The COBB catted 3″ downpipe is a true work of art and is going to give us some nice power gains when we combine it with the Accessport stage 3 tune. There really isn’t another company on the market that makes upgrading the performance of your car easier than COBB does with their combination of electronics for tuning and hard parts for improving capabilities. Typically when you upgrade a component of your engine, you have to go back to your tuner and get a new custom tune. That is both costly and time-consuming. You always have the option of getting custom tunes done on your Golf R with the Acessport if you choose, but you can also simply use one of the off the shelf COBB maps. They do a great job of developing their tunes to allow users the option of adding a new part for more power later down the road. This is the second vehicle I have used COBB Accessport and COBB hard parts on and it probably will not be the last.
The COBB downpipe features the industry-leading GESI high flow catalyst. This catalyst is the benchmark for high-performance EPA certified emission compliance. Full stainless steel construction ensures a long life from this unit. Standard catalysts have a substrate that is constructed of ceramic which is prone to failure in high-performance applications. The ceramic substrate breaks apart and the forms a nasty restriction in your exhaust system and can even damage your engine if a dislodged piece of ceramic is ingested into the cylinder. In the GESI catalyst, the substrate is a corrugated stainless steel sheet that is furnace braised to the mantle and retained in the catalyst cylinder using a unique end cap design.
The 3″ mandrel bent piping is attached to a nice v-band flange for easy installation with the factory turbo. They use a v-band flange which is a welcome change from proprietary bolt flanges that are notorious for having seized and snapped studs. The smooth and continuous radius of the mandrel bends reduces exhaust flow restrictions which will help the turbocharger efficiency.
COBB did a beautiful job with the fabrication of the mounting brackets on the downpipe. These custom fabricated mounting brackets allow the downpipe to be easily attached to the factory mounting locations. This bracket attaches the exhaust to the chassis with soft NVH isolation so that you do not get any unwanted and annoying noise transmitted into the cabin of the car. I’ve been in cars with poor quality parts that didn’t have good engineering and really made the car feel like poo from the driver seat. Remember, this if you had to get into a car every day and live with the parts you put on it.
COBB is kind enough to include a slip joint that will allow you to run the stock exhaust. We are planning on putting an exhaust on this car at some point, but we are still not sure which one. The factory exhaust flows pretty good and has valves which can increase flow when the engine needs to breathe. Active exhaust valves have made driving a highly tuned car every day much less of a hassle. The days of super loud fart cans and exhaust noise tickets are a thing of the past.
8 comments
I would suggest painting your intercooler black for better effectiveness.
I did think about doing that, but the intercooler was just too pretty. Also, the emicivity gains from the black paint job sort loose effectiveness once you start to have air flowing across the heat exchanger.
how much more boost does the stage 3 tune tune? very surprised you only picked up 15 peak hp and 30lb ft with a hotter tune and big downpipe/intercooler. I suspect that if you get the TCU tuned, the numbers will jump up to where they ought to be. Also, any concern not having apples/apples because you changed the load parameters on the dyno between runs?
Can anyone explain a couple of things?
The MK7 Golf R is rated at 292hp at the crank from the factory. Generally speaking a AWD system will loose around 20% of power thru the drivetrain but….
1. This Golf doesn’t have the Haldex system hooked up on the dyno?!
2. If the 20% loss in power is a realistic number; that means that without the COBB downpipe/ APR IC and the COBB tune this Golf would only make around 210whp?
If 210whp is a realistic number, that means that this Golf R (or any stock Golf R for that matter) have a drivetrain loose of about 29%?
That is a HUGE % loss in the drivetrain considering this car is fairly new.
As Billy pointed out above, I believe we will see even more power when we update the TCU. Also, the motoiq in house dyno does read low. I’m not a dyno expert, so I’m not exactly sure what difference the change to the dyno made to the power readings.
Our dyno does read low, the power numbers don’t matter, they change from dyno to dyno, what matters is the difference in power when comparing to stock or prior mods.
Thanks Isaac. I understand that the TCU has to be updated but my concern was about the fact this bone stock MK7 Golf R has a drivetrain loss of roughly 29%…..
As Mike said, dyno numbers are not very important as each dyno read differently and temp/ humidity and other factors play an important role of how the ECU response…..but I’m still baffled a can this new can loose that much.
I wish Cobb would release an option for S3 owners. I’ve been holding out, hoping they come around, but if they don’t I’ll likely get something from 034 Motorsports.