Golf R - APR Stage 3 Upgrade

[jamesatfish]

After a few months of waiting my APR Stage 3 kit arrived a few weeks ago, and after a week of work I finally picked it up yesterday.

In case anyone else is thinking of this upgrade (and you should be ) here are a few impressions from my first few days with the upgrade:

The Kit: The upgrade consisted of:

•Stage 3 Turbo kit - Garrett GTX28xx turbo, new intake manifold and plumbing to suit
•Bigger intercooler
•High & Low pressure fuel pumps
•Full turbo back RSC exhaust
•Runner flap delete
•ECU and DSG software

Power: The power is, as you'd expect, amazing. We haven't put the car on the dyno yet - APR recommended putting a few hundred kms on it first - but the specs say it should be somewhere around 315kW at the flywheel. Keep in mind I came straight from a Stage 1 chip (no hardware) to the full Stage 3 kit so it's a big jump on this car.

The Autopolar boost gauge shows about 30 PSI peak boost.

Performance: First run 0-100kph in 4.1 seconds.

Drivability (Normal Mode): My big worry was that Stage 3 would 'ruin' the car (my wife's words) in much the same way I 'ruined' my Polo (ie made it fast but also very loud, laggy and annoying to drive on the street). Thankfully there was no need to worry at all.

Basically if you keep the car at less than 4000rpm then it's just a Stage 1 tune. You can drive around town quite normally using 3/4 throttle or less and it behaves very much the same as it did before the upgrade - nothing obnoxious, loud or unexpected.

Drivability (Manic Mode): On the other hand, keep it above 4000rpm with a heavy right foot and the car changes character completely. The smooth acceleration to redline and muted exhaust note of the stock car are replaced with a brutal kick in the back and an amplified version of sound you hear when you pull a running creepie crawlie out of the bottom of a swimming pool.

Once you hit the boost level it's easy to keep the car in this zone, and the power delivery will be perfectly suited to the drag strip or race track where you can keep the car on boost.

The bad part is when you want to drive between the two modes - for example when you want to take off quickly from the lights. In this instance you get Dr Jekyll for a few seconds until you reach 4000rpm in 1st, and then Mr Hyde as you jump from about 15 PSI to 30 PSI almost instantly. This means the SS Commodore next to you gains about half a car length before disappearing behind you very rapidly in a cloud of tyre/clutch/exhaust smoke.

Cons: Other than the new bi-polar personality of the car (which is an improvement on the zero personality you get in a stock R) the only real issue so far is with the DSG. The extra power is confusing the DSG - even though it's got the updated APR software it is having a hard time handling the sudden rush of torque when the boost hits, and Launch Control instantly sends the DSG into overheat warning mode.

I suspect some of the issues will be resolved with software tweaks but I was already considering doing a DSG clutch upgrade so will probably go down this path anyway.

A few pics along the way:

Engine out ready to work:


New Turbo installed - Garrett GTX2767R:


Engine back in the car (sorry for the blurry pics - they're great mechanics but not so great photographers )


APR full RSC exhaust:

[team_v]

Hefty upgrade there, you are now playing in standard V8 power/torque ranges.

Keen to hear how it goes.

[highroller79]

Awesome review of Stage 3 mate. I did stage 2+ last week which feels amazing so I cant begin to imagine what your feeling. Keep us updated on this thread how things go with the DSG as im keen to do stage 3 shortly also

[BrashDaniels]

Re: Golf R - APR Stage 3 Upgrade

Very nice. Congratulations on engaging an understanding, accommodating wife. Could she talk to mine?

Sent from my ASUS Transformer Pad TF300T using Tapatalk HD

[AdamD]

Fantastic review - thanks James! People tend to forget to describe the driveability characteristics when they post about going Stage 3 (or higher), and it's all just about MOAR POWA, and times down the quarter.

[Martin]

Wow - awesome - thanks for sharing

I would never go stage 3 as my car is FWD but but next car will certainly be an AWD/4WD VW/Audi and that will be open the door to this sort of perfomance

[jamesatfish]

Thanks all - glad people found the review useful.

Drivability and 'stockness' was very high on my list for this car. I have already 'ruined' my Polo (in the sense that its horrible to drive anywhere where a helmet is not needed) so my wife issued clear instructions the same could not be done to the R. Rule of thumb was that she would need to be happy to drive our 3yr old to school in it.

In that regard I'm very happy. If you keep to the off-boost rev range with a sensible right foot you'd be hard pressed to tell the car was anything more than stock or Stage 1.

Martin - AWD is the exact reason I went to the R. I factored the Stage 3 power in the decision to get the R knowing how hard it is in the Polo to get only 200kw or so to the front wheels, let alone 50% more again.

[Guy_H]

Good review James!

Yours is the first production version (second actually if you count an S3!) and there are 4 currently under installation / awaiting installation (one in our workshop currently partially finished). Three kits are going to Sydney.

I'll try to document the one we are doing in house, including all the dyno's before & after. It also runs stock DSG clutches & our software (Allthough it is also being fitted with a Haldex controller)

Here is the S3 with the same kit (DSG) on our dyno for comparison!

[jamesatfish]

Thanks Guy for the info re the DSG overheat message - very interesting.

Turns out the warning message pops up not only when the DSG oil reaches its critical point, but also when the temperature spikes suddenly. Launching the car slips the clutches, which rapidly heats the oil, which sets off the warning message even though there's no immediate temperature risk to the DSG.

With that information in the back of my mind, I stayed in it for a full launch to 100kph today knowing the DSG wasn't about to detonate on me. With the GPS lap timer in my Polo the best I could do was VAGCOM, which recorded a 4.1s 0-100kph run. Not bad as a starting point, though I won't stop tinkering until that number starts with a 3...



Even better, no warning lights this time around.

[kelsdot]

this is serious stuff, good luck on your 3s!!

[raybow13]

After a few months of waiting my APR Stage 3 kit arrived a few weeks ago, and after a week of work I finally picked it up yesterday.

In case anyone else is thinking of this upgrade (and you should be ) here are a few impressions from my first few days with the upgrade:

The Kit: The upgrade consisted of:

•Stage 3 Turbo kit - Garrett GTX28xx turbo, new intake manifold and plumbing to suit
•Bigger intercooler
•High & Low pressure fuel pumps
•Full turbo back RSC exhaust
•Runner flap delete
•ECU and DSG software

Power: The power is, as you'd expect, amazing. We haven't put the car on the dyno yet - APR recommended putting a few hundred kms on it first - but the specs say it should be somewhere around 315kW at the flywheel. Keep in mind I came straight from a Stage 1 chip (no hardware) to the full Stage 3 kit so it's a big jump on this car.

The Autopolar boost gauge shows about 30 PSI peak boost.

Performance: First run 0-100kph in 4.1 seconds.

Drivability (Normal Mode): My big worry was that Stage 3 would 'ruin' the car (my wife's words) in much the same way I 'ruined' my Polo (ie made it fast but also very loud, laggy and annoying to drive on the street). Thankfully there was no need to worry at all.

Basically if you keep the car at less than 4000rpm then it's just a Stage 1 tune. You can drive around town quite normally using 3/4 throttle or less and it behaves very much the same as it did before the upgrade - nothing obnoxious, loud or unexpected.

Drivability (Manic Mode): On the other hand, keep it above 4000rpm with a heavy right foot and the car changes character completely. The smooth acceleration to redline and muted exhaust note of the stock car are replaced with a brutal kick in the back and an amplified version of sound you hear when you pull a running creepie crawlie out of the bottom of a swimming pool.

Once you hit the boost level it's easy to keep the car in this zone, and the power delivery will be perfectly suited to the drag strip or race track where you can keep the car on boost.

The bad part is when you want to drive between the two modes - for example when you want to take off quickly from the lights. In this instance you get Dr Jekyll for a few seconds until you reach 4000rpm in 1st, and then Mr Hyde as you jump from about 15 PSI to 30 PSI almost instantly. This means the SS Commodore next to you gains about half a car length before disappearing behind you very rapidly in a cloud of tyre/clutch/exhaust smoke.

Cons: Other than the new bi-polar personality of the car (which is an improvement on the zero personality you get in a stock R) the only real issue so far is with the DSG. The extra power is confusing the DSG - even though it's got the updated APR software it is having a hard time handling the sudden rush of torque when the boost hits, and Launch Control instantly sends the DSG into overheat warning mode.

I suspect some of the issues will be resolved with software tweaks but I was already considering doing a DSG clutch upgrade so will probably go down this path anyway.

A few pics along the way:

Engine out ready to work:


New Turbo installed - Garrett GTX2767R:


Engine back in the car (sorry for the blurry pics - they're great mechanics but not so great photographers )


APR full RSC exhaust:

Congrats on ur upgrades!!
I am also looking into ApR upgrades for my new R
And was curious about where you purchased parts from and for how much?
Especially the turboback exhaust and ecu tune

Thanks

[jamesatfish]

this is serious stuff, good luck on your 3s!!

Thanks! Am certainly hoping to get into the 3s before we hit the Cooma 1000 sprint towards the end of the year.

Congrats on ur upgrades!!
I am also looking into ApR upgrades for my new R
And was curious about where you purchased parts from and for how much?
Especially the turboback exhaust and ecu tune

Thanks

Everything on my car was purchased through Canberra VW Centre who are one of the 2 APR dealers here in the ACT. They supplied the parts and performed the install.

Both CVWC and APR have been very good with discounts off their RRP over the years so if you're buying a few goodies all at once I'd talk to your local APR dealer and see what they can sort out.

[jamesatfish]

Had a shakedown run on the dyno this morning to see how the car was running and to iron out some issues with the fuelling. Looks like we'll need a beefier fuel pump controller as the high pressure fuel pump draws too much current for the standard controller - APR are working on the issue and looks like the fix is simply grabbing a controller out of the TTRS to match the TTRS pump.

Despite that, and the dyno operator backing off as the car leaned out a bit too much for his comfort, the R pulled a nice 262.5kW at all 4 wheels.

The dip in the graph is the DSG trying to sort out the additional power as the boost comes on strong - will be interesting to see if that still happens once we upgrade the clutch packs. You do get a brief but noticeable 'pause' in acceleration on the road so it makes sense to see this correlation on the dyno graph.

For comparison on the same dyno we pulled 188.5kW with just the Stage 1 tune, so a net gain of 74kW at the wheels.

[Deadpool]

What's with the massive dip?

Epic gains though!

[jamesatfish]

What's with the massive dip?

Originally I thought it was the DSG dropping torque as a way to prevent clutch slippage, but turns out it's the ESP cutting power for a moment when the turbo hits peak boost. At that point the boost jumps from ~20psi to around 30psi almost instantly which I guess might seem to the ESP sensors like the wheels have dropped onto a surface with much lower grip, hence the ESP pulls back the power for just a moment.

There are a few little things left to sort out so the next time the car goes on the dyno we'll do some runs with ESP disabled (by fuse) to confirm the hypothesis.