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1.8 8v head tuning

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The best way to get more power without going for a 16v engine?

Searching the forums came across this old post:
If I were you I’d look at going-to-town on the  and cams, then source on ebay: a mk2 body, regulator and an early 1.6 metering head
. If you 16v  it your insurance company’s gonna shaft you (probably) and imo the 16v  lump is too heavy in the front of a mk1. VW made it that way for a reason, don’t change it just improve it .If you sort out the head , I wouldn’t go any further thana pack "c" spec, flowed and ported with slightly larger valves in a solid head, f low the inlet where the mk2 body bolts on and use the 16v  regulator and 1.6 metering head  to sort the fuelling, then you’ll have a mega-snappy pull in any gear little ripper . I don’t see any reason why you couldn’t bump yourself up to 140+ bhp and not make the under-bonnet appear any different to Mr.Officer. 
Has anyone tried anything similar and/or has other suggestions?





 

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If you want to go faster and hide it from the insurance company then probably makes sense, however if you want to go faster still then more cc ,  more valves and modern electronic fuel injection makes more sense to me..

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I somehow squeezed 128bhp out my 8V by just flowing the ports, port matching, K&N and a bottom end balance. Its such a nice engine now with plenty of grunt low down which is a great characteristic of the 8V. I put a slightly taller 5th gear in it as it easily hit the red in top.

rolling road printout.jpg

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Hi Yomp - That sounds a good route for what I want. Would you mind telling me who you got to do the work and at roughly what cost?

Would you have a view of the other ideas -'a mk2 (throttle?) body, regulator and an early 1.6 metering head'?

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Never had an AFR guage on mine to see if it leans out top end but I was lead to believe that the 1.6 metering head flowed more fuel top end. Same with the 16v WUR and the throttle body (air). Theyre all mods good if your running high in the rev range which may work better in conjunction with a wilder cam? If you go too wild with a cam the K jet becomes very unstable at low rpm.
I did the work to my own engine. I'm just about to embark on another DX for a member on here.to produce the same. I'm also building a 1.6 for my latest project. Again doing similar work but also fitting larger exhaust valves as the 1.6 GTI is under valved on that  side. IMG_0607.JPG
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