How To's
Debaging Trunk
For those interested in removing these rear emblems but are unsure how to do it, there are several ways all of which are pretty easy.
1. Get some fishing line or dental floss
2. Some people say use a hairdryer or something else to heat the emblems, however I did not do this.
3. Use the floss or fishingline and start at the top of the emblem and work your way down moving it back and forth like your sawing through the glue (which is basically what your doing).
4. Once you've done this for all of the emblem peices, you can use your fingers to rub back and forth over the remaining glue and get most of it off. When you get as much off as you can with this method use a cleaning product and a rag to get rid of the little bits of adhesive that remain (I used something called bug and tar remover I believe)
5. Once done with this, wash and wax the areas and it'll look like new.
*A little note, on older cars, paint might be a different shade under where the emblems were as the cars paint has been exposed to weather and sun for several years while the sections under the emblems havent and may have faded less.
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Installing Boost Gauge (NewSouth Performance)
I'm going to just go through this fairly quick as its not too difficult to do (after all I did it), and better guides can be found on vwvortex.com.
First determine what gauges you want to install (If more than just a boost gauge, I chose to add an oil pressure gauge as well). Order the appropriate items: Gauges, gauge pods/panels, wiring/tubing (if not included with the guages).
Once you have everything I started with preparing the panel in the center console:
Its a little bit of a pain to connect in simply because it works on pressure fitting (theres two flat pieces one that goes behind the center console lip and one infront and the U-brackets for the gauges will tighten down locking the panel in place. Before you can test the panel you have to remove the cubby hole and your radio cage (if you have an aftermarket radio). The cubby hole is held in by two clips if I recal correctly and takes a bit of force to pull out (if your unsure search on vwvortex or I will when I'm bored). After testing the panel, I went ahead and tested the gauges in the panel and realized that I needed to trim down the U-brackets because they were too long, again this isn't too hard just grab a hacksaw and cut off whats needed. Heres what the panel looks like when installed loosely:
Once I had the panel tested with the gauges I started to run the vaccum tubing for the Boost Gauge. Its extremely important to make sure this hose doesn't get crimped as it can give you incorrect readings if it is. Since the electrical wiring gets run to the dimmer switch and I wanted more room to work with I went ahead and removed the trim panels around the steering wheel :
Ignore the bulk of wires under the dash, most are related to the door poppers from the shaved handles and the wiring laying by the ash tray is from the boost gauge and the oil pressure. The black line that is drooping down by the gas pedal is the vaccum line (I removed the slack later).
There is already a hole in the firewall that contains a rubber plug and I just drilled out two small holes in it (one for the boost gauge vaccum line and one for the oil pressure sending unit wiring. In the picture the bright colored wire is the oil pressure wiring and the black tubing is the boost gauge vaccum line:
The best place I read to connect the vaccum line is to Tee into the line running to the FPR as in the picture:
Now the wiring goes to the dimmer switch (I neglected to take pictures of splicing to the dimmer switch lights and one of my clips on the dimmer switch likes to pop off and fall into the dash so I don't want to take it off needlessly. Simply run the wiring from the guage, under the dash and up behind the dimmer switch (this is made rather easy if you pull of the panels I have in the picture because you can reach in above the fuse panel. To get the dimmer switch out, just use a standard screw driver and pop it out and then disconnect the wireclip on the back of the dimmer switch. You'll want to tap into the two outside wires; The brown wire will be your ground wire and the blue/grey wire will be the dimming power source. Once you've spliced the wires I suggest testing the gauges before you start peicing everything back together.
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Installing Dynamat
Theres not really any secret to this, its a lot of disassembling and patience.
Start by removing any panels that you will need to to get to the areas you plan to dynamat:
Dynamat is some of the nastiest stuff I've worked with, the tar/adhesive on the back of it will stick..stick..stick so avoid getting it on anything you don't want as it will be a PITA to get off. The easiest way I found to doing this is to measure/cut out a piece to put in place, trim it with a pair of scissors or a razor (while the backing paper is still on). Once the pieice is trimmed to size pull of a little of the backing paper on one side or corner and stick that side of the dynamat to where it needs to go. Then as you slowly start to pull the backing paper off apply pressure down on the dynamat to secure it to the car (avoid as best as possible to create bubbles or lumps). Once its on the car grab your roller to finish rolling out any bumps. Proceed to finish the rest of your car.
Heres how mine ended up (I've only done the trunk and the rear decklid):
