More work on the little black GTI...

chudd said

paul_c said

chudd said

And you will be pulling that with ?

 

Another car?

A Golf ?

You need a fairly big/heavy car to tow a car + car trailer, so another Golf simply isn't heavy enough (even a Mk3 or Mk4). So, its my other car which isn't a VW.

Just make sure you have an easy means of getting it on/off the trailer as it is quite low  :wink: . Second jockey wheel will give you better entry/exit angle

Well today I've now removed the broken gearbox and here is the damage.

From within bellhousing (I'll now need to check out the clutch etc):


From above looking at diff:


From below looking at diff:

Wow, thats a proper job 8O

Well, the clutch was unaffected and now I have the new gearbox more/less bolted in place, I need to finish off tightening bolts and connecting everything else tomorrow night. Then I find out if the ?30 gearbox off eBay is any good… (I've already checked it can go into all 5 gears).

Do you reckon it had too much power going through it or general wear and tear?

ew said

Do you reckon it had too much power going through it or general wear and tear?

The diff pins are a common weak spot so it was probably these which went. I guess its a combination of the wear/tear, then the high power plus grippy track, which put too much force through the diff. I accidentally did the first burnout of the day in 1st, (the second one was in 2nd, as usual) and maybe this overloaded the diff? I don't know….

propper job u have done there paul

nice job.

Nice work Paul!

I was watching the action on Sunday afternoon after the rain had stopped and a late….ish (circa 1999) road going Alpha launched off the line and ground to a halt about 10 metres off the start with a big pool of gearbox oil underneath. I imagine he did something similar.
It was most amusing as it was in front of a load of VW fans! I imagine the grippy track and an over entusiastic left foot got the better of this road going car.

I would have loved to have seen the Harry Enfield charecter going up to him and saying " I don't believe you wanted to do that!"

I bet he needed it for work on Monday to.

The job in hand is more/less complete, I finished off fitting the gearbox last night and ran it thru all 5 gears and reverse while on the axle stands. Then tonight I did odds & ends such as swapping back to tyres with some tread, cable ties, fitting the spoiler back on while its in the air, etc and took it for a test drive.

The engine is running a bit funny now (will hunt and stall during idle, otherwise ok) and coincidentally, while I was underneath tightening up, an M8x20 bolt fell off the car, so I suspect these 2 issues are linked (I reckon its a bodged plug in one of the vacuum lines). Also, the reversing light switch doesn't work - jammed on - so I'll swap that over too.

I also did a trial loading onto the trailer and it scrapes a little (the front spoiler catches), so I might be 'modifying' the trailer a little bit so it goes on and off smoothly!

thats why im too scared to run slicks! my polo gearbox looked similar to that when that gave up. the gearbox oil poured onto my exhaust making clouds of smoke too proper spectacular like

Well, the running issue was nothing more than a poor electrical contact on the ECU, so it was easy to sort out. I have used the car a little more since the last post, I went to VWNW which wasn't too far from me, and also went to Santa Pod again for VW Action (on the trailer, although the car performed faultlessly).

At VW Action we did some night racing which was very cool, but still I haven't been able to better by PB quarter mile time. However its performing consistently at around 14.4 secs. It doesn't make sense that lower ratios would give less performance, so I think the issue is that the power tails off the higher up the rev range and so with the previous transmission, the 4th gear stretch was more usable and gave a better time.

So now, I need to decide what to do and I'm in a little bit of a dilemma. I could spend a bit more on it with a 'package' of improvements such as:

- Rolling road session to discover properly where my power band is, followed by some calculations to give me the optimal gear ratios, then possibly swap the gearbox
- Maybe even more weight saving?
- Slick tyres up front (2 of my tyres are now worn out after 60 miles of drag racing and around 1500 miles on the road).

Or I could put the bumpers, trim, interior etc back onto it, raise the suspension a bit and simply enjoy using it as a normal car.

Or I could put the bumpers, trim, interior etc back onto it, raise the suspension a bit and simply enjoy using it as a normal car.

There comes a time when unless you spend vast amounts that that is it .

You may have seen me mention the fastest Golf MK1 on the planet ? Grant Parkers Audi powered 5 cylinder , well it seems he is stuck on 10.2 quarter  miles , terminal speed is over 146mph .

Like you said Paul …………..

Cheers…………..

chudd said

Or I could put the bumpers, trim, interior etc back onto it, raise the suspension a bit and simply enjoy using it as a normal car.

There comes a time when unless you spend vast amounts that that is it .

You may have seen me mention the fastest Golf MK1 on the planet ? Grant Parkers Audi powered 5 cylinder , well it seems he is stuck on 10.2 quarter  miles , terminal speed is over 146mph .

Like you said Paul …………..

Cheers…………..

Well I guess the long term plan is to finish the VR6, get it performing properly (possibly also with a couple of runs down the 1/4 mile) and see which one I prefer the most; then sell the other one. After all, no point having a fleet of modified fast Mk1s is there?

If I had more money (and time and motivation and skills….) I'd want to build an even faster car than even sticking a VR6 in, well maybe one day I will do that and beat Grant's car?

well maybe one day I will do that and beat Grant's car?

Over 30K in that build  8O

Next build is 1000HP in 1000KG Audi . I think any top performance is now down to how much money and technology you can throw at it not what you can achieve Diy at home .

If you read any old VW Mag from about 10 years ago any MK1 doing a quarter time of over 15 seconds was considered awesome , you have broken this .

along with a gearbox this year

my aim is to get into the 13 seconds mark with the cabby then build something silly like a  mk1 with haldex and 16v turbo 600bhp would be nice :mrgreen:

There's no point trying to be the fastest - unless you have a desire to beat Outrage III or even its V8 incarnation Eightrage. Fast VW has all been done 10 years ago…..

not so keen on v8 engines although you have the power id rather build something stupid using a skyline engine for example

With not much action since, ummm, VW Action, I've been able to attend to a few odds and ends. Here is the grille trim being repainted.

Firstly, the trims were carefully removed then rubbed down with 80, 120 then 240 grit abrasive paper. Then painted in primer, wet flatted with 600 grade, then painted with Mars Red No.1 and clearcoated too.


Here are the trims being painted in primer, note their mounting on an old grille kicking around.


While it was off the car the plastic sections were given a thorough clean


Ready to assemble


Back on the car


Now it shows up the rest of it! Better give it a wash…..