16v ABF conversion

Hi everyone, got a mk1 1.6 gti. Interested in having it converted to 2.0 16v ABF.
Can any one recommend a garage or private mechanic who can do this work for me.
As I'm no mechanic and don't have time to attempt this.


Also any advise on whether or not the ABF is a good
Choice ?

Thanks

Dan

ABF is probably the best choice.

Brace yourself for quotes of the work done, if you're paying labour - how much money did you have in mind?

Not sure to be honest, £500 labour? Or am I way off? Lol

You're way off.

Ha ha, what we talking?

At least a couple of grand, if you're paying someone else to do it, if you want a proper job done. No point cutting corners…..

Cool, well at least I know.. I will do some research and get saving! :-)

put it this way, I charge £10 an hour plus petrol. The last abf swap I did for someone took me somewhere between 30-35 hours, not including making the engine loom which i charge a flat rate for.  i did just about everything on it, removed the old engine, rebuilt abf and gearbox with new belts, gaskets and the like. and I had done several abf swaps already so i know all the quick n easy ways to do things, but I do everything the right way no corners cut.  dont forget to factor in the costs of all the parts you need to buy!

multiply that by a garage rate, plus if you dont use a specialist it might take them longer to do it, order the wrong parts, mess up a few things and have to redo them etc.

Sorry to hijack the thread,

RubJonny, do you only charge £10 an hour? That's a bargain. I'm looking at an ABF conversion for my 1.8 dx cabby in the short term (next 3 months) and am wanting advice on whether it'd be best to buy a full car - and basically drop the rear axle / front, engine, gearbox etc and everything and use the mk1 shell. Or just buy engine, ecu and manifold and do it that way?

I wanted to upgrade the brakes as they aren't the best and especially with the etc bhp, being able to stop is important   hence why I thought of using most of the donor car.

cheers

Kev

yep i work cheap, just too nice I suppose

trouble is i have no free time anymore, im churning out wiring looms nowplus my wife hardly ever works lates/weekends. couple years back she had to do it all the time so ihad lots of time to go out and help people!

no point buying a donor car as theres bugger all of use on it apart from the wiring, engine, box + linkage if you want cable shifter and the rear calipers n carriers setup. you can use the front brake calipers n carriers too if they're 280s with the adaptor kits off ebay though.

if you have the space though you could make money back breaking it, but it would depend how cheap you pick it up for vs just an engine, ecu and loom. personally id stick with an 020 box, unless you plan to go mad with the power later!

So the £10/hour is kinda irrelivent??? I might be in a position to do 1 or 2 engine conversions over the summer. Delivery etc would need to be charged at cost price, which includes hiring a vehicle to do i t etc. I'd be charging a bit more too, and would want all the parts supplied, everything bolting on and off  (not messing around trying to adapt eg an exhaust that basically won't fit, etc) and a good chunk of the payment upfront (been stung before with doing work and people promising payment, when they never had any money, and left with a useless/worthless half done car and no way to recover costs).

not irrelevant at all, I still do work now and again it just depends if you catch me when I have free time

if you're willing to wait a while then you never know, this is party why I'm cheap i wont drop everything and work on it for days in a row, just when time permits.  in the example above it took nearly 2 months to complete the project as the car was located pretty far away and i couldn't get down there every day. plus by the time i did get there i couldn't put in a full days work!

my post above was basically an example of how long it can take, to help the op work out what sort of money he is looking at if he takes it to a garage or wherever.

Ok no worries, there's 2 guys on here recently who have asked about an engine conversion, one in Swansea and one in North Wales - do you want the work or not? If you want to do it, I'll not offer to, I can't even match your hourly rate or speed of working anyway!

No its cool I wasn't going to take them on as both miles away from me, which just makes life hasrd as i say especially if i cant get every weekend off to do it. plus now i have a new house so got that to work on as well!

my hourly rate is stupidly low thats for sure,I really should charge more but im just a weirdo i guess

I'm sure you'll get it done quicker than i ever could these days if you're able to get good solid days work on the cars

Thanks for the advice rubjonny. If I were to get low mile engine, ecu, wiring loom from your good self. What sort of price are we looking at all in with keeping the 020 box? As I've seen a few full cars between £500 - £800. So it's a case a weighing up the price difference and liklihood of making the money back.

i think around 300max for an engine and box these days, as you say can get a whole car for 500 or even less sometimes! clubgti have seen a few come up around 150 for an engine and loom, no box tho. as i say if it was me id stick with the 020 makes the job far easier and its a nicer feeling box. just a shame they're made of cheese, so if you want to up the power then you should think about cable box

i dont supply engines or anything though i just convert looms that are posted to me.  as i say the loom conversions are getting popular i have 4 on the go right now with quite a few more coming to me in the future. so if you're on a short timescale i might not be your best option. i can of course take you thru everything you need to know to make the loom yourself, my service is really for people who are not happy with doing their own wiring