New Beetle 'cross-flow' head conversion... Anyone done one?

[snathe]

Ok... So I've just got stuck into my Mk1 resto project and I'm needing to finalise my choice of engine.
The options were;
1.8 or 2L with cross-flow head running bike carbs or ITB's
Using my spare 9a/KR hybrid with carbs or ITB's
1.8 non-turbo 20v with the same...

The 20v looks to be way too much hassle for the small power gain over the 16v, and I already have a 16v in the GT2...
That leaves me with imho the simplest setup - 8v cross-flow!

I'm struggling to find out all the info I need regarding which combination of parts will be required (pulleys, gaskets, belts, etc).
Can anyone shed any light, or point me in the right direction?

[lewp91]

best bet is to look on somewhere like vwvortex mate

[roccodave]

me and my mate put the 2.0 out of my old rocco in a caddy and he used the crossflow head i think you can change the pulleys and just use the 1.8 or 2.0 belt but he fitted a mk2 newman cam in his pretty shure all the gaskets are the same

the main problem is the water piping as there is no front water outlet the inlet is there so kinda prohibits the use of the normal outlet

can't realy remember the hoses we used but we found a t piece the correct size on a 96 escort and just rummaged around the scrappies till we found enough pipes the right sizes with bends in the right places to t the middle waterpump outlet into the top rad hose then go round to side outlet that normaly goes to the heater matrix there is another smaller outlet for the matrix moulded into the side outlet you need to find a short link pipe for too

i know this may sound a tad pikey but it works with no overheating issues

can get a rough idea of how it goes from this vid

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y63VAdHkl2E

[Mr Funk]

Criminey. That's a quiet engine

[mr.brown]

One solution is to take the whole crossflow engine - mk4 Golf, Beetle etc and get the conversion mounts from ebay. These are the same as for the 20v engines.

Alternatively, fit the crossflow head onto your current block - but this has issues. The main one is that one of the front oilways in the crossflow head doesn't match up with the 1.8 block and needs to be filled in slightly.

If you wanted to avoid that problem you could use a mk3 Golf 2.0 AGG block. This means the head bolts straight on and you don't have to buy conversion mounts but the added block height (13mm) can cause clearance issues if you intend to use the standard crossflow inlet manifold/throttle body.

As for carbs/ITBs bear in mind for the latter you will need a whole stanadalone engine management system like Megasquirt and electronic injectors etc.

For carbs you'd probably need to get a custom manifold made or search in the USA for an "ABA" carb intake. The ABA was a 2.0 crossflow that was standard in the mk3 Golf in the USA.

One good thing about the 8v crossflow heads is that the standard 8v exhaust bolts straight on.

For further reading search ClubGTI.com for "crossflow" and the vwvortex mk1 and Scirocco forums for "ABA".

I actually have a garage full of ABA parts that I brought back with me

[snathe]

Thanks for the response guys, some very useful info there!
I'd thought about using the whole 2L engine from the golf / beetle, but there's no easy way of using a dizzy (just to keep things simple). Although, if I use ITB's, a full standalone system would use the engine's standard sensors etc anyway...
Also thinking about using bike throttle bodies, if suitable injectors can be bought to fit them. I don't really fancy spending a fortune on a set of Jenvy ITB's as I doubt they would perform 'that' much better for the extra £1000 or so! Lol...