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Better Brakes for Lupo 3L


Sherif
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Hello everyone. I am looking to improve the braking efficiency on my Lupo 3L. I understand its not a car that was officially sold in the UK, but I thought you might have some suggested. 

The Lupo 3L officially weighs 803 Kg. That's about 172 Kg less than the Lupo GTI. My question is: Do any of the brake bits from other VW with bigger brakes bolt onto the Lupo 3L

I have sourced stiffer, shorter springs and Vesa from Tuneko Ltd in Finland is re-mapping my ECU.  Any guidance would be welcomed. Thank you.  

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Hi, yeah, you could try a softer compound brake pad? Wears out faster, but reduces pedal foot force. You might have a faulty vacuum pump... You need a strong vacuum for easy brakes.

Welcome to club lupo :)

Any pics with lots of snow!?!?

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Thank you mk2 for the suggestion of softer pads and the vacuum pump. I would like something more radical as I aim to drive this car on the ring. The brakes on it are alright for stopping power, it's really the fading I need to address. I need bigger discs that I can channel air though. 

I'm not sure about all Lupo 3L but mine has unassisted brakes and steering. 

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Thank you mk2. Well that sounds like a good thing for me. I can heat them up a bit as I drive off. Who makes these to fit the 3L? 

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Carbon discs will be a huge cost for a consumable item, suspect they would have to be custom made, inflating the cost even higher.

I understand the 3L hubs have integrated caliper cariers - I would suggest you need to convert hubs to a non-integrated caliper carrier type, this allows bigger discs and will open up a lot more off the shelf options, even 4 pot calipers - See Clayton's Gti with Wilwood 4 pots -Page 17

It will add a good chunk of weight, but be reassured you will stop.

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51 minutes ago, LR5V said:

Carbon discs will be a huge cost for a consumable item, suspect they would have to be custom made, inflating the cost even higher.

I understand the 3L hubs have integrated caliper cariers - I would suggest you need to convert hubs to a non-integrated caliper carrier type, this allows bigger discs and will open up a lot more off the shelf options, even 4 pot calipers - See Clayton's Gti with Wilwood 4 pots -Page 17

It will add a good chunk of weight, but be reassured you will stop.

Thank you for your suggestions LR5V. Do you know a source for a  bolt on non-integrated caliper carrier type?  

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Afraid I don’t - too difficult to say with the 3L -  there would be a lot of trial and error, Gti hubs probably a good start, but your drive shafts may not work...a lot to go through.

I would go looking for German Lupo forums, they will have a lot more experience with the 3L and modifying than us in the UK

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You know, the best thing if you will be taking on a track is to upgrade the engine and gearbox. Change the front suspension to GTi. Fit power steering and power brakes. So you will have maybe a TDI that is in a 3L. Uprate the turbo. Remap. It will be powerful and very light. Perfect combination, nearly as good as a gti. Cheap too.

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19 hours ago, mk2 said:

You know, the best thing if you will be taking on a track is to upgrade the engine and gearbox. Change the front suspension to GTi. Fit power steering and power brakes. So you will have maybe a TDI that is in a 3L. Uprate the turbo. Remap. It will be powerful and very light. Perfect combination, nearly as good as a gti. Cheap too.

Thank you for your suggestion. Thus far no one has been effective in pin pointing me to any useful source or information.  For a Lupo Club , you seem not very expert at the subject. I will not  burden you any longer. Thank you all for your inputs. 

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They are rare in the UK so not many here have had them let alone tuned them, I think this has been mentioned already, the Fins tune this quite a lot so best info will be via them.

For starters you will need to convert it to manual otherwise the pre-engaged clutch becomes the major weak point when tuning, which is no easy task as the ecus are linked but it can be done and guides are available via usual search engines. Then it is a weak 085 gearbox with small clutch and the engines max out around 140HP as well and the gearbox wont like that at all. So if you are serious about power switching all the front end to 1.4 or 4 pot TDI seems like a sensible plan tbh.

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On 2/11/2020 at 2:03 PM, Sherif said:

Thank you for your suggestion. Thus far no one has been effective in pin pointing me to any useful source or information.  For a Lupo Club , you seem not very expert at the subject. I will not  burden you any longer. Thank you all for your inputs. 

Not surprised by you seeming frustrated. Asked about brakes and got told to upgrade the engine first. 

Actually I don't know for certain, but I think as the 3L and the 1.0 models all use 239mm discs, you could always try some race/track focused pads. I think these MAY be the same but please double check. MDB1805M1155 pads. 

Another option would be to convert the suspension etc to run the 1.4 16v / GTI uprights/hubs as mentioned. I don't know much work is involved in doing this mind. It looks from some photos that the front pickup points on the subframe is the same as all other models, with just the wishbones/bottom arms being different. 

It really all depends on what you want from all of this. Personally I would say getting the 1.2TDI to a place that would be fun on the track probably isn't worth the effort. 

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The 3L suspension is completely different. I wanted to change my SDI to 3L setup (don't ask), but nothing fits.

The ali block engine is tuned for economy, not power. I don't think you could get much more out of it, which is why I suggested a swap. The brakes that come with the standard car are adequate for the job in hand... :)

 

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If he drove a TDI he would realise that it is the way to go.

Otherwise he would be better off either looking at A2 **** or changing the subframe/rack/install Pas/wishbones/everything 

Collosal task which is why nobody has bothered.

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Its almost like tuning a car that has been manufactured to maximize economy isn't the easiest job in that world.

Shock.

Hope you find what you are looking for but 3Ls are rare in the UK so they're a bit of a mystery. Sorry to say.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Advice would be to fit a brake servo if there isn't one! The car would have been built with one! But really a 3L is not really suitable for the intended purpose. Apart from the GTi and FSi, the 3L has only 20% parts commonality with other Lupos. It is essentially a different car and therein lies the difficulty of "upgrading". The front axle and drive shafts are specific to the 3L - they are not even common with the A2 1.2Tdi! So my advice would be to change the car for something more suitable.

RAB

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5 hours ago, RAB said:

Advice would be to fit a brake servo if there isn't one! The car would have been built with one! But really a 3L is not really suitable for the intended purpose. Apart from the GTi and FSi, the 3L has only 20% parts commonality with other Lupos. It is essentially a different car and therein lies the difficulty of "upgrading". The front axle and drive shafts are specific to the 3L - they are not even common with the A2 1.2Tdi! So my advice would be to change the car for something more suitable.

RAB

Dear Rab. Thank you for your input and advice. I found a slightly thicker disc and better pads. 
The ÉCU is in the post - custom remap by Mr. Vesa Tiainen of Tuneko Ltd.  

I drive other cars that are sportier, faster but I’m fascinated by the 3L and it’s super diet treatment by VW. Driving it very hard back on a trip to France I averaged a measly 4 liter per 100 Km. This at fast speeds, not the 90 Km/h that one drives at to get these low consumption figures. It’s only weak points as far as I’m considered are it’s inadequate brakes and the fact that I can’t heal and tow her. I’ll let you all know how it develops. Thank you again for your input. 

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10 hours ago, Sherif said:

Dear Rab. Thank you for your input and advice. I found a slightly thicker disc and better pads. 
The ÉCU is in the post - custom remap by Mr. Vesa Tiainen of Tuneko Ltd.  

I drive other cars that are sportier, faster but I’m fascinated by the 3L and it’s super diet treatment by VW. Driving it very hard back on a trip to France I averaged a measly 4 liter per 100 Km. This at fast speeds, not the 90 Km/h that one drives at to get these low consumption figures. It’s only weak points as far as I’m considered are it’s inadequate brakes and the fact that I can’t heal and tow her. I’ll let you all know how it develops. Thank you again for your input. 

We're all intrigued by them. I've wanted one for years. They're a very special car imo. Problem is, you are looking at single figures in the UK. I think there was 5 at one point. No idea how many now.

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Still can't drive them in the ULEZ in London without paying which is a bummer. The funny thing is that emissions from my Lupo SDI is cleaner than the latest Golf. Even the MOT testing guy said it's a bit of a joke... A polo TDI (AMF) I serviced was tested the other day at 0.03 which is unfrigginbelievable. Almost chucking out fresh air.

If 3Ls were accepted as genuinely low emissions and super eco, there'd be a lot more over here.

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10 hours ago, mk2 said:

Still can't drive them in the ULEZ in London without paying which is a bummer. The funny thing is that emissions from my Lupo SDI is cleaner than the latest Golf. Even the MOT testing guy said it's a bit of a joke... A polo TDI (AMF) I serviced was tested the other day at 0.03 which is unfrigginbelievable. Almost chucking out fresh air.

If 3Ls were accepted as genuinely low emissions and super eco, there'd be a lot more over here.

Thank you for your support. We have many 3L that come up for sale here, and because of our very strict MOT tests run by the state (every two years) our cars are generally in great shape. Rust is not tolerated. Prices are between 2,500 - 3,500 CHF.  Example here: https://www.facebook.com/marketplace/item/2658835431015633/   

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