hi, looking for a bit of advice in relation to this conversion in a mk2 golf. i currently have a mk2 16v with the standard bottom end and a modified cylinder head. i was looking to fit a 2 litre bottom end as everyone recommends it for best performance per pound. firstly i looked for a 9a bottom end out of a corrado as they are a direct fit, but with them being old they have high mileage and are hard to find in the first place. then a started to think of a abf bottom end. but i didnt know if this would line up with a kr cylinder and fit in the bay right. i know the block is 16mm taller due to the rod length but then the quesion i kept asing myself was would there be clearance issues with the bulkhead or bonnet shutting etc as i was planning to run a milltek manifold aswell? so i was looking for a bit of advice regarding this as i have found a abf engine in a scrappies locally and was thinking of doing this conversion over the winter. any information regarding this conversion would be greatly appreciated thanks again Mark
Fit the whole ABF engine, including it's head. You can fit a KR head on an ABF engine (or other 2.0 16v), but the combustion chamber is narrower on the KR, so it's not ideal on the ABF bottom end. This thread should help. http://www.clubgti.com/forum/showthread.php?t=133418
ok no problem. i was wanting to keep my kr cylinder head as it was done by gti engineering and know its producing the right power even after 18 years. only reason for the 2litre bottom end was to up the torque more. would it be easier to use the standard exhaust rather than try and fit a 4 branch? cheers
ABF Pistons catch the KR Head if you don't fit a 1.9mm steel head gasket, which after 10 years will crack the piston. i fitted the gasket and had the head fettled as detailed on a thread i did on the subject. ABF HEAD KR HEAD KR HEAD FETTLED P.S. Note the "Hand of VW God" (Toyotec) LOL
cheers for the pics brookster, will my head need modified to fit the abf bottom end? and is the 1.9mm thick gasket the ones you get from gsf? cheers
Ah ok... then you need to check the chamber size against a 2.0 gasket, as shown. If you want the head modifying to match a 2.0, we've got a group buy going with the guy who did all the GTI Engineering heads. Best to have a look at it first, though, and see what it needs. You would always run the standard ABF engine until it's done. It'll still go pretty well! With a modded 2.0 16v I'd go for a 4-branch. Depending on what type it is, you might get away without clearance issues, or have to do a bit of work on that.
Yes its the GSF Steel Head Gasket, you will probably get away without modifying the head with that gasket. The 1.9MM (1.5mm compressed) You will gett higher compression with the KR Head on the ABF, I get 11:1 comp, stanard ABF is 10.5 : 1 i was getting alot of piston lift with the power i was running(100bhp Nitrous), i will post some pix of the pistons that shows the contact with the head.
Ahhh ****, i didn't know there would be issues putting a KR head on an ABF-typical. Is it ok to modify the kr head to fit or will it ultimately be compromised?) or would it be better all round using an abf casting? The soulless 1.8t is starting to look like a real possiibility. All the expense and hassle with these valvers and for what, 200bhp
I found this thread because I did a search for a guy asking on Edition38. And now I'm a bit confused about something and I'll probably sound a dweeb asking it. Regarding Brookster's advice about ABF pistons potentially catching the KR head. I always assumed that with any standard 8V / 16V block, the piston top surface won't protrude from the block surface. Is this a wrong assumption? Do ABF pistons protrude by 1mm or something? When I built my 1.9 with custom pistons, the piston surfaces seemed pretty flush with the block face. I used an ABF/9A head gasket and what I think is a KR head.
What's wrong with a driveable 200 bhp in a car that weighs only a ton? You need to get the head modified, and make sure the combustion chamber volume is what you need to match the rest of the engine.
no, you're dead right mike, theres nothing wrong with it at all, i just worry that i'll get bored v. quickly and having spent similar money to get to that figure i'll have reached the end of the engines practical development I'm also a greedy, silly bugger and love the idea of ridiculous, mind bending pace in a old crusty hatchback As for matching the Comb. chamber to the engine spec, well, staying with valver power i'd want to get cams and itbs but without knowing the cam spec or if i'll ever be able to justify a set of new jenveys i'm just guessing what to do with the head. I suppose a start would be to aim for a slightly higher static CR than the abf so that at least with lumpy cams, the dynamic CR will be a bit better (i've only just started trying to get my head round this subject recently so let me know if i'm way off )
If you can afford it you'd be better to do cams and head in one leap. 11:1 would be a sensible sort of target for a road engine, or maybe a bit higher. Are you planning to run it on Kjet at first? You might want to get an opinion from Stealth or another Kjet tuner, about what CR you can get away with on the stock cams, before you'll have a lot of pinking problems. It does depend on how cool you can get it to run too.
mine is 11.5 : 1 on K-Jet and runs fine with no pinking and that with 12 deg Advance when i had it Stealth last month. any higher on the compression and it gets very bad on K-jet, when i had the Wossner pistons fitted i was getting 13:1 and couldn't stop the pinking even with 4 deg advance.
Would be possibly make the same torque w/o the det if you had a means of controlling the spark angle at different loads. 12degs just offsets the factory ignition map which was not made for this hardware.
If i end up taking the head off then i'm going to find it hard to resist some cams. I would have to stick with k-jet for a while so whatever i choose to do it will need to work in this guise for who knows how long. As for the cooling side of things, well, since doing the head its run a fair bit hotter on the mfa (+8deg -though its never pinked) so i'm concerned about going too far on the cr. Going to have to have a big think, get a plan together and stick to it-something i'm not great at doing
fit a twin Oil cooler set up (Standrad water cooled and a Mocal 12 row 12" fitted with sandwich plate adaptor) i had to fitt remote filter because of space on the MK1 but on a MK2 you won't.
My head gasket has gone on my 16vt abf engine 9.1 comp 83.5mm pistons Kr head with cams Can I use a victor rienz head gasket? Nas
