mk2 golf gti 20 valve turbo engine conversion

lewis1641

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thought i might show you my car.

bought in May 2010 for £200. taxed, texted and someone had started to rat it

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after a few months of graft and many new parts it looked like this

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done on a budget of about £600

ironed out a few issues over the months then replaced the suspension with coilovers and winter wheels

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new summer wheels

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then my gearbox blew a hole in the side so the car came off the road. I am not quite sure how it all happened but instead of replacing the gearbox we ended up deciding on an engine transplant from a 2002 seat leon cupra.

1.8 litres, 20 valve turbo. 180 bhp standard

the teardown began


IMG-20120514-WA0005 by lewis1641, on Flickr

new engine and box offered up


DSC_0093 by lewis1641, on Flickr

as it stands at the minute

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we are very very close to completion now. need to sort 2 wiring issues then it is ready for mot.
 
Air filter needs to be blue, it makes it go faster....

How does it all fit? Width ok for the front wheels? ECU issues? - I like these conversions. Since reading 'Street Machine' mag, I always like the idea of updating a classic body shell with new engines and so on. Found an old thread where a Civic had been given 4 wheel steering and 4wd, all bespoke.
 
The 1.8T pretty much goes straight in on original mountings, with just one slightly modified mount AFAIK.

Bolts right up to the same gearbox. Just hook up power to the 1.8T ecu and away you go.

There's one or two more steps, but it is a pretty straightforward swap.

Don't forget to fit bigger brakes! (Looks like lewis has changed to 5 stud wheels so likely has fitted bigger brakes!)
 
Cheers zetec, must be doing something right if a fordster approves!

Marc, it's a "fairly" simple operation mechanically, there are very few custom parts needed, most of it is off the shelf vag stuff. Quick run down

The engine mounts on the new and old engines bolt on and are in the same location so mounts off the mk2 engine will bolt to the 20v engine, engine then drops into the bay in the same place as original.
Clutch and flywheel have been replaced for a single mass item. Standard golf g60 parts have been used.
Gearbox is an o2a from a vr6 mk3 golf gti. Sadly these are cable shift and hydraulic clutch. The same vr6 donated its cable shift set up ( tiny but of fabrication needed). I converted the box to cable clutch using seat Ibiza parts.
Drive drive shafts - 2 main options but shaft choice affects hub and therefore brake choice . Standard mk2 golf items fit but then you have to try and find a big brake kit to suite. I opted to run mk3 vr6 brakes allowing me to use vr6 hubs and shafts too. These are slightly longer than mk2 so I also needed to use vr6 bottom arms and anti roll bar but these are direct fit to the mk2 ( when combined with the other vr6 parts fitted).

Only issue we encountered is the wider track meant the mk2 track rods were too short. Mk3 ones were needed but they don't fit mk2 rack. I could have fitted mk3 rack but they are pas and I really want this car to still feel like a mk2 so that was out of the question. We tried loads of stuff and were about to custom make (cut and shut) but a mate just happened to have a mk 3 and mk4 track rod end in his garage. Mk4 are identical to mk3 but about 20mm longer, which is absolutely perfect. Problem solved.

Rear brakes were simply a case of swapping the discs to vr6 items to get 5 stud all round.

So in terms of where the wheels sit, they are about an inch further out than before but that was from my choice of fitting the mk3 parts rather than directly because of the engine I used.

Exhaust and intercooler were custom items but luckily I just happened to be on eBay as someone was breaking a mk2 with the same conversion so picked them up cheaply.

This particular engine has the fly by wire accelerator pedal so we needed to fabricate a mount for that.

The standard master cylinder is mm's away from the cam belt cover, plus they are a bit weedy so we have fitted a seat Ibiza Cupra item. It's much shorter but fatter so works much better and gives enough clearance. On he subject we had to move the battery a bit and shift the header tank to the opposite side of the engine bay.

The wiring was a challenge. There is a golf legend known on the Internet as rubjonny , he knows pretty much everything and was worth his weight in gold. He has online instructions showing how to splice various looms into various fuze boxes. It's last literally a case of "take the orange plug and the white plug, this goes there, that goes there and bin the rest" there were however a few errors which took a while to sort through.

Ecu is the standard one for the engine. The immobiliser is linked to the original key and also the clocks from the donor key. Most people fit the mk4 clocks and sometimes the whole dash but this toe would ruin the car. I had my mate Gareth at http://www.map-tech.co.uk remove the immobiliser . It was also he who did the wiring. Once the car is back on the road he will be custom mapping it to suite the mods.

I think that covers it. Only custom parts were the pedal mount, a bit of faffing for the gear lever, intercooler, exhaust and the wiring. Not too bad really.

As a side note this was a budget conversion. The idea was to do the conversion for £1000. I stopped counting at 1600 lol
 
Was8v I forgot about the front mount. Bolts to the engine but the location is a few mm over on the 20v. As for using the standard box, they really are not up to the job, the diffs are riveted and are a weak point, you end up with a lovely hole in the side of the diff casing.

Also forgot to mention the sump is way deeper than the mk2. It is now to lowest part of the car. If I keep the car lowered as much as it is I will have to fit an aftermarket shallow sump.
 
i sold them to a mate who had them banded to 8 1/5 inches lol. looked terrible
 
lewis1641":3msrckhj said:
i sold them to a mate who had them banded to 8 1/5 inches lol. looked terrible


Bloody kids aye!

al.
 
Great transformation! :D

Have had a few mk2's myself and currently have an Oak Green 16v, would love to have the know how to put a 20v in it.
 
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