Build philosophy. Share your best and worst.

[niterydr]

Best mods:
-Planning for me is key. Unless you are reinventing the wheel on a particular setup, mostly everything has been done and documented. My white car is, and always will be, a street car. Creature comforts are to me: A/C, interior, radio, heat, cruise control.
Things I like that I want to keep: adjustable suspension, abs, SRS

-Things that I've pulled that I don't need: Emissions equipment, but my car is a spring/summer/fall driver on ethanol gas, so the emissions should be very low. Having full control over the tune with the AEM afford me the luxury to remove clutter from the engine bay, while maintaining form/function/reliability.
-Solid motor mounts This car is 20 years old, a little vibration doesn't kill me

Worst mods:
-TD05 based 50 trims over the transmission. Talk about relocated heat pumps that cause problems
-Not putting full out slicks on my blue car when it was in "kill" mode, still kicking myself for that 11.45@135.76 "best" 1/4.
-Roll cage down bars (halo) in front of the dash. Looks cool, but should have went through the tweeter holes and put components in the doors
-Upgraded sidemount air heaters.

[Intropy]

Worst mods:
-Upgraded sidemount air heaters.

Ha I LOLed a bit. Been there. Seems like you either stay stock or go FMIC, the other alternatives suck.

[BigTyla]

Ah, nostalgia. Some things I remember from my ATX TT are below.

Best:
1) Translab shift kit and modified valve body. Talk about a completely different car. Stock auto trans in these cars is pathetic.
2) TT conversion. I spent most of my summer doing it, but I'm glad I took my time with it and did it right. Car was a joy to drive after that. The auto trans really complements the turbos well IMO.

Worst:
1) Ksport coilovers. What a terrible idea that was. Word to the wise - don't cheap out on coilovers. Definitely made the stance look better but ride quality was awful.
2) Indiglo gauges. That was during my pre-enlightenment age where I didn't realize the stock gauges were great to begin with.

[J-Groove]

Best: Research, research, research.

Worst: Cutting corners due to being impatient and not saving up for the correct part for the job.

Every issue I've had with my FWD TT was from cutting a corner, either with not doing enough research or from buying an inferior part. Now that everything is fixed years later I'm selling the car. Would have been awesome to have done it right first and enjoyed the car at 100% for a few years.

[Chris@Rvengeperformance]

I could go on for a year, but here are some highlights.

Best: switching to flashed ecu, replacing pretty much everything that was worn out. Staying on stock style springs. Ride is great, height is good, performance is good, and everything fits like it should. Sticking with stock frame turbos and replacing items most people throw away like the heatshields.

worst: trying to tune SD on the EMU. I'm sure there are a decent handful of people that have gotten this to work, but it was too much work for me. I had it running perfect for about a couple days. Then there were plenty of times when the car was almost undriveable and really made me hate it/feel unsafe. I guess the lesson is tune within your personal limits or ambition. It just isn't worth it to me to chase down that last 20 HP and spend forever tweaking it. Besides some mechanical problems i was having I have a perfectly runnable tune in a couple minutes on the flashed ecu.

I never had any problems tuning just be airflow though, so the EMU and EMB are good units in my book. My problems started when I went SD.

[green-lantern]

I know! I'll do a TT AWD conversion instead of buying a VR4.

[thor'svr4]

so far i like everything ive ever done to my car and dont have any regrets. as soon as i got my vr4 i started trying to make everything under the hood easier to work on/get to. So i did end up removing pretty much anything that didnt make the car faster under the hood. there were some draw backs (no A/C being #1) but so far its been about 3-4 years now and i really dont miss anything i deleted. every time i see a stock under-hood pic i feel better about deleting as much stuff as i could from the engine bay, or at least relocating the part to a different part of the car.

Best:
Battery in trunk.
Latitude 42 headlights
Black 'Ebay' leather seat covers. they came out great on both of my cars
Deft 2g style CF hood. (i always HATED the stock hood blisters)
IPS 'drag strip' brake kit. talk about being able to bounce the passengers head off the dash like a basketball.
T-case brace (who in there right mind wouldn't buy one of these?!?!)
Blow through GM MAF
painted the 'mustache' the same color as the body

Worst:
IPS 'drag strip' brake kit. these brakes will make some serious noise when your going less than ~5mph and very lightly apply the brakes. aka going through a parking lot or slowly decelerating at a stop sign.

[Intropy]

Best:

• Going with a "stockish" built engine - no 3.5, no stroker, nothing fancy. I had one engine let go on me (before I knew much about oiling problems in the 6g72) and I'm not sure I would have had the heart to do it again if I had trashed something custom.

Worst:

• Slotted, drilled, or anything else rotors.

[Toni]

I know! I'll do a TT AWD conversion instead of buying a VR4.

I raise you "I know!, I'll buy a hardtop and transplant a sunroof!" lol

[IPD]

i'm absolutely tickled pink that i'm seeing you guys post up about catalytic converters. i've endured years of hearing about how they should be done away with entirely. i have to say that it's one of biggest things i don't like about my car after i did the new exhaust. the D.R.O.N.E. is bone-jarring.

i second everything tyla said about atx's. my car feels like it was MEANT to have tt's--and that's just with 9b's @ 8psi.

biggest regret i've got about my car so far is messing with the lighter outlet. it hasn't worked since. i had pipe-dreams about relocating it to that useless coin-tray in front of the radio, but i never did get around to doing it.

i'm also kind of agreeing about non-OEM body panels--but maybe that's because i've NEVER had my hood painted a proper body-color the entire time i've owned it. i really wish i had stock roof or sunroof though--my aftermarket one is ok, but isn't great (i didn't install that sunroof).

*eleventy on "i should have bought a vr4". If i'd had the resources (and an available shop) to handle atx converting a vr4, i would have done it. that said, i have ZERO regrets about keeping atx. to me, it feels more natural--since i don't see my 3/s as a "pure no-compromises" car. for me the 3/s is a grand TOURER, and a refined, relaxed eloquent one. not a japanese ferrari; a japanese MASERATI. the smooth seeming effortlessness of the atx fits that rather well for me. the incredible inexpensive of them (comparatively speaking) is also a plus.

ask me in another year or so if i have any regrets about the 20k i threw at it last year....