Some good reading here, but a lot of it is debatable. Good choice of cam there phil, lucky sod! I can't get a cam that wild in mine 'cos of the lambda!
If money is a factor, then think about the following... A stock clutch will be fine, if money's a problem. Good for 150 bhp as long as you don't spend your life ragging it off the lights. If you're going to do a lot of Track days, a 16v pressure plate might be a good idea. Lightened flywheel (60 ish from Hotgolf) is a good way of making the car quicker off the line, but worth very little in high gears. Tip the engine back a smidge and you don't need the DP spacer - use a washer or two on the front mount if you need to, but I did it without Use the standard 2E Elring headgasket (20). You don't need an expensive metal one and it'll drop your CR as it's thicker. Stick a rag in the breather hole till you can find suitable pipes in a scrapper. Why buy new ones? If your 239 discs are working well (and the back end is working properly) you should be ok. EDIT: I'd say goodridge hoses are a good investment though. Polybushes are a good investment too, but new stock bushes make a hell of a difference on an old car, and you can always pick up ready poly-bushed bits in the classifieds, although it's a bit harder when you live over the watter. I've had plenty of good radiators from scrapyards for 20. Do you really need to spend more money on a new one, and not get a free fan with it? Plugs, cap and rotor arm are the same between PB and 2E I think. So you don't have to buy new ones if you replaced them recently. Anyway, I'd say buy the best cylinder head you can afford. It's key to the whole engine, but if you can't afford the big valve then see how you get on. The accepted wisdom (which isn't always right) is that you need 35mm exhaust valves. If you think about the whole induction and exhaust tract, the narrowest part is the valve opening, so you either need to open the valve wider, or make it bigger. Freeing up other parts of the tract will make a small difference if the narrow part is still the bottleneck, so I'd say spend money on bigger valves before exhausts, air filters, 4-branch manifolds, or anything else.
There are ways to make 33mm exhaust valves work well, you just have to know what you're doing with the ports to utilise them. There is more than one way to skin a cat. Fitting 35mm valves is the easy and less time consuming route to making the head breathe better, hence why companies would rather you did it this way, partly because they don't do the work themselves and partly because it involves less manual labour. Charge 250+ to grind lightly grind 8 ports out, 350+ to grind 4 ports out and completely rework the 4 exhaust ports or charge 400+ to grind 4 ports and say "here you go" to a machine shop. I know which i would rather do but then i do heads out of enjoyment, not for profit.
I'm sure there are some people who work that way, but doing it properly, if you put bigger valves in then the ports still need to be flowed, and a good modder will still do it to release the extra gain. In addition to that, you need to machine the holes for the inserts to about 4-5 thou tolerance and use liquid nitrogen to fit the new valve seats properly, then recut the valve seats to multi-angles and grind in the valves. Cut the holes too deep and the head is scrap with recessed valves. You still need to open out the valve throats to maximise the size of whatever valve you're using You still need to clean up the combustion chamber, and then skim the head to get the CR back You still need to clean open up the ports, otherwise it just looks like a big valve head, rather than working like one... although I think that a lot of the work done on flowed heads in the non-restrictive areas is more for show, than actually improving the flow of the head. By contrast, how the gas flows around the valve heads is absolutely critical - hence the difference from 3-angled seats and reprofiled valves. Cowboys might cut corners in that, but that's not what I've seen on my head (this time around). An easy way of saving money is to fit big valves over the standard inserts. Looks good, saves loads of cash, but runs like a bag of s h i t e and then breaks Incidentally, the Man In Shed will PROPERLY grind 8 ports out for 250 + VAT. Including new valve guides, 3 angle valve seats, and a skim. There's no, light porting or proper porting option.
Plugs, cap, leads and rotor are still on the engine - and the fat tramp said it went like a train when he drove it in. Breather box is still there, and I can pick up the rest on Saturday. Plenty of rads in the yard - including a newish passat TDi, probably has the twin fans on it....... Oh and plenty of bits on it to sell off to recoup your losses! You can get more for them than "The old man in the tin box" would want if you ask him for a price........... . DP, mani, PAS pump, alt, ISV etc all still there........ as I said, it was cut out, the box was taken off, and it stands as it is.......
He gives me the world's biggest discount anyway........ the only reason Phil had to PAY for the engine was because he "Turned up too f**kin early, f**k off for a bit, we're not f**king open"......... or words to that effect.........
Thanks for the replys. This is good news, it's becoming more affordable. The clutch still feels fine in my car so i'll stick with it til it goes. I serviced it in October so the service parts should be fine for a while yet although i'll probably change them again before the next trackday. The reason I want to change the rad is i've noticed the outer core has started to perish although no leaks yet. New bushes can wait to be honest, I'm not going to be able to do everything I want to do at the one time so i'll concentrate on getting the main things done and the engine in and working. It seems there are shortcuts than can be taken with the spacer and mount etc. I will go for the goodridge hoses though as I had major brake fade last time on track, plus they will still be ok for when I eventually upgrade to a 280mm setup. With regards to the head, Bundles is going to be doing it for me in the new year at his leisure, as long as I have it sorted by end of Feb early march i'll be happy. I'm sending a spare PB head to him along with the head from the 2e block for himself. Looking to get something different done like thinner valve stems and guides to aid flow, he's been doing a fair bit of research so I trust he'll do a good job. TSC, that is good news, I didn't think there was as much still on that engine . Breather should be easy to sort with some piping and a connector. Can I just ditch the pas pump easily enough as I prefer non pas plus I dont fancy fitting a new rack. Thats is quite funny how you know exactly what Ken says in any given situation...lol Also didn't know he actually drove the car in!! I don't suppose you know what the mileage was on her by any chance? I thought the metal gasket would be a good investment to save me having to do it a few months down the line at worst case scenario and also I thought you would want to up the CR and not drop it? I just want to have everything sitting in one place before I go and start taking the front of the car off. When it comes to fitting the engine, do you think I'll will be able to do it myself in a couple of days? I need the car for work so if I get everything together then take a thur and friday off work will 4 days be enough to do it? I've never attempted anything like this before but I really want to learn. The things that I'm afraid of tackling myself are the likes of the gearbox and clutch, shift mechanism and other things that I haven't disassembled before. I have a picture in my head of me holding wires cables and pipes that I have no idea where they're meant to go .
Think the mileage was around 120kish....... he doesn't normally buy in mega-mileage cars unless there's something special about them! The one breaker I know who never buys "crashed" cars, just ones he can pick up for cheap because they need welding, etc..... As far as how long it'll take to do, that depends on how "ready" you are to do it! Eg. if you have the head with cam already fitted, you have the block stripped right down to just the bottom end, and maybe fit a new water pump to it in advance as they can be buggers to get off, and you can easily shear the studs holding the thermostat housing on. Once the engine and box are out it's just like lego, really - the gearbox comes off very easily with the eng/box on the ground, shift mechanism basically stays untouched apart from 3 clips, and the clutch is just a swapover job!
Oh, and yep you can rip off the PAS pump, emember you're swapping over ALL the ancillaries from your engine to this one!
Phil, brake hoses will give you a better pedal, but good pads and fluid would be the way to minimise fade.... and make sure the back end is doing as much as possible - adjust the brake regulator balance towards the back, if you're feeling brave. As TSC says, at least make sure you can get the pump off yours and the 2.0 before you start. If it looks ok you could just leave it. If it's a PAS car a new thermostat and O-ring is recommended while you've got the pump off. Well worth it for a fiver. Narrower guides and valve stems will help a bit, but removing 1mm from the inside diameter adds a lot less in flow area than adding 1mm to the outside. Suggest you check the prices first - I'm sure Mr Bundles will be on the case with that one, as he's from Furry Boot Town. As for timing, it took me about a week the first time I did a swap = a long weekend full time, and long evenings for the rest of the week. I'm pretty slow though, and I did spend some of that time running around for bits and tools. If time is of the essence, start soaking the downpipe to manifold nuts in releasing oil NOW, or buy a spare exhaust manifold with good studs in it.
If he takes the head from one of my PB's, it'll still have the mani and half the downpipe on it, so plenty of time for penetrating oil! Phil's isn't a PAS car, he just wants to lose the pump from the 2E block........
I haven't completely read all the replies on here, just skimmed it a bit ! Right Chrismc's 2L 8v had almost the same spec as at the start of this thread and it managed 137bhp with torque to match at stealth. He found that using a standard head on a 2L block doesn't help breathing at all at higher rpms and struggled to get past 5500. He bit the bullet and got the head reworked to fit 35mm ex valves and it eventually made 155bhp and 153 torque at stealth again. But top end breathing was much improved ! He certainly does know is stuff, especially cams etc and was always trying to squeeze more power from it. So from that point of view 150bhp from a standard head is a little optimistic in my opinion. His car was also a digi with evry mod you could think of to make it go quicker. It was THE best 8V I have ever driven
Is it just as simple as removing the pump and pipework and removing the pulley for it? The spare head and mani would be a big help Parz.
The head will be flowed and ports reworked but I just can't stretch to the BVH at this stage. I'm probably going to regret it 6 months down the line on track when the car runs out of steam in the high revs [:^(] That will give me an excuse then to get more work done at the same time as getting the 35mm exhaust. With headwork, cam, matched inlet mani and the other mods I would be happy enough initially with 135-140bhp. The healthy increase in torque will make for a much more driveable car I'm hoping. Spoke to Philip Walker yesterday about the cam and I've now decided to go slightly milder with a 268. I could have a flowed head and 268 cam for sale 6 months down the line then when I finally go for the BV option....lol
thats good advise about the studs btw mike. Will be hopefully using the spare mani TSC has but will be soaking them none the less before the head is stripped. I was thinking about the brake bias after the brake fade I got last time out. I never adjusted it again after sorting the rear calipers and thinking about it the car felt like it could do with a bit more braking from the rear. The head is just something I'm going to have to live with for the time being, I'm sure a Mr Bundles flowed head will be an improvement on the std PB one and I will have another PB head sitting there that I could send off for work later in the year while the car is stil on the road. I'm doing a bit of searching on the swap and there is loads of info on any issues you many come accross during the conversion but I was wanting to know how to actually start it. I was thinking: undo isv, breather, vac lines, airbox. Disconnect throttle switch, speedo cable, earth wires, rad hoses, strip ancilleries off. Slacken off engine + box mounts, undo manifold at DP (when/how do you undo drive gear?) Remove front of car, make sure there are no wires stil connected, support engine then take it off it's mounts and slide it out. Now someone tell me what I've missed?
Meh, wouldn't say my 8v runs out of steam at high rpm to badley tbh. sorry about the crap sound 1st gear roll on from 1000rpm.
will have a look when I get home Graeme, work PC's don't allow me to watch vids or do anything that may be perceived as fun.
Will the milder cam and headwork on the 2l block not mean that the torque is produced lower down the rev range - surely for a daily that would be preferable. Was thinking of the same spec as an option for my daily which spends 90% of its life in the 2000-5000rpm bracket anyway - and I wouldn't want it too 'cammy' for sitting in traffic.
