1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:05,920 G'day, Arthur, and hello Floatplane for this inaugural episode of LMG Whips. 2 00:00:05,920 --> 00:00:11,880 This is where I don't really know the format, but I have a 2021 Volkswagen Golf GTI, so 3 00:00:11,880 --> 00:00:17,840 that's what you're starting with. You already beat me to the punch, I was literally going to ask you what make and model your 4 00:00:17,840 --> 00:00:21,760 car is. Yeah, so it's a Volkswagen Golf, I'm sure the first thing that you're wondering is 5 00:00:21,760 --> 00:00:29,800 why did you not get the Golf R? In 2001, it did not exist, so I had the option of either buying a brand new Golf GTI or because 6 00:00:29,800 --> 00:00:35,080 of the shortages, and the fact that there wasn't a 21-mall-year-old Golf R, I would 7 00:00:35,080 --> 00:00:39,320 have to pay the same amount of money for a four or five-year-old Golf that's been thrashed 8 00:00:39,320 --> 00:00:44,760 by some teenager, and it kind of has a bit of the shakes down the highway. 9 00:00:44,760 --> 00:00:48,520 Not a good time, I just wanted the new one. And what did I immediately do? 10 00:00:48,520 --> 00:00:53,520 I have ruined it, there is no warranty left on this thing. 11 00:00:53,520 --> 00:00:57,320 I'm full third-ownering this thing right out of the gate, man. 12 00:00:57,320 --> 00:01:05,560 How long have you had this car for? Two years, two years now, 40,000 kilometers, not too bad. 13 00:01:05,560 --> 00:01:11,240 If we look here, it's in cornflower blue, and also it has a nice scratch rate here, that's 14 00:01:11,240 --> 00:01:19,080 from the Forklift in 105, so I put an extraordinary sound system in this, we'll get more into 15 00:01:19,080 --> 00:01:24,760 it later. But very unfortunately, I was working in 105 over there, and I had to have the Forklift 16 00:01:24,760 --> 00:01:30,080 forks up so that it could fit in there all nice and good, and the power went out at five 17 00:01:30,080 --> 00:01:35,880 o'clock at night, and we were just like, ah crap, I guess we're stopping now, and I forgot 18 00:01:35,880 --> 00:01:40,680 to do anything with the Forklift, and overnight the forks slowly went down, hit the hood, put 19 00:01:40,680 --> 00:01:44,560 this big scratch there, and that sucks, I'm going to fix it at some point. 20 00:01:44,560 --> 00:01:48,880 Anyway, the lights are fantastic, absolutely love them, fog lights on this one, really 21 00:01:48,880 --> 00:01:55,640 good. We have the rims from the Club Sport in Europe, which means that they are extraordinarily 22 00:01:55,640 --> 00:02:01,720 light, I think it's only like 17 pounds per corner, and Pilot Sport 4S's from the factory, 23 00:02:01,720 --> 00:02:05,760 well this didn't come with them, but I made them put them on when I bought the car. 24 00:02:05,760 --> 00:02:12,000 Coming around here, we have construction noises. 25 00:02:12,000 --> 00:02:15,760 If you're wondering, the worst thing about filming car videos and anything outside is 26 00:02:15,760 --> 00:02:19,320 the amount of noise that you have, just constantly. 27 00:02:19,320 --> 00:02:24,120 There's people working on whatever that is, there's cars driving by, motorcycles, planes, 28 00:02:24,120 --> 00:02:27,320 it is just constant interruptions when you're working outside. 29 00:02:27,320 --> 00:02:31,680 We had people doing tricks in planes over top, I mean there's children over there, it 30 00:02:31,680 --> 00:02:36,840 is disgusting filming outside, anyway. 31 00:02:36,840 --> 00:02:43,280 Looking in here, we have my crap on a low gym bag and swag, but you don't care about 32 00:02:43,280 --> 00:02:48,360 any of that. And of course, if being a golf, it's very practical, you can put the seats down. 33 00:02:48,360 --> 00:02:52,800 And previously, this floor right here could go down another about 3 inches for when you 34 00:02:52,800 --> 00:02:57,520 really wanted to cram stuff in there, but you cannot do that, oh jeez, sorry, you cannot 35 00:02:57,520 --> 00:03:02,920 do that anymore because I have a complete whole new sound system in here. 36 00:03:02,920 --> 00:03:07,680 It was a lot of fun to do this, probably took me, I don't know, 100, 150 hours, something 37 00:03:07,680 --> 00:03:11,000 stupid like that to do all of it. 38 00:03:11,040 --> 00:03:15,480 It was a lot of work, like a lot, a lot of work, and it sounds absolutely exceptional. 39 00:03:15,480 --> 00:03:21,280 I am lucky enough to very regularly drive around in $100,000 cars, and this blows them 40 00:03:21,280 --> 00:03:28,920 all completely out of the water. So first thing, big dirty subwoofer, it's disgusting, this is a high excursion sub from 41 00:03:28,920 --> 00:03:34,680 Soundstage, that's an in-house brand for vision electronics here in Canada. 42 00:03:34,680 --> 00:03:40,240 It is not particularly great, but my hope was simply that by using the wonders of digital 43 00:03:40,240 --> 00:03:43,640 processing I could make it sound good, and I did. 44 00:03:43,640 --> 00:03:49,200 Also there's Hertz Mealy pros up in the front, they're not the highest end that they make, 45 00:03:49,200 --> 00:03:57,400 but the second highest end, they sound really good. But the most important thing here is the DSP, it's from Mini DSP 8x12, and it has support 46 00:03:57,400 --> 00:04:05,840 for Dirac Live, which is the exact same thing that they use for Bentley's, the Volvo S90, 47 00:04:05,840 --> 00:04:09,280 lots of different, I think Genesis has used Dirac. 48 00:04:09,280 --> 00:04:14,920 So what that allows me to do is have actual room correction in the car for things like, 49 00:04:14,920 --> 00:04:21,880 I don't know, the sound bouncing off of the window beside you. 50 00:04:21,880 --> 00:04:29,280 It can help with polarity issues, or it can help more so with phasing issues, it is incredible 51 00:04:29,280 --> 00:04:35,240 with that. So if you think about, this is a really dirty subwoofer, it is not particularly good, but 52 00:04:35,320 --> 00:04:40,480 I was able to make it sound good by taking like a bunch of math, I don't know how it 53 00:04:40,480 --> 00:04:45,520 works, but you listen to what it does and then you're able to compensate for the phase 54 00:04:45,520 --> 00:04:51,520 changes that it will do and have everything be in phase at the driver's seat as you are 55 00:04:51,520 --> 00:04:56,720 going through stuff. We'll look a little bit more at that, but don't worry about the fact that it looks like 56 00:04:56,720 --> 00:05:03,680 a fire hazard, it really is not. We have a fuse up front, we have a fuse here, we have more fuses here, almost everything 57 00:05:03,680 --> 00:05:08,360 is fused at least twice, most three times. 58 00:05:08,360 --> 00:05:12,560 It looks a little bit disgusting, I'll clean it up eventually, but realistically I don't 59 00:05:12,560 --> 00:05:19,600 care too much. For everything else in here, we have the LC2i, so that comes just simply from the head unit 60 00:05:19,600 --> 00:05:23,440 that's up there and allows integration with the DSP. 61 00:05:23,440 --> 00:05:29,960 We have an Audison Beacon, which allows us to have high def or high res audio directly 62 00:05:29,960 --> 00:05:35,960 from this. It's a little Bluetooth thing to the DSP totally digitally, so that sounds way better 63 00:05:35,960 --> 00:05:40,360 than this with its wires going all through the car and VW's crap sounding crappy and 64 00:05:40,360 --> 00:05:46,640 so on. Rockford Foskate amplifier is a full active setup, so every single tweeter and woofer and 65 00:05:46,640 --> 00:05:53,680 so on gets their own channel, so this right here is about 1200 watts and for the rear speakers 66 00:05:53,680 --> 00:05:59,160 we have a little crappy $100 soundstage amplifier that's completely fine for running the stock 67 00:05:59,960 --> 00:06:04,400 You don't really use the rear speakers a whole lot in car audio for the most part, they're 68 00:06:04,400 --> 00:06:09,520 just kind of like surround ambiance stuff, so you don't really have to worry too much 69 00:06:09,520 --> 00:06:16,600 about making that fancy. Popping into the backseat, I have my laptop here just to show you how big of a difference 70 00:06:16,600 --> 00:06:21,000 it has made going from the stock to the current sound system in here. 71 00:06:21,000 --> 00:06:24,920 The big thing is that the stock one, what I really hated is that the mids were just 72 00:06:24,920 --> 00:06:33,720 terrible. Here, around 600Hz, there's a 12dB boost around 800Hz, it's about 10dB, that just sounds 73 00:06:33,720 --> 00:06:39,280 disgusting, it hurts your ears listening to vocals and stuff like male vocals just never 74 00:06:39,280 --> 00:06:45,400 sounded correct. I had to destroy the mids with the EQ just so it sounded okay-ish, but then you lose 75 00:06:45,400 --> 00:06:48,400 everything that's sort of around that peak, anyway it's all fixed now, that's what the 76 00:06:48,400 --> 00:06:53,680 green line is, it looks way better and it's stupid loud. 77 00:06:53,680 --> 00:06:59,000 This is about 1400W of power somewhere around there, I've been in a lot of cars from different 78 00:06:59,000 --> 00:07:05,320 manufacturers that are about the same, they'll say they have like a 1300-1400W amp, it's 79 00:07:05,320 --> 00:07:11,640 not the same. I don't know what kind of ILS, which is if lightning strikes ratings they are using, 80 00:07:11,640 --> 00:07:17,840 but oh my god, the chassis of the car is what is stopping it from getting louder, not the 81 00:07:17,840 --> 00:07:24,520 amount of power that is on tap. If you look here, I have a USB cable coming from my trunk, there's also one coming from 82 00:07:24,520 --> 00:07:28,680 the engine but we'll talk about that later, but this allows me to control everything with 83 00:07:28,680 --> 00:07:36,800 the DSP, I think we've seen enough of the back seats. Oh, you should really get your dog a seatbelt, it's super not cool to just have your dog 84 00:07:36,800 --> 00:07:40,400 floating around, they'll try and get on your lap, and if you get in a car accident they'll 85 00:07:40,400 --> 00:07:45,200 go through your windshield, Mr. Winston will not be doing that because I have a seatbelt 86 00:07:45,200 --> 00:07:51,160 on. The driver's seat, these seats are absolutely exceptional, I have lumbar support, it goes 87 00:07:51,160 --> 00:07:57,480 up and down and in and out, it's freaking awesome, it's very nice that I can go from, 88 00:07:57,480 --> 00:08:01,680 like I said before with the sound system, but even just with the seats in this car, 89 00:08:01,680 --> 00:08:07,640 you can go from 70-80 thousand dollar cars, get back in this and be like, hmm, it's more 90 00:08:07,640 --> 00:08:13,000 comfortable, especially when you're going from like a big dirty EV that has this much 91 00:08:13,000 --> 00:08:19,680 tire on 20 inch rims for some reason and 5000 pounds of battery, getting into this 92 00:08:19,680 --> 00:08:25,440 it'll have a nicer, more comfortable suspension than these what should be very cushy luxury 93 00:08:25,440 --> 00:08:32,520 vehicles, it's rather funny. What else do we have in here? There's a steering wheel, it has physical buttons unlike the Mark 8 Golf, we also have 94 00:08:32,520 --> 00:08:36,200 actual climate controls which shouldn't be something that you have to say about, but 95 00:08:36,200 --> 00:08:42,320 it does, and a stick shift, right here, it's a full manual Arthur, do you know how to drive 96 00:08:43,320 --> 00:08:50,560 in Forza Horizon, for a set of Corsa? I don't know if that counts, I'm sorry. 97 00:08:50,560 --> 00:08:56,040 For technology, it's a, we have wireless Android Auto and Apple CarPlay, that's pretty much 98 00:08:56,040 --> 00:09:02,800 all that I use, unless if I want to be streaming to the Bitcoin, here we have the DSP remote, 99 00:09:02,800 --> 00:09:07,480 it has a little 3D printed carrier that in theory I'm going to upgrade, but in practice 100 00:09:07,560 --> 00:09:13,520 this actually works fine, so we'll see, but I have four presets, so we have, you know, 101 00:09:13,520 --> 00:09:19,240 the nice preset for just Apple CarPlay, Android Auto, that sort of stuff, then the rest of 102 00:09:19,240 --> 00:09:26,240 them are either driver or passenger high res audio, so that's when you really want to have 103 00:09:26,240 --> 00:09:32,000 that nice high fidelity experience, and you can also still have the controls through the 104 00:09:32,000 --> 00:09:36,720 head unit, if you're using like a Samsung phone, you can dual connect to this, and the 105 00:09:36,720 --> 00:09:41,160 high res player, so you have the high res audio, and also the ability to use your steering 106 00:09:41,160 --> 00:09:46,240 wheel controls, which is sweet. Of course, we have to play Crab Rape, I'm going to talk about the sound system a whole 107 00:09:46,240 --> 00:09:57,240 bunch, the sound system is fantastic, solid center image, lots of bass, it will shake 108 00:09:57,240 --> 00:09:58,240 the car. 109 00:10:07,720 --> 00:10:13,440 Anyway, we can turn that down, you could legitimately like permanently damage your hearing in this, 110 00:10:13,440 --> 00:10:16,840 not particularly hard, but I try not to do that. 111 00:10:16,840 --> 00:10:22,440 Let's go for a little drive, we need to be fairly quick about it, because I have 15 112 00:10:22,440 --> 00:10:28,040 kilometers of range up in the gas tank, and one of those people that just sort of really 113 00:10:28,040 --> 00:10:35,000 takes it to the absolute limit, like, now if you look at the gauge cluster here, there 114 00:10:35,120 --> 00:10:40,160 are, like in the Gulf, are you able to get a digital gauge cluster, it's all fancy. 115 00:10:40,160 --> 00:10:44,760 I don't really want any of that, this right here is perfect, so I have actual speedo, 116 00:10:44,760 --> 00:10:50,120 actual tachometer, and in the center I can just change it, so the important stuff that 117 00:10:50,120 --> 00:10:56,720 I actually want is easily accessible, so speed, go up oil temperature, 85 degrees Celsius, 118 00:10:56,720 --> 00:11:01,920 so I can actually push it if I want, and the range 15 kilometers, so we don't want to push 119 00:11:01,920 --> 00:11:10,800 it for too, too long. When I first got this car, I did not like the way that it handled or drove, or kind 120 00:11:10,800 --> 00:11:21,960 of anything about the driving experience. Coming from a Fiesta ST, it was not very good, lots of understeer, pretty vague, shift sucked, 121 00:11:21,960 --> 00:11:28,760 but all of that has been fixed, so rear sway bar, I have a 24 millimeter one now, that 122 00:11:28,760 --> 00:11:34,360 cured the understeer problem for the most part, but another thing that was just terrible 123 00:11:34,360 --> 00:11:39,400 about this from the factory, is that you cannot turn off traction control. 124 00:11:39,400 --> 00:11:45,080 There's this fun little dongle shimmy called an OBD-11, and by using that I was able to 125 00:11:45,080 --> 00:11:50,920 fully get rid of traction control, and then we saw why Volkswagen had that really stupid 126 00:11:50,920 --> 00:11:58,400 traction control, because the wheel hop was just so terrible, just absolutely atrocious, 127 00:11:58,400 --> 00:12:03,280 so wheel hop for those of you that you don't know, when you have a torquey car and you 128 00:12:03,320 --> 00:12:09,600 hit the gas, the wheels try to move forward, the car doesn't, and then they sort of bounce 129 00:12:09,600 --> 00:12:16,120 with all of like, just the sort of not stiffness that you can get from different bushings and 130 00:12:16,120 --> 00:12:23,560 stuff like that. I was able to fix it by changing out the dog bone mount, so this engine has three mounts 131 00:12:23,560 --> 00:12:29,520 on it, right, left, and on the bottom, I changed the one on the bottom to a full polyurethane 132 00:12:29,520 --> 00:12:35,040 one that's about 70 dirometer, from the factory it's about 30, and that made an absolutely 133 00:12:35,040 --> 00:12:41,960 huge difference, and also made it not very nice to drive, it was just the noise, harshness, 134 00:12:41,960 --> 00:12:48,160 and vibrations were just unbearable, but I got this thing, it's called a Rock Euro 135 00:12:48,160 --> 00:12:54,280 drivetrain stabilizer, it's like a little metal bar thing that replaces the factory 136 00:12:54,280 --> 00:13:00,360 one, and it just completely solved the harshness while not introducing any of the stupid wheel 137 00:13:00,360 --> 00:13:07,720 hop back in, and with this right here making the definitely stock, definitely still warranty, 138 00:13:07,720 --> 00:13:15,440 290 horsepower, 320 torques, this thing's quite fast now, I don't actually know how 139 00:13:15,440 --> 00:13:23,920 fast it is, but we can just put it in sport mode here, wait, come on. 140 00:13:23,920 --> 00:13:34,080 There we go, sport mode, I think the 0-60 is somewhere around 5.7, 5.9 seconds, something 141 00:13:34,080 --> 00:13:39,800 like that, we're not going to launch it, I don't feel like putting my car, maybe we'll 142 00:13:39,800 --> 00:13:50,280 have, we're going to just floor it, but the handling is absolutely fantastic now, not 143 00:13:50,280 --> 00:13:57,600 only did the drivetrain stabilizer fix the really bad wheel hop, but it also really helped 144 00:13:57,600 --> 00:14:07,520 a lot with the turn in of the car, and this is coming from the GR Corolla, this is faster, 145 00:14:07,520 --> 00:14:13,280 it's pretty funny, especially with the amount of torque that this has compared to the Corolla, 146 00:14:13,280 --> 00:14:18,720 getting in what was like a really racy machine, and that is a more fun car, like putting in 147 00:14:18,720 --> 00:14:23,800 all the dynamat and crap means that I cannot hear the engine at all in this, like it's 148 00:14:23,800 --> 00:14:32,000 pretty quiet, but at the same time it's heaps of fun, and I would much rather have this, 149 00:14:32,000 --> 00:14:39,560 this one that I have modified over the GR Corolla that is completely stock, and also 150 00:14:39,560 --> 00:14:44,000 this has a nice little center armrest, wait, the GR Corolla doesn't have an armrest? 151 00:14:45,000 --> 00:14:52,120 Whoa! It's quite bad, this is an extremely comfortable car, like you can just, you can go down the 152 00:14:52,120 --> 00:14:56,480 highway for hours on this, like I've done like six, eight hour road trips and you just 153 00:14:56,480 --> 00:15:00,480 get out and you're like, oh that was great, like the Fiesta where you go on a four hour 154 00:15:00,480 --> 00:15:07,440 road trip and you're just a broken man when you arrive back, but yeah anyway that's my 155 00:15:07,440 --> 00:15:13,000 Golf, it's a great car, oh I guess other reasons that I really like it, it's safe, it has the 156 00:15:13,000 --> 00:15:17,640 front collision detection, so that gets you a lot off your insurance and will save you 157 00:15:17,640 --> 00:15:23,600 if someone just stops in front of you, that did save me one time, adaptive cruise is great, 158 00:15:23,600 --> 00:15:27,640 it's just a great old car, see you later Floatplane.