Original Scirocco GTX 16v Rebuild

[jbo]

Thanks Mike!

I may indeed do that at some point. I will post lots of pics of the car done and finally get round to attending some shows now that im not drivin around in a flakin biscuit tin! ha

[jbo]

Ok so nine years later it's time to finish this damn car!

Photobucket account upgraded and a few parts wanted ad up.

[GTXTRA]

Well Hello!?

[mark1gls]

Hello jbo,

I now use tapatalk app on my phone to post pictures as photo bucket does no longer offer free image hosting.

[monzajake]

Good to hear about this one again.

[jbo]

My god......has it really been 12 years since i was last here! It's a good thing i paid for Photobucket so my pics are still up at least. I joined this forum when i was 24.....i'm now 38. Crazy!

So a small update then......

The car has still been on my/parents/mine/parents/mine parents drive for the last decade. I still keep it clean and mot/tax her but never drive it. For five years it overheated five mins after running and I havent had the time or interest to sort it. It's essentially been a huge expensive paper weight. But...I've always kept her. So while grappling with my existential crisis of hitting 40, I thought I would get her running.

So pulling the head was obvious to the overheating problem; the gaskets had blown. I say gaskets in the plural sense as the guy who rebuilt it took two sets of gaskets and put them together to keep the comp ratio at 12:1. I recall I probably only had about 500 miles after they were installed to then get the overheating prob. I managed to find a US company who manufactures gaskets to custom thickness and they are also reusable. Any got any experience with reusables? This combined with the arp bolts/nuts means I can take her apart if needed. As the heads has been skimmed a couple of times now I also added a Vernier to dial the cam timing in on the dot. Speaking of cams, the exhaust cam had very bad wear. Most likely due to the huge amount of water/oil/mayo mix for years of mot trips. A new one from Newman arrived and was fitted to match the other 272.

So after putting her back together she runs although sputters down low. This will be due to the timing set to factory atm and fuel being set for the prev huge amount of advance. I’ll need to take her somewhere to get lamba stuck up the exhaust and the timing redone. Even running poorly I forgot how raw the car was after 12 years. My second/fun car is an Integrale and even that feels more refined that the rocco.

Pics will be up soon. She wont look as good as 12 years ago so be warned!

[Funkyoid]

Can’t wait to see it no matter what state it’s in. I’ve loved this thread so far, it will be nice to see it.

[jbo]

Many a drink in so…..update time. Looking back at this thread has given me inspiration! It turns out that I did loads even after the last update and actually have quite a few pics at some stages. I’ll update in order of work I’ve done etc with lots of pics! Thank god my paypal has been funding Photo Bucket for 15 years. Lots are missing annoyingly.

So it turns out that MikeH was indeed right! I booked the original green 16v rhd converted rocco into CFM Engineering and it was a car crash! If only younger me took heed! The car made it to them with big plans of engine work. A few weeks after it arrived they called and said they stripped the arches back and it was super super rotten! We all know they go there but it was all four corners just up to where the arch liner is. He said the options were either rebuild them or get a new shell. I had a ponder and went with the second option. So the next weekend tup North I went and found a nice navy blue gt2 (carb not injection) and drove is to CFM in Reading. Done. Let the work continue! I was sad to see the original 16v go but as I mentioned to Sean earlier in the post, it did have a weird twitch on the steering.

[jbo]

A couple of months pass and I get the call from CFM saying the car was done. I’ve just checked my email and the final specs were as follows –

Full poly bushed
Fronts/Rear strut braces
280mm front brakes
20vt rear brakes
16 row mocal
Rear swirl pot (twas a carb gt2 remember)
16v kr head flowed/ported
Abf 2.0 bottom end boared out
Jr 82.5mm pistons. 12.5:1 comp
Machined and port matched intakes and TB
Stage two race clutch

A few bits were moved from the original car such as the correct 16v rocco intake/fuel/vac setup etc. The original front end looms came too so 16v friendly. The close ratio 2Y box too.

So I picked the car up and was super happy. Going from my many owned standard GTXs…..it was night/day! Me and my sister stopped by the Harvester on the way back where I noticed it was leaking a bit. Popped the Bonnet and saw the speedo cable was loose. It soaked a few bits but managed to tighten it down. (The days of carrying tools were the norm.)

I got her home and was super happy. It was so so quick!

[GTXTRA]

[jbo]

So everyone…..I’ve had many a drink so another update….

As mentioned before I was happy. At this point in my life the only cars I had owned were many mk1/2 golf and roccos. To have a super quick one with all the bad sloppy bits was amazing and super quick.

However the car was originally as GT2 old model so was carb’d so had a few bits missing so were retro fitted. I was driving the car to work from home and on a slip road I hit the brakes to hard and the back end instantly locked up and I slammed into the side of a school bus picking some kids up. Good news – the kids skipped a few lessons, bad news – my near side chassis leg lost about a foot in length. Oddly the bus company never claimed so that saved the insurance. So after dragging her crumpled ass back home (no point in insurance claiming with our bangers eh?) I realised that the rear brake bias was not there! I’m not sure if these were missing on old GT2s or if it didn’t get put back on. I had rear mk4 golf 20vt rear brakes which did their job too well. It should not of happened.

So I am left with a crumpled shell and the gift of time and enthusiasm. I bought a bare shell from a guy on this forum that was literally a body, rear axel and front wheel/steering. No windows/loom etc etc. I don’t recall his name but he/you guys may recognise the plate.

Fortunately I have never stopped paying for Photo Bucket. Queue the pics……

[jbo]

It was a bare shell so needed all the fuel lines. Shiny crazy quiffs parts.



Remounting the 16 row mocal but a bit neater





Having the usual light upgrade kits all over the place were annoying me so I built a fuse/relay box that feeds main/dipped/fogs/spare.



Front end of the bus strucken car to get the engine out.



More new fuel bits.





Custom loom to remove the upgraded fogs. So so many new speicaity crimper tools at this point!



Custom earth loom for the realy/fuse box.



New shiny OP rear brace.



Pretty polly bushes.



Old rocco vs school bus!





New rear brake cables for the 20vt rear setup. The ones i had looked second hand.





Chunky brakes back on.



You can now sit in it.





Drying them out. They were a bit damp so better safe than shorted.





Hmmmm this will be a prob later...



Prob not how vw intended it to sit.



More of the custom loom i built.



Red bits = handling.



16v golf servo. Really should of cleaned and repainted. It looks worse now!





I bought the leather interior to work to clean/feed it in my lunch breaks. Nobody seemed to mind.





Repairs and labels.



New chassis looking less squashed than the donor.





More shots of the custom bits i made up.



Changed the matrix while the car was bear. Id regret not later on.



Shiny new fuel lines.



Rebuild while its out.



Back box only please. Im still only mid twentiess at the time don't forget .



I hate rehosing cis. The sheer amount of copper washers!



Postive side of my custom loom.





New fuel bits.



In she goes.

































Recrimping shot connector ends.









Heatshrink the new custom lighting loom.



This interior is the same age as me. They still look this good.





Crimp, crimp , crimp.



Why not red?!



New pickup.





More pics of the custom lightign setup.



Even now I could prob still rewire from memory.



A new cage was so so expensive so kept the old.



Might as well for a tenner.



A "cis washer kit" was super pricey. This halfords kit and two pieces of sand paper worked fine. So so many washers on cis.





Setting the correct mileage.





Italian photo bomb.



More crimping at work.



A few more repairs. In hindsight I wish I had rebuilt the entire engine side loom. I recall at the time we could still find the original fusebox connectors too. It being a lhd rocco 16v loom too...not so common. But she still works so all good.



Not a prob. I love wiring.









More custom bits.











Amazing it got on on all four without falling off.