The truth about the VR6 Swap

That's something I didn't think of...

The other issue is that I've driven a cable shift car and didn't like it.

 

Vr's are old hat.

v6 2.8 / 3.2 / 3.6! 24v's are accesable finacially now and are a great engine, rev alot easier, make better power.

ie owned two vr'd mk2's. one narrow, one wide, wide for the track, narrow for the scene!

 

At the track day at Cadwell in Nov, the Corrado VR went off on the warm up
lap, and the light blue mk2 VR had a big off nose first. Both on a tight slippy bend. To be fair, other golfs also fell off, but not by ploughing on at a tight turn.

I think you'll lose some of the snappy turn in of a mk2, but expect you could get some of it back with wider track and more castor.

 

it's all bull. I've lost count of the amount of times I've said this.

to get round a corner you NEED weight on the front wheels. otherwise they won't grip and you will plough straight on. usually this is done by braking right into the turn in point to load the front wheels up. with a vr the weight is already there, so do your braking first then ease off them as you turn in.

also, most of the understeer problems are from the lack of getting the power down due to an open diff. 8v's and 16v's don't understeer as they simply do not produce enough power to overwhelm decent tyres.

mk2 20v's have the same issues power understeer wise. if anything they are worse as the power delivery isn't as smoth and the torque is much higher at lower revs than a lazy vr is.

My old blue corrado at cadwell only had a set of coilovers and some sticky yokos on the front. I was running rings around the GTI "race" cars.

 

That was the one from the Jetta Prof. I did another conversion in Jan 2005 into a Royal Blue Mk2 that had an ABF in already. I sold the car in Spring 2005 to Stef (Veedubber), think he still owns it. Bought a Passat VR6 donor car that had a brand new engine in it 40k miles ago for the conversion.

 

that blue mk2 was sweet , you were a fool to sell it lol .

 

I know......... [:^(]

Edit: Just about to link some pics from Photobucket.











Best Mk2 i have ever owned!!!!!

 

1 more for old time sake.

 

Very nice, shame it had to go

 

Why arn't mk1 vr6's as popular for fast road cars or even track cars, are they more difficult to convert? Does the handling become even more difficult to get right?

 

probably because an ABF/KR conversion is so much easier, and in a ligthweight car like that 170+ bhp with a high revving engine is pretty quick anyway.

 

^^^^ That, and it`s a bigger ball-ache to fit...

 

my old mk1 was having a vr dropped in it . too be fair it prob would have fallen out , rust bucket !

 

after being parked next to Big Ron's vr'd mk1@ e38 last year and taking a very long look at it theres loads of room especially on TB's

 

From what I've gathered so far, cost to cost, you can get the most power in a VR swapped Mk2, which is good if I'm wanting to stay on a fair budget and wanting to knock on the 220BHP door for the moment.

I'll no doubt wide track the car, it seems silly not to. I can't think why in the world I'd want to be "scene" with a VR under the bonnet, it's there to be driven not looked at.

Also, the NOISE. The sound of a 6 pot is pretty awesome.

Just another question, I think I asked it and no one noticed, does anyone do anything with the angle of the engine in the bay to move it's weight back a little bit?

 

You mean in comparison to a 1.8t?

It`d still cost you a bit to get 220 out of a VR...

The ideal would be to tilt it back, obviously, but in fact it can foul the bonnet as it is, so most people cut down the mounts to get clearance. Not much scope for tilting it back.


Pretty much every question you can come up with has been approached from every angle numerous times already...

 

not worth buying one ready made? there's a fair few knocking about now

 

Re: tilting it back.

I looked at doing this, I tried rotating the engine back and fitting it on a 4 cylinder bell housing. problem is the end cover where the intermediate sprocket is eats into the bell housing/diff area.

I looked to see if you could alter it but just couldn't work out a way of driving the cams without major major work.

might just be possible in a fwd car, but the transfer box got in the way of the oil pump drive and cam chain cover on mine. i could have gotten around the oil pump drive by cutting it off and welding th block and dry sumping, but too much work.

I've seem them fitted longitundinally, you can buy a bell housing adapter from the states to mount them to an audi box (I think) and run RWD.

 

i had a quick think about tiling it yesterday... wouldnt that raise the COG of the lump?

 

Thats what I did but found out lots of small issues I want to sort out to make it 100% perfect.

Can't wait to get it back on the road as before it weighed 1060kg but now i've stripped it even more so hoping to crack the 1000kg barrier and whilst sorting out the engine with a bit of mild tuning and servicing to see at least 180hp