Skip back to January this year, I had daily'd the mk2 through winter, and it was really getting to the point where it needed to be taken off the road for a proper rebuild. The faults were mounting up, and due to the bad weather and lack of time on my half, I just didn’t fix them. The final straw was when the Head Gasket blew mid January this year. So I parked it up, sold the splits, and bought a sensible Japanese car that wasn’t so demanding on the maintenance side of things like the Mk2. I guess I lost all motivation with the Golf after the constant problems I had with it.
Although it wasn't long before the cogs started turning in my head though, and the cravings to be back behind the wheel of the Mk2 set in again. I just wanted my Mk2 Golf to be as reliable - as it was fun, because it is the most fun car I’ve ever owned.
With the engine in need of a rebuild, along with a bunch of other parts that needed overhauling or replacing, I decided I’d just go all out and do an engine conversion. So I sold my Honda after only a couple of months of ownership by way of gathering funds to build the Mk2 again, and set about finding a suitable donor car for my Mk2 Golf. I’d always liked the idea of building a properly fast Mk2, so I decided a 1.8T engine was the way to go!
I picked up this Audi A3 8L Sport for a really good price. Complete with an AUM 1.8T engine, with K03s turbo, and 02J gearbox. (105K on the clock). This engine should happily see around the 230bhp mark, with a few supporting mods and a remap, so it’ll be plenty quick enough once in the light Mk2!
I stripped the mk2 of its old 1.8 8v PB engine, gearbox and all associated components. It was only a mornings work, I love how easy old cars are to work on!
Next I set about taking care of tidying up the engine bay.. removing & treating surface rust, removing all excess seam sealer, shaving off some un-needed brackets and attending to two area that needed welding with the help of my mate Charlie. I also had to flatten an area on the bulk head so that I can mount a hydraulic master cylinder for the clutch, which will now be hydraulic operated as opposed to cable operated. (I'm using a late spec Corrado pedal box).
I didn’t take many photos along the way, but today I have finished painted the engine bay, so have a few photos.
Considering the only place I have to work on the car is outdoors in a dusty garage compound, I think the engine bay turned out alright. I plan on respraying the whole car in the future, and I will be changing the colour, so I painted the engine bay black for now so that it’ll go with whatever colour I decide on for the exterior in the future. I quite like black bays too, so it seemed like the logical thing to do..
So this brings me up to date; The golf is prepped, the donor car is bought, and a collection of parts to make the conversion possible is slowly growing. Once I’ve got everything I need for the conversion, I’ll strip the Audi and get to work!
So fitment wise it looks even worse than when I first threw the wheels on the car. When I've got a bit of spare time and money over Christmas I hope to get things moving though, I know the look I'm trying to achieve now anyway. Just got to make it happen!
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