Extended, crimped and a small amount of solder to the fusebox power cable Fairly easy to get to and looks neat With all that done I decided I wanted to retain the passenger under tray so mounted the ECU just under the heater box. Under tray will still need to be modified but it won’t be very noticeable Cool little tool for that heat shrink What needs to be done next is power for the coils and injectors. Initially this came off one cable but I wanted it split like OEM. Wires were extended towards the fusebox and I ordered some OEM relay and fuse holders that clip into the CE2 fusebox. This is as far as I got for now. Very close to firing it up then wrapping and boxing everything up. Hopefully this rain won’t last for long and the tropical weather returns. Hope everyone is keeping safe. Thanks for reading
So the bad weather didn’t last long and I could really crack on with getting this bit complete. With the OEM relay and fuse holders wired in, I clipped them onto the fusebox. Definitely worth getting these holders for that oem look. It puts the relay and fuse in easy reach. At this stage I was ready to connect the battery and test power to everything. Even at this bit I get worried there may be a short or something somewhere. Once power was on, I used a meter to check power to everything I had touched. Fuel pump was priming ok and ECU light was flashing away so looking good so far. Coils and Injectors have power and Lambda status light is flashing away. Getting excited now! Before turning the key and firing it up I connected the ECU to my laptop to check all sensor readings. All looked good apart from the coolant sensor, it was reading -6 ! That’s not right. Could I have messed up the wires for it? Is the sensor bad? I did a continuity test on the coolant sensor and seemed ok, feeling confident in my wiring, I just ordered a new one. In the meantime, I could fire up the engine anyway so proceeded to do so. Literally with the turn of the key it fired up straight away. I could see the coolant sensor playing shenanigans on the ECU screen. I t went from -6 to a positive number then intermittently jumping around. Engine was left running to properly warm up. Once the fans kicked in, I started looking around the other sensors and found the Wideband was not reporting to the ECU. Odd, I’m sure it worked ok before I ripped it all apart. Looking at the LC-1 controller LED, it was giving error 5 which points to sensor cable fault so I checked the cable like 1000 times and did a continuity test. Nothing, it all seemed ok but the error was still there. Only thing to do was try to recalibrate the sensor. Easy enough, unplug the sensor, ignition on until some lights on the controller flash, power down, sensor back in and reinstate power. Error 4 then error 5!!! At this point I didn’t know what to try so emailed Innovate. After a couple of email exchanges, the support guy said the controller is probably dead so will need a new one. Innovate don’t support LC-1 so bought a new LC-2 controller and sensor. Once it arrived, I wired up a power plug. The LC-2 is much easier to wire up, calibration and status LED are integrated opposed to separate wires and components like the LC-1. Old lambda out Fitted and calibrated the new sensor. ECU is now showing AFR. New coolant sensor also turned up so fitted that. Easy to change with minimal coolant loss. No more odd readings for coolant. With everything wired in and running I could tell the engine didn’t sound right. The exhaust note was ‘boomy’ compared to before. The AFR was showing over fuelling and there was a noticeable fuel smell and black smoke on hard throttle. I gave Emerald a call and they advised me to do a throttle calibration over the phone. Just those simple steps fixed it and all was well in the land of nod. Getting very excited now as I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. In my excitement I decided to have a go at fitting an electric aerial. I haven’t seen many MK2’s with electric aerials so I was anticipating a battle. Firstly, Inner arch liner was removed. Inside the arch looks really clean and no marks showing the wing has ever been off the car. Drainage holes look big enough to accommodate some extra wires without impeding drainage so wiring won’t be an issue.
What will be a problem is the aerial hole. The wing moulding covers a majority of the hole so space is going to be very tight The aerial kit came with this fitting that is supposed to sit under the hole. As you can see it doesn’t fit so I used a Dremel to cut it away to fit. Even after modifying the fitting, there is not enough space for the aerial to sit with this fitting as the bulk of the mechanism hits the inner wing. I didn’t want to give up so looked around at something else to replace the fittings. Luckily I remembered I had a round bar for such an occasion, it was the same bar I used to make a spacer for my engine mount bracket a while back. Unbelievably it was a perfect fit so angle grind a piece off for a test fit Without much effort the aerial now slides into place with easy. The top of the new adapter was angled to match the wing. The adapter was painted with Hammerite and coated with a chemical resistant tape to avoid metal against the wing and potential rust If you’ve been following this build thread you may remember I fed through a couple of spare cables for such occasions while the heater box was out. Those two spare cables are now Live and antenna feed. Bonnet earthing point was used as the earth. I need to replace the broken bonnet cable at some point To secure the underside of the aerial mechanism VW conveniently placed this stud here for us. The aerial kit came with a securing strap so that was bolted to the stud then screwed to the underside of the aerial. This is the aerial I used
Next I wired the antenna switch feed to the head unit. I left the live feed permanently live so even with the key out, the aerial will come back down. What I didn’t realise was that the Alpine head unit, probably others, switch the antenna ON as soon as it powers up, even if not on Tuner source. This is annoying as I don’t want it up all the time. Antenna dash switch for MK2’s are impossible to get hold of and they go for silly monies when they do appear. A spare fog light switch I had lying around will do for now Had to buy an aerial cable adapter Size does matter In my excitement I didn’t take any pics of the underside fitted. What I can say is that the arch liner leans up against the bottom of the aerial mech but not enough to cause an issue. Moving back to putting the undertrays back on. Driver side goes on with ease Before moving to the other side, vehicle speed signal from the MK2 clocks was wired into the ECU. This should give me clock speed in the ECU settings and on a Bluetooth reader. Passenger under tray needed a bit of trimming to clear the ECU Then mocked up a sheet of textured plastic to cover the hole To fit the panel and trim I used some Araldite adhesive. The idea was to use this to hold the panel in place while it was trimmed then fibreglass to secure. While waiting on the glue to dry I looked at what needed to be done next. New suspension and bushes. Once the glue dried, Dremel was used to trim off the edges The glue was strong enough so fibreglass wasn’t needed. To refine, one day, I’ll carefully remove all external glue but for now, I’m happy.
Last thing I did was change the door switch seals. Super easy with one screw. Seals are readily available on eBay That's it for now. Next updates will include my KW suspension swap and all new front bushes. For now, I'll pump Flex FM and watch people gasp at an electric aerial Back again for more updates. Forget the KW’s, I’m installing some new gauges today I was after a set of Duostyle gauges for while and joined in on the mailing list and new forum with the original guy who made them so long ago. Remanufacture wasn’t going well, wasn’t going anywhere, then these from Digifiz mini popped up. I was instantly hooked; the look is perfect for the MK2. After all the rewiring it was time to open it up again New relay was installed to power the gauges. Digifiz mini do a plug and play kit but the spare slots on the fusebox to hold additional relays and fuses were taken up with my rewire so I opted to create a custom loom The terminals are tiny for these gauges. My crimp tool was too big so soldered them instead. Different wire colours used for easy identification Loom was wrapped with loom tape Test fitted the connector with wiring before threading the loom through the dash With everything fitting well, the loom was threaded through the dash First power up, no senders on the other end yet Loom was pushed through the bulk and wrapped in a chemical repellent loom tape The original senders needed earthing to stop the oil light flashing on the dash so added a new earth from the engine into the loom Once the loom was in place it was time to cut the loom at the right length and start to add the connectors. Before that I decided to fit the senders for the correct wire length. This is where I miss my 16V. There is literally no access to the front of the engine to get to the original oil sender. Front end of the car had to come off. I was able to manoeuvre the rad for access without draining the system. Original low pressure sender out. The idea was to move the original low oil pressure sender to the T piece, earth out high oil pressure and place oil temp in the original low oil sender hole. Problem! The pressure senders were too long for the T piece! I could have hunted for a thick copper washer but wanted to use the car that evening, so, T piece was removed and replaced with the guage pressure sender. Wires were cut and connectors wired in Front end was put back together then realised I left the bonnet pull cable out Grill back off then reassembled WITH the bonnet pull The gauges are lovely!. Look right at home and the correct level of light during the day and night. There is a dim feature but left if off so I can show them off at night. Just need a knightrider super pursuit mode button
Great read! Thanks for sharing and nice to see something like this being built and used well and not just a show car!
just read the whole thread really enjoyed it, thanks for sharing, I was watching a MK2 Nurburgring video sometime ago and then when reading this I saw the Premier dials and made the connection, car sounds mega. I didn't realise there was a 6 speed kit available looks ace, I remember the 6 speed VMS Gemini from a while back always seemed a like a real trick bit of kit, apologies if you mentioned it in the thread buy what final drive do you have?
This one I bought in 2011 I think. It's an ABF FD so 3.68. There was someone selling VWMS Gemini gears to suite a VR6 on FB but the ratio's were way to short
6 speed gearbox can be created, using 02A and 02S parts, but you do need to have justification for what gear set you require, so you can make the most of your engine's torque range.
After driving my Wife’s car, I decided I need an Alcantara steering wheel in my life. My Momo wheel I’ve owned for like 20 years and love the feel of it so decided to get it updated. Leather came off (ooh kinky) and on went some Alcantara with red motorsporty type middle band and BMW M style stitching in red. Came out rather nice and feels great. Something I’ve been itching to put on the car are a brand new set of KW V3’s. Originally V2’s were on my list as they would have been more than good enough for what I use the car for but these came up at a good price so had to have them. The FK Konigsport have been reliable over the years and handle great but the ride is quite harsh, even on the softest setting. Straight out the box the KW look amazing. No need to worry about spring platforms seizing up on these. KW recommended I fit their performance front springs to help with the extra weight of the V6 so these were also purchased. Fitting was pretty standard really. Started with the rear… Bit of lube ensures no hurt New Lemforder top mounts I knew it wouldn’t be too long until I hit a problem. This one came in the form of my nuts, they’re too big – that’s what she said FK use a larger half height nut compared to OEM, which is what KW use. No bother, quick trip to a local hardware store to get some new ones. At the same time, the nasty looking turret liner was swapped for early type carpet. Now I won’t get a rash when I rub my cheeks against them Shelf support nuts were swapped for MK3/4 items. Being deeper, they’re easier to get on and off than the standard tin type and look much nicer.
Moving onto the front. Again, nothing special here, standard swap out of the shock assembly with new Lemforder MK3 top mounts, bearings, MK3 top mount retaining nut and MK3 top cup. I didn’t bother marking any of the alignment as the car would go in for full geometry. This may or may not be exciting you but I managed to get hold of some tasty treats. The first one came in the form of a Pollen filter. This isn’t a homemade or retro solution but a Chinese (no bats included) market filter designed for the MK2. It came in two pieces .. Lower cover Pollen filter, part number if you’re interested Pollen filter, part number if you’re interested Looks much larger than the original so let’s see how the scuttle cover fits Pollen filter in place Tasty treat number 2 is a one piece full scuttle cover with an OEM style profile sent from Russia with love. It was the last piece he had so got lucky. Other companies like SWG make a similar one piece cover but it’s smooth with no OEM style recess. The VIN number is covered but that’s ok until Mr MOT inspector takes a look Fitting was spot on and didn’t interfere with the pollen filter. Getting the ride height correct was a bit of a pain. Lots of driving (not a bad thing), measuring and adjusting each corner! Measuring and adjusting each cover, Measuring and adjusting each cover Once I was happy with each corner it was time for tracking. Front camber set to -1.5. Originally it was -1 and I didn’t notice any uneven wear so went a bit further this time. While under the car I noticed the roll bar bushes looked a bit sad so decided to change these for some power flex heritage items. Easy job I thought but getting the old bushes and link off the roll bar was near impossible! Lot’s tugging, heating, screwdrivering, bladeing lubeing, and swearing later … they decided to come off. New roll bar bushes are a much harder material than what came off so getting the bush into the link was going to be a challenge. First I opted for squishing in a G clamp but as I suspected, it was going to fight me all the way and bush kept jumping out under load. For once, lube doesn’t help here.
Brute force and dreams weren’t going to help here so used my superior intellect and ingenuity to create a …. well, something that worked…….. Hole cut slightly larger than the bush and made a keyway for the link to sit flat inside Wood was cut where I made the hole for easy extraction of the link G clamped the two halfs together Again with the lube Put the bush in place Cut up a metal disc to sit between the clamp and bush Tightened the G clamp all the way down until the bush was in place. Success ! Getting the new bush over the roll bar was seriously difficult! I double checked the box was for an eibach 22mm bar which it was but ended up cutting a small chamfer in the edge of the bush to at least get it in place then bashed it on What I was aiming to get the car ready for was a long weekend in Snowdonia. Wales is one of my favourite places in the UK, such natural beauty and not far away. The climb up and down Mount Snowdon was also a great achievement The suspension is great, haven’t really had time to open it up but the kit got a good test in Wales. On the standard mid setting, the KW’s feel softer than the softest setting on the old FK’s. The KW’s handle bump much better while keeping wheel travel to a minimum. I also found I’m not correcting the steering much when on slightly bumpy roads. Thanks for reading. Next up is fitting a Fabless cross bar
Glad to hear you like the V3’s, that’s what I’ve decided to fit on mine when the time comes. The reviews are fantastic. keep it up, loving looking car.
Love it!!! What a great car!! Once you bolted the battery box into the boot how did you secure the battery into the box? 1hr 40 and I’m all caught up, sorry to hear about your wife’s M3 engine going pop
