Patched the sill lastnight with a hand from Alexpenberthy on the welder, the whole was tiny at first, but once i started digging it soon opened up.. Had a small planet of fiberglass and filler stuffed in there by some fine mechnic in the past.. Cut it out Plate in place And Alex zuesing it up, Ill get around to grinding it back, unsersealign it and painting it today! Oh yeah.. And Alex's 1.4 16v he's building for the Polo
Procuctive day today! First off.. Finnished the sill, its no masterpeice but was my first go at something like that, plus its not like its in direct line of sight.. Also, barely worth including but i use griptape on my pedals, i get offcuts from work (even had glow in the dark), got myself some really coarse longboard grip to try out, and its actaully the best ive used yet! Popped down to Alexpenberthys for the day, ended up putting sacrificial plates on my subframe, stitch welding my wishbonoes, making a front upper strutbrace for the Golf, and one for his Polo! On mine i had to drop the washer bottle by aprox an inch, then weleded studs onto the top of the strut tower, used round bar and flattened the ends and drilled some holes, and done! I do intend to triangulate the ends to the back of the stut towers too, but just didnt get a chance.
Ok update time! so because its close to winter i decided to fix the heater situation which hasnt worked since ive owned the car, so i did this.. To do this Because of this And replaced it with two electronic heaters pointing at the dash, demists a treat! And done! Also.. I did a wheel stud conversion.. yes blue locktight.. ive read many people saying red blue even none! I also had ago at doing some homemade pinstripes to go with my B pillars! and now got a black rear screen surround! Properly heat tapped the bottom of my float bowls to help with heat soak, matched with my recent heatsheild i made it wokred a treat, bowls were cold to touch after a long run or idle for the first time since i put bikecarbs on! Got myself a Kent GS2H cam 270 durration and a 11.32" lift (though it was advertised as a 276 Piper with 11.450" lift) but it came with another vernier so hey, and finaly got myself a 4 branch manifold! Everythings going well! to well.. And then.. Whammo! Decided i had some spare time the other evening to put my cam in, went about it as usual, all was fine, and it turned over like usual by hand, maybe a little stiffer but i asumed it was the extra lift.. I was wrong.. I tried to start it on the key to set ignition timing, and then Donk! Pulled a plug straight away and saw a valve sat on the crown Head came straight off to reveal this..Photos arnt great and i apolgise! Ruined Head and valve seats, cracked piston crown and some knackarded valves.. greaaaat So the Golf is off the road for abit, all i can assume that happened is the belt slipped a tooth in the fitting proccess, or the TDC marks are no the same on the aftermarket pulley as they are on the OEM one! Im gutted, engines not even 6 months old! none the less im in the proccess of searching for parts to rebuild a mighty 8v maybe even crossflow, i havent even got to try my cam or manifold out yet! It sucks, but it was myown fault, but i will come back, in the mean time i juts brought myself a Corsa B for my daily commute! 250 yo! So if anyone in devon has an AGG block, Mk2 GTi head or a 3.5 Crossflow Head let me know! Ive been toying with the idea of building the AGG block with my 1800 crowns which have a smaller bowl for a higher compression motor, but ive never seen it done and id like some reasureance that it would work!
That's pretty heartbreaking, especially when you've done so much work to turn this into something worth having, driving and showing off. Hope you get it back on the road soon. Cheers Paul
wow that is gutting, great work and at least you enjoyed it a bit before it brok The car looks really fun too
shame about the valves but at least you can now build a better engine! loving the head resistant float bowls mod. Very good idea!
So, getting somewhere! Say hello to my 250 temp car whilst the Golf is being rebuilt!its slow as hell with 59 whole hp and 75flb of dizying torque. Its actally mechanicaly sound, so i intend to give it a well overdue service and a good polish/valet and hopefully make some money on it when the Golf is done! Though it is 20 more to insure than the Golf!!! But ive sourced a crossflow head if i choose to go that route, i would like to, but its abit more hassle than sticking another counterflow on it! Are there many benifits other than heatsoak? does it flow anybetter, bearing in mind it'll be P&P'd? The head is on an ally big block? unsure on the displacement or code and would quite like some more information on them? are they any good at high RPM's? Would it be a feesable option to build from the whole ally engine? And my manifold turned up today, looking forward to building another 8v, with a little extra kick from the start this time! Im going to clean it all up and wrap it before install mind. Hence why im not that fussed its not stainless. #8VALVESOFFURY
Also, thanks guys! I love the car, and like you said, this only gives me more of an opourtunity to further improve it!
Crossflow heads flow better and look good. Leaves lots of room to work on the exhaust or relocate the brake booster to the correct side of the car. If you really want to go for the in-your-face look you can't beat a KR/9A/ABF on twins. Here's the engine bay on my MK1.
so ive been doing some reading and it seems to be a conflicting belief that that oil return between cyl 1 and 2 needs welding and redrilling for a crossflow head, and then use and ABF headgasket. But others say the AGG bottom end (which i use) still has enough overlap for it not to be an issue. I'm going down to DDS today or monday to get a bottom end and maybe a head so ill take and old HG and fit it up for a propper look. Either way, its not much of an issue for me, though i will have to relocate my alternator to give room for the carbs, hopefully i can still use mine as oppose to the Mk3 one, mines only a year and abit old!
There are lots of threads on what block you need for a X-flow head, it is defo a worthwhile mod and does flow better than a std counterflow head of equivalent spec. I run a 2L x-flow in my racecar on twin 45 ITBS and SEM and in 2014 trim with std 40/33 valve sizes and a ported head on a Kent GS6 cam my engine produced 197bhp on the engine dyno. In 2015 trim with 42/35 valve sizes it produced 210bhp on the same bottom end.
Yeah thanks mitlom! I have been reading through them! That sounds like a great build! Love a fast 8v! Picked up quite a large piece of the puzzle today from Devon Dub Shack, had a good time looking around too! Will be heading back soon to get a rear brake setup and some other bits! Need to get one of these too! Know a good few scene kinds! Anyway.. Got the motor home, another AGG on 130K and alot cleaner than the pervious one when i got it! Starting to pull unneccecary parts.. Feel free to collect any of the pile for free, i have no need for it and duplicates of most of it! Will be scraping it next week so PM me and ill put it aside. (Exeter) Cambelt was mint.. The pulley for the ignition timing was marked white in a spot, but not the TDC mark, cant think why? My fourbranch compared to the AGG manifold, which is better again than the current GL one on the car.. And how i left it tonight, would like to compression test it before pulling the head. Getting there though, been looking more into the crossflow, going to look at that Mk4 1600 head again to weigh up the options. Oh yeah.. And in all the spare time ive had, i did an LS1 V8 swap in the daily Corsa ofcourse
Started the day going about picking up some stuff for the new motor including oil, filters, paint and what not, came home and my head bolts, HG set and cambelt had turned up! Just need a head so i can get to work, and make an intake manifold! Cracked on with some paint first of all.. Also decided to bin off the PAS setup for more feel, i used to run mine quite low on fluid for the same reason, plus my current rack leaks anyway. I went about removing the PAS V pulley from the crank aux pulley cluster, it only looked like a steel pressure fit into an ally casing but i couldnt knock it out for the life of me! only ended up bending and denting it! So i cut it down the middle with a hacksaw, my issue now is my cut has a slight wave in it and im afraid that this will upset the balance of the pulley, i do have a spare and i can happily redo it but still.. Beacuse im using a crossflow head ive had to make the switch to the Mk3 alternator setup, which is a shame becuase mines only 2 years old! But i fitted my rebuilt water pump and wire brushed and polished the alt and brakcet along with the distro and breather. (the rusty pulleys arnt staying) Last of all smartened up the other cam cover in the opposite colourway to my current one, not sure which i prefer. Should be picking up a rack from DDS this week and a crossflow head to get started on, in the meantime im going to swap what i can over and pull the flywheel so i can lighten it when im back with the machines next week.
Right, Went to get the crossflow head, assumed it would be an m8 12 spline like mk2/mk3 heads, its not.. Its a ribe m10, so i need to get ahold of one of them, then i can go attempt to recover the head again. Also realsied i need a non PAS universal joint for the rack swap, so if anyone has one of them let me know! Pulled the head, again, much cleaner than before! It does have a little piston rock on the cylcinders but no more than before, so im not to concerned about it. Taken the clutch and flywheel all off to so i can strap my stage 1 clutch on once i lighten the flywheel. More goods tunring up, got some fresh polybushes for the non PAS rack too. Had my first go at wraping an exhasut manifold, just like handlebars but a much more obscure shape.. Old and new gearbox end crank seal The new seal had a rubber gasket instead of the cardish one that the origional has, my origional one was damaged so i decided to use some gasket sealer to be on the safe side and strap on the new one New seal on Cant seem to get the serpentine pulley off atall, even harder with the flywheel off so i cant lock anything without pulling the pan.. heat and an impact which seemed to work last time but is proving to be futile. A fresh rear engine mount too, the old one was knackered and had so much movement, i have seen poly inserts wich fit in the holes in the bush to stiffen it up more, but im afraid that with my hockey puck front mount itll shake the car to bits. And then leaving it tonight, hope to get more done throughout the week. Its much nicer not having to rush anything this time around, and it gives me the ability to spend alot more time on smartening this engine up.
So this is how the Golf currently sits looking pretty sorry for itself.. Waiting to have the motor pulled out and stripped of all things usefull. Unfortunatly i cant wheel it into the garge, its uphill entrance with loose gravel surface and on a tight bend with a slope to get it up. Not going to be fun doing this one outside, but atleast its under the carport. Some better photos of the motor and one of many piles of old parts And then.. The ever growing list.
So since i have so many old spare parts knocking about i thought i might aswell smarten them up, even if i dont end up using them on this engine build. This ones an old gearbox mount, dont have a photo of it fully before i statred on it. But ive done afew other engine mounts ect too. Not perfect, but an improvement.. Anyway, decided to lighten my spare flywheel today, i didnt want to take much off or effect the balance really so i only look the outer lip down to the balancing marks. i'll take a photo to compare when i pull the other one. starting to shave it down.. a few mm taken off End result, ended up taking 0.8Kg off of it, doesnt sound like much, but i didnt want to go crazy, especilay with my cam, it would just end up kangarooing when i pull away. Also picked up my cylinder head on my lunch.. full of water and covered in oil. Its from an AKL engine. Ports look, err, lovely.. Stripped it of all uneccercary parts. And a quick jetwash, might see if i can get it acid dipped over in the hangar yet.. But yeah, thats where im up too, going to start on the intake manifold flange and gasket matching the head next..
If you're going to clean up the ports don't go overboard and polish them, you want to leave a rough finish because it helps with the airflow. What happens is the air moving right next to the surface gets trapped in the cavities on a rough surface. The air moving next to the trapped air slides past without losing much velocity. If you polish the ports the air rubs against the port surface and gets slowed down a lot but not stopped. Because it's slowed down it slows down the air next to it which impacts the air next to that. Sounds like it should be the other way around which is why back in the old days they used to polish to a mirror finish. Just hit the ports with some sandpaper to clean them up a bit. Cheers Paul
nice build so far! with the crank pulley they should just split but sometimes they corrode together. what I would do is be back down the scrappy and hunt out mk3 2.0 lumps until you find one that falls apart for you. with your pile of mk3 stuff the downpipe is the same as an abf one so will be popular for peeps doing mk2 abf swaps you wont struggle to sell it on, the rest is pretty much worthless alt belt will be a struggle to remove without the block fixed to something, my method is to either stand on top of the alternator or get a big spanner wedged down the back to get some leverage on it!
