cut and shaped etch primmed ready for topcoat (black), removed the bumper iron and increased the bolt hole diameters so now the bumper will sit 100% flush, sprayed the fmic with etch primmer ready for top coat (black), got the top grill filled and primmed ready for top coat (black), filled and primmed the fog light covers ready for top coat (black), also managed to get 2 of my wheels buffed up and waxed ready for fitting.
what do you think???


and ordered these again today for alot cheaper :bigsmile:
1e37e52c719b40a1.jpg

after my last set didnt turn up and a paypal dispute :(

im giving myself the month of febuary to get as much done as possible cause i have sorn the vehicle while the bumper is off so hopefully march i will have my car just the way i want it to sell :confused:

black
 
another update i managed to do 3 wheels perfect i was well chuffed then came the disaster of the last wheel i rubbed down to far again :mad: but with this mistake came a little inspiration :) in all honesty i would prefer the wheels to be all gloss black but i really cant be arsed spraying the wheel again so all the wheels will be like this



and a pic of the new grills mounted took alot of time cutting and fitting the mesh then trimming the grills to fit then alot of body filler then priming again ready for a top coat

another problem was that i primed the light brows and realised that the primmer didnt have a good key so scraped them back to bare then rubbed them down ready for a prime

a pic of the fmic primed ready for top coat

and a pic of the fog light covers smoothed and primed

all in all a boring day of prepping and priming but the worst of it is out of the way everything should be top coated ready for lacquer tomorrow
 
must be sick of filling and priming then, are you ?
does painting the cooler not affect the cooling of it ?

yes mate!! i do it at work then do it when i get home its like your old sig i hate sanding i can empathize!!

and im painting the ic for 2 reasons

1, i always wanted my car to look standard/sleeper this is also why i put insulation tape around the forge writing on the tip and ic pipes

2, the colour black attracts heat so im hoping that the temp is slightly lower after flowing through a black ic i maybe just p!ssing into the wind with this 1 but in my head it should help slightly
 
yeah i understand the sleeper look of it and i would/will do the same.
just would have thought the primer and paint would have provided so insulation so the cold air would be less effective
 
yeah i understand the sleeper look of it and i would/will do the same.
just would have thought the primer and paint would have provided so insulation so the cold air would be less effective

your probably right but the ic has only had 1 etch prime and 1 coat of matt black and thats all its having cause i dont see the point of lacquering it so a couple of microns shouldnt make much difference would it????
 
another update everything is now ready for a lacquer the grill

the light brows

the fog light covers

the mesh to be fitted to the bumper

i also patched the hole i made for the exterior temp sensor in the extra air intake i made (turns out it gets a good enough reading from behind the bumper)

and the fmic is now ready for mounting

and i forgot to mention earlier that i havent painted the rear of the ic to help stop attracting heat from the rad

so hopefully this weekend my car will be 80% ready for the road :p
 
can 1 of the mods move this to the wips section please cause my car is far from finished;)

ok i thought it was about time to update this thread by adding other bits i have done but posted in other threads just to make this thread whole

having had a sub, cap and amp just sat in the garage since i took it out of my gsi nearly 2 years i thought i may aswell install it in the leon
so i took a trip to b&q to get the mdf and to halfords to get a switch (wanted an oem switch but no way i was paying £32)
i had thought about doing a install like pgarner but that soon got ruled out cause the pram is just the exact length to fit in width wise
then i considered building a box but cause i have to use my car for work i couldnt be arsed having to remove it everytime i have to load the boot
so i opted for a false floor using the wheel well as an enclosure
so i cut the mdf to size and then measured where everything will be placed routered the inner diameter of the sub then routered some venting

then i mounted everything luckily everything fitted within the wheel well so i didnt have to raise the floor like i originally thought i would

so i placed it in the boot and that was the easy part over

so then came the mammoth task of wiring it all in (usually a 30 minuet job)
but not that easy in my case the first problem was trying to find a place to go through the bulkhead with the live so did a little searching on the net and found the best place is a spare grommet behind the pollen filter
not good for me as i had previously siliconed everything around the pollen filter to prevent leaks (common leon fault)
so after alot of hassle removing the pollen filter housing i found the grommet and feed the wire through luckily didnt have to remove the glovebox cause the wire was reachable from the side then i hid the wiring in the engine bay (so it cant be seen) and feed it through to the boot
luckily seat had left an unused bolt near the seat belt clip so that was the perfect earth for me (a little tricky to access)
the phono leads where a pain in the arse it took me ages to feed them through the dash
then came the biggest hassle of the day the remote wire i feed it through the dash with little trouble then feed it to the boot to discover it was to short to reach the amp so i had to add an length of wire via terminal block but the biggest hassle was adding the switch i had to cut a hole in the ashtray for it and ended up breaking the insert

so i had to cut the actual ashtray but my dremmel wouldnt get in the space so i had to drill a 10mm hole then cut along with a hacksaw blade then i realized i had no spade tags so i had to solder the wires on to the switch (cause i couldnt be arsed going back to halfords)
then had to drill the ashtray so i could feed the wires out of the back
then i had to feed a wire through the dash to pull the wires from the switch back up trough the dash (another hassle)
then the spade tag decided to break of the switch so had to pull the wiring back out to resolder
but i pulled the wires back through again connected it all up and i now have a switch to turn the amp on/off at my disposal

and now ive got this far the extra bass sounds good even though the false floor isnt properly mounted/sealed i will do this at a later date when i know everything is working 100%
but anyway a pic of my nearly completed boot install :bigsmile:


ive installed these coilovers
thum_55644a82bca3ac469.jpg

cheap but they are 100% better than the original shock/spring setup!!!

ive installed this
well after sundays rr and knowing ive had an issue for a while ive finally decided to get a diagnostic tool but with a few little extras :wink:

Leon%20S3%20vent%20with%20insert.jpg


Main Menu


Gauge Display
Graph Display
G force
Speed timing
Faults and adaptations
Multigauge (Coolant, Air, N75, Boost)
Setup

Sub Menus


Gauge Display
Engine power
Torque
Boost pressure
Cmd pressure
Mass Air Flow
Air Fuel Ratio
Air intake temp
Exhaust temp
Coolant temp
N75 position

Oil temp

Graph data
Engine power
Torque
Boost pressure
Cmd pressure
Mass Air Flow
Air Fuel Ratio
Air intake temp
Exhaust temp
Coolant temp
N75 position
Missfire

Dyno plot
Timing Correction plot


G - Force Display
Bar Graph
Left
Right
Acceleration
Deceleration


Speed timing
0-60mph acceleration timing

0-100mph acceleration timing


Faults and Adaptations
Display and Erase Fault Codes

Big turbo setting for up to 500hp engines
English, French, Finnish and German language versions
Imperial or Metric units

http://racediagnostics.com/images/Movie.wmv
 
aye. thinking mines needing lowered and if the new speedbump at work is aything to go by as soon as ive got the metal undertray on it might be a possibility
 
aye. thinking mines needing lowered and if the new speedbump at work is aything to go by as soon as ive got the metal undertray on it might be a possibility

well the ones i bought where jamex and they cost £200 of ebay (cant remember the company name) well worth the money imo!!!
 
other bits done, pending and will be coming in the near future
i removed the 18" wheels ready for a refurb over the winter but replaced them with the standards but with a quick repaint in black

the 18's will look similar to this but the face will be completely flush cause i have an idea how to flush/hide the nut holes

cause i received 2 cans of this today:bigsmile:

i have tinted the rear lights 1 coat on the clear and 2 on the rest of the lense

they look ok but i will add another coat when i do the side repeaters and front headlight protectors

but the next job on the list is tinting the windows cause i received this the other day

will post pics when i get round to doing it

then the next job i sourcing front wishbones and a rear beam so i can fit these

cause i dont want the car of the road if anything goes wrong like i think i may of ordered the wrong size front wishbone mount not sure until i get another wishbone to compare sizes

there are other plans but i dont want to reveal them yet cause it will be alot of trail and error cause i have never seen done what i want to do and it will all be down to my patience and craftsmanship;)
 
thought the coilovers were the JOM ones that are on ebay for about £200. supposed to bbe good as they go super low. shame i only want maybe 20-30mm and decent handleing not for the looks.
need to find my dogbone and get a torquewench to fit that mount. have also looked at using TT bushings on the front, and might fiit the leon cupra R bushes on the rear when they go


looking forward to seeing how the wheels turn out
rear lights look good with the subtle tint
 
the ones i bought where jamex and where quoted as between a 30mm-80mm drop all round and i got them from here

it might be worth giving them a ring to see what they can do for you. cause as you can see fully wound up they are higher than the standard ride height front and rear so this gives quite a bit of scope to play with!

and i did look into bushes from different models but being lazy i just ordered a job lot of poly from 1 place
 
looking good mate nice car cant wait to see how it looks when its done ;] good work

cheers :bigsmile:
Looking very very nice Herb. The wheels will look unreal with a bit of lairy about them.

cheers!!!

thats the plan mate im moving out of my comfort zone and doing something that will actually stand out. instead of the usual blend in and be inconspicuous look i am accustomed to!!
just 1 problem i noticed yesterday their is no actual line to separate the flats from the inserts. so i have got to do it by eye which if i do this wrong the wheels will look terrible:( but hopefully i will think of a way around this:confused:

and a little update i tinted my windows friday and they looked terrible:( so i ripped them all of and went and got a price from a professional. he's quoted me £100 and im booked in monday morning to get them done properly:D
 
It's worth the money, that's a good price btw. When I phoned around for the dinky Smart I was getting quotes of £150 for 3 windows! :lol:
Would it be possible to make a template for the wheels to aid painting? It could line up with the wheel nut holes to help accuracy & repeatability?
 
tbh mate thats what i thought £100 aint to bad for a proper job. trouble for me is i like to have a go at doing stuff myself. but there was no way i could have done the rear window. i kept getting creases cause of the curve in the glass:mad:

as for the wheels i have sussed how im going to do them:bigsmile: it will be a long winded process but its the only way i will get a proper line around the inserts
 
well got the tints done today im happy with them apart from they cut to deep into the black around the window in places. and you can see a couple of scratches:( and easy fix but still an inconvenience:sad2:


also stopped of at the paint shop and bought a few things for when i start the wheels

and a new ratchet with different length arms a cheap 1 but my last cheap 1 (a kasama) has lasted me 7+ years its only when i did my suspension it popped its ball bearing and every so often now slips so hopefully this 1 will last as long but for £15 i cant really moan if it doesnt
 
well just back from the wedding in cornwall a great time was had by all :bigsmile:

but before i went i did a quick oil and filter change and swapped the vac pipe i had a split in and cleared the fault codes.

i was honestly surprised how cheap the oil, filter and sump plug was from the vw dealership around £35 inc vat i was expecting alot more for some reason:blink:

the car performed well but not quite as it should i could only get a reading of 215 bhp and 240 lb/ft of torque (and i have found out the liquid gauge is about 5% out to true rr results) so when i got down there i ran the fault code reader and old faithful was back:mad:

17705 - Pressure Drop between Turbo and Throttle Valve (check D.V.!)

Possible Symptoms


  • Power Loss
Possible Causes


  • Leaking hoses and/or pipes between components
  • Check Boost Pressure Control Valve (N249)
Possible Solutions


  • Check hoses and/or pipes between components
  • Check / Replace Boost Pressure Control Valve (N249)
  • Check / clean Throttle Valve, do Throttle Body Alignment


so i cleared the code for the journey home and it was back when i just got back:(
so next ill try a tb clean and reset when i get chance to get a new gasket. and if that doesnt cure it ill try a new n249 valve.
 
Good luck with sorting it out. Check all your vac and boost pipes carefully and even with water if you have to, sometime you get splits so tiny they only open up under boost.
 
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