'88 Golf GTI - Rotbox Round II

[Greg|H]

Thanks guys!
I have been rubbish at updating this thread, kind of stopped after my laptop broke.

But anyways, the Golf runs! I barely touched it over winter, but I have my motivation back now and there's only a few more small jobs to go before it'll be on the road

Here's a little teaser picture stolen off my IG, I WILL update this properly soon bringing things up to speed in more detail with better photos

[WaStateKillerBee]

Love this build! Can't go wrong with a 1.8t swap!

[MuTToN_DaGGeR]

Please carry on sir, Kthanks

[Greg|H]

The Trackslag system arrived today, first impressions very good!





I only had the car up on axle stands to fit it, so couldn't get the right angle to slot the middle section over the rear beam, so ended up having to unbolt the top mounts and swing the rear beam right down out of the way to get the exhaust into place. Got there in the end though!

The QPEng downpipe is too long to slot straight up to the Trackslag system so I needed to trim it down by about 4-5 inches. The twin exit pipes look quite large on the car at the moment, but once I have some wider wheels and more meaty rubber tucked under the arches, that'll offset the size of the exhaust and it should look alright!

[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

[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]

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!

[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]

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]

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

[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]

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

[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]

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

[Tim Holm]

nice work on that shifter, looks good on top