Mk2 RWD 1.8T

[mk2daz]

Thought I would stick up a thread on here for my current build...

1991 mk2 scirocco GT2, sat in a scrapyard in Huntly in Aberdeenshire for about 15 years, initially only wanted a few parts off it for my ABF scirocco, but ended up taking away the whole car for £150!

Gonna try and sum up the first chapter of this build as briefly as i can, if anyone wants to see the full picture heavy build thread from ClubGTI heres the link

https://clubgti.com/forums/index.php?th ... st-2484201

Anyway... last year i finished building this ABF powered mk2 and its now my daily driver, learned heaps from this car as it was my first ever engine conversion, first ever repsray (took me a couple attempts as i was spraying it in my shed during a freezing scottish winter!).



i really enjoyed everything about the project and with the lockdowns etc coming into play in march i decided i would give my neglected parts shell a new life, as a fast road/track car!





Fully stripped it down, made my own spit and got going.



After a good couple months of welding i finally had a solid shell, welding included front and rear valance, front crash panel behind the valance, rear arch lips, drivers side full sill, various patches to the floor, welding around the filler neck area, lets just say the shell wasn't as solid as i remembered!





any unrequired brackets etc were removed, sunroof removed as was the sunroof tray, wanted this car to be as light as possible.







I bought a half stripped mk4 golf with an AGU 1.8t in it for the grand sum of £100, sold as much stuff as i could and after scrapping the shell i was up £300 with a full engine, loom etc



Bought a bunch of stuff for the engine from a gent local to me that was breaking his mk1 golf 1.8T, BBT ko4 hybrid turbo, ko4 charge pipework, bracketry, oil lines etc, I also bought a trackslag downpipe, bigger injectors, gas n gears lightened g60 flywheel, Wavetrac LSD, even splashed out on an Emerald K6+ ecu.

Stripped the engine right down and cleaned it up a bit, started to bolt on all my stuff in prep for putting it in.









Stripped down all the wiring and made up my own 1.8t to ce1 conversion loom



Before i could drop it in i wanted to paint the underside of the car, so ALL the underseal was removed, took an entire weekend of non stop grinder action with various knot wheel attachments, got to the final area and then my old trusty dewalt grinder packed in!

In the end i got it all off, welded up any holes that were discovered, seam welded about 80% of the floor, zinc primered everything, then stonechip, then primer, then a good couple coats of Audi IBIS white, which i plan to paint the car in eventually.













Also refurbished a bunch of suspension/steering parts in order to get it down and rolling again, triangulated VW motorsport inspired rear beam, seam welded wishbones, polypushes all round, refurbished steering rack etc etc etc



Boom, its down on the ground again, time to get the engine in!





Long story short got it running fairly decent off the Emerald K6+ with some bigger 550cc injectors, had to teach myself a bit about injector scaling which was quite fun.





Heres a quick youtube vid of it running...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W5M074arAwM

Cage time! Ripped out the engine and box and the car went off to Aiden at Lochaber stainless in Fort William to get a full 6 point cage designed and welded in, it is also welded through to the front turrets.









Thats about it for the FWD stuff... Sudden change in direction to follow shortly!

[isaidthephil]

Naughty build is :)

I'm looking to have a similar cage fitted in mine. How much was it out of curiosity? I'm trying to get an idea of how much my basic build is going to be lol

[treefingers]

love it, going to copy your main hoop mounting foot chassis cut out for mine, but bolt in :)

[mk2daz]

Naughty build is :)

I'm looking to have a similar cage fitted in mine. How much was it out of curiosity? I'm trying to get an idea of how much my basic build is going to be lol

Cage was 875 as a casher, i think i got a really good deal with it being his first proper cage, other quotes i had from other cage builders were £1300 an upwards!

[mk2daz]

love it, going to copy your main hoop mounting foot chassis cut out for mine, but bolt in :)

Nice one dude, look forward to seeing it.

Let me know if you want some more pictures of the hoop as a reference or anything!

[mk2daz]

This is where this build takes a bit of a U-turn...

The below is all pretty much copied and pasted from my ClubGTI thread, so a few things have changed from the below which i will eventually post updates for.

I've always thought with the shape of a scirocco it should be RWD and going sideways, I also kind of wanted to sway away from the common transverse 1.8t conversion.

While the car was away for its cage i spent hours and hours reading into the conversion. Initially thought i would use an entire setup from a rwd car like a bmw, use its subframes, engine, box, diff, suspension etc etc but then i started to think how i could keep it VW powered and since i already have this AGU engine sitting here with the ko4 hybrid etc i thought i may aswell use that.

Sat it inside the bay longitudinally to see what was what. Got pretty excited seeing it like that so decided to crack on with it.



Next up was the issue of what gearbox to use...

Theres a few folk out there making bellhousings to mate up 1 or 2 ford gearboxes to the VAG bolt pattern, type 9s and T5 cosworth gearboxes seem to be the common ones. With 300+ horse a type 9 would shit itself and a good T5 box is easily over a grand to buy, so they were out the equation for me.


Started looking at japanese stuff and to cut a long story short i went for a mazda rx8 5 speed box. picked up for 80 quid, they come in a 5 or 6 speed version, 5 speed is actually stronger of the two as it uses the same internals to an rx7 gearbox with a different bellhousing. Should be good for no more than 400hp/400ft.lbs - plenty for me.



Heres the adapter plate I am using to mate it to the 1.8t block. There is a quite specific starter/flywheel/clutch setup to make this work. can use VAG specific stuff for flywheel, starter and clutch i think, but i need to use a ford/mazda pressure plate to match the rx8 splines.



Anyway, here it is mated up to the AGU I have.



Now i need to find a rear diff/axle setup. Again spent hours and hours researching for something that would be strong and be able to withstand the 1.8T power.

My dad is a bit of a classic ford guy and suggested an atlas axle from a capri with a 4 link suspension kit and a watts linkage or panhard rod setup. These axles have been used for decades in rallying etc with high torque application so should be easily up to the job with some uprated halfshafts - Plus, rebuilt fully floating atlas axles just looks so nice! New parts for them are readily available too which is handy. Picked this one up the same day i picked up the rx8 box.



With a quick shot of the propshaft from my dads car the drivetrain was essentially mocked up. Im using a spare 1.8t block i have for all the mocking up/fabrication work while the AGU slowly gets tarted up on the stand.



Fired on a longitudinal style sump from an Audi a4, will need to modify this slightly, more on that later



Heaps of intercooler and rad room!



Plan was to use a passat style manifold which brings the turbo flange nearer the front of the engine and to weld on a ko4-023 flange so the turbo sits like this (ignore the manifold for now). That way the snail is facing the correct way and the downpipe can head straight through the tunnel which you'll see a few pics down - In the end i went for a slightly different setup, those details will follow as I update this thread



Time to start chopping, no going back now...






Wanted to have the engine as far back as possible, with everything sitting straight and roughly where i want it i started building the gearbox/prop/exhaust tunnel. Took an entire week of welding cutting grinding bu here it is. Utilises the original scirocco handbrake mechanism too.









Working my way to the front of the car, needed some way of mounting a subframe to the car. Used some 2" box section that I welded to the front crossmember and the chassis rails, fired on some thick plated gussets to tie it up to the main chassis legs and will put on some more as I progress. I did start to make the subframe and was away to start making some engine mounts but then i realised i hadn't fully figured out the steering. So the subframe got chucked to one side for now and steering components were chucked on



Was going to try and retain all the scirocco front suspension etc but flip the front hubs over from each side so the steering arm was towards the front of the car, my plan was to also just cut the end of an outer cv joint to support the front bearings, a bit ghetto but don't see why it wouldn't work.



Finally rigged up all the steering components but when i turned the wheel left they both turned right and vice versa I also wasn't very happy with the geometry of it all either - more on that later.

Turns out I need to use a steering rack designed for a post axle car. This is where I found out a bit more on the history of the Porsche 924 and how it was made from a lot of VW - more specifically mk1 golf - parts.

The front uprights are essentially the exact same apart from they have a stub axle and the steering arm is on the front side. They bolt right up to mk1 golf wishbones and struts, which is the same as a scirocco, which is VERY handy! The steering rack is also the exact same with a quicker ratio and it of course turns the wheels the correct way being post axle, it also bolts the tie rod ends from below - negating the need for a tie rod flip kit!. So now i have a pair of 924 hubs and a steering rack assembly ordered. Early 924's also have a wheel PCD of 4x108 the same as the capri atlas axle halfshafts which is all very handy.

Thats where I'm at so far, next step is to get the Porsche stuff fitted and working and then i can look to get the engine and gearbox mounted to the car. Theres a fair bit of fabrication work to do at the back for the diff tunnel and the 4 link / watts linkage setup but i'm keen to get fired in.

[mk2daz]

Decided I really needed to sort steering / suspension out before i finalise engine position

Steering rack is from an old Porsche 924, and i've fitted it with mk3 non PAS tie rods, and mk2 tie rod ends

This bolts to porsche 924 stub axles, and i've worked out that i can use mk2 escort front hubs (which my dad has had in the garage for about 30 years collecting dust) with a v6 capri wheel bearing kit. Will get some pics of this soon but this gives me the same ford 4x108 fitment to match the rear axle.



mk3 tie rods compared to mk1, nice and wide


made a custom crossmember to mount it such that the steering geometry is near enough perfect. Its quite oddly shaped at the front for sump clearance



Bolts to the chassis rails and the wishbone mounting points like so



Welded in these 'sleeves' to where the bolts go through the box section chassis rails to prevent them collpasing in as the bolts are torqued up



With crossmember and steering now in position the bulkhead was chopped out again and the engine was positioned as far forward as i could get it behind the crossmember. The size and position of the 1.8t 06A block oil pump was really the main issue here, the sump needs to be very deep at the front, hence the engine behind the crossmember rather than on top!

Heres the final position, should help with handling and weight distribution



Started to make some mounts, engine will be mounted in three places - either side and in front too, i'd rather go overkill with this and there is some thinking behind the centre mount... If i ever need to remove the crossmember i dont need to support the engine, if i ever want to change the sump i can drop the crossmember and have full access on the lift with the engine still mounted. Still waiting for the last bush and bush sleeve to arrive so i can make the final mount up. Mock up steering shaft i made has been sent away down south to be fabricated/machined too, didn't trust myself welding one up with the MIG, and I don;'t have enough practice with the TIG, it would constantly be on my mind incase it was to snap under load, especially with no power steering and big wide wheels!



Bought a universal RX8 gearbox mount to give me a break from welding



Re-inforced the floorpan either side where it bolts up and then got it fitted (need to get some smaller high tensile bolts), and for the first time was able to lift the car with the engine and box attached, everything is about as central and straight as i could have hoped for



Fired on some of dads old wheels to mock up track width etc, these wheels are 8J with pretty crazy offset, the rear will poke a bit more once the brakes etc are on



And with some knackered old wide arches taped on.









More to come, cheers

[mark1gls]

Loving the idea of a rwd Scirocco, brilliant work so far and looking forward to updates as they happen.

Keep it going

[C 20 CCO]

Hooked, completely hooked. It’s guys like you that make the world go around. Here’s to the next part of the build.
Since you’re dads a Ford man, I have to divulge that my only rear wheel drive ever.... was a mk4 cortina. SBU353R, a real babe magnet in beige with a black vinyl roof! That was a loooong time ago.

[mk2daz]

I need to start updating this more frequently, keep forgetting

Bit more done on the rwd scirocco, the 3rd engine mount bush and sleeve finally arrived so was able to get the engine fully mounted in, as its only been on two mounts up until now




Crossmember is gusseted underneath like so




Heres a better picture to show the steering geometry, the tie rod ends aren't bolted up but this is roughly how it sits with the wheels straight, I'm really happy i took the time to dial this in before going any further before!




Dad bought this intercooler many years ago but in the end didn't use it and its been sat in the loft of the garage ever since, i believe its a sierra cosworth core, nice and thick, either way its made its way on to my car :D Mounted with rivnuts because i love rivnuts.








Custom steering shaft arrived, got a fabricator down south to tig weld it for me based on my mockup shaft i tacked together for him, chuffed with it, its a removable UJ on the steering rack end and i have a 20mm bulkhead style bearing for it to slide through up to the column.






Was looking into turbos and manifolds etc, went for a TFSI ko4-064, the manifold is built into the hotside so no messing about with manifolds and its also clocked correctly for the downpipe etc, this one also has a BBT anti surge billet wheel fitted which should help with boost onset and duration, should see a fairly reliable 350hp from this.

To fit it to the 1.8T head an adapter plate is required, got this one from CB auto and its spot on, theres an AGU gasket on the head side and a tfsi gasket on the manifold side.






The next issue was with the column mounted in the original place it was extremely close to the downpipe flange of the turbo. After a bit of head scratching i decided i would use this to my advantage, i'll bring my seating position back even further allowing me to lower the steering column slightly, giving me enough room between the exhaust flange and the steering shaft.






Of course doing this would bring the UJ on the steering rack to quite an angle, more than 45 degrees which i wasnt too happy with, so the steering rack mounting points on my crossmember were tilted and rewelded to bring the column to rack UJ nearly straight with no angle, much better. Its a tight fit down there but it all works!

I wont finalise the steering/seating/pedal position just yet until i have some seats, so I've ordered some seats (which took a while after 100s of measurements and emails!)



Was getting a bit tired of the surface rust on the front end, so took a weekend to clean it all back, repair any holes and then make some more with the swager tool, then etch primed the lot










Made up some inner wing gusset strengthening plates and welded them in, will swage hole these and use them for the front bonnet pins, which i've marked roughly with masking tape










Heres my crossmember in all its glory, drilled some holes in it before cleaning it up, etch priming and refitting




Also cleaned up the porsche 924 stub uprights and the mk2 escort front hubs, etch primed and sprayed gloss black








Won a big VW diesel starter for 4 quid on ebay, no idea if its the right one for use with the rx8 box yet but its an absolute beast!




Chucked on doors and tailgate etc and started working on some of the panel gaps, for being a scrapper they are actually pretty good! Started sanding back some of the paint, especially the passenger door as it has been very poorly resprayed before at some point.






Started mucking about with some cardboard after considering the idea of making my own widebody, not really sure if i'll do this or not, would be good to find a full zender z400 kit but thats just not going to happen!






Managed to convince dad to let me unbolt his fully floating atlas axle and group 4 wheels and try them up under my car, when you get these axles built up you can pretty much have them made to any size you like, the halfshafts are all machined to suit any length tubing

Seeing it like this got me pretty excited, im hoping to have my axle sent away soon for some thicker tubing, uprated halfshafts etc, will need to go an inch wider either side at the rear, or a less wide wheel on the front, these are 8s all round

Gonna need to do alot of fab work to raise the boot floor where the axle is going to move up and down, and also notch the wheel tubs, nothing i wasn't expecting though.













Moving back to the engine side of things, I wanted to sort out the radiator so i could start plumbing up coolant hoses etc, tried a couple different radiators from various VWs before opting for this cosworth alloy one after seeing Andi's one, the bottom rad hose is on the wrong side for me but i can live with that. The side mounts are perfect for mounting to my box section chassis leg supports.

Thanks to Andi (treefingers) for providing me some measurements off his one before i pulled the trigger on it!




Mounted sandwiched between two 10mm go kart seat rubber mounts and a M8 rivnut, and a couple of small brackets to secure it to the intercooler up top




Coolant lines are slowly starting to come together, just a few left to sort out, intercooler pipework temporarily mocked up with some scrap bits of hose and pipework i had left over just to see how it may look, think i need to play with the turbo side intercooler outlet, its point down quite alot.






Heres the next issue im tackling, the original bonnet hinges dont work because of the cage, got a couple ideas for that which I'll hopefully suss out in the near future.




Cheers for reading, more to come :)

[mk2daz]

Brief update on this thing

cosworth intercooler and rad now mounted, as are the twin 12" slim line ebay fans





made up a quick coolant hose sketch based off how i had it plumbed before in fwd form





coolant hoses now in place





as are the main boost pipes, would like to make up some ally ones eventually once i get better with the TIG







Moving on to the rear, was going to be using a ford atlas axle but it was just going to cost far too much to have a fully floating axle built up - a lot more than i could justify so the axle got pushed to one side for a bit.

Started to look into other options, with my box being from an rx8 i thought it would be worth looking at what the rx8 rear setup was like.   4.44 factory 'torque sensing' LSD with an 8" crown wheel (atlas is 7.5"), beefy driveshafts that are good for 400+ bhp, 10 link suspension arms and a heavy duty subframe to bolt them up to.  RX8's seem to be getting broken for parts virtually everywhere so parts are both cheap and fairly easy to get a hold of.

There was a lad fairly local to me breaking his rx8 that he'd bought fancy adjustable arms and all that shit for, i went for a looky and ended up coming away with the full setup.

the driveshafts are beefy as hell and the wheel bearings are huge too






subframe had been recently powdercoated too





rx8 rear discs are 302mm, mx5 mk3 is 280 and direct bolt on, i opted for the latter in the hopes of running a smaller wheel, more on that later

Had the hubs and discs redrilled to 4 stud by RIchard at North East Brakes



Subframe came with no bushes, i wanted to paint it black before fitting new bushes and getting it fitted to the car, ended up painting most of the stuff, heres everything before assembling




Bushes all pressed in and diff mounted up, lifetime warranty on these ones from strongflex UK, highly reccomend for any car!





All assembled with random bolts and ready to be offered up








Floor cut out, had to chop out the chassis legs that run along the bottom of the rear tubs for suspension arms to clear, will be sure to completely reinforce this area





Tunnel was also cut out to be redesigned smaller and lighter, also makes it easier to set gearbox tailshaft and diff pinion angles.




Got everything sitting at roughly ride height, but didnt want to start the fabrication work until i had some wheels bolted up so ride height and centering of the subframe could be done accurately.

offered up dads 15" revolution 5 spokes, 15x8 et0, brakes are a ball hair from touching but could be ground down a bit anyway, lower suspension arm mount is touching which is an issue, everything else only just clears!








Wanted to see what a bigger wheel might look like so I sourced some 17" team dynamic pro race 3's for a relatively good price as i quite like the classic 5 spoke motorsport style wheel.

These easily clear everything but im very 50/50 on the look, sometimes i think they look ace and other times they just look too big for the car.  The other option is 16s but then tire availability and price seems to be not as great for 16s.  I'm quite determined to get a 15 that will clear, think the car is much more suited to 15s.







Whats everyones thoughts?

15x8 et0 but will probably need to modify the knuckle and calipers to clear




or 17x7 et35 with no modifications required





Thats pretty much where I'm at, trying to decide which wheels to go for then I'll fabricate the chassis around the wheels.

Other than that all thats left to do before i can fire up the engine again is:

- turbo oil lines (need some from a b6 1.8t a4 for a direct fit i think!)

- remote oil filter + cooler plumbed up and mounted somewhere

- some modification to the sump to get rid of the 20 degree slant as my engine is sitting at 0 degrees vertical,

- fire in the loom that i made up before.

- need to suss out a clutch combination but theres an a4 1.8t solid mass flywheel bolted up just now for sake of starting the engine



Cheers

[Village Idiots]

Personally I prefer the look of the 17s, but the deeper dish of the 15s you have.
Awesome project look forward to seeing it in all its glory in real life.

[mk2daz]

back to the rwd car, its sat collecting dust for the past couple months so time to get back to it

Main focus is getting the rx8 rear end in there bolted up supported under the cars own weight.
I'd cut a great big massive hole in the boot to get it in place roughly where it needs to be, chassis rails had to be cut out too for the suspension arms to clear.



The subframe is a beast, and it needs to be to support all 10 suspension arms and the fat 8" diff etc! it takes 6 main M16 mounting points, along with two bolt on 'jacking plates' at the front, the cars structure needed to be strong enough to support all this under load! After a fair bit of humming and ho-ing, some cardboard sketches and some discussions with dad i decided on a 'cradle' design and got cracking.

Time to get busy!



Made up some new chassis rails that would support the rear and central subframe mounts, welded in some sleeves like i done for the front rails prevent the tube from crushing as the bolts were tightened





welded in some bars to support these chassis rails, everything will be triangulated back to the original chassis rails too at some point for additional strength. The chassis rails are then welded to these bars (middle one has not been welded in just yet) and also welded to the cage mounting points, so everything is pretty sturdy back there. The front subframe mounting points are just some 8mm thick L shaped brackets i made up and have welded in to the exisiting chassis rails, these will be plated with gussets and tie up to the main bar for extra support, i think you can just make them out in the pics







for the coilovers i have some universal GAZ gold coilovers, these were specced for the car (although i can't remember what lb the springs are now!), the lower bush sleeves needed to be machined out slightly to sit perfectly on the rx8 knuckle, then for mounting them i basically made up a plate to extend the turret out a bit (keeping it double skinned) and welded in some lugs for the coilover to bolt too



After removing and fitting the whole subframe about 100 times i was able to finally bolt it all up and remove the engine crane, it was now supported purely by the weight of the car! This means that the only thing missing from the drivetrain now is a propshaft, and its going to be quite a short one too which is great.

The diff doesn't look central here but thats because it is offset slightly due to the crown wheel and pinion, the actual pinion flange is as central and plumb as i could manage.



















Next up is going to be building up the floorpan and gearbox tunnel again, i'll need to start making a downpipe before the tunnel is complete, steering column mounting frame, seat rails, bulkhead, clutch and flywheel combo, need to sort the front knuckles out as i'm looking to possibly change out the porsche stub axles after reading they are notoriously weak...hmmmm

Also going to try and get some 16" wheels for it, i like the 17's but i think a 16" wheel would suit it much better and should still clear the brakes and knuckles etc no problem.

Still loads to do, booked a week off work this week coming so will try and crack on as much as I can!

[mark1gls]

Looking like it coming along nicely and some great work.

Keep us updated.

[mk2daz]

I've started making some little videos to go with the build

Heres the first one - many more to follow hopefully!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J2Ld6lO2abU