click for the original post The beige best is finally up and running She is a 1984 Mk2 polo squareback or "breadvan" which started out as a humble little 1.05litre, 2 owners from new with a mere 52k clocked up in its life in sunny old wales. It was fairly nippy but i bought it with intentions of making it a sleeper. I already had a 189bhp mk3 eaton'd G40 which was fast but by no means a sleeper (click on the link in my sig to see what i mean!) so this fitted the bill nicely Here she is The interior is staying as it is, even the steering wheel lol The car was in a really good condition So, with a bigger engine planned for the G40, i was waiting for the pistons to be designed/made for it, the decision was made to take it off the road and take out it's original engine for use in the Mk2 Here's the powertrain spec polo G40 1272cc bottom end (stock internals) metal headgasket (raises compression to 8.3:1) ported and polished head 51mm throttle body Ported to death powder coated inlet manifold (inside and out) b-r-motortechnik chip G60 injectors GT camshaft emtec equal length turbo manifold Water cooled saab T25 with .48 comp and .49 turbine housings custom downpipe supersport 2.5" exhaust system lightweight flywheel Helix paddle clutch rebuilt G40 box with 100% locking LSD uprated driveshaft The engine was fitted and everything looked fine but then i fitted the turbo and realised why a turbo mk2 polo had not been done before (to my knowledge anyway) There were some clearance issues with the turbo This left my with three problems, where to put the oil cooler, the rad and the intercooler??? My first, quite frankly, stupid idea was to side mount the radiator But this would not get anywhere near enough air to cool it. So i tried different ideas and decided to take the car to a radiator specialist who came up with the idea of a 4 core old school mini rad that would fit front mounted between the downpipe and n/s chassis leg. While this was being made a few things needed to be sorted. Firstly, a nice phat 2.5" stainless exhaust system that i picked up fairly cheaply (probably due to the tailpipe lol) I had to convert the car from carb the injection, a scrap Mk3 polo supplied it's fuel lines and lift pump/sender unit. I had to pass the main pump loom through the boot floor Next up was fitting the ecu and wiring loom, firstly i just placed it all in to get the engine running click to see her fire up for the first time, wires everywhere Once i was happy that everything was fine i cut the bulkhead to pass the loom through, mounted the ecu and tidied up the wiring etc With all that done, it was time to sort out the exhaust and downpipe "that exhaust is wicked mate, init" lol the system was a nice snug fit James, the downpipe guru, thinking hard lol things starting to take shape Meanwhile, due to the use of the emtec equal length manifold, i had to run a remote filter housing The take off plate was fitted and the decision was made to put the remote filter in the o/s wheel arch, behind the inner wheel arch panel
the pipes for the oil cooler had to go through the front panel With absolutely no room in the engine bay for the oil cooler, it had to be mounted on the fornt bumper with the oil lines running behind it Not exactly sleeper but it'll have to do With that sorted, it was time to get a little more air into the engine bay as the front panel was a little restricitve Next up was the turbo oil return to the sump If you look closely, you can see a VAG number on there, every polo came with one as standard, it's the wheel bolt brace bar from the boot lol You can see how tight for space this install is, equal length manifold to the left, oil lines to the right With that fitted we could finish off the downpipe, had a little clearance issue with the drivers side driveshaft, so.... Once that was sorted, the turbo was mounted I bought a shiney boost pipe kit from eBay and had the co pot and isv take off made out of ally and welded on a quick mock up with everything in place With the engine bay near enough sorted, i lowered the car 60/40mm and fitted some 5.5x13 inch matt black steels with 185/60/13 toyo R888 semi slicks. The tailpipe was stealthed as well I got her Mot'd and then took her down to the local weigh bridge, i was intrigued to se how much more than VW had quoted for the standard mk2 1.05 breadvan it would be, VW quote 700Kg Sorry about the image quality but the car weighed in at 760Kg with all the interior in and a 1/3 of a tank of fuel. Going on that and the fact that at a bar of boost, a turbo'd G40 engine is known to produce 190 bhp (i'll be running 1.2bar and a few more goodies than the two cars that made 190bhp) she works out to be 250bhp per ton!!! That is more than an evo fq 340 lol I've had to take off the toyo's for the moment as the arches need some attention for clearance. Last night was the first time i drove her properly and the poor little 145 tyres squeal like pig under hard acceleration at the same time thanks to the 100% locking lsd. here's a little video. Nothing exciting, just a couple of 1st and 2nd gear passes. The poor 145/13 tyres haven't got a chance but it still pulls well Thanks for reading Gregg
A new master cylindor, G40 calipers, endless groove vented discs and some omp pads up front and mk3 polo GT rear brakes (came on the GT rear beam i fitted as this has an anti-roll bar, the mk2 beam didn't). You have to stamp on them but they work, still bedding in the pads in at the moment, i've only done 30 miles on them
Think bigger than that mate With the same power to weight as an audi RS4 quattro do you really think i built my car to play with saxo's and corsa's lol
can you not paint the oil cooler the same colour as the car to 'stealth' it up? or would the heat affect the paint?? Also have you heat wrapped any of the exhaust/turbo? Must get very hot in that tiny bay. Excellent stuff mate love it
Not yet, but it will happen. I'm wrapping the boost pipes as well with the same stuff they use i bus engine bays. I got caught in traffic yesterday in the blazing heat for 40 mins and it was fine. I'm running a 70 degree thermostate and a 80 degree rad fan switch which helps, a lot. The intake temps were probably really high when taking a few mates out for a demo ride yesterday but it didn't hit the knock sensor so they can't be that bad As for painting the oil cooler, i'll leave it as it is as it needs to be as efficient as possible
