MeltedSolid
Active Member
My Background
Hi all, I guess to start I should introduce myself. I purchased my Mk7 golf back in April 2015 in college, a base golf Launch Edition, a limited edition designed to be as bare and cheap as possible, only being offered with 2 doors, steel wheels, no cruise control or other creature comforts, and important to me coming from a mk6 golf with a slush box auto, only available in manual. At this point I had already become familiar with the mk7 community, and a large part of the reason I bought this car was because the engine is nearly identical to the GTI's 2L EA888.3. Before I bought the car I was already planning to tune the car, and by Fall I put an APR Stage 1 tune on it.
Over the years I got sucked more and more down the rabbit hole, getting coilovers, sticky tires, engine mounts, etc... and in 2017 I was one of the first people to put an IS20 turbo from the GTI on the 1.8t, writing a guide on turbo swapping the 1.8t here https://www.golfmk7.com/forums/index.php?threads/is20-instalation-guide-1-8t.341508/ (which many of the 2.0 people ended up using too as there were no good guides easily available at the time). This was before any company had come out with an IS20 tune for the 1.8t, so I worked with Burger Motorsports and their JB4 to dial in the IS20, back when that was the only option for custom tuning. 2 years later in early 2019, after pushing my car ever further, and shortly after doing a clutch upgrade, I found the limit of the 5 speed, shearing 3rd gear during a pull on a mountain drive (this was after doing a 13.3 @ 110mph quarter mile, so that transmission still held up like a champ). I wasn't the first to break a 5 speed, but I didn't want to detune the car, so I decided to become the first to swap a fwd 6 speed MQ350 from a GTI into the car. Being a pioneer in this swap, there was a bunch of stuff I didn't know beforehand and had to find out the hard way, but I had confidence going in due to the similarity of the engine to the GTI engine, and that VW offered the 6 speed MQ350 in the awd golf sportwagen models. In the end I have no regrets doing the 6 speed swap, it's allowed me to go much further with the car.
In 2021, I discovered open source tuning for the mk7, allowing me to do basically whatever I want with the car. I went all the way in with open source, going flex fuel, MPI, Fuel pump, IS38 turbo, etc... in the end making about 370whp/400wtq, after spending countless hours getting the tune exactly how I wanted. I was planning to do an AWD swap on the car, among other things, but disaster struck last fall at Laguna seca. I was coming out of turn 6 on hard tires on a cold day, lost control, and slid the car into the wall. I managed to slow down enough before hitting the wall that the car is in mostly okay condition, one of the frame rails is folded, and the hood was crunched a bit, but the radiator and everything behind it is in good condition. It would probably be repairable, but it wouldn't be cheap and I don't believe the car would be safe anymore with a used up crumple zone. At this point, I was already planning to get a Goblin V2, so I decided to give my old Launch Edition Mk7 Golf a new life by using it as the donor for the goblin. I put down a deposit for a Goblin V2 the day it was made possible, and have been assigned chassis #3.
Since then, I got a 2016 Mk7 R to serve as my new daily that I plan to do many of the same things with as the old golf, but starting from a much better baseline.
I also have a '97 E36 that I'm in the process of painting, and a '11 Nissan Xterra I use for towing and occasional off road (no pics yet).
Goblin Build
On to the goblin build, as mentioned above, I put down a deposit for a Goblin V2 the day it was made possible, and have been assigned chassis #3, and I plan to use my 2015 Golf 1.8t Launch Edition that I've had since new and has been 6 speed swapped, IS38 turbo, E85, MPI, Wavetrac LSD, etc, and open source tuned. Currently the engine is making ~370whp, so it'll be a riot installed into a 1500lb tube frame kit car. Yesterday I began tearing down the car, and I got as far as removing the engine and transmission.
Because I'm going in mostly blind without the guide to everything needed for the Goblin V2 being released yet, I'm trying to err on the side of keeping too much and sell off any parts I don't need later. I've still got a long process ahead of me to extract all of the wiring and modules, steering, and other parts I know I'll need from the car.
Hi all, I guess to start I should introduce myself. I purchased my Mk7 golf back in April 2015 in college, a base golf Launch Edition, a limited edition designed to be as bare and cheap as possible, only being offered with 2 doors, steel wheels, no cruise control or other creature comforts, and important to me coming from a mk6 golf with a slush box auto, only available in manual. At this point I had already become familiar with the mk7 community, and a large part of the reason I bought this car was because the engine is nearly identical to the GTI's 2L EA888.3. Before I bought the car I was already planning to tune the car, and by Fall I put an APR Stage 1 tune on it.
Over the years I got sucked more and more down the rabbit hole, getting coilovers, sticky tires, engine mounts, etc... and in 2017 I was one of the first people to put an IS20 turbo from the GTI on the 1.8t, writing a guide on turbo swapping the 1.8t here https://www.golfmk7.com/forums/index.php?threads/is20-instalation-guide-1-8t.341508/ (which many of the 2.0 people ended up using too as there were no good guides easily available at the time). This was before any company had come out with an IS20 tune for the 1.8t, so I worked with Burger Motorsports and their JB4 to dial in the IS20, back when that was the only option for custom tuning. 2 years later in early 2019, after pushing my car ever further, and shortly after doing a clutch upgrade, I found the limit of the 5 speed, shearing 3rd gear during a pull on a mountain drive (this was after doing a 13.3 @ 110mph quarter mile, so that transmission still held up like a champ). I wasn't the first to break a 5 speed, but I didn't want to detune the car, so I decided to become the first to swap a fwd 6 speed MQ350 from a GTI into the car. Being a pioneer in this swap, there was a bunch of stuff I didn't know beforehand and had to find out the hard way, but I had confidence going in due to the similarity of the engine to the GTI engine, and that VW offered the 6 speed MQ350 in the awd golf sportwagen models. In the end I have no regrets doing the 6 speed swap, it's allowed me to go much further with the car.
In 2021, I discovered open source tuning for the mk7, allowing me to do basically whatever I want with the car. I went all the way in with open source, going flex fuel, MPI, Fuel pump, IS38 turbo, etc... in the end making about 370whp/400wtq, after spending countless hours getting the tune exactly how I wanted. I was planning to do an AWD swap on the car, among other things, but disaster struck last fall at Laguna seca. I was coming out of turn 6 on hard tires on a cold day, lost control, and slid the car into the wall. I managed to slow down enough before hitting the wall that the car is in mostly okay condition, one of the frame rails is folded, and the hood was crunched a bit, but the radiator and everything behind it is in good condition. It would probably be repairable, but it wouldn't be cheap and I don't believe the car would be safe anymore with a used up crumple zone. At this point, I was already planning to get a Goblin V2, so I decided to give my old Launch Edition Mk7 Golf a new life by using it as the donor for the goblin. I put down a deposit for a Goblin V2 the day it was made possible, and have been assigned chassis #3.
Since then, I got a 2016 Mk7 R to serve as my new daily that I plan to do many of the same things with as the old golf, but starting from a much better baseline.
I also have a '97 E36 that I'm in the process of painting, and a '11 Nissan Xterra I use for towing and occasional off road (no pics yet).
Goblin Build
On to the goblin build, as mentioned above, I put down a deposit for a Goblin V2 the day it was made possible, and have been assigned chassis #3, and I plan to use my 2015 Golf 1.8t Launch Edition that I've had since new and has been 6 speed swapped, IS38 turbo, E85, MPI, Wavetrac LSD, etc, and open source tuned. Currently the engine is making ~370whp, so it'll be a riot installed into a 1500lb tube frame kit car. Yesterday I began tearing down the car, and I got as far as removing the engine and transmission.
Because I'm going in mostly blind without the guide to everything needed for the Goblin V2 being released yet, I'm trying to err on the side of keeping too much and sell off any parts I don't need later. I've still got a long process ahead of me to extract all of the wiring and modules, steering, and other parts I know I'll need from the car.
Last edited:
