Joe90k's Rising Blue 1.8t - BBT K300 IE Rods Custom Interior

Few pics from today…

First some more pics of my new Nardi steering wheel










Some better quality pics of the retrim








And finally just some pics of the car because the weather has been nice and I like taking pictures of it







A few pics of it with my mates Integra Type R







Cheers,
Joe

Interior looks mint, plus love the paint colour - is it a VW shade?

RichardHall said

Interior looks mint, plus love the paint colour - is it a VW shade?

Thanks, yeah its a Volkswagen R-Line colour, Rising Blue Metallic from the Mk2 Scirocco, Golf Mk6 R etc.

Hi - fantastic rebuild! Are you selling the Momo wheel? If so I'd like to buy it. Cheers

Simon

jinks said

Hi - fantastic rebuild! Are you selling the Momo wheel? If so I'd like to buy it. Cheers

Simon

Yes mate I will be, Ill PM you.

Cheers,
Joe

Just a quick update, I have been busy getting the car ready for my wedding this Saturday. It's being used to take myself and my best man to our venue some 40 minutes up into some of Wales finest mountain roads. I am manically trying to get loose ends tied up so that it is presentable for the photos!

One major job I needed to do was to sort out the dash fascia. I mocked it up in MDF, measured, measured again, measured once more, made up an engineering drawing and sent it to a company to have the panel laser cut from 5mm aluminium. The problem lay with mounting the clocks behind properly and if I'm honest it was a nightmare, probably the most difficult job I have done on the car since the start!

Anyway here is the finished product…







I am happy with it, let me know what you think!

I have bought new waistline and sill trims from Classic-VW, as well as new hockey stick trims and upper door seals as I had some issues with wind noise and water getting into the doors. I have also bought a GTi duck bill splitter and a front lower strut brace from Vagabonds. I will get some pics of that lot hopefully tomorrow when I will be finishing a load of little bits.

Joe
 

That looks awesome. love the clocks.

Fine piece of engineering, and very unique, love it  

Matt

Wow! Incredible work top to bottom mate!! really does look awesome. love the retrim and dash surround!

Some photos from my wedding.

Congratulations Joe on wedding and car. Love the last photo

You: I love this car.
Wife: sigh.. I know 

 

RichG said

You: I love this car.
Wife: sigh.. I know 

 

haha sounds about right… to be fair it was her idea to have the car there  

Congratz Joe and lovely pics. Car looks great as do the two of you. Great that your wife understand about your passion for the awesome little car. In my case you would have experienced "The Runaway Bride" if I even Thought of taken the golf to our wedding. But luckily she's coming around now. Even suggested that I start on one for the daughter so that it's ready by the time she's 18. Enjoy the honeymoon.      

I've done quite a bit to the car over the last few months but I have been pretty rubbish at keeping the thread up to date! I have had a lot of other things on my plate. Anyway, this will be the first of many of the next few evenings…

After my wedding last August, the car was garaged and a strip down of the engine began with the intention of getting it ready to be live mapped by Badger5 in February. I also wanted to get the gearbox and drivetrain sorted as I was never that happy with the gear ratios, driveshafts and overall look of the box. This was first on the list.

So I bought myself an engine support bar and removed the gearbox.





Scabby box out and ready for the strip down



Because I live so close to the legendary hotgolf, it would have been rude not to get him to sort the box out. Whilst on our honeymoon, I drove to a Wavetrac in California to buy a Wavetrac differential with matching ARP bolts and having forked out for all of that I didn't want to chance the rebuild myself.









Whilst he had the box, it was chemically stripped, he machined and fitted phosphor bronze bushings in place of many of the bearings to totally remove the slop from the shift tower and selector forks and he replaced all the seals, needle bearings, checked the synchros for wear and changed the final drive for a VR6 item which should lengthen the ratios just enough to suit the car.

I had read conflicting things about using a diesel (CTN) ratio gear set because it makes the whole car feel too long, not to mention the silly 1st gear needed to get a derv moving but also that it was a good bet for the 1.8t'd mk1 as it suits the car. He advised me to go for the VR6 final drive and gear set, so I listened to his experience. Handily my original box was ECW coded which meant that it had the same ratios on all the gears as a VR6, but my final drive was 3.986 whereas the VR6 was 3.389 so changing just the final drive was the answer. He did an absolutely sterling job and handed me back a clean and notchy box with my shiney new diff installed. I decided to paint it matt black including the end plate as I was fed up of the silver showing all the dirt.





Built back up with new fixing and drain plugs.



And refitted



Think you'll agree it looks a million times better! I also added a new Bosch starter motor for good measure as the one I had was on its last legs.



And a Dieselgeek adjustable short shift





Lots more to come!

Your gearbox looks awesome.

I was a bit gutted about mine. Spent loads of work prepping it but not enough as oxide has started to peep through

Anyway another job for next winter

What's it like with the LSD now?

RichG said

Your gearbox looks awesome.

I was a bit gutted about mine. Spent loads of work prepping it but not enough as oxide has started to peep through

Anyway another job for next winter

What's it like with the LSD now?

Thanks Rich.

No idea what its like to drive.. It's still without sump and hasn't been run in. The next few updates will explain it better  

After putting the box back in and getting the engine running at idle to make sure all was well inside the box, the next job on the list was to refurbish my driveshafts. The shafts I had originally turned out to be GTi shafts with 100mm inner joints fitted, which would explain why the N/S CV let go a few months into initial completion as they were too long. I sourced a set from a late cabby, stripped them down, ordered a full set of inner and outer GKN CV joints from Euro Car Parts on recommendation from hotgolf as GKN were the OE manufacturer. What a Saga!

Lots of parts missing to start with, I ended up ordering 6 joints to make a full set of 4 and sent back the 2 incomplete kits!


Shafts stripped down and Nitromors'd to remove factory coating. They were quite pitted and despite my best efforts at degreasing them I couldn't get the paint to play ball.


I ended up getting them faced off by hotgolf ready to be painted.


Painted and built back up looking like brand new


I also needed to fit my new K300 Beach Buggy Turbos K03S hybrid turbo.




Before I fitted the turbo, I decided to run a compression test on the engine as I hadn't done so before. Bentley manual spec says that the cylinders on a new engine should be between 145-190psi and that the wear limit was 102psi. I had between 120 and 125psi across all cylinders which although still within the wear limit, was lower than I had expected being that the engine was sold to me as lowish mileage. After talking to Bill at Badger5 and a few others on the VAG Tuning Facebook group, it was recommended that I take the head off to check the condition of the bores as the compression I had would yield a poor amount of power. While I was there it seemed silly not to whack the sump off and drop the piston and rods out for a forged upgrade. I also wanted to check cam lobe wear and generally ensure the engine was in good condition throughout.

Now lots of pics…

Rocker cover off, cam lobes looking good, no major wear




Head off, bores look clean and measured within Bentley spec, they were round so nothing untoward was found really

Cylinder 1




Cylinders 2 & 3






Cylinder 4




Pistons cleaned up in the block to check for damage


Sump off to check for any problems below


Pistons out of the block and on the bench




Valves


Engine looked okay apart from the lowish compression, I ordered a set of Integrated Engineering rifle drilled forged conrods with calico coated bearings 

Plus all the rest of the bits for the rebuild, Mahle rings, engine assembly lube, ring spreaders, head gasket and head bolts


And the build begun..


Calico's


Finished!








Had the head skimmed and pressure tested, also had the exhaust valves cleaned up


Ordered a Flexhone and honed the bores which came out well and cleaned the top of the block with a yellow 3m bristle lock disc










Piston and new rods refitted




Headgasket on ready for the head


New rocker cover gasket as the old one was a little stiff


I then fitted the rocker cover loosely, refitted the cam belt and fitted the new turbo. Had a few issues with the manifold to collector leaking exhaust gases but didn't realise that was the issue straight away. After some back and forth and taking the head back off to check everything, I fitted ARP head studs so the head can come on and off as much as I like now without having to buy new bolts from VW every time.

Unfortunately once I got to this point when Bill from Badger5 decided to change his mind about mapping the car. His logic was sound though because the me3.8 cable throttle ECU was such a nightmare and was generally a very poor setup with no MAP sensor etc. He offered to map it on an aftermarket ECU like DTA or Emerald, but I really wanted to keep it OEM and considering the cost of the ECU I decided to just go with the later OEM me7.5 ECU instead. It got left for a couple of weeks just because I felt like I was so close to having finished it, just to have the target moved away from me again!

Anyway onwards and upwards, I managed to source all the parts to do the DBW upgrade and that is next on my list of things to do. I have also bought all the running in oil and oil filters ready to get the engine broken in.

More to come, hopefully I will have time this week to get the swap started now I have other projects finished. 

Little update, better late than never! Decided to put the car back on the road on me3.8 management for run in and do the wiring conversion over the winter months. So it had an MOT last week and 4 wheel alignment after changing the rack and driveshafts earlier in the year. It passed with no advisories and is now back in the garage. I might tax it for September and use it if the weather holds out, I'm still undecided…

are you still living in cardiff? if so i need to come see this car!!!!

Car looks gorgeous mate.
How are you getting on with it now?

I'm in the same boat as you with regards to getting an ME3.8 mapped.

Have you started the conversion to me7.5 yet?
If so, what's needed if you don't mind me asking…
Thanks!