November 24, 2004

I first met Luke Niebylski in Toronto, Ontario, Canada of summer 2001. I was cruising behind his Golf, when a puff of black smoke came out of his exhaust. I floored my 1.8T to catch up to him but it was a chore for my healthy 20V to catch up to this virgin looking Golf. When we came to a stop, I told him that his 1.8T was smoking really badly and that he should get it looked at. His reply: "It's a diesel, slightly modded." I was in shock. That car was really moving. Luke had a chip, and some nice 17 inch rims at the time.

Move forward to 2004. Luke has continued with his modifying and has built one of the most impressive MK4 diesel’s we have ever seen. The theme for this car is euro clean, and at a quick glance its clear he's done a very tasteful job.

A Reiger front lip accompanies a splitter fixed to a modified NA spec bumper. The bumper notch was eliminated with the FK badgeless grill, which adds to overall appearance of the Eurojet racing front mounted intercooler. FMIC? TDI? Yes.

Hella smoked E-Code's project their European beam pattern to continue the euro theme away from the car. To match the smoked front lights, a set of Hella smoked taillights were added to create a silver and black theme.

Axis Milano 19x8.5" poke out from under the arches. 2.25’’ of polished lip in both front and back show that there is no mistaking, this car means business.

The rims come wrapped in Hankook Ventus K104 235/35/19 bologna skins, leaving just enough space to drop the car perfectly with H&R Sport springs.

Oettinger side skirts and Oettinger rear valence accentuate the Golf perfectly, and makes the dual Brullen exhaust tips more euro, than rice.

For Audio, Mark from Kankar Marketing was called to supply the 3 10’’ Arc Audio subwoofers which are connected to a 900rms Arc audio amp. The ice was placed inside the hatch by Perfect-Tones. Their crazy ideas put fiberglass, and a hovering amp inside the trunk. No more "Golf" clubs in here.

The turbo diesel direct injected motor pumps out a whopping 90hp, but makes up for it with 155lb of torque. The very economic engine can easily hit 1200km on a full tank, blowing the hybrid cars out of the water.

Luke was quick to upgrade his ECU to the Upsolute performance chip, which has proved gains of over 20whp and 40lbs of head snapping torque, putting the torque number at over 200’s at a cool 1900rpm. With all the added power, the car was choking for fresh air, but it didn’t take long to replace the stock air intake system for a 20VT full 3" cold air intake.

Driving in the car with the windows down makes you realize just how hard the turbo is working. The turbo whine is enough to make a Mack truck blush. Well, maybe not quite, but spooling at excess of 26psi definitely makes the 19’s break loose with ease. A Dawes device (Manual Boost Controller) was installed to limit the spike in boost to prolong the life of the turbocharger.

The graceful interior of car keeps a very clean appearance starting with the 3 spoke leather steering wheel swapped from a GTI. Looking through the steering wheel, you notice a set of OEM looking silver gauge faces courtesy of Meister Gauges. Autometer gauges are positioned on the a-pillar to keep a close eye on economic yet very torque powered motor.

This car is very gracefully done, keeping the flash high, yet subtle enough not to be overboard. The black and silver theme works tremendously well.

Article By: Harry Scanlan, Luke Niebylski