The catch to putting it back in use was that it currently had a 1.6td golf GTD engine in it, which I fitted when I started uni to allow me to keep it on the road as I couldn't afford the fuel costs of the original engine at the time, this engine had however decided to seize it's self into one big solid lump on the A34 about this time last year, hence why the car was put in storage and a bargain basement diesel Passat was purchased.
Choosing what to replace the diesel with took some thinking, I didn't really want another diesel, as although it suited my needs at the time I fitted it, it doesn't really suit the character of the car. I thought if I was going to do another swap I may as well do it properly, so I narrowed it down to an ABF or 20vt. In the end the decission was made by the 20vt's economy when driven sensibly, and the fact I have a lot of spare 20vt parts 'in stock' for my other project (mid engined mini clubman estate). A Passat AEB engine was found, then all the parts to rotate it to the necessary transverse orientation were scrounged from an A3 obsessed friend, including an 02j gearbox. Sadly I had to sell my trusty 1.6td B3 Passat estate to fund it all, and then things got under way about a month ago.
I won't go through everything in too much detail, as we'd be here all week, but if there's any specific questions people have then by all means fire away! I've done a few bits in ways that probable seem a bit odd, this is basically a mixture of the fact that I am a little bit odd and like doing things my own way, (I'd rather work something out my self than read a guide about it,) and that I was working with what I had with very limited transport/time to get other bits.
Dragging the car out after a year in my dads barn:
The car was covered in bits of dead moth from the bats that roost in the barn, not pleasant! (And neither was the accompanying bat-excrement!)
We towed the car up to a friends workshop that they'd kindly agreed to let me use as long as I covered to costs of what I used, giving me access to a 4 post ramps, and an extensive selection of tools, including composite and metal fabricating kit.
Once there the old engine was freed:
And the interior and dash were pulled out so I could wire in the new engine, as most of my Scirocco's dials were knackered I decided to fit the full management and dials that came with the engine, which also meant I didn't need to send the ECU off to remove the imobiliser. (The eagle eyed of you will spot that the seats aren't from the VW stable, they're '90 spec Escort RS turbo Recaros, and they're not normally that reclined!)
The new engine waiting for it's next home:
And a pile of parts ready to make the engine fit:
The 02j gearbox was bolted to the engine with an ABF flywheel and a gifted VR6 clutch that only had ~1000 miles on it. The Audi A3 manifolds and turbo were fitted too to put all the pipework in more favorable positions.
The steel sump off the diesel was adapted to take the turbo's oil return, the diesel one clashed with a ridge on the block. The diesel's fixed cam-belt tensioner was fitted to the new engine, freeing up space to fit the original cam-belt end mount, which bolted straight on, giving me a nice datum to use to make up the other mounts confident that the drive-shafts would end up in the right place.
Then I knocked up the other engine mounts all 3 of the others needed making as the 02j gearbox didn't have the original locations for the nearside and rear ones, and the Passat oil-filter housing was in the way of the front one. These recieved more reinforcement on the bench after:
Once the mounts were all the right shape the engine came back out to give me space to work on the shell again.
Next up some mounts for the shifter were welded into the cabin, and holes for the cables drilled in the bulkhead. I like high shifters, so I chose to mount the new cable shifter quite high in the cabin rather than under the tunnel, this feels lovely as well as freeing up space for the exhaust, the handbrake mounts needed a little tweaking to make it sit a little higher at rest in order to clear the shifter:
I was in a weird mood when I tackled the clutch, so I decided to go about converting to hydraulic using a master cylinder from a classic Mini, it's what I had to hand and I thought it's built in reservoir made for quite a neat touch. This fits in the scuttle-tray, so a hole was cut in the tray and a 2.5mm steel platform was welded in for it to sit on, including a pair of M8 mounting studs:
The clutch arm had the cable related bits chopped off (leaving enough for the return stop to still do it's job) and an extra little arm was welded to the rear of it and drilled to take the clevis pin for the master cylinder, this was done with quite a high pedal ratio to make up for the fact the mini master cylinder is a larger bore than the one that would normally go with the box:
The master cylinders push-rod was extended to reach the pedal and made adjustable so I could fine-tune the biting point:
While the engine was out the pullys were adapted to loose the power-steering pump and reduced to run a single serpentine belt by welding the outside of the power-steering pumps pully onto the centre of the water pump's one and then rummaging in the local parts place for a suitable belt:
The engine bay got a good degrease and clean too, not as good as I'd have liked, but I needed the car working ASAP having sold my daily driver and living in the middle of nowhere! In fact the attention to detail's not as good as I'd have liked on most of the build, the priority's been on getting the car on the road in a reliable fashion:
As the car was originally carbed I needed to do something about fitting a pump and preventing starvation on hard cornering, so I knocked up a swirl pot that contained a Vauxhall Astra 2.0l 16v fuel pump, which I mounted in the engine bay with a facet low-pressure pump supplying it with fuel from under the floor below the rear bench:
An exahaust was made up using 2.5" pipe for most of it, with 3" for the down-pipe and a single box at the rear:
Once the engine went back in the down-pipe could be finished off, I ended up making the flange by cutting the centre out of a classic Mini disc brake!
Fitted:
Single tail-pipe added (excuse all the welds, I'd run out of proper 2.5" bends by then!):
Lambda boss added, and you can see I polly-bushed the rack while the engine was out:
A new standard Scirocco radiator was fitted and there was a massive amount of faffing around with coolant and intercooler flexible pipe adapting and solid pipe fabrication until all the plumbing was looking good and air/water tight. The intercooler was already mounted from the turbo diesel that had come out.
The dial faces and needles were moved around allowing them to just fit inside the standard dials housing, the paper blanking was replaced with one cut out of a thin sheet of carbon-fibre. These were fitted behind the dash with a bit of chopping about of the dash's steel structure:
Some wires, relays and fuses were added, a key was turned and it drove. Easy.... honest.. ;)
Having been sat for so long the brake flexies all needed replacing thanks to perishing, but once that was done it flew through the MOT without even an advisory.
The only trouble was the clutch was slipping horenously, I was worried it was my somewhat unorthodox clutch set-up, but some fault finding removed that as a possibility and after much swearing I bit the bullet and pulled the box back off and replaced the 1000 mile old clutch I'd been given with a nice new one, problem solved!
Since then I've done a couple of hundred miles in it and it's not missed a beat. Starts first time every time and goes pretty damn well!
The dials fitted:
And illuminated, green back-light matches the Sciroccos dash well:
I got a few photos of it this afternoon after giving it a quick clean to remove a years worth of barn-crap and oily finger-prints. The wheels are temperary, I've got some 16x7.5" Azev A's to go on it, but they're at the wrong end of the country at the moment, so these have been borrowed off a friend's mk2 Astra Rally car while it gets a new gearbox over the winter. Besides the engine the car's got the ford seats, some TA Technix coilovers (with a few tweaks) and 280mm front brakes, but from now on my priorty will be to sort out the handling, I might have something posh lined up for the brakes, and although I'm very impressed with the TA Technix for the money, I'll be doing what I can to get the suspension as good as possible as and when funds allow:
Anyway, I hope you like the car. It's a little tatty visually, but generally solid and free from any structural rust, and it's a great laugh to drive.
Thanks for reading, Robin.
(As I say, any questions fire away!)
