Exhausted !

I spent a while trying to find a decent exhaust, I didnt want a stainless system just yet as I want to see how loud it is then get a custom one fabbed up. I thought I would stick with the Golf system as it was already suited to the engine but obviously I had to really modify the shape to get it all to fit.















I found a nice Ashley 2.5 inch one from a MK2 GTI. It didn't take too much effort to change all the bends and I added a rubber hanger to allow the box to move a bit. Its quite short and its a straight through box so I think it will be quite loud. I managed to get most of that sorted in one day, then I moved on to mounting the fuel pump.






I added new rubber mounts and new filter, the mounting bars are just bent metal. Its a Golf MK2 8V Digifant fuel pump, with just the swirl pot. No accumulator like the 16V but this is plenty enough to stop fuel surge.













I quickly added a return spring to the accelerator pedal fashioned out of a spring from some garden loppers, just the job and gives the pedal a good feel.

I sent my ECU away to get the immobiliser deleted which hopefully will make the wiring a lot easier.
Unfortunately I forgot to take the OBD port from the Golf so I wont be able to talk to the ECU.

Recently started the wiring loom from the Golf engine, and started to separate and identify all the wires I need and don't need. I must admit I wasn't looking forward to this part but I did enjoy it after a while. I am currently still on the wiring and struggling to trigger the fuel pump relay.
Close but not quite ready to hear that exhaust note.

Its been a while !

Well its been some time since I last posted any progress but lots of things kept getting in the way.

Ive been playing with my wheel fitment and bought longer rear studs and longer stud conversion for the front hubs. I worked out that I would need 10mm spacers for the rear to clear the large hub nut.

The front hubs were going to be a bit of a problem because the alloys were ET35 8J and without spacers they interfered with the front control arm and the standard grease caps were never going to fit without having the center bores machined to 66.6mm.

Much head scratching later and I developed my own grease caps, they seem to work quite nicely and the nearside has the speedo cable drive in place and the alloys fit on the front with no clearance issues, this saved me from getting the wheels machined and I could use the centre caps that the wheels came with.

The wheels are close to the front control arm but there is between 6-7mm of clearance. If they ever touch the control arm then something else has already failed. My mk4 golf has less clearance on the front so I'm not going to worry about it.
As it stands now the wheels have 10mm spacers all round making them ET25, a little bit out of factory spec but hopefully not enough to notice.

I also completely rebuilt the front and rear brakes including brake pipes and unions and lacquered the drums and calipers in Hemi Orange (seemed like a good idea at the time)

I bought new back-plates and stainless front back/splash-plates from the brickwerks. Amazingly I snapped off two bolts on each control arm holding the splash-plates on so I had to drill and tap new ones on which took so much time. 

The bleed nipple in one caliper was seized and snapped off and after trying all the easy-outs I had to end up drilling and tapping a new bleed nipple which took a lot of time and was really annoying, I gave up at one point and almost ordered a new caliper for £100, but I went back to it the next day and got it sorted and fitted stainless steel bleed nipples hoping they wont ever seize again. 

New upper ball joints and track control arms were fitted and I changed everything that was starting to look crusty.

I fitted new 60mm lowering springs and shocks, although the front shock length is the same as the old ones I'm worried they will bottom out even after cutting 3 ribs off the bump stops.

 I think I will have to get shorter front shocks. Ordered some KYB GR2's for now although a friend of mine has these on his hightop T-25 and says there harsh its gotta be better than no suspension travel at all.

Got some part-worn tyres for the alloys fitted. 

205 55 16 Goodyear Eagle NCT on the front  

215 55 16 Bridgestone Turanza on the rear. 

The rears work out the same ratio as stock and the fronts are a little undersized but only 1%

I'm chuffed with the stance, the rear will drop a bit when I get the engine and gearbox back in I reckon.

Tyre size calculator (at the bottom of the page)

Wheel fitment table for VW T25

Diesel Out !

The time came to remove the KY 1.7 N/A Diesel which was a shame really as it was a reconditioned unit with only 47k on it but I couldn't live with this sort of power or lack of it.

The engine flew out, it was really easy to drop, no problems and lowered it onto my professional engine moving device (skateboard) I made a note of where a lot of parts went and made sure I didn't damage anything.

I tied all the electrics neatly out the way and completely stripped the engine bay so I could patch a few holes and respray it all.

I rubbed the bay down to bare metal and sprayed it all in primer for now but I'm going to spray it in the main body colour before I start re-fitting the engine and components.

It did have a diesel battery tray which I removed because I want to tuck the battery away behind the offside light cluster, I might put the AGG ECU in there as well away from most of the heat and moisture.

Stripped off exhaust and inlet manifolds, next I need to fit new water pump, cam belt and tensioner various gaskets seal including crankshaft seal.

I'm only doing a light rebuild on this motor as I'm happy with how it was running when I removed it from the golf, but I still need to replace every component I can without taking the head off.

The sump and oil pump pick-up will be swapped for the diesel and the diesel engine mounts will be fitted.

I'm still hunting for a non air con model alternator mounting bracket so it wont poke above the engine lid and I can use a serpentine belt.
I could actually use the old diesel alternator with a bracket from an early golf but tensioning it might be a problem.
I haven't got this far yet so I will see what I can come up with.

Donor car

After much research, and I mean MUCH research, a 2.0 VW AGG engine was needed, this had the best torque output at low revs which would best suit my gearbox. There were some other engines I could have sourced but there were a few good build threads on the brickyard and retroride proboards that I could follow with success.

A mk3 Golf GTI was found nearby and was way too cheap to pass up, a bit of MOT was left on it so I snapped it up drove it around a bit and was absolutely chuffed. The engine was sweet and really smooth, it had been quite well looked after and the owner was sad to see it go and when she asked " so are you going to fix it up" I must admit I was a bit ashamed to say " well actually I'm gonna rip the engine out, fill it full of scrap and weigh it in"

Getting the engine out was really easy especially with my trusty skateboard, I wasn't going to cheat and cut the drive shafts like the scrappers, I took my time.



The only problems I had was one stubborn gearbox bolt right at the back which was partially covered by the diff.
I also had to get the loom out intact with the ECU fuse box, transponder, key sensor ring, relays any cool bits, tool kit, badges, loads of rizla papers and about 64 pence.

The loom had to be passed out through the bulkhead under the dash which sounds easy enough, but the brake servo was in the way and there was no way I could get it passed without getting the servo off. I got brutal with a huge iron bar and just bent the thing out the way, not ideal or professional but way fun and by this point I knew this car was destined for the KIA factory.





I was in two minds whether to keep all the brake calipers and discs but the day was getting long and I had to tidy up the place before work next week. Maybe I should have kept them.