'E-MAD' - 1988 Mk2 Golf 16v Track Car Project - Seats & 'Wheel lowered...

excellent work,

I've found your cars brother on ebay

 

Cool! Is it in ebay now or did you buy it?

 

It was on ebay a few days ago & didn't sell, but I was thinking about going to check it out.

 

cool find with the reg

 

Bit more progress last night and this afternoon...

Tidied up the foot plates ready for painting:




Decided to have my first go at some un-supervised welding (brother in law is usually on hand to help) and box the b-pillar plates in a little bit. Not the neatest but quite pleased with myself for a complete novice!






Did some painting:








That was all last night, started again this aft and did the various bits in red:






Decided to tidy up the inside of the roof where we removed the sunroof, it was a bit messy so I cleaned up the rough edges and gave it the duck tape treatment (it's going to be covered up anyway).




Made some headlining just for the front half of the car using the rear of the original headling and some Blue Peter scissor skills. Remember I couldn't use the front end of the headling as it had a big hole in it for the sunroof!




Fitted, looks alright and will fit snugly once the cage is in:




Sealed up the sunroof better with some black gutter sealant rather than the duck tape we had on there previously. Looks like a factory sunroof when shut now more or less. Hopefully will be watertight as it's started raining now!




Second coat of Tornado Red on the cage which is now drying in the garage:




Any comments or suggestions appreciated as always. Cage fitting and plates for under the car next

 

Are you using captive nuts in the box sections or longer bolts right through?

 

I was going to use one captive nut on the boxed in bit and all the rest have bolts straight through but having a re-think and might drill the last one straight through the floor too. I could stick a little spacer tube on the bolt inside the box section to stop it compressing as the bolt is tightened down.

Not quite sure yet will move onto that when I've finished making up plates for under the car, nearly ready to install the cage again now but in it's painted state.

 

Small update, few more pics

Sunday afternoon it was raining so I finished off painting the cage in the garage and made up some plates for under the car where the cage bolts down.

Front leg plates:




Car being wet weather tested...




Front plates and rear wheelarch ones, not made the b-pillar ones yet. Painted these after the photo's to stop rusting:




Over the last few evenings I've been installing the painted cage back in the car, fits nicely and looks much better now it matches the car:








One of the rear wheelarch plates in place with washers and nylon lock nuts. Will underseal it when I'm sure it doesn't have to come apart again!




That's where it's up to for now, more soon

 

Been a while since I updated this but been making steady progress with the car.

Finished off installing the cage, a-pillar legs now have plates underneath the car like this, again with locknuts.




Cage install looks much better now it's painted to match the car, headlining has tidied up the inside of the roof after sunroof removal.




Testing a special wooden harness bar I've designed, not painted to match the car yet though...




Few more cage pics showing door bars etc.






Had a problem with a ratty exhaust heat sheild underneath the car in the tunnel, was driving me mad and making it hard to diagnose if the manifold was still fouling the bulkhead. Drilled through the tunnel and sheild from underneath and secured the sheild with some small nuts and bolts - barely noticeable inside and it's stopped the ratting.






So, a nice quiet heat sheild... although now I can hear the manifold still fouling the bulkhead when the car is revved hard and the engine moves a bit on it's mounts. Bah!

 

Next job was some cage padding. Got the stuff from Rally Design, great service with next day delivery and the cheapest place I could find.








Bought all new engine mounts for the car to try and tighten up the engine a bit and stop the exhaust manifold fouling the already modified bulkhead.

This is the front one, ordered the early 16v mount which seems to be the same part as used on the early Mk2's and diesel models. It's certainly a bigger sturdier looking thing than the old one, which wasn't in bad shape to be fair. Fitting was relatively straightforward, unlike the rear one...! (New mount on the right)






Fitting the rear gearbox mount was quite straightforward too, old mount on the left, new in the middle and the bracket that holds the gearbox to the mount on the right.




This is where the mount fits on the subframe on the passenger side.




Next came a flood!




Fitting the rear mount would have been straightforward if I'd just swapped it straight in, but then the engine would still have sat too high. So, after lots of trial and error, I removed the mounting bracket from the subframe, cut it, filed it, drilled it, hammered it and swore at it until it could be reversed and re-drilled to sit the rubber mount 1/2 inch lower.

Took some pics but none came out too well, will take a better one and post it but basically achieved what I intended to as per this thread:
http://www.clubgti.com/forum/showthread.php?t=162793

It worked well, engine sits like this now - quite level and a bit lower, probably won't need to grind anything off the bonnet and more importantly, no bulkhead / manifold contact when revved now!




That's all for now. Next jobs are to fix a blowing exhaust, just needs fitting properly I think where the four branch joins the centre pipe, engine setup, then MOT stuff, lights, horn, wipers etc and trim, door cards and all that stuff.

There is a brake upgrade planned but will get to that once the car is MOT'd then we can start using it to iron out any issues.

 

Right - another busy few days on the car, here's some pics

Better shot of rear driver's side engine mount after modifications to lower the engine a bit:




New ignition parts - leads, dizzy cap and rotor arm:




Fitted:




Finally tracked down a long 3mm allen key to adjust the fuel mixture:




Door cards. I decided to make up some door cards so bought some offcuts of plastic sheet from a local sign making firm and got busy with the stanley knife and drill Blue Peter style.

This is the result, white for now but may paint them to match the car at a later date. Trial fit:




With extra fixings in place:




I fitted the footwell plates back in, they used to be riveted but I drilled through and bolted them down securely instead. May remove the passenger one again to make a footrest similar to the one Nige has in his car at some point:




Next I started on the rear strut brace / harness bar. Big thanks to Nige first who sent me a handy metre long piece of CDS tube which was ideal for the job!

I made up some plates for the end, very warm on hacksaw duty this weekend I have to say! Cut the tube to length and did a mock up:






Next it was welding time. Bear in mind when looking at the pics that this is only my second attempt at unsupervised welding, not too bad I thought?




Trial fitted and took some paint off where it needed welding into the turrets:






Welded in place, again - a very hot job indeed given the weather on Saturday afternoon was roasting! Welding isn't too pretty, but it's certainly not going to come apart in a hurry!




Gave it the usual, couple of coats of primer and then a few of tornado red. Probably do another coat next time I'm out in the garage and then it's finished.






Here's a few pics of the engine, was double checking the inter-cam timing.
I'm still trying to sort out a baffling misfire / pinking issue with the bloody thing!
Thread in engines section here: http://www.clubgti.com/forum/showthread.php?t=163953

Hmm... oily








That's all for now - as ever, comments and suggestions much appreciated

 

Nice work, I'm thinking of doing a rear strut brace like that as well. What length of CDS did you need?

 

nice car Stu should have some fun in that, lets hope these problems get sorted

Have you checked the injector order to plugs. Had this issue with mine, it used to spit flames

If you inter cam dots don't line up it may be because you chain is stretched. Its worth a change as its so cheap. not sure if it will help with the problem

other thing is have you tried the fueling. something like filter or pump?

 

Thanks. I started off with a metre length of CDS, 43mm diameter and cut it down to suit.

The actual measurement in my case was 955mm but it would depend on the thickness of the spreader plates you use, mine were approx. 2mm thick. Overall distance between the turrets is 960mm on this car, could differ a little on others I expect.

 

Thanks for the ideas, will add them to the list of things to investigate.
Currently thinking it might be the coil as per suggestions on my thread in the 'engines' section, any thoughts?

 

Thanks for that Stu, much appreciated

 

Right, on Monday as it was a Bank Holiday and Neil was up for the weekend we thought we'd start the brake upgrade, couldn't do anymore with the engine 'til the new gasket and bolts arrived. It currently looks like this in the engine bay...




So, off with the wheels and the driver's side looked like this. It had already been upgraded to 256mm front brakes from a late model 16v (this is an early one) but we wanted to go bigger again. Bit crusty but worked ok...




Unfortunately a variety of problems arose on the driver's side of the car. Firstly a stuck brake union, then a tricky new boot to fit on the steering rack tie rod and then the final killer - a snapped off carrier to hub bolt. I did know about this in advance but expected it'd come out with some WD40 and mole grips. No such luck!

Spent a few hours on it, drilling it, trying to get it out one way or another - even welded a nut on the end and tried to turn it that way, knock it round with a chisel but it won't budge. We gave up with that side on moved onto the passenger side which went much easier...






So, the passenger side has new plain Brembo 280mm discs fitted, G60 carriers and calipers which we'd painted black, Goodridge stainless hoses and new Mintex pads. Will crack on and finish the driver's side to match when time allows then move onto the rear of the car - looking forward to fitting the four little stainless hoses around the rear beam, they are great fun!

 

We encountered a new problem with the car at the weekend... we don't fit in it with our helmets on!

The bucket seats are currently mounted on the correct subframes which bolt into the original seat mounting rails. Whilst this makes them nice and adjustable, it also makes them a little high in the car for a driver over 6 foot with a helmet so we need to do something to lower them down a couple of inches.

We need to maintain the ability to slide the seats forward / back for different height drivers however so would like to use the subframes in some way but mounted lower. Any tips or pointers on ways to achieve this?

We could do with a fairly quick and straightforward fix for the seats as there is already enough wrong with the car that we are way behind schedule with it!

 

Could you not put some box section from the sill to the transmission tunnel, and then get some sliders of a Ford or something which has a very compact slider mechanism.

I've got some sliders in the garage that came off an early 90s escort and they are a maximum of an 1 inch in height.

 

Hard to tell without pics... if you raise the front of the seat, you'll lower the rear by tilting it back a bit. You'll need to try it to see if the driving position works for you - move you a bit further from the wheel too, which isn't really ideal.