02 1.8T upgrades

My girlfriend just bought a 2002 1.8T Jetta. I was wondering what the best upgrades are that would give the best performance for the buck. I was considering installing a blow off valve and turbo timer. Are these worth the money or should I wait untill I have other mods done too it? I am new to this engine, and have never really messed around with a turbo...so please give me some ideas!

Ah So glad you asked taht question so many people in the VW section of this forum never ask about performance.
1. Chip it. GIAC, APR, Revo, Neuspeed, TT(Techtonics) and AMS . I do believe there are others but I heard the Upsolute isn't very good. The chips should give any where between 15-25hp gain and around 25-45tq

2. Get a diverter valve when getting a chip b/c the stock one won't last long. A blow off valve won't do much and really shouldn't be used. This won't do much but keep the engine going strong.

3. Cold Air intake is always nice the ABD one has been dynoed and has had the best results not much tq gain but like 10-12 hp gain. Others can be bought from Neuspeed,Techtonics, Eurosport, Autotech, etc.

4. Turbo back exhaust and a upgraded down pipe. Turbo back pipes you can get from Techtonics, Neuspeed, and ABD, I am not sure what other companies make them.

5. Intercoolers. I believe Spearco makes some of the best intercoolers for the 1.8T I haven't heard good things about the ABD. The stock intercooler on the 1.8T isn't very big and get heat soak quickly.
The new intercooler should net you about 10-15hp
but will keep the hp there b/c heat soak won't set it so quickly.

6. Other things are lightened fly wheel, pullies, better clutch.(The stock clutch on the 1.8T's are renowned for falling apart.) I am not too sure about how much hp pullies give you but they are decent and combined with a lightened flywheel help you get up in the revs really quickly.

You can also get Turbo upgrades from ABD, Neuspeed, and APR.

The engine has a great deal of potential. I suggest you also go to www.vwvortex.com and become a member and ask questions they will be supportive. Just remember to tell them you are new to the engine. Some people will be jerks others will be very helpful. Also pick up a copy of Eurotuner and or European car magazine they usually have something about the 1.8T and also places where you can buy mods for it. The 1.8T Jetta, GTI, and Beetle all take the same engines mods so you don't have to worry about that.

www.techtonics.com
www.supremempowerparts.com
www.neuspeed.com
www.revotechnick.com
www.eiptuning.com
www.abdracing.com
www.autotech.com

The people of Techtonics have been modding and racing vw's for the past 20-25 years they know there stuff and if they can't help you with something they will point you in the right direction. They are very good guys.

One thing cool about the APR chip is that you can get a chip that has either 1-3 modes. Like for mode 1 regular 89 and that will give close to stock performance and mode 2 90-91 octane will give you decent performance and mode 3 wich is like 92 and up octane will give you more race oriented performance.
Any way I hope this helped.

wow, that's a lot of information.....it'll take me a while to sift through it all, but it's greatly appreciated!

"The stock clutch on the 1.8T's are renowned for falling apart."

I have never herd this. You would haft to be pushing a lot of HP for that to happen ive seen up to 400 on stock. I ordered the apr stage 3 for my car, with only a chip (APR 93 octane) and an intake. But that is because I autocross myn.

I could be wrong Samurai I've only talked to a few friends of mine who have them and my mechanic who works on them and the clutches fail but the people I've talked with also race them a lot.

You're welcome Fierce I hope she really goes wild on the car b/c for not a lot of money you can make the 1.8T pretty quick.

never heard of clutches on our car's falling apart unless you have an auto and you over-torque it. and any car that races alot will have things falling apart, not just vws.

anyway, no need to get a cold air intake. your car is turboed and intercooled, so buying a cold air wont matter. the reason being is that your turbo is hooked up to the intercooler, which cools the intake charge from the turbo before it hits the throttle body/intake manifold. if you have a cold air intake, then the intake charge prior to compression (turbo) will be at ambient (outside) temperature. this is all good and well for N/A cars, but once that cool air hits the turbo, it'll be compressed drastically (in our cars it gets compressed about 10 times more than it was before). when anything gets compressed, it heats up. getting compressed 10x more gets things pretty hot in there. also it doesn't help out that the turbo is forced to be connected to the extremely hot exhaust. so all this cool air you got from your cold air intake is now extremely hot. this creates the need for an intercooler, which cools the intake charge as much as possible to pack more oxygen molecules into the combustion chamber.

in conclusion, why buy a cai if:
1.) your stock airbox is already drawing cool air from the grill
2.) the cold air that is drawn from a cai will be heated up anyway, cai or not
3.) its a waste of money

the same power can be gained by just buying a drop in filter and putting that in your airbox

the only reason why you may want a cai is for the sound... which is pretty ugly-sounding, unless you get plastic cai's. (metal cai's sound like your car's choking to death and people laugh at you... well atleast i will ;) )

Well I think anything you do to the intake and exhaust to make the air flow more freely would be a help....N/A or forced induction. If the air path before the turbo is less restricted, it should be able to push more air. The situation with the "cold" air....is arguably not really "cold" I agree with you about that. Most of the "cold" air intakes I've seen is a box that sits inside the engine bay with a cone air filter.....well how can it be cold air when the air it's sucking in is already heated inside the engine bay?
Anyway, I've been thinking about getting some bigger turbo pipes first, and a BOV. Then when she can afford it, put a cat-back system on. Then a performance computer. Does this sound like a good approach? And how does the BOV help?

I've heard most people who have 1.8T's stay with Diverter Valves and get the Forge 1.8T diverter valve. I bigger down pipe, cat-back exhaust and an ABD LAN Cold Air Intake will help a bit but once you put the GIAC,Revo,Neuspeed,AMS, or Techtonics it's like night and day literally it's the most hp gaining thing you could do to your 1.8T without getting a bigger turbo. However if you do the small stuff first you will probably get a bigger gain out of the chip