Here is my extremely dirty engine bay. Nothing special. Neuspeed P flo intake, Neuspeed plug wires, NHK spark plugs neuspeed strut bar. looks very plain and boring but as soon as summer comes, that will all change!

This polished valve cover is going to go on the car

And so is this polished intake manifold....courtesy of a guy i met on the vortex. The installation will all be done whilst the front end of the car is out this summer. The reason is because i have to change my timing chains before they snap on me and make me a very unhappy camper. I'm quite a few miles overdue so ive tried not to run the car so hard. which reminds me that i need to do an oil change soon too...i wish i had time

This is a euro spec front bumper lip. It is about an inch and a half longer/wider than the stock one and goes on easily with minor modification to the bumper. Definitely makes the car look like its dumped lower than it really is. In the vw world, everyone loves euro parts. Makes sense right? a euro car would look better with euro stuff....well the europeans themselves think some of the features on the american( actually mexican) made VWs are real nice... for example, american cars have cupholders in the center console...alot of the pple here go to great lengths to get the euro consoles without the cup holders and vice versa... anyway this is all i really have to say bout my car. Future mods im planning are really minor...hoping to change the gauge faces and interior light swap from green to red and white to look more like the audi interior...also planning on painting the brake calipers red. But again that is gonna happen only over the summer. Next up would be a feature of another vw...the corrado that bryan owned. Bryan has since moved back to singapore and had his dad buy him a Mk4 gti 1.8T which apparantly is pretty sweet...i have yet to see it or hear anything from the horses mouth so maybe i should soon. If anyone of you (aka...my buddies) would be willing to send me some pics and a spec/mod list of what you have done to your car...it would be my pleasure to post it up and show it for all to see.. OH!!! before i leave america, i HAVE to get a pic of my car in eurotuner...thats my new goal...so once all my mods are done, im gonna take a real nice picture and hope i see it in the magazine soon! *cross fingers*

¶ 3:06 PM //

Here are pics i took today when it was finally sunny and decently warm. this is her bad side...you cant see it but some arse put two big ol dents on the front fender...need to get them pulled out. Found a paintless dent remover person here in town who apparantly does good work so i will try him out when i can afford not to have a car. Forgot to mention last time about the brake upgrade with zimmerman cross drilled brakes with mintex red box pads... shouldve gotten stainless steel brake lines and dot 4 brake fluid but the brakes were already a big hole in my pocket


Here's my new headunit after the fire. Panasonic CQ-C9700U....70Wx4 with pre amp outputs, auxiliary and sub outputs too...good stuff...even managed to put some porn on there to personalize the car :) Those are the stock knobs i replaced the ugly silver ones with. Up above is the Escort 8500 radar detector...cant say its saved me from anything yet but it sure has been useful


Ugly ass 'party' seats as vw affectionately calls them...swapped out the flat black door pulls for the mk3.5 cabrolet polished metal ones that really add a classy touch to the interior.


Aftermarket R line shift knob with custom center console. Had to trim the center console to fit the silver bezel holding the boot in place. took a while and got myself really dirty but i think it was well worth it. A dieselgeek short shift kit adds to the joys of shifting. top left corner you see my shoe resting on audi TT pedals that look real nice.


Besides installation of the headunit and fitment of the rear speakers, all the audio stuff was done by yours truly with the help of master solder and new found audiophile lionel. These are the front speakers...they are MB Quart 6.5" PCE 216s.. had to cut a hole in the door to fit the tweeter where it currently is and used some hot glue to hold it down...imaging is a bit of a problem but it certainly looks good there... the tweeters are a little bright, as MB Quart tweeters are known to be so i had to fade the sound to the back a little so the highs and mids weren't so piercing. The woofers fit right into the stock position. now i just have to find stock grilles from somewhere and slap em on. Wiring from the doors through the door grommet was a real pain in the neck with me having to contort myself into weird positions to get to places and having to drill holes in sockets to get the 16 gage speaker wire to fit…not the most fun in the world but do it once and do it good

These are my rear speakers... they are Polk/MOMO MM6 6.75" components. Definitely not MB Quart standard but good enough for being a good filler. Front speakers are always more important than rears unless youre trying for a surround sound effect which takes alot of calculation , time and imaging. Plus these speakers look really good in my opinion. Crossovers for both front and rear speakers are placed under the rear foldable seat cushions and all wiring is also hidden there. Definitely needs some tidying up but it really isnt a priority right now.


see what i mean by messy? im having a whine with increasing rpm in my left speaker right now...classic case of bad grounding either by the headunit or the amp...its most likely my amp grounding so i will have to fix that as soon as i can. which might only be in the summer. All power cables were run along the driver side and all rca cables were run along the passenger side...not sure if i shouldve taken more time and run the left speaker wires all the way over to the passenger side but i figured it was a little overkill...


here is my amp, mounted it in a very ghetto fashion but it would have to do. basically just tapped around for a solid point and drilled them on. This is a Soundstream Van Gogh VGA800.5 5 channel amp. Definitely makes the install a whole lot cleaner than a 4 ch bridged to a 2 ch. probably shouldve done a better job of hiding the wires by using a mdf board and mounting to that instead. Maybe overthe summer i could get someones help. 4 gage Monster cable powers the amp and monster cable 2ch and 4 channel RCA cables link up to the headunit speaker and subwoofer preouts. I know monster cable is probably waay too overpriced but i couldnt keep myself away from the "bling" brand of wires


this is the subwoofer i am rocking...its Polk/MOMO MM12 subs which is factory enclosed. This is a pic of another install which i think looks much much cleaner than mine. need to find out how he carpeted the amp board and the sub board and how he attached them too. I figured for my sub board to just cut a piece of MDF board to the size of my trunk and just carpet it and slide it in...no need for screwing it down since its fitted and wont be shifting around a whole lot. then just screw the sub right onto it. Again, this probably would only be done over the summer when i have lots more time. Tomorrow, engine pics and a list of mods still to come!

¶ 7:09 PM //

first thing that had to go were these butt as ugly silver buttons

as a comparison, this was the dash from my old car...isnt that so much better and less tacky?

since im pushed for time, im just going to do exterior mods today.... next i got monte carlo stock vw wheels wrapped in fusion zri 205/40/17 tires that absolutely stick to the ground...best buy i made on the car yet!

headlights, foglights and sidemarkers were all changed to have a clear look matching the rear taillights. the headlights are euro spec mk4 looks that needed some modification, the fogs are fk and i think so are the indicators.

exhaust was changed to a 2.25 Eurosport catback system with a JOM muffler....initially bought for my 2.slo but i managed to have it modified a little to fit my gti....2.25 is the same piping size as the stock exhaust system hence not a big improvement and not much change in intonation. euro spec bumper out back that has yet to be fitted properly and with no rebar underneath....dangerous i know but thats my middle name :) actually no its not... but i wont disclose it. The big GTI badges were swapped out for a more classy looking gti badge and the ugly red painted vw badge was also swapped out for a blue and white one... it took me a while to get used to it...i was thinkin of maybe jsut goin back to the stock badge but its grown on me a little. Shorty antennae of f of ebay replaces the stock busted up whip antennae.

paint still as clean as ever...although ihave to get this fender resprayed at the bottom...if you look closely ..right as the wheel overlaps the fender you can see some paint chipped off from sliding into a curb...alright more updates to come!

¶ 10:26 AM //

This is Mya! she's my first car and although very very slow, is very reliable. Why do i call her mya you might ask? Because she's MYa CAR....i know...cheesy but best i could come up with at the time. She's a 95 VW GTI manual with a 2.0L or (2.slo) engine... Basically bone stock besides a radio and 'surbo'. Surbo is basically a fan put in your intake that generates turbulent air to promote more efficient combustion and hence save you gas. It also really felt a bit like a turbo because there was some lag until 3000rpm.

she came with ugly ass seats that really looked quite bad....

Big ol rust spot that only got bigger and bigger over the one winter i had her

Faded bumper from not being taken care of by the two previous owners... this car came with relatively low mileage because all the owners only drove it to and from work and a car was just a car to them

bubbling side skirt that eventually rusted enough and expanded enough that when you got outta the car it would jsut be kicked off. after a while i got tired of putting it back and just ripped it off. As can be expected, i soon grew tired of the slow 110bhp engine and looked for something better

This car was for sale not far from me in detroit and was going for 6000...i HAD to have it! it looks exactly the same to the untrained observer but a true dubber would note the 5 lug as opposed to a 4 lug setup for the 2.0L gti. Also, those taillights were just what i wanted on the car.

as you can see, the paint was what really attracted me to the car. The guy had gotten it resprayed a couple months back due to a minor mishap wit a truck. The kamei grille in the front was also a nice addition. So i decided to drive up to detroit, braving eight mile and all...and took the car for a spin. The moment i thumped on the accelerator, i was hooked. Due to pure low end torque, the 175hp 178torque vr6 engine let off a low rumbling growl.....it was unbelievably sexy. Even bryan woo (who's car i will feature at a later time) thought it sounded so good...the only difference from his car being that it had a cone filter instead of a stock air box and filter panel. So a couple weeks later i went back up there and bought her

This was the mileage she came with..and since then..its gone up to 105,600 miles...when i went up to buy her, the owner was being a real asshole, checkin every bill i gave him and shit....really uncool. i just wanted to take the car and go.

we got back to purdue in one piece...and she drove perfect...but one thing that really bugged me was the radio..it kept goin on and off and when i pulled it out i saw all the ghetto rigged wiring work the previous owner did...first sign of trouble.. note the ugly red vw badge... had to get rid of that asap

another monstrosity that came along with the car is this shift knob....its a TT shift knob that just was really uncomfortable when shifting... along wit it came this crappy boot... also note the cup holders and teh "carbon fibre" looking thing at the end...thats jus some canvas covering a whole....ghetto rigged part 2

loved the evil look kamei eyebrows too....theres something called a boser for vws that just makes the car look oh so evil

this is what happened a couple weeks later.. i was driving down to town from school and all of a sudden my dash just starts spewing smoke that jus smelt like someone was burning a bucket.... i just pulled over to the side and turned off the engine and waited for the smoke to clear...i called bryan and he came to my rescue...low and behold i managed to start the car...which was amazing...it was the shoddy wiring ....some of the black tape fell off and short circuited and burned all the way to the key cylinder... i was pissed and shitting my pants havin to tell my parents wat happened

thats the key cylinder and all the burnt wiring.... all $1600 bucks worth of it...took a long time for the stealership to get it done but i was just happy to be able to drive my car again. She gave me lots of trouble after that...goin into the shop almost every other week..but i still love her

i decided to tear thru the whole car to see what else this guy messed up and was horrified to see that he basically went into every nook and cranny in the car...prying and leaving marks, breaking tabs, losing screws...i was pissed. on top of that. this wire was found connected to my battery and going all the way to my back seat..at that time i had no idea what it was for but now i realise that it was a 2 gauge power wire meant for a sub....he left it connected to the battery and laying with bare wire under the seat..i couldve died if it grounded itself to the chasis...

he even broke a tab off the abs controller....among other things.... but after the whole debacle was over, i got down to the main business of modifying the car to how i really wanted it. Stay tuned tomorrow to see my car as she stands now

¶ 4:06 PM //

This is my girl....her name is Karen and she's wonderful. We've been together for almost three years now and its been great. She goes to Perth which is apparantly a god forsaken place but its cool cos so is Indiana.


These were my fishies from last year that i have no idea what happened to them. Eujin must have ate them i think....k realised i shouldve put the pics in order of importance...so we'll go back to the important people


This is my dad. He sleeps anywhere.. but its ok cos he works really hard to make the business and our family better. He's my daddy! MINE!


I realise i don't have a pic of my mom on my computer...so sorry mummy. ill take a good one with you next time ok? These are the three rascals ( my elder sis Tira, myself and my younger sis Rita**(wear a skirt next time you go driving test ok?)**) with Pe Noi. Pe Noi has been with us for more than 15 years and is much an influence in our lives as is our parents. Along with Uncle chan who brought me to school and alot of other places for all these years.


Darling pinky, she's the doll of the family. Fat and chubby and full of love....getting her was the best idea my elder sis ever came up wit. Everyone loves her...even Pe Noi! she's so much easier to handle than nicky was (R.I.P)


i love this pic...she honestly sleeps like that sometimes....must run in the family


shes too cute not to put in here...so ill sneak her in...this is sasha...she's my FAVORITE niece! see those dimples?! don't you just wanna eat her up!


these are my ghim moh buddies from back in the day... from top left (evelyn, jennifer, xiaoling, samantha) from bottom left (andreas, mingjun, myself, kelvin, chenqing and tianli). It's amazing how we still meet up as regularly as we do. Its been yonkers since secondary school and these are my closest buddies. OK so thats my life in a nutshell.....tomorrow, comes the good stuff...my baby mya! Stay tuned...

¶ 5:49 PM //

Alright, so i guess blogging isnt as idiot proof as i expected it to be....but being the engineer that i am supposed to be, i think i've got it licked. This site will definitely show improvements when i have the time to. For now, this will have to do.

This is myself...... Im in Purdue studying Mech. Engineering. I'm 20 and i hate the cold. I have a problem.....I like cars! Thats not neccesarily a good thing, being a form of distraction and all. Especially with my major. I'm not too sure as of yet what i wanna do in life, but i have a few alternatives i'm currently looking into. Eventually, i would love to make enough money to buy over a mechanics shop and work on cars until im old and gray. Stay tuned...tomorrow, part 2.

¶ 5:35 PM //

Test test..... *clears throat* Where's my frappachino! I asked for a fucking frappachino! heheh
Alright so i thought i would finally try my hand at the art of blogging. Don't wanna miss out on all the fun now do i. Hopefully, ill be able to keep this up seeing as how i usually am non-commital and very lazy. I'm sure many will attest to that. In my first couple posts, i might just do an introduction into my life, who i am, who and what is important in my life...etc. But, the driving catalyst for this blog focuses on the machining marvel of mankind known as CARS! This is going to be an outlet for me and my friends to discuss, learn about, showcase and simply ogle over these sexy machines. American, German, Japanese, Alien, you name it, we've got it! So let the fun times begin and I promise to keep this as fun as possible!

¶ 3:24 PM //