The car has had a pretty good summer! I've had to put more money into the 1.6 than I would like to but oh well! took it to a couple shows, drove it in rain for the first time in a cruise (never doing that again lol). Got a quad round grille for it finally, its a NOS condition Hella which is quite nice as there aren't too many around in NA. Also picked up the motor I plan on putting in hopefully soon, its the ABA bottom end 1.8JH 288 cammed head. Currently in the process of refinishing the exterior of it, namely repainting the g60 valve cover and the intake manifold (its an electric blue currently). I also picked up a great transmission for it, its an FN so essentially one of if not the widest ratio VW made with a .71 5th. with the current trans i'm in 5th in most corners and 4th in the FN is 5th in the current so I wont be missing out on any fun! Here's some pics of the car throughout the summer as well! (event sequence = Tunezilla/Dubberz Show (got an indoor spot woohoo!) - Great Canadian VW Show (borrowed a quad round for that) - VWDOV cruise - Dubberz Whistler cruise (started pouring right after the pic, and even with the rain expected there was an around 40 car turnout which was awesome)
Finished pulling the 1.6. Initially I told myself that I would just be doing some rust prevention on the firewall with some sanding and repainting, but then it snowballed and I ended up doing the firewall, passenger frame horn, passenger strut tower, drivers side strut tower, and the booster lol! Now to start prepping to put the 1.8 in. Here’s a before and after, pretty big difference!
Welp I've done some things this week! Besides getting the motor prepped to put in and cleaning it up a bit, I also ported the intake so that I can use a 16v TB to help the 288 breath, broke my Dremel bit so ended up going the old fashioned way and filing it all down lol. Installed the motor in today, I threw the g60 cover on but I think it may be a bit too flashy for me lol, I think ill repaint and use the 1.6 cover so that it looks completely OEM
Wow thats a pretty wild cam,sounds like a race/track cam that would have a power range of say 4k-7.5k rpm ,has the head been fitted with dual valve springs ?. You may have fueling issues with it as Diji and K-jet tends to not play well with this sort of cam,with Diji the AFM air gate with flutter with too much lift and with K-jet the effect is similar ,you can up the idle speed to compensate but thats only a "bandage for a broken leg " and rather annoying with a street driven car. I ran a 272 cam on one of my 2.0 L conversions and that was enough on Dijifant ,idle was pretty lumpy and a bit flat till 3k rpm then it pulled like a tractor up to rev limiter,it was fun on the open road but a little fussy around town. Sorry to sound negitive but an over cammed motor is a pain as it isn't suited to your street/rpm driving range, on a track car that means little,good luck,cheers.
Plenty of info on 8V cams on here from people that know more than I do lol,go to engine section and select 8V and you will find a camshaft selection thread ,some excellent info there ,have a look ,cheers
Not at all! I appreciate any input you’re spot on for that power band, that’s one of the reasons that I’m using a wider ratio trans as I figure it’s best to be able to sit in that power band for awhile whereas with a closer ratio I’d be constantly shifting out of it lol! It’ll definitely be a bit of a task to drive around town but luckily most of my driving is on a super nice weaving costal highway which I suppose could be track-esque in terms of corners and the speed limit haha I won’t be very surprised if big-cam fever wears off and I end up going milder to say a 276 or 272 though, or maybe going to carbs to help with fuelling (haven’t looked into that a huge amount but seems like carbs is definitely an option)
Large amount of cam makers in the UK/EU so the info on here maybe less useful as importing to your country could be an expensive exercise ,I would say from my experience the Newspeed cams are good but the real pioneers are Techtonics in Seattle ,they would surely have a great "hot street" cam for you which IMO is your best solution,try to keep your injection unless you like fussing with carbs ??,also pretty expensive exercise so save some of that cost on a bit of exhaust work perhaps,cheers.
Yup techtonics is awesome, also makes great sounding exhausts at pretty affordable prices! I definitely want to keep fuel injection, but if it comes down to it in the future where it’s really an issue but for some reason I want to keep the 288 cam I would go for carbs, if fuelling the 288 does become a big issue though I can see myself simply downgrading as probably the most cost and time efficient option
Good thinking ,you won't be downgrading as such as all you are doing with a replacement cam will be moving your power range to were you drive most of the time. You will most likely move your powerband to say 3k -6.5krpm ,you will find your engine will be dropping off power over that anyway. Keep up the good work ,cheers.
Thats a fair point haha I suppose I’ve never looked at going to a different cam that way! And thank you
Getting everything back together at the moment, swapped mk1 linkage onto the 16v TB and the only issue I had in that area was clearence with the raintray, so rather than “massage it” I made an extension for the cable off the linkage that works quite well! Using the mk1 cable meant I could use the 1.6 cover properly which is definitely nice Also doing much needed some rewiring for some connections that have seen better days
Anddddd the swap is finished! Sadly just in time for permanent rain so I only got one day to really drive it before starting to make arrangements for winter storage, but hey, at least I still got a day with it! Here's a YouTube vid of it idling
I've just picked up what I believe to be my end-game/staying on the car wheels for the mk1, some 15" P slots! I first saw them on the former car of the owner of vwgolf1.com (the red mk1 featured on the site itself) and instantly fell or them, its that awesome stock style look but with 15's to look better! I'm honestly surprised a set was available locally as I thought I would have to wait awhile to afford a set shipped from overseas. Luckily there is essentially no damage to the wheels, all I have to do is return them to silver for the perfect look!
Really getting a move on with the wheels now, actually was able to track down some tires for them. I'm still a student so cant really go for some good brand new tires, but lucked out and picked up a near new set of nexen CP621 175/50/15, reason I lucked out is cause one thing I was worried about for looks was the sidewall balloon you get with 195/s due to them only being a 5.5" wide wheel, so with a 175 I'm hoping i'll have virtually no ballooning! I've never had nexen's before so I'm not sure what to expect from them performance wise for spirited drives, but If I don't like the performance I can always use my ATS cups with the toyo proxe's on them and then switch to the p slots for shows, cruises, meets etc. If anyone has experience with nexens feel free to comment, Id love to hear about them
