Extra Taillight Mod and another Muffler install with movies. LONG

["Shannon Fenton" <sfenton@amazon.com>]

All,
Andre had to have a tech day this weekend so we used the opportunity to do
the twin bulb brake light mod then run a relay to make the brake light extra
bright. All and all this was a very simple and effective mod if you are
concerned with how bright your brake lights are. I have tinted taillights
and with the weather and traffic here in Seattle I thought it to be a good
idea (specially with euro bumpers). Andre and Chris resident wiring guys did
the hard work of tracing the right wires down to jumper on the bulb plate
and run the relay. First remove your whole taillight assembly and lenses.
The lenses may be pretty tight after you have removed the 8mm nuts, I found
that by having someone out side the trunk pull while you relieve some of the
pressure on the mounting bolts by pressing on the body tabs removing the
lenses is much easier. In the end it still took a couple of soft whacks with
a small rubber mallet to release the lenses. Once the lens is out you'll
need to dremel out the plug for the rear fog light bulb slot. You cant miss
it. Its good have some compressed air handy to blow out the lens after it
gets filled with plastic shavings, its helpful to use a rag to plug the
existing holes. With the bulb holder plate out find the empty bulb slot and
trace the power line to it and sever it. This is because it is on the
parking light circuit normally (or was it the rear fog circuit, cant
remember). I used a dremel with the router tip and it worked slick. Next
you'll need to run a jumper wire from the plate you just disconnected to the
brake light circuit to trigger that socket to be hot when the brake pedal is
down. I just roughed up the surfaces with a screwdriver and soldered a very
short piece of wire from the bulb plate to the brake light circuit. Easy,
repeat for the other side. Andre has been running a relay on his brake
lights for sometime now and when he hits his brakes it definitely gets you
attention. I am running 40cp bulbs currently but with the tinted lenses it
was still not real bright. As with any relay system you need a trigger wire,
power in, power out and ground. On the drivers side bulb mounting plate
there are two wires both black with a red stripe, one wire serves as power
for the drivers side brake lights and the other runs out and over to the
passenger side brake lights. You have to look close to be sure you're
cutting the right one, this will become your trigger wire for the relay and
the end left going into the mounting plate harness will become the 12V in
from the relay to power both sides and the third brake light. We ran a short
power from the battery (nice having the battery in the trunk!) to the relay
and a power wire from the relay into the mounting plate harness plug. We
grounded the relay with a small loop of wire from the relay ground terminal
to the place on the body where the relay is mounted with a screw. All done.
I've got some good before and after and comparison shots of my car, Chris's
car and Andre's car on my page. It is super bright with tinted lenses and
with normal lenses it would kick ass! The only thing that kind of sucks is
that I used a cheap relay so when you hit the brakes you really hear it
click but oh well...it doesn't bother me that much.

Bradley offered me a deal on a new straight thru Ultraflow muffler he had in
his garage of cool guy parts. If you read my last muffler post I had put on
a Superturbo muffler because the straight thru Magnaflow I had on was
deafening me. Well it was quiet alright but I lost quite a bit of power
(throttle response). So I figured that since the Ultraflow was an upgrade
from the Magnaflow offered by TT on their catback systems that it may be a
little quieter. We bolted it up no problem (or so I thought) and Chris
grabbed the camera to shoot an mpeg of the sound. We didn't get two blocks
before it promptly fell off! When will people stop letting me get near my
car with wrenches! While the u-bracket was as tight as I could get it it was
not putting any pressure on the muffler inlet tube. So in the interest of
public record we decided to get a mpeg of what a 2.0 16V sounds like running
straight pipe from the motor back! All I can say is it sounded fucking MEAN!
Under WOT it threatened to split eardrums and scare women and children in
Asia! I think every sub in the Atlantic heard us! But at idle and under
power it sounded wicked, the car spooled up so quick you would think it had
a super light fly wheel, but all we (and Andres neighbors for 4 block) could
take was run. We attempted once more to mount it but even using a breaker
bar on the clamp nuts all we did was spread the lower half of the clamp. The
muffler still slipped on and off no problem. Cramer took a hack saw and cut
four slots in the inlet tip and only then did it tighten down around the cat
back system pipe. I took that opportunity to do some Garage Luge runs on the
creeper down Andres driveway! FUN! A couple more tech days and Ill be ready
for the olympics! We then set out again to get a mpeg, this time everything
stayed attached. The power seems to be back for the most part and throttle
response is "almost" as good in 5th as it was with the magna flow. The sound
is a little louder than the super turbo but still much quieter then the
Magnaflow. It has again picked up with its lumpy idle and exhaust note, as
opposed to very smooth and even with the super turbo. It also has the 16V
WOT rasp again (this was gone with the super turbo), I'm kind of sick of
this but oh well, almost all 16Vs with performance exhausts I have ridden in
have it also. Using a baffled tip usually takes care of most the rasp. So
the exhaust story ends on a relatively good note with a acceptable
compromise for power and drivability. Ill have to see how loud it gets as
the muffler wears in, the magnaflow started out very silent so well see how
it turns out. If it ends up the same as the magnaflow I'm going the V8 route
and putting the superturbo back on with a cable operated valve and muffler
bypass tube! We also too the oppurtunity to get some mpegs of Andres MK1 and
his Gillet exhuast. Well as always the pics and movies are up under the
Movie section and New Mods section on my page at www.scirocco16V.com. On one
you can even hear Chris mutter his doubt in my driving skills and mutter "oh
shit" going up an on ramp lol! Thanks again Chris and Andre or he who is
also known as "one who breaks much wind".



Thank you for your time.
Shannon Fenton
Telecom Resource Management
Amazon.com
206.266.6736
sfenton@amazon.com


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