cheap and simple

[butcher16v 1]

looking for some cheap and simple upgrades for my 95 vr6 golf looking for some power and things until later its getting a rebuild and things on another engine just to drop in got loadsa ideas just not 100 % sure what to do with my baby haha cheers guys

[wardycatt 7]

If your car is entirely standard, I'd suggest getting a decent exhaust (e.g. Milltek or similar), an air intake and a re-map. You should be able to get it from 174bhp up to about 190bhp with that. This yields an 8% power increase for about £400-£500, or approx. £33 per horse :-)

You can keep the air intake and exhaust after your rebuild / new engine, so they won't go to waste, and are an investment for the long-term. They're also sellable, should the need arise.

However, this depends on what you mean by cheap and simple. You could get the bits second-hand quite cheaply, but will need someone in the know to chip the engine. I can't think of anything else you could do which would meaningfully increase the power whilst spending less money.

The only other thing I can think that would make you faster is to eject any excess weight (let's call it "weight reduction - stage 1", sounds much better). Throw your back seats out, remove the door cards, carpet, spare wheel, ditch the A/C (if fitted) and leave the missus at home! lol. Then consider whether you need 'luxury' items, such as a passenger seat, electric windows and a radio. The advantage of this is that it costs nothing, and you might even make a few quid out of the removed parts.

After all that, I think we're starting to get into the realms of 'real' modification, which I'll leave to the experts.