whats the quickest way to gain horsepower on my gti 1.8t?

Answer 1

I have done almost all of the basic upgrades to my car...headers, turbo back exhaust, intake, etc., on my current 03 GTI 1.8t. On my old 02 GTI 1.8t that i sold to a friend was stock other than a software upgrade (chip) and it was the difference between night and day. I jumped to 215 hp and 247 torque. It would smoke my current 1.8t any day of the week. Its buy far the best bang for your buck. Also, if you end up getting a chip, get the 1 program software upgrade and save yourself some money. Getting the 2 program means you can change your chip to switch back into the stock settings for your engine meaning that a dealership couldnt encode your car to tell its been chipped voiding the warrenty. But i took my car to the VW dealership and they didnt even detect that i had upgraded software. So its not worth the extra 150 bucks. There are also many other things you can add with your chip but i wouldnt pay the money for them, just stick with the single program. APR has a 3 day turn around on their software performance upgrades. I would go with them, they are a great company as far as i know. They have amazing products. Its $499 for the 1 program. Thats the best bang for your buck on a 1.8t. Obviously a turbo back exhaust, with a cold air intake helps a lot and would pair amazingly with a chip and well they just make it sound good. They are fairly easy to install as well. Hope all this helped. Good luck

Answer 2

I would consider chipping it. Its a cost affective way to tune your engine to put out a lot more power. 1.8 turbo is notorious for getting chipped. Along with this you should get a new intake either short ram or cold air. And an exhaust system. These three upgrades together will for sure satisfy you. I would do them one at a time so you can feel the power difference from each. Intake is not all that important. But those three work great as a package. A sprint booster would be another one if you have the money.

Answer 3

the best bang for the buck: Chip paired with a Cold Air Intake and turbo back downpipe / exhaust.

if you want to spend some serious money and get some serious power, upgrade to a larger turbo, larger injectors, blow off valve...
there are lots of things you can do to get more power from that engine, it's only limited to how much you want to spend really.

obviously, if you are getting huge power, you are going to want to upgrade the clutch and transmission. maybe a limited slip diff and a clutch with a higher clamping / holding force.

check out the 1.8l turbo forums at http://forums.vwvortex.com/zeroforum?id=27

good luck and have fun!

Answer 4

chip. You can get serious gains out of them.

Check vwvortex.com's 1.8t forums for tons more info.

Answer 5

Have software/chip installed, like revo or giac+
Check out www.vwvortex.com for recommendations from others who prefer one or the other for software. Some car tuning places will install a temporary trial for you to test out.