'88 Golf GTI - Rotbox Round II

[Greg|H]

This is my plan for the front engine mount. I'll be using the Mk2 Golf G60 front bracket, with longer M10 bolts. I will find out how much I should torque the bolts up by so that I don't over tighten them. Being 160mm long, they are likely to stretch if over tightened. I'm using washers to increase the clamp area under the bolt heads so that they'll be close to matching the M12's clamping area that the starter motor was secured with as standard. The M10's will go through the starter motor, bell housing holes, crankcase (threaded M12) holes, and tighten into the bracket/mount securing everything together.



I'll keep a close eye on them, should they loosen, my plan B is to machine the captive nuts off the bracket run M12's that'll thread into the crankcase, and then the bracket can slide over the ends of the M12's and be secured with nuts. Hopefully the M10's will do the job though!

[Greg|H]

This week I set about getting the 02J shifter ready to go in the car. I didn't want to mount it underneath the car like most people do. Although it would look more OEM, I preferred the idea of mounting it inside the car therefore making it closer to the steering wheel. I used to own an EP3 Civic Type R and quite liked having the gear lever in close reach.

Given that I wanted to mount it inside the car, I felt like I should modify the housing so that its a bit more aesthetically pleasing if its going to be on show, and get rid of any holes/fixings that I won't use.

So here's what I started off with, the standard 02J shifter..



I stripped it down then set it up on a milling machine to skim the bottom off of it. The way I planned to mount it meant I didn't need any of the fixing holes on the bottom, or as much structure around the bottom, so I machined off the bolt holes, skirt and webs to clean up the look.



Machining it was horrible given that it's 2mm thick die cast aluminium. But I got through it slowly, and started sanding it to get a nice finish



You may have noticed I''ve drilled 3 extra holes, + opened up one of the threaded holes on the top face. I've drilled these holes in positions where they don't clash with the cable mechanism underneath, so that I can essentially mount the housing to the top of the transmission tunnel on 4 posts.



As an assembled unit with the gear knob I've machined..





And how it'll look once in the car. I have yet to turn/machine some posts for it to sit on. The posts will just be hollow tubes that'll space it off of the trans tunnel, that'll have M8 bolts going through the centre's to secure it with.

[Greg|H]

I had some spacers machined so that I could mount my 02J shifter, and pretend that it was really a nice CAE shifter There's four spacers that'll support the shifter from underneath like this;



I positioned the spacers so that they wouldn't clash with the mechanism or cables underneath, hence the skinnier spacer at the front. I made a cardboard template to work out where they needed to be, which I then used to mark out where to drill the holes for them on the top of the transmission tunnel.

I removed the sound deadening, marked and drilled the holes. I also drilled holes for the cables to pass through the bulk head, so that they come out in line with the top of the gearbox where the support bracket mounts to.



I put the carpets back in for what I hope are the final time. Keeping it light weight without any of the sound deadening mats underneath. Bolted in with M8 bolts and nylock nuts so prevent them from loosening in the future.



I used the original golf ball gear knob. Despite being threaded it was a nice push fit over the gear stick that isn't threaded, kinda felt like a nice OEM touch in what will otherwise be a fairly modified car.







Getting a little off topic, I snapped a few photo's of the daily on Sunday..

[PassionGarage]

Loving this build!!!, one of my favourite MK2's atm !!!
keep it up looking forward to seeing it built

[Tim Holm]

nice work on that shifter, looks good on top

[Greg|H]

Loving this build!!!, one of my favourite MK2's atm !!!
keep it up looking forward to seeing it built

Thanks dude! I can't wait to see it built too

nice work on that shifter, looks good on top

Cheers man, I prefer it on top - makes it nice and close tot he steering wheel

[Greg|H]

With my enthusiasm for the build hotting up, I decided to tackle another job tonight, with the plan of being able to fit the engine into the golf this weekend.

First up I needed to replace the cambelt, water pump, and tensioners. My mate Tom gave me a hand as I've never replaced a cambelt before, weirdly I've only got experience of doing timing chains on V8's.

I set the engine to TDC, and checked the timing marks on the front damper, cam pulley, and flywheel notch. (The marks look slightly out, its just the angle of the photo).





With the engine at TDC, I could then remove the damper/front pulley and cambelt covers. I think I also removed the FEAD belt tensioner too as it was getting in the way.



Next up I used a paint pen to mark on the pulleys and cambelt where the timing marks align to. We removed the roller off of the cambelt tensioner, and could then remove the belt completely. We then removed the water pump, tensioner and tensioner pulley. (I completely forgot to take photos of this though..).

Safe to say the water pump was looking healthy



The tensioner was well past it too, but I bought a replacement so all is well



We cleaned up the mating surfaces for the water pump and tensioners with scotch bright, as well as picking out the remains of the water pumps fins from the block, and cleaning up the surface for the water pumps o ring to seal on.

We greased the new water pumps o ring and fitted that, along with the tensioner and tensioner pulley, torqueing all bolts to spec, with a small amount of high temperature Loctite on the threads. We could then fit the new belt, and double check that the timing marks hadn't moved. We barred the engine over a couple of times and set it back at TDC to check the marks lined up correctly, which they did.





Lower cambelt covers and front damper back on to complete the job. Note the timing mark also lined up between the front damper and lower engine cover.



While I was there, I replaced this knackered old vacuum hose with a fresh one.



Roll on the weekend, time to get the engine in

[Greg|H]

I reached a big milestone with the engine conversion on the weekend, and fitted the engine into the car on Saturday morning

I removed the slam panel to give me more access. I also need to modify it due to how/where I want to mount the intercooler.



Here's a look at how the Mk2 Golf G60 front engine bracket will mount..



The two longer bolts also secure the starter motor, and the shorter one just passes through the bell housing.



I blanked off everything to keep any dust and dirt out of the engine.





Front mount aligned first



The rear bracket didn’t align at first, but after a bit of persuasion we were able to get a bolt in.



I used a longer bolt for the rear gearbox mount as the original Mk2 one wasn’t long enough



All bolted in! It took a little persuasion to align the mounts but that’s to be expected when mixing and matching Golf Mk2, Golf G60, Golf Mk3 & Corrado brackets and mounts.







Next up I fitted the downpipe and lambda sensor. The downpipe is QPEng’s 2.5” downpipe for the K03s turbo. Fitted with a fresh gasket, and copasliped nuts. I used the ‘pre-cat’ lambda sensor off the Audi donor car.





It sit’s pretty close to the steering racks UJ gaitor, so I will heat wrap that.





Next step was to connect up the gear selector cables.



After that I fitted a Mk2 Golf 1300 speedo cable to my 8V GTI clocks, and fitted the clocks and rest of dash board back into the car. I still need to source the fixings and speedo cable drive so that I can link the cable with the 02J ‘box.





Now all the boring bits are mentioned, time for a shot of the engine! (And yes, it needs a clean!)







More to come

[georgeMK1]

Thats proper cool man. When I did the swap in my mk1 cabby, it was heaps easier to mount the shifter underneath! The holes were pretty much identical, but now looking at yours man that looks good!

Keep it up

[Greg|H]

Thats proper cool man. When I did the swap in my mk1 cabby, it was heaps easier to mount the shifter underneath! The holes were pretty much identical, but now looking at yours man that looks good!

Keep it up

Thanks man! I'm guessing you used an 02A shifter? I used an 02J so the holes don't really line up (I think theres a slight difference between 02A & 02J anyway haha), and I thought it might be cool to have a go at doing something different

[Greg|H]

I ticked a few more jobs off the to do list today!

After reading up online to check there weren't any differences between my Corrado 02A clutch slave cylinder, and the 1.8T's 02J slave cylinder, I went ahead and fitted the 02A.



Next up I did the SAI (Secondary Air Injection) pump delete, as this wasn't needed, and cluttered up the engine quite a bit! I removed the necessary bits, and fitted a Forge blanking plate and o ring to blank the valves port on the cylinder head.













And this was everything that was removed. I still need to blank off a vacuum pipe but that jobs pretty much complete..



I also hooked up the fuel lines using the standard lines off the audi that clip together, trimmed to fit onto the mk2. This looks a little messy so I'll revisit this at some point in the future, its handy just being able to unclip them if I need to pull the engine in the future though..

[Greg|H]

Yesterday I decided I'd tackle the wiring side of things. I have bought a QPEng plug and play wiring loom and MBE ECU along with the QPEng downpipe. I'm not too clued up on wiring, and I've heard great things about QPEng so I thought it would be a safe route for me to go. Ben at QPEng has also been really helpful with any questions I've had about the loom or engine swap in general. I couldn't recommend QPEng enough.

The QPEng loom literally just runs the engine side of things, so to keep my standard 8v GTI clocks happy, I need to retain all the wiring from the standard/old engine loom for the sensors, as well as the wiring for the started motor, wipers etc.

I laid the loom out and separated the ECU side of things to one side. That was joined with the rest of the loom by two plugs, an earth, and a wire that went to the ignition coil.



I worked out how the QPEng loom integrates with old engine loom, then removed all the wiring that was no longer needed. I also moved the wiring for the coolant level sensor to the other side of the engine bay - due to the new location of the 1.8T's expansion tank.



Next up I re-taped up the loom. The old loom is now adapted and ready to be fitted to the car, and the QPEng loom can be fitted to the engine and linked with the car loom.



I will eventually get all this fitted to the car when it stops raining outside!

[Greg|H]

Small update, nothing exciting.. With the loom being prepped, I installed it into the Golf, along with the other loom that runs the lights and clocks etc.



The two looms pass into the car through the bulk head in the right hand corner behind the servo, so I passed all the plugs through the bulk head and fastened up the loom in the engine bay using the OEM zip ties that screw onto the studs in the engine bay.

I left the plugs loose, and fitted the servo. I had to unscrew the fork off the servo to fit it in behind the engine, but it just about made its way through the gap and slotted into place.

I then bolted in the servo from the inside of the car after re-fitting the fork. I could then put the pin and retaining clip through the brake pedal to attach it to the servo, and adjust the brake light switch so meet the pedal in its fully up position.







With the servo fitted, I then reconnected the plugs linking the looms with the fusebox, although rain stopped play half way through, the thing's I'd do for a workshop!

After this I removed the standard 8v GTI exhaust system, in favour of fitting something a bit less restrictive for the 20VT engine. I’ve ordered a Track Slag 2.5” stainless system with twin tips, so that should arrive next week

Things are getting there slowly but surely!

[georgeMK1]

Thanks man! I'm guessing you used an 02A shifter? I used an 02J so the holes don't really line up (I think theres a slight difference between 02A & 02J anyway haha), and I thought it might be cool to have a go at doing something different

Nah dude, 02j shifter! only 2 holes needed drilling.

Anyway good progress, motor looks at home! Are you running oem ecu? Or chipped oem? Reason im asking is the fact you're deleting the SAI. Never heard of that one being deleted dude

[Greg|H]

Nah dude, 02j shifter! only 2 holes needed drilling.

Anyway good progress, motor looks at home! Are you running oem ecu? Or chipped oem? Reason im asking is the fact you're deleting the SAI. Never heard of that one being deleted dude

Ah okay, maybe I should have mounted it underneath then haha

Thanks man, it's good to see it in the car! I'm going to be running QPEng management, so MBE ecu. I kept all the wiring and ECU from my donor car so I can always go back to OEM in the future, but right now I know very little about wiring, so decided to play it safe and go with QPEng. It also means it'll be running around 230bhp from the off, so that'll be fun I'm fairly certain I don't need the SAI or N249, just deleted the SAI for now though