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Welcome to my build thread.

Some of you will know this car from its reg, I've had this now for about a year so I'll put up what it's been through the last year.



This is how it started out but with different wheels.

How the engine started out 



The spec it was ment to be.

1.8 20vt AGU engine code 
Full rebuild including uprated cams and polished/ported head
Custom hybrid K04 spec turbo in KO3s casing from AET Turbos - Turbo Specialists
DTA management
Huge ITG air filter
Approx 260-270 bhp 

The story.

I was on the hunt for a running 20vt project when this one come up that was finished but just needed some interior bits.

Me and my brother mellowyellow viewed the car to check the bodywork as the shell was sold as a good example "GTI factory sunroof shell standard L90E Alpine White full glass out, panels off re-spray a few years back always garaged and never used in rain/winter since. Superb solid shell never welded nor requiring any." which looked pretty good apart from a jacking accident from a previous owner.

On the second viewing my bother went out on a test drive and nothing major stood out. He's had mk1's before but 10 years prior but never with a 20vt engine so didn't know what to expect.

I paid more than I wanted but as it was 99% done it would be ok.

On the way home I had a race with my brother driving the mk1 and me in my 3.6 v8 twin turbo Range Rover sport and I was all over him which when my sport sits at nearly 3 ton it didn't seem right.

The car was getting stored over the winter so no more was done.

So when it come to bringing it back out in March I went and collected it.

On the test drive home the faults started to appear.

The boost was only peaking at 5psi at the redline and no real boost on the way up.

With some luck I got a massive help from   peterg60  

We traced it to the waste gate actuator been adjusted wrong, all the boost was passing the waste gate. I spend some time finding the correct adjustment and now we have 14psi on demand with the throttle.

I made the decision to have the motor on the rolling road to check the condition.

I did a little Google seaching and asking about who is good with dta ecu's and stealth got suggested.

So got myself booked in.

We got the motor all hooked up to check for existing faults and all looked ok.

The bad new just kept coming then when we did the first dyno run, it pulled only 211bhp 😳
After about four hours of work we had the following faults.

Not enough fuel through injectors.

Cars overheating on road even though we are pouring water over intercooler and rads with fans too.

The air intake temps are far too high to cope.

The fueling mixture is all over.

The decision was made to map the car safe to use.

The end results the car left with 180bhp and a decent size bill.

The suggestions were to fit an intercooler in the correct place as it was fitted on the chassis rail therefore getting on air flow and it was tiny.



The radiator needed to be updatesd as it was a mk2 with single fan so couldn't cool engine enough.

Then the fueling could be pump or injectors.

So peterg60 to the rescue again (without him I wouldn't of got this motor right).

He suggested which intercooler to fit which turns out to be x4 the surface area of the one that's fitted plus it would get air.

Which radiator to upgrade to which was x2 bigger plus I could run x2 10" fans. Also drain and replace coolant with new temp stat.

We wasn't sure about the fuel pump problem as the standard pumps are good for plenty of pressure. But the pump did fail with 3 weeks so had to be replaced anyway. We decided to replace the 380cc injectors for 440cc green gaint ones to make sure we could have plenty of fuel.

The air intake been on the left of the engine it was just sucking hot air in from the engine, so I decided to repipe the intercooler system to get the air filter over the gearbox side. 

This then ment I had to relocate the battery to the other side and fabricate a battery holder.

The air filter was also replaced with a Honda S2000 stock filter.

When I finished all this conversion the temp gauge was climbing too high when we noticed the motor had the wrong temp gauge stat so was reading high. I fitted the yellow band stay to make it read correct.

This work was done over a few months.

So this is how the engine ended up looking.



As you can see from the first photos the exhaust was centre exit and also went under the axle so not a good idea.

Thanks to tony banks exhausts in leeds we relocated it to the standard position and gave it a standard look. mellowyellow then replaced the rear panel to make the bodywork back to standard. Also making sure it followed the correct route over the axle.

The new fuel pump failed again, so I assumed the filler neck was rotten so I check that and cleaned out of the fuel tank.

I replaced it with a sytec pump this time as I was sick of breaking down now.

Yesterday was dyno day two.

This time I was using efi parts at Runcorn who also had good experience of dta units.

I arrived and had to fit my bigger injectors which then didn't fit the inlet manifold so a bit of modification work and we got them in.

Next was getting rid of the manual bleed valve as they are a bad idea when trying to regulate boost.

I opted for a n75j controller which I had wired into the dta ecu so hopefully he duty can be added to keep he boost stable at the top end.

Chris worked on the car for about four hours making adjustments.



We were having trouble keeping the boost high as the actuator spring wasn't holding, we adjusted the wastage more as managed about 23psi in the end.



So even after all this money and hours I've piled into a still didn't make the bhp it was ment to have.

Anyway I'm happy enough that it's safe at the power.

So that's the engine history covered well apart from another breakdown with gear selector breaking.

The wheels weren't also to my taste so I was on the look out for some 15" p slots to keep the standard look but a set on zender turbo 2's come up for sale.



These wheels were hand polished but that's not for me so another favour from mellowyellow was to add clear coat and also mask and paint each little section 😳

A set of new toyos were added too.

I sent my golf over to my brothers while I went on holiday for a month which is when he replaced the rear panel.

I was chatting about the handling as how vague it felt. The cars fully polybushed so should be like a train on rails.

Luckily my bother runs a bodyshop so we have good facility's.

On a good inspection so issues were found, the handling does have issues as it was tested by a few repair guys.

So on the ramp it went.

The drive shaft bolts were all hanging out and he drive shaft was ready to drop off.

The left rear hub bolts were loose.

The tracking was out 



The steering rack has play.

The front left koni rebounds at a slower rate to the right.

The polybushes were checked for play and were ok.

A ball joint had also failed which we replaced.

We put the car on the jig to check its alignment and its had a little knock on the front chasis leg but pretty minor. So next up is a complete replacement suspension kit, I think I've decided on the bc racing coilovers @ £650 a set, a new steering rack @ £60 then another tracking session to see what happens next.

Next up is the interior.

It come with a incomplete interior as it needed a seat base and a seat building up.

I managed to located a complete seat.

I come to fit the rear seats and the captive nut for the top stay was missing so I had to repair that.

The front seat belts were fitted on the wrong sides and I needed a new seat belt catch for the new seat.

I turned on the radio to find there were no speakers fitted lol.

So I took out the radio and fitted a blank from vw classic.

Then last week the key snapped in the ignition which was fun, so ive swapped all the lock set out for new ones including handles.

The aftermarket steering wheel was swapped out for a standard mk1 wheel.

Yesterday I noticed rain water leaking in through the back and landing on the parcel shelf supports.

Any ideas where to start with that??

looks like a good one that

what BHP were you hoping for?

as for the leak i would say it will be your rear drain holes on the sunroof, or you tailgate wiring grommits

I was hoping for more to be honest, if it was ment to have an approx of 260-270 then after all that cash on upgrades I thought it would pull more.

But since I've research the limits of the ko3's hybrid that 257 I got was very good.

If I want more the next would be beach buggy hybrid to take me over 300bhp.

I need to sort out the scary handling first 😳

Thanks for the tips on the water leak 👍👏

Thanks for sharing your build Daz.

It looks like Chudds old Mk1, although when he had it, it was sorted and went like a train! Think that was back around 2008/9.

Hope you have it all sorted soon.

Yeah Andy I think that name come up on my searches.

I wasn't sure when the car got finished completely and put on the road.

Another job I need to sort are the rocking chairs lol.



Is there I diagram which shows which ones goes where?

Oh and the gear tower has been mounted inside the car instead of outside so as you would expect the gear gaitor is far too small.

Has anyone else got the tower mounted inside? If so how have you made it look good?

Sorry to hear about the issues, but i reckon it will be amazing when its done! When you say play in the rack, what do you mean? I have alot od movement when the cars stationary and may need a replacement. Where did you get your replacement rack from?

Dan

The play was seen between the joint of the column and the rack itself.

I've not replace the rack yet but the classic vw one will be used.

The tracking was all adjust (apart from the camber on the near side shock as they will be getting replaced)

So today's task was to see how the water is getting into the boot.

I opened the boot and sprayed water towards it from the front of the car, the water come in from around the seal as if it traveling through the seal.

I took it off and it stopped leaking.

So the boot seal makes it leak lol