I'm considering getting a bespoke silicone hose set made up to replace the existing set-up that connects the LH charge air cooler to the throttle body via small section of pressure hose (8L9 145 845), plastic pressure hose (8L9 145 937 A) that acts as a mount for the thrust sensor (038 906 051D) and pressure hose (8L9 145 790 B). See ETKA illustration 145-77. I have the BAM engine variant which is essentially identical to BFV 225PS as far as the charge air system is concerned.

Because I have removed the mounting parts for the electrical connection box and mounted the box directly to the chassis, there is now no need for the convoluted OEM flow path. I'm therefore looking to reduce the overall dP in the charge air system a bit by replacing the existing parts with a new set-up that takes the most direct route possible between the charge air cooler and throttle body.

I've enquired with a producer of high quality silicone hoses about this, but the success or failure of this little project will rest on whether I can fabricate or source a shorter pressure hose that the thrust sensor is mounted on. So my question is...

Does anyone with any other VAG 1.8T engine variant know of a different design of pressure hose that would suit my purpose. Obviously I could trawl ETKA myself, but it's very difficult to visualise a part's actual configuration from a basic line diagram and I figured I might get a quicker answer by tapping into Nefmoto member knowledge base. As you can see from the image, I won't simply be able to cut the existing pressure hose into a shorter section upstream and downstream of the thrust sensor mount because the section is not uniformly circular at that point, worse luck.

From what I can gather, both ends are 65 mm i.d.

Thanks in anticipation.

TTQS

Hi Dan.

Anything like that would help so yeah, thanks very much. Plus, I would be interested to see your FMIC configuration and pipework generally. I fired off an exploratory e-mail to www.viperperformance.co.uk who do custom silicone and aluminium fabrications to see what's what. I bought some vacuum tubing off them to replace the line from my N249 to Forge 007p diverter valve.

After I posted the other evening, I did some searching on Google and came up with the following supplier of VENA SIL 700 V highly flexible plain silicone hose which is available in 63 mm i.d. that should give a decent interference fit to the pipework if indeed it is 65 mm diameter as I suspect.

http://www.flexiducting.co.uk/silicone_hose_14.html

That hose has spiral steel wire inside so could be bent into the correct configuration and would then hold its shape. If that's the case, I might not need to go down the route of a custom pipe. What is more interesting is that with my battery box kit all removed, there is a massive open space on the LH side of my engine bay above the gearbox (see attached photo). If I could be bothered and had a spare few hundred quid, there is scope to get a custom intake pipe made up that would considerably reduce the two sharp bends in any of the current designs (e.g. Forge FM225IND). The induction kit would then sit at a different angle in the space but the tubes going to the N75, diverter valve and relief valve (06A 129 101 D) would have to be much longer. It would be an interesting project to see just how much pressure losss I could take out of the whole intake and charge air system with these proposals and how that would compare to a decent FMIC set-up...

Doug

Hi Dan.

O.k., that's interesting. Forge FMIC is £606.38 so the one you've got is considerably cheaper and unbelievable value if it outperforms it. Who manufactures it? Where can you buy them?

The plastic pressure pipe has a ridge at the end and an end stop which help make a good seal so that's another factor to consider, although I suppose a set of decent Mikalor clamps should be sufficient. Mine was definitely 65 mm at the throttle body and looked the same at the intercooler but I don't think a few mm will matter too much and the tubing is available in a good range of different diameters.

V6 and Quattro Sport batteries are relocated to the boot from the factory to help with weight distribution so most of the work was done for me.

Thanks for your help.

Doug

Hi Dan.

I read the thread: all fair enough but I'm slightly ashamed to say that if I ever felt the need to get a FMIC, the quote "In short, if you are after a bolt on no fuss solution then the Forge solution is probably for you." would apply to me.   I would like some coilovers on next (I have designs on KW Variant 2) because the ride can be too bouncy and fidgety on back roads to give me enough confidence to push it on; then a decent performance clutch kit on it because I think mine is nearly fried with what feels like 300 lbft+ on the butt dyno; then a good brake upgrade on the front at least before I would go down the route of a FMIC.

Thanks for the info though. I only wish I had the time, money and storage space to be able to treat the TT as a project car and run something else as a daily driver (W123 is what I want for chugging around in!)

I had a quick trawl through ETKA last night for potential other pressure pipes and found one or two that might work but probably won't due to flattening of the tube (difficult to tell from a line diagram) and I don't fancy lashing out £67 on the off chance!

Cheers.

Doug

I presume you mean this one, not my butt!


That was a DynoJet Research 4WD one here:

http://www.awesome-gti.co.uk/page.php?xPage=rollingroad.html

I don't believe my figures are representative of the 'real' output (power a bit too low and torque way way too high) and I don't put much faith in trying to get absolute output figures from dynos. There's only good for relative comparisons on the same car or between different cars done on the same day in the same ambient conditions by the same technician.

TTQS