New to tdi

[Seabeeskeane]

I brought a 03 Jetta alh 90hp. I needed a fuel injection pump which I replaced with a 10 mm pump didn’t know about the 11mm infill a couple of months later. I’m looking to do a little bit of upgrading but not sure If it’s worth it since it has 220000 miles on it. So far I did a egr delete new timing belt and water pump new control arms dropped it a 1.5inches switch out the air box with a cone and replaced my high pressure fuel lines. I have gear oil for the transmission that I’ll do when it’s warm. Any info will help thank you

 

[STDOUBT]

Welcome to the club!
Sounds like you know what you're doing, but for any questions you have, it's all been covered here over the years.
220k miles is 'just broke in". It's only recommended to "upgrade" once you have everything running well in stock form.
Does your car have the manual tranny (O2J)?
Check out all the sections of the Forums, and the search tool here is especially helpful:

Programmable Search Engine

cse.google.com

Curious what you used as a reference for the timing belt work?
BTW, gear oil needs to be "yellow metal safe". Your synchros are brass. Many recommend Valvoline or Pennsoil Synchromesh.
Go Redline MT90 if your wallet is fat.

 

[GlowBugTDI]

Welcome!
Assuming manual trans make sure the gear oil is gl4 and not gl5 compliant. There are lists of gear oil that will work in the 02j transmissions around here.

Stock airbox is honestly the best most free flowing for these cars. And is a true "cold air intake". The stock airbox is good for at least 200hp which is more than double stock hp numbers. A cone filter will only end in a dirty maf sensor down the road.

Potential next steps:
Drain intercooler.
Check turbo shaft for play.
Check serpentine belt and pulleys/tensioner.
Check engine/trans mounts.
Battery and starter health.

Mods:
This is solely dependent on your goals, but if you want a small bump in hp without changing much a quality tune for a bimp im hp and mpg will be great.
Otherwise..... the rabbit hole is endless.
My setup:
Pp520 injectors (ever so slightly larger then stock). If I did this over I'd go bigger.
Clutch upgrade.
Burpod tune. Just a down to earth 100% mint guy to work with. Not to mention the tunes are top notch.
This setup is perfect for me. Drives flawlessly in traffic and makes the car tons of fun to zip around in. Does great on the hwy and passes with ease.

 

[Seabeeskeane]

Welcome to the club!
Sounds like you know what you're doing, but for any questions you have, it's all been covered here over the years.
220k miles is 'just broke in". It's only recommended to "upgrade" once you have everything running well in stock form.
Does your car have the manual tranny (O2J)?
Check out all the sections of the Forums, and the search tool here is especially helpful:

Programmable Search Engine

cse.google.com

Curious what you used as a reference for the timing belt work?
BTW, gear oil needs to be "yellow metal safe". Your synchros are brass. Many recommend Valvoline or Pennsoil Synchromesh.
Go Redline MT90 if your wallet is fat.

Thank you I have a manual transmission and I ordered the gear oil off of kerma tdi. I’ll have to check what kind they recommended it. For the timing I had help with since it’s something that I have not done before so my father in law had a timing belt kit with pins and all data. I also have vcds on my laptop to set the timing. Lmao my wallet is not fat I’m married with two kids I take care of them before messing with my toys

 

[Seabeeskeane]

Welcome!
Assuming manual trans make sure the gear oil is gl4 and not gl5 compliant. There are lists of gear oil that will work in the 02j transmissions around here.

Stock airbox is honestly the best most free flowing for these cars. And is a true "cold air intake". The stock airbox is good for at least 200hp which is more than double stock hp numbers. A cone filter will only end in a dirty maf sensor down the road.

Potential next steps:
Drain intercooler.
Check turbo shaft for play.
Check serpentine belt and pulleys/tensioner.
Check engine/trans mounts.
Battery and starter health.

Mods:
This is solely dependent on your goals, but if you want a small bump in hp without changing much a quality tune for a bimp im hp and mpg will be great.
Otherwise..... the rabbit hole is endless.
My setup:
Pp520 injectors (ever so slightly larger then stock). If I did this over I'd go bigger.
Clutch upgrade.
Burpod tune. Just a down to earth 100% mint guy to work with. Not to mention the tunes are top notch.
This setup is perfect for me. Drives flawlessly in traffic and makes the car tons of fun to zip around in. Does great on the hwy and passes with ease.

Thank you. So the gear oil I got off of kermtdi its what they recommended so I’ll have to check. For the air box I picked up a welding machine from my job once I got it up and running I have some aluminum and was going to build my own air box around my cone. The cone is a dry filter I heard the wet ones always get the maf dirty with oil. My intercooler was good no oil inside my turbo I have not had a chance to check I did replace the battery and starter since it was making that dying cat noise when starting lmao. I had that same problem when I had my 2000 1.8t Jetta. I will definitely check out burpod tune are they plug and play or do they need my ecu sent to them. I was looking into flashzilla. I’ll do my injectors next. I have vcds on my laptop

 

[GlowBugTDI]

If kerma recommends that gear oil for the mk4 manual your good to go.
Turbo is likely fine at 220, but just something you could check.
Burpod is fully custom. You buy a 20$ mpps cable and send him a file. He sends you a file, you upload, log your drive in vcds, send that to him, he reads it. Sends you another file, you download, and drive. Repeating as necessary. Usually you go back and forth half a dozen times or so. It does take time and some learning, but it's a good experience. Just search "burpod tuning" in that search engine and theres tons of info out there. He might even still have a set of injectors for your car. He has certain sizes he likes to play with. He can tune anything, he just prefers certain ones to get the car dialed in to his liking.

Kerma offers plug and play tunes. He also offers full kits you can buy.

 

[Seabeeskeane]

Awesome thank you for your help. Yea I’m still learning how to use vcds most of the stuff I look up on YouTube. Like when I did the egr delete there was a video showing how to change the numbers on vcds so you wouldn’t throw a code.

 

[GlowBugTDI]

Awesome thank you for your help. Yea I’m still learning how to use vcds most of the stuff I look up on YouTube. Like when I did the egr delete there was a video showing how to change the numbers on vcds so you wouldn’t throw a code.

I honestly need to do that. I've been driving around for years with that code. I also would need to look it up. It's the easiest way to learn. Its how I learned to do stuff with vcds. Well, that and burpod taught me a lot.

 

[Seabeeskeane]

Yea YouTube is great I’ve been watching the humble mechanic he does a lot with Vdubs and vcds. did you swap out your fuel injection pump to a 11mm or is it still the 10mm? I’m going to so the injectors soon I also need to do the roof liner and doors since it’s coming down and the insulation under the dash since it’s coming out the vents. I got lucky with this car since it came from California it has no rust or rot . What else are you looking to do with your beetle? I would like to find an old school super beetle.

 

[Gruni14]

FYI... my original turbo shaft with about 230k mi had about ...slightly less than 1/8" play in it. I ordered a brand new $700-ish Garrett from ID Parts (that's what the cost was at the time) ...had the exact same amount of end-play as the old one ...compared the two side-by-side. So.. some end play is normal. Just b/c your car has 220k on it doesn't mean the turbo is worn. These engines will go many miles.

 

[vol4til3]

welcome to the club

 

[Rob Mayercik]

Just popping in to say hello and welcome to another NJ TDI owner!

 

[Seabeeskeane]

Thank you what do you drive? I’m still new to the upgrading side of working on cars and limited to what I can do. But itching to learn more

 

[Rob Mayercik]

I have an 02 Jetta I bought brand new, as noted on my sig and in my profile.

Read enough on this site and you'll learn a ton. Lots of good people and info here...

 

[braddies]

The Ultimate Enthusiasts Guide to Fully become One with the TDI, as told by Burpod....

economy, longevity, performance. fuel, timing, boost. fasten your seatbelts, get on your bi-focals, walmart cheaters, or beer goggles, and whatever else you might need :) this will be a very lengthy set of documents to explain the TDI and every aspect therein, as i understand it.... Sections...

forums.tdiclub.com