Golf mk1 2,0 Gti Berg cup project

So, i've decided to start a project thread here also for you english, hehe.. naah, not only for you to have someone to complain over my lousy english spelling, but for me to get som hints n' tips to make it right. I'm not really a noob when it comes to cars and performance, but I'm far from a pro. I also thought it would be nice to get opinions on choice of setup, parts, the actual work I put into this project. feedback was the word I was looking for.. priceless! anyhow, I'd like to share my progress in this project with you guys.

Name's Peter, 28 years, live in Sweden, Gothenburg more exactly, but moved from the eastcoast 7 years ago.

Anyhow, my origin project is:

Golf mk1 gti 1,8 8v -83

previous owned by a old couple in the swedish countryside, far from cities and saltet highways (thank.. not god, thou I'm not really into religion) between 1994 - 2010. I bought it of them cheap, under £600 (used google converter, 6500 swedish kronor). including a set of brand new winter tires on wheels). The issue was that it had a gas leak, we took the chance and went 300km one way to just look at the car. After we got there with some tools, spare fuel line, etc it took about 5min to fix the problem. a "slangklämma" hose clamp was nearly rusted away into powder where the fuel line connects to the fuel pressure accumulator. cut off 2cm, put on a new hose clamp and good to go, sweet! payed the man, got the keys and hade a wonderful drive home in the sunset.

That's just about it, now to the serious stuff, hehe.

For a start I decided to get som new rims, the ones on the car was retarded ugly, old GB-rims you could buy at the gas station way back in the 80s.

Here are som pics of the car as it looked when I got my dirty hands on it:



after a polish


The wheels


Got me a set of theese


And these


Lousy pic, but the strut bar and plastic tube from k-jet replaced by aluminum


standing without "legs" while changing to coilovers and fitting the rear strut bar


Got some new bushings and ball bearings


Decided to remove the bumpers, replace the directional lights temporarily


The result with coilovers, ats cup 15x7" rims with brand new 165/55 tires and a front lip fitted


another one


a lower front strut bar


refurbished front axle with some blastering, painting, new bushings and ball bearings

The work goes on..

started to make some new inner door panels, in mdf, thin bitumen (sound deadening) and baffle for bigger speakers




The results, clean and simple


Also refitted the cleaned floor carpet and brand new "smal" carpets, also fitted some security equipment I hope I never need to use


Just cruising


Also bought an alarm and central locking kit


There was some oil leakage somewhere so I decided to lift of the cam cover, also changed the cork seal to rubber/steel seal with new pin bolts


While the things where off I also blastered some parts and put some new paint on it


Didn't want the totally black rear windows, but thought a medium dark bronze tone would be nice, and so it was done

God dammit, some pix are humongous! sorry for that, I'll try to get the right size here after.

From here on the outer styling/refurbishing/whatever you wanna call it has to stand still for a while.. I've decided to make an engine conversion from the standard 1,8litre gti to 2,0litre AGG bottom with mk2 gti 8v ported engine head (and some other stuff I'll write about from now..

Came over a AGG 2,0litre engine bottom from a -95 passat with just 50000km in it's history (passats are rarely driven as hard as a gti/sports car) in perfect condition. Disembled and cleaned


The "guts"


I also got all bearings, seals and bushings, brand new with the engine. Besides, he also gave me the cover plates, adapter ring and kog for the distributor!


painted the engine block in hotpaint, black


The crankshaft


pistons and rods


All moving parts in the engine are going to be balanced and wheight adjusted by a professional engine tuning company, crankshaft, pistons, rods, middle axle, flywheel etc.

Then I ordered a new clutch kit from europerformance, black diamond with 20% more torque handling than std

Then I got meself a new engine head, since I need my car rolling during the engine build I decided to do that independent of the car.

I didn't get any before pics of the head, but here you can see some of the work that has been done to it. Some of the work was already done when I got it. for example ported, bigger valves fitted.. 40mm intake, 33mm out.. whatever it's called..

Bought one of these tools, veeeery handy little thing with an extension for easier access to the small areas


Almost finished the porting and polishing (not on the intake side, left them a little rugged, heard it's better for air/fuel mixture)


Sorry for the lousy cell phone pics.. all I got at the moment, camera on it's way back from Holland.. Exhaust was the word I was looking for


As you can see this is originally a head with mechanical valve mechanism, but it's converted to hydraulic, worked to make room for higher lifts, one cam "överfall" don't know the word in english, removed and oil plugged. The valve stem seals were hard work to remove!


Got brand new 40mm intake valves, grinded for exact fit to the valve seat


Also brand new 33mm exhaust valves, not grinded yet… (is it called grinded.. couldn't find another word..)


Then I needed some other new parts that's not going to fit from the 1,8l engine (some of them you want to change anyway)
Brand new waterpump to fit the 2,0l engine and thermostat


Rod bolts, valves


gear selector repair kit


Dirty but little used setrab 13 rows oil cooler


Flywheel, not unpacked cause I'm going to lighten it and get it balanced with the other parts


I think that's about it for now.. anything you wanna know? any tips or critics? Hit me!

Regards /// Peter

again.. sorry for the big pics, hope you guys don't sit behind like 15" screens with poor resolution..

No responds here either.. is my project really that boring..?

working hard there! looks good, you obviously have some knowledge of engines!  i wouldnt know where to start.

looks rather good to me, reccommend you getting some paint on the water pump before putting it on. i stuck mine on and it looked a complete state in about a months worth of daily driving.

smokeybubbles said

working hard there! looks good, you obviously have some knowledge of engines!  i wouldnt know where to start.

Thanks, well I started out with mopeds several years ago.. then I have this.. what do you call it.. way of thinking.. If I wanna get something done and don't have the money to let somebody to do it for me, I'll read and learn enough to do it myself. Besides, it's much more satisfying to say you did it on your own When I got my first car, about a year after my 18th birthday, the first thing I did was researching on how to make it better, run faster, look more nice, etc etc. Allways been interested in cars, but never really made a bigger project like this..

The two biggest project I had before was a fiat uno 45, turboconverted and in some other means modified, and a beach buggy i bought pretty cheap.. put a reconditioned 2l engine, aircooled

Then I was studying for 4 years, never really afforded to have a car.. but now i've graduated from the university, working full time with full pay, so that's great

The only thing I'm missing is a big, well equipped garage

Gazvenn said

looks rather good to me, reccommend you getting some paint on the water pump before putting it on. i stuck mine on and it looked a complete state in about a months worth of daily driving.

Thank you!

really? damn.. I thought I'd keep it unpainted.. was thinking about my color theme.. black and polished metal.. that sucks.. well.. could paint it silver thou.. Since I'm not building a trailer queen things will have to stand against daily driving.. things will get worn over time anyway.. But some silver paint wouldn't hurt.

Got the adjustable cam sprocket and brand new exhaust valves yesterday, even some candy with the goods, hehe

Here the sprocket:

Red, matches the rest of the car as it is now.. maybe I'll change it's color.. depends on the color theme..

probably find yourself in a similar position as me with what you're spending money on. i've barely spent anything yet on new parts and nice bits just the tools to sort it. (welder etc) still need to get hold of a compressor aswell but i suppose they're more lifetime purchases than just for this car.

all of my spare money goes to used, refurbished or brand new parts.. only a small part goes to tools.. I got some tools at home (we are 2 persons living in a 3 room flat) in the "spare" room. Got the engine and the stuff there, warm and nice even at night, hehe. Then my friend works at a garage, well it's his jobs garage, they are testing and working on new solutions for truck exhausts and catalysts etc. They got plenty of tools, mig/mag/tig, plasma cutter, and so on. The only thing missing is a car lift. There's also another thing that sucks.. I can't be there all the time, they got work to do, and he got other things to do in his free time. But he promised me a weekend to do the engine conversion as soon I got the new one assembled

All the valves are grinded to the seats, marked with dots so they don't get mixed up. All valves are brand new and completely sealed, going to make a test with alkohol later.

This is how it looks at the moment

some good reading bud
keep up the Good work
cheers
baz

Thanks, I did the first posts pretty quickly, mostly pasted links from online foto album. Gonna make an update next week with some more background, long term plans and so on. Hopefully it'll keep you interested. I will surely need tips as I make progress in the engine build that's going to start next week or as soon I get my crankshaft, flywheel, pistons n rods back from weight adjusting and balancing.

What's the optimal wheight of a street running car's flywheel?

Nice engine build m8
were you in weymouth in the week

Thanks!

Nope, I was hunting polarbears and blond chicks kidding, but I live in Gothenburg/Sweden so there's no chance it could've been me

/Peter

badboy777 said

Nice engine build m8
were you in weymouth in the week

polished the head for hours now.. still not good… but at least there's some shine