Strange, seller located in Germany but when I fill in ship to Germany or NL there are no results? Meanwhile I found some similar radiators on Ebay. Will keep looking.[/QUOTE]
Ah nice! I did spot him behind me at the exit. Its a shame I didn't see them earlier on in the lap, would have been a decent match!
yeah I hadn't noticed that! Ill take that, especially considering his track knowledge. Cars must be a similar spec power to weight.
Bit of an engine update. Contrary to my last post, I'll be keeping this as a 2.0 and move up a class in sprints, it will mean I'll be against the vtec boys, which wont do me any favours at all, but I cant bring myself to downgrade the engine Firstly I got the engine in the shed and on the engine stand, managed to man handle it on my own with much swearing. Then set about getting it all stripped down. The plan was to: - Investigate the engine and see if it is indeed a TSR 2.1 build bottom end or not - Inspect the head work - Check for wear - Get a rebuild plan together. I've never taken an engine to bits before, I've only done odd jobs, so it was great to get fully stuck in. The "baffled sump" was questionable. This wont be refitted, I'll be using Schrick one from my 8v. Once the head and sump were off, I took the pistons out. This confirmed my suspicions, its a standard 2.0 ABF bottom end, not a 2.1 TSR. The engine has been apart before and its had new slightly oversized pistons at 82.98mm, which indicates it's had a bore and hone in the past. I think the engine has been built in a dirty environment, there has definitely been some bits of crap circulating through the engine. There are some marks on the top of the piston too. I think i'll Dremel these smooth, rather than replace at this stage. The initial look at the block was good to my untrained eye. Apart from the vertical lines, these tend to show up on camera and are very hard to see in person. My only concern was 1 deep mark right at the top of the bore I've measure its distance from the top of the bore, and measured how deep into the piston the rings sit and I think it will be okay. If the mark had gone any further down I think the block would have been scrap or ready for another bore and rehone, if there were enough material to do that. Onto the bearings, some looked okay, some looked worn. Then onto a first look at the head, it has has alot of work. It uses 2xABF inlet cams which have been modified by Martin from GasnGears. This will probably explain the decent power it pulled on the dyno. I've bought myself some of ebays finest tooling to get me started with the strip down Currently thats as far as I've got. I've not had as much time in the shed recently as I'd like but I hoping I can get this moving over more over Christmas. ...so, whats the plan. After costing everything up from High comp pistons, forged rods, cams, uprated springs etc I almost had a small heart attack... We are talking north of £7k-£10k. With this being my first engine build and not being able to stomach 7k, I've decided to phase the build. Phase 1 will be a deep clean of all components, replace everything from, rings, bearings, flanges, seals etc and build it up with all the components it came with. It made 175bhp on KJET so I'd hope for 180bhp+ on stand alone ECU and ITBs. With the standard bottom end I'll be limited to the amount of revs I can throw at it, so at this stage theres no point buying cams. Once I'm happy with phase 1 and confident it wont blow up after I've put it together, I'll probably buy another block and slowly build that up as I go, with the aim of around 200bhp+ Number aside, if it goes like a stabbed rat, makes a god awful noise and is reliable I'll be over the moon.
When you guys are talking about BHP, it's brake horse power, right? So at the wheel? Also in the other thread, mk2_Benj smashes some ITBs on a ABF and he (says he) has 171 BHP. I've modified my engine some more, and I'm only doing 149 BHP (195HP). Either you're not talking wheel power but flywheel power, or my engine is build crappy (which is inline with other MK2 racers in Germany, so that's strange), or my gearbox is more a brake than a gearbox, or your dynos are very, very positive. I know there is a "customer happiness"-scalebar for that I initially thought I'd also get around 180 BHP out of my engine but that was just a dream. Like you said, to get it even near it will kost a lot of €€€€ extra.
yes you’re absolutely right, my mistake, I meant HP (at the fly) not BHP (at the wheels) this engine made 175hp at the fly on KJET, with the modded cams and head work. So with ITBs, standalone and a refresh it should see another 10hp at least.
Yes, that would explain a lot If you can put out +25hp with the modified head that's already really some work indeed! With ITBs you will definitely find some more power. If you have the chance, have the injector holes closed by a tuner as well. I'm curious about how much that will do (I don't have any of those mods, just other cams).
I would take the block to a machinist just for the vertical stripes and also to do a metrology. It doesn't reassure me :/ The points on the pistons are due to the rattles As far as I'm concerned, keep your current block without any particular modification. Modify the volumetric ratio by installing a thinner head gasket maybe
I would be worried about the vertical marks in those bores,could be a mission honing them out,if your fingernail can feel them no point in honing as you will exceed correct piston bore clearance. As you have OS pistons you have a further issue as they aren't flash,if you have to rebore you may not find pistons to suit. Wow lots of wear there on many parts ,looks like lack of oil changes may explain all the mud in the sump ?,lots of piston ,bearing wear there,and I have concerns about the crank wear as it may not just polish up. Piston and bore damage may have been caused by a broken ring indicated by the marks in that piston ....seen it before . Sorry to be a kill joy but if you want to continue competition events you need a better start than this block,the head should tidy up with a light skim and get your engine builder /machinist to check guide wear also ,make sure you get a good man for the job , BTW really enjoyed your journey with this car and how you have honed your driving skills on the track.... impressive.
Thanks for the replies guys! Yep I echo both your concerns... I've fully stripped the block now and one of the crank journals has some pretty bad pitting. I started stripping the head down and the guides do have wear as well. Really not the best base to start with. So the plan it to take the block over to Drakes in Bradford, get their professional opinion on whether its worth honing and decking the block or whether its scrap. I'll also be asking them to fit new guides along with skimming the head. I feel like this may be a long project
It’s been a while since I updated this, I’ve been deciding what to do with the engine, and for now that project is on hold, the 8v will live for another year! After photoshopping out a yellow Fiat 500, I got one of the photos from the Nurburgring printed and frame, somehow I managed to get it pride of place in the lounge! The missus said she “likes the greenery” suits me I got the Golf out last week on the drive, first time it’s been started since October, as expected she fired straight up. Unfortunately, the headlining has taken a massive turd. So I’ll be trying some spray adhesive to fix it. She should be out for April, providing all the salt has buggered off.
I tried to glue the headlining back to the pressed foam as well, but without any luck. I applied spray to both sides but it just wouldn't stick. So I cut it off after the roll cage The picture looks awesome!
Bumpsteer and Roll Centre Correction This has been a big item on the list for quite some time now, and it’s going to be interesting to see how it will effect, what in my mind is already a well handling car. This post is fairly in depth and fairly nerdy… if that tickles your pickle stay tuned. I chose to start with the Noath Engineering Roll centre correction and track rod flip kit. A lot of the off the shelf ones I don’t like the look of and I’ve heard numerous stories of them failing. The main reason for this kit was it was tried and tested on Nige’s golf, and they use really high quality materials. If you look at the angle of the wishbone it gives you an idea of the roll centre, before and after the kit. OEM at ride height Noath Kit at same ride height With roll centre you are limited by the size of the pins you can use in the BBJ, for interference with the wheel, especially on 15’s. Now onto the track rod flip kit, I was thinking about fitting the kit and leaving it at that, but curiosity got the better of me and I wanted to work out exactly what the factory bumpsteer was, in comparison to the kit. At this point I want to just reference Nige’s website for those who haven’t seen it, a lot of what I’ll be going through here, he has covered. www.pinderwagen.com So, bump steer. What is it? and how do you measure it? Bump steer to put simply, is unwanted toe change through a cars suspension travel. The changes can be pretty crazy, and this can cause unpredictability in handling – especially on track, where you will naturally use more of the suspension travel due to the forces. Bumpsteer is effected by the arc created by the lower ball joint mounting point and the track rod mounting point, and their relationship to each other. – its almost like a push and pull effect. How do you measure it? There’s a few ways, you could take it to a specialist, who will no doubt charge you an arm and a leg. There’s a Longacre gauge, which are upwards of £600. Which again isn’t feasible for us ordinary folk. And where is the fun in not learning along the way!? Taking inspiration from the PinderWagen, I used 2 sheets of flat wood. I bought these from B&Q for £10 – much more respectable! Before you do anything it’s important to take some initial measurement. With the front bumper and front wing removed, it gives great access to the suspension. This is how I measure ride height, using a bolt in the hub and a block of wood on top of the inner wing. It’s also a good idea to measure the front sill to floor height at this point. Next up you need to remove the front spring, this makes life a lot easier when jacking the suspension up and down. Next up is to drill out the bolt pattern so it can be mounted to the hub. The wood was cut into 2 pieces, one will be bolted to the hub, the other will pivot off the floor, and the distance between the leading edge, throughout the suspension travel is where we will measure the bumpsteer. There’s a few ways to measure it, you can use a steel ruler – time consuming and has ability for inaccuracies. Vernier calipers are another option, much more accurate but again a bit of a faff, measuring and remeasuring. I chose to go for a dial gauge, they are fantastic, measuring 1mm through one full rotation of the dial, they are also very inexpensive, this was £8 on amazon. The gauge needs mounting to the wood, I used an old GoPro mount – this worked out really well. on the other side of the wood, mirror the length of the gauge with a bolt. This will remain constant and make any measurement visible on the gauge. With everything ready to go, and the front wheel off, I lowered the car back down on the jack so it was the same height as the sill to floor height we measure previously. I don’t have 2 jacks and axles stands are too high, so I used the standard scissor jack to keep the height of the car consistent. My main jack I used to raise and lower the suspension. The standard set up was then measured. The best way I found to measure this accurately, was to jack the suspension up to ride height. The dial gauge was then zeroed. I then jacked the suspension up to full compression, released the jack slowly and filmed the dial gauge on my phone. With the results filmed on my phone, I could sit inside and plot everything on a graph. The straighter the line, the closer it is to zero bump steer. To explain the above: X axis – Shows toe change in 1mm increments, toe in to the left, toe out to the right. (each small square on the graph is 0.05mm) Y axis – Show suspension travel in 10mm increments, from full extension, through ride height to full compression (each small square is 0.5mm in travel) The suspension was jacked up and every 10mm a dot was plotted on the graph, with a line of best fit to see it visually. What we can see in this standard set up is we gain toe in as the suspension extends from ride height and gain toe out under compression. In driving terms, toe out gain under compression isn’t necessarily terrible, certainly more favourable than toe in, which I think is why the car felt pretty good anyway. – But we are still seeing over 3mm of toe out at 40mm compression, which is significant. So how does the Noath Kit compare? Well, as we mentioned earlier, the relationship between the LBJ and the track rod is what effects bumpsteer, so if you were to just fit the extended ball joints and keep the track rod as standard the bumpsteer would be horrendous, quite literally unmeasurable! I’ll also point out at this point that bumpsteer is bespoke to each car, there’s no one size fits all. Noath doesn’t sell this as a ‘bumpsteer kit” the idea of flipping the track rod is to get the bumpsteer back towards oem, as best they can for a bolt on kit. This graph shows the Noath kit, as it is, as you can see its actually worse for bumpsteer than the oem set up. So although we have corrected the roll centre, that has now had a direct effect on bumpsteer and made it worse. The red line on the graph shows the track rod end lowered 5.5mm using washers, this was to see which way I need to move the track rod. As you can see the redline is worse still. With that data collected I had to work out a way to move the track rod up. I could cut down the misalignment spacers Noath provided, but there was a casting on the track rods which would need to be ground down. Going over the graphs again, I’d worked out I’d need more than just a trim of the spacer. The only way would be to trim the hub to get the desired height. This caused another issue, the Noath kit comes with a tapered bolt which is great for a direct bot on kit but if I had to trim the hub the bolt would no longer sit correctly in the tapper. So I decided to drill the hub out to M14, and use an M14 rose joint instead. These were from McGill Motorsport, ordered on Friday afternoon, arrived Saturday! I ordered their highest quality joints, misalignment spacers and rubber boots, costing £45. With the hub drilled out, I took 6mm off the hubs. The material I’ve taken off the bottom I’ll add back on the top to retain the strength in the arm, I’m just waiting for the steel to arrive. After the material was taken off and cleaned up, I cut one of the misalignment spacers down to 4mm and assembled. I checked the articulation of the joint and there was still plenty of room and no binding in the joint. I then plotted another graph: The above results I was absolutely chuffed with! Red line is: Modified hub with M14 Joint, 4mm misalignment spacer Blue line is: Modified hub with M14 Joint, 4mm misalignment spacer and 2.3mm washer Green line is: Modified hub with M14 Joint, 3mm misalignment spacer Looking at the data, the red line seems best for me, although green looks best on rebound, Red has the most usable area in zero bump, with up to 0.5mm of toe change over 82% of suspension travel. The reason the graph arcs to toe out at the extreme ends of travel is because the track rod is effectively too long, the solution is either a wider rack, or fit rack spacers. That will be version 2 of this project and for now I couldn’t be happier! For those wondering I did some back to back test, and each data point was accurate to within 0.1-0.2mm, I’ll settle for that with a DIY setup at a fraction of the cost! Now I've just got to repeat on the other side.
Managed to get all the bumpsteer adjustment finalised. I’ve made a 10mm spacer from mild steel, with a tapered end, so I could get some decent penetration when welding. This was then bolted up tight and welded to the hub Cleaned up and painted The process was then mirrored on the passenger side. Next on the list was to get the car ready for MOT. I knew the front jacking point was a little suspect, so started stripping off the underseal. I decided to chop the lot out and reuse the cup, as that was still decent metal. First up was a card template followed by a steel replacement Once I was happy there, I rewelded the cup on to the new metal. Next I heatgunned the floorpan to get as much waxoyl out before welding. This makes a big difference to the weld, but its still managed to creep through when welding. Once in, it was etch primed, painted and undersealed. Once that was sorted I fitted 2 new genuine rear mk4 calipers, as one of mine had a sticky handbrake mechanism. And that is everything for the MOT. So we will see how that pans out tomorrow! Fingers crossed. Aside from that I’ve also tackled the sagging headlining. The repair was a bit of a do or die situation as I cant get it out for the cage. The plan was to peel it back as far as possible to the main hoop on the cage and restick. To get the best adhesion, I spent some time removing as much of the dusty foam on the headliner fabric, I found the best solution was to rub it off with your hands. The board was then coated in PVC glue overnight, again to try and give the fabric the best chance of adhesion. Once the PVA was dry I used a spray adhesive, to restick the fabric. Very happy with the results! But only time will tell if it can withstand the heat of summer.
