HERMAN THE GERMAN! '91 Scala 20vt

[Risocco]

Serious detailing there on the engine, fantastic.

[treefingers]

Thanks Risocco!

Got my new top mounts finished.. yaay. Blew some chassis black on to them


Bushes lighted coated in copper slip and pressed in


Installed in car :) Never been so pleased about having an extra inch ;)


Here's my new idea for a shallow sump!


I'd previously bought a shallow VW sump but trying to be too clever and reinforce it didn't go so well.. oil and welding really don't mix and I'll admit I kind of messed it up! This time I got my friendly local tig'ist to ali weld it.


He had some trouble getting a clean weld in some places so had to keep welding and grinding out to clear the crap. But I've tested for porosity by blowing with compressed air from underneath while squirting Fairy Liquid on top and it seems to be air tight. Only one real way to find though.. install and see! I used checkerplate because it's all we had in the scrap bin, I quite like it though!

[keirnbug]

Hehe, you are positivly insane, in that good and comfy way. good work !

[G Beats]

Major project but I can see you have put in loads, loads and loads of work on this project.And I must say it looks very Fresh, Dope, Def and sick.

[treefingers]

Spent last Saturday doing heart transplant.



Trusty pallet truck to the rescue. Engine in the top, gearbox in underneath and bolt 'em together in the bay. Engine went in fine, gearbox was a bitch this time though for some reason!



She's in.. KABOOOOM!


An arial shot for good measure


And finally a bit of bloody weight over the front wheels!!

[Bill]

Stunning Superb job.,

[Risocco]

Jaw dropping. Very jealous

[treefingers]

Driveshafts stripped to the balls and cages, cleaned, greased and rebuilt. New boots. Painted in more chassis black. The paint reacted a little but you wont notice it when I hit mach 10 in this thing.

Mmm axles.


Earnt some experience doing the joints.. it's easy to assemble them the wrong way but a nightmare to get them apart again! I found that to swivel the center through 90 degrees you have to first move the cage, then the center (if that makes any sense!).

Anyhoo. Bought an Audi A4 so that I didnt have to work on my daily. Then the turbo blew up so I spent my day off today draining oil from places in an engine where oil should'nt be. Then got miffed that I'd been cheating on the Roc so in the evening I got the driveshafts fitted and te exhaust all joined up. I also found out that my new custom welded sump doesn't fit, it's too shallow and the oil pump fouls on it! Back to the think tank on that one then.

[bengould]

When you got the sump did you get the pickup pipe to suit. I'm pretty sure the steel bottomed sump uses a different pickup to the all aluminium one.

See below for more....

http://www.edition38.com/forums/index.p ... pic=504100

Ben.

[steve bain]

mate. your car looks really tidy. very nice indeed. i do have a real soft spot for kitless cars, but feels wrong to do it to mine with it being a storm...

[treefingers]

really like some kitted cars too.. i think a white kitted car looks the nuts.

and ben- yeah got a shorter a pickup, it was my fault not doing enough test fitting!

lots of work done but not a lot of pictures im afraid.. recently the roc has:

- electrical oil pressure and temp gauges installed next to the boost gauge
- new hybrid sump fitted.. the ecs kit for £160 is a rip off folks! later vws use the hybrid sump, picked one up for £50. if it has 06A in the part number it should fit a 1.8t as 06A is the block number :) if you get a cheap one id recommend resealing the lower section with dirko sealant
- complete new cooling system fitted. pretty much exactly the same as the mk4 golf cooling system with nearly all oem pipes. bubble expansion bottle fitted nice and high up in the bay
- new boost pipe routing
- oem pcv and recirc valve location- no more exhaust heat warming it up! :)



insured and taxed today.. fired up for the first time in months!! it was very nerve racking. loads of smoke from the turbo, most of the £17 per half pint Por15 hi temp paint burnt off straight away. 1200 deg my eye!!

warmed it up at 2-3k then planned to go for some hard runs immediately on the road to bed the rings in but had to fiddle with rebleeding and adjusting the clutch before i could use the gears, then managed to drive about 10m before a water leak from the Corrado radiator flange made me push the car back into the workshop!! just couldnt seal it with any size of o-ring i had so ive used some sealant that is going off overnight. oil pressure gauge worked a treat but not the oil temp gauge! had the centre console apart and found the offending wire so that's hopefully fixed it.

its decked right now. so decked. more than id like but i have no choice for the short time.. cant preload the rear springs anymore as they are rebounding to the top of the strut travel! if anything i need to run the rear of the car lower to get the right spring tension, the front is screaming for some balljoint extenders. really need to find some from somewhere cos at the moment im predicting this will be a stiff bumpsteering boyo. and bad handling is not on the agenda!

engine sounded sweet once the tappets settled down though. cant wait to take it on the road.

[britishrocco]

congrats, mine is in the last miles before I can take it back on the road, 1.8T swap as well.

[treefingers]

So Herman is all tucked up and stored in a workshop for the wet months ahead.. then in the middle of February it's booked in to have a fresh loom made as the one in the car is too much of a mashup.

So here's the formula..

an AUQ ECU with Motronic 7.5 - near enough standard, running 180hp map until the engine is bedded in
an AUM loom mated to my Scirocco loom

the addition of sensors previously taken out:
+ VVT
+ clutch pedal switch
+ brake pedal switch
+ vehicle speed switch
+ rear O2 sensor (plugged in but not mounted)

With the limited sensors the car is running at the moment, the ECU thinks the car is stationary even if you are doing top speed. Bringing back all the sensors means the ECU will be able to calculate torque according to the vehicle load, and just give a really sweet oem+ ride..

[connorj19]

What's the wiring like on these conversions, say like just to get the 20v turbo to run in the car,

I've never really done engine conversions where splitting looms etc is involved

[treefingers]

It depends wholly on what you want! You can get the engine in and running using 20v clocks relatively easily, it gets a bit more involved if you want to use your original clocks. Google is your friend :) If you want to do the conversion i'd recommend getting a donor car as at least you know all the parts work together.. there are many 20v parts variations between the different engine codes.


So after bailing on my bmx before xmas i currently look like this:


I fractured my heel and i have to gaffa tape a bin liner around my cast so that i can shower. Just as well i don't have any hair on my chicken legs.

Not a whole lot to update I'm afraid. There's very much a plan to get this car running really sweet for when the dryer/warmer weather comes in the spring and I really really really really really just want to drive the car on as many trips as I can this year.

I have finally managed to sort out correcting the steering geometry.. yay! You've heard of low and slow? This car is going to be LOW AND FAST!!! As it should be!!

When you lower a car past a certain point you are undoing most of the good work the manufacturer has done to make the car handle well. Centre of gravity is increased and stiffer springs mean you feel cornering forces sooner but suspension travel is reduced, and the wishbones and track rods are now at mad angles. Every time the suspension compresses or expands over bumps it causes the steering geometry to change as the track rods are effectively getting shorter and longer. The effect is that you need to constantly make tiny steering inputs to correct this, it's called bump steer.

The other thing that happens when the front wishbone/tie rod angles change with lowering is that the imaginary pivot point at which the body rolls around corners goes lower. This means on my standard lowered roc I increased the body roll of the car. Of course stiffer springs work against this body roll, but the original forces trying to roll the body of the car are still there.

The solution to all this is to return the wishbone and tie rod angles back to what they were at the factory.. minimising bump steer and reducing body roll around corners. The way to do this on a Roc is to run a spacer between the wishbone ball joints and the lower hub mounting points, and to flip the track rods upside down...

To flip the track rods you need to drill out the tapered holes in the hub from 13mm to 17mm. You then press in these inserts that are internally tapered: (please excuse the crappy photos!)



I've also got some shiney new drilled and grooved 256mm brake discs :)



And the track rod is flipped!


To space the wishbones I used some of these 25mm ball joint extenders that awkwardly need a 7mm allen key (lost my original photo as I dropped my iPhone in a drum of machine coolant :/)


You can just about make out the fitment in this photo...


It'll just need the camber and toe reset now. I've now done all that I can to keep this car low but handle well, with the front and rear mounting points changed to regain suspension travel and now the front wishbone geometry rectification. Can't wait to see what it drives like.

I need to replace those rusty wishbones when I can walk uncrippled again..