Scirocco Register

Hi All

After two years of ownership of my 91 Scala, i have finally pulled my finger out and decided to splash some hard earned cash on her!

I bought her just coming up to two years ago off Sean AKA Mr Brown from the old forum. Absolutely loved the car and it had been kept in very good condition by previous owners. I have been tinkering a little for the past two years and have changed the wheels to late 1980's AMIL multispokes changed the plates to pressed one's, changed the front grille for a MK! grille with E30 headlights and the usual serviceable items.

I have also been hoarding parts ready for a day that i never thought would come when i would change the engine for something a bit pokier than the 8v injection. So far ive accumulated Girling G60 brakes with carriers, 280 mm discs, storm rear bench, electric windows and door cards and a fair few other bits and bobs.

In the meantime i did a lot of research into which engine i thought would be most fruitful and after dreaming of a 20v turbo then realising it was just that 'a dream!' i decided on an ABF 2.0 16v conversion. Saw an ad for said engine just over a month ago and arrangements were made to go and collect from Portsmouth.

A call to Hertz had me a Vauxhall Combo van for the journey down and back and off i set. 3 hours later i pulled into the workshop and collected the engine, gearbox, loom, ECU, radiator, exhaust manifold, and a few other odds and sods. Luckily he had three of his mates there so getting it in the van wasnt too much of an issue.

However the following day getting it out the van was a different kettle of fish!! With the help of a mate we managed to get some planks into the van and under the engine then pull it backwards out onto some workmates where it sat waiting for the weekend.


An empty (for me!) garage awaited

Final time Sabine would be running for a month or so


First thing i did was to set up the gantry over the workmates to lift the engine up slightly so we could get the gearbox off. As its a hydraulic box i will be using the standard box

Gearbox out the way

Now with the gearbox off we could get the engine on to a stand and wheel it into the corner of the garage out the way until it is needed

We then proceeded to start stripping the engine down out of Sabine, radiator, airbox, fuel lines off etc etc.

Next up we had to get the car in the air, being lowered the jack doesnt lift it high enough to get it on the axle stands, so we strapped the car to the gantry and hoisted it up until it was high enough for the axle stands

We then took the front wheels off where i found one of my wheel nuts had sheered off in the hub!! Luckily i wasnt going to be driving the car anymore and had new hubs to go on anyway.

Next up was to strip the suspension and brakes off the car, incidentally the Weitec lowering springs and polybushes will be up for sale as coilovers will be going on


It was at this point we came across our first major stumbling block. Whilst trying to remove the lower strut brace the n/s would not budge. Seems as though the nut has seized onto the bush behind and it is not budging, so at this point we called it a day and im off to Machine Mart this morning to pick up an impact driver as im sure it wont be the only thing we have difficulty in removing!


So there we have it, the first day of the project is over and i must say i really enjoyed it. I have the help of a mate Dom who is more mechanically minded than me and has been a great help. I also have a neighbour who kindly loans me any tool you can think of which is also a great help.

Will keep this up to date as i go and include pics where i can. The plan is to take a month or so to get all the work carried out, engine swap, brakes, polybushes, coilovers, wiring, electric windows, interior swap etc etc but cant wait for the finished result.

A few bits i am short of at the moment if anyone can help are a larger servo off the 16v (22mm iirc) and some mk2 16v golf clocks double pin. If anyone can help with these please let me know

Pete

So today saw another long day in the garage, arrived at machine mart nice and early to pick up an air impact wrench which saw the strut brace off fairly quickly, once this was off we got the calipers removed and drained the juice out of them

Once that was done the anti roll bar and wishbones were removed and then the engine was pretty much free, dropped it onto a trolley and rolled it out the way

This then left us with an empty engine bay (as illustrated by Dom)

and then after clearing it out the way we thought what better way than to celebrate a hard weekends worj than a trip to the local pub for a few cool one's and to put together a list of parts needed. All in all a fairly productive weekend.

Next step clean up the engine bay, order a lot of parts and wait for the postman!

Not much to report this week, a few parts have started arriving, coilovers, servo, clutch bulkhead repair plate, ordered a new clutch as the old one was not lloking too good, powerflex bushes, track rod ends, bottom ball joints, suspension strut mounts, cv joints and wheel bearings. Hopefully clutch will arrive at the weekend to be fitted

She looks fab mate! Good work. I'lll be watching with interest as the build moves on.

chuffed to see this lovely car re-appear.

here's some old shots from when Mr Brown owned it.








liking the current look a lot.

nice i like geting there what think of mind m8 please leave me a comment it would be more then appractied

Thanks for posting those pics, i like the American spec headlights on it there a lot, cheers for the positive comments too.
Was hoping my clutch would arrive today but no joy so thought perfect time to get the clutch repair plate welded in. However on closer inspection the problem was a bit worse than i thought...

With a bit of help im going to get this clamped to pull the metal back through and attempt to get the plate (once its been fettled) welded in, carrying out some repair welds at the same time.
So with that out the window i decided to get on with some cosmetic work and got the toffee wheel out on the door vinyl which was cracking etc

Took around an hour and a half to get both sides done and apart from the massive amount of mess it makes was pleased with the finish

The postman did at least bring me some goodies!!

Hopefully i will get the clutch done in the week, along with the bulkhead repairs, then i can concentrate on mocking the engine up to the car. Out of interest does anyone know which engine mounts will be needed? May be a silly question but unsure if the mounts need to be car specific or engine specific...
More updates to follow soon

Looking good my friend are those coils from ebay ? cuss i have not long put some on our car like that, could leave a comment on ours it wopuld be more then appractied.

Yup, ebay coilies they are indeed, i cant justify spending three times as much for weitec. Will see how i get on with these. It is a daily so wont be going stupidly low anyway

looking good mate, machine polisher is on the way so will give it a full detail once it is finished and it will bring those pillers up nicely as well

Spot on, cheers mate. Been looking at the conversion parts so i can use the stronger gearbox, tempted to go down that route now i must admit..We shall see!

Today saw a bit more progress in terms of welding. I have been umming and ahhing about gearboxes etc and going down the hydraulic clutch route etc but time (and my dad wanting his garage back) has meant that wont happen at the moment. My neighbour kindly came over with his welder and set to work on the bulkhead whilst we were on hand with fire extinguishers and water sprays, fortunately there were no fires though!



The bulkhead was in pretty poor shape and so first we bent all the metal back into position and he did a few quick tacks to hold it in place before he welded up the cracks. Some of the hairtline cracks were over two inches long!

Anyway here was the finished result after i ground back the weld so it is flush and then we will look to strengthen this in the week


Also removed the power steering pump and started to clean the engine up a bit too

Today i came home from work to discover that someone had kindly welded some metal plate over my bulkhead and split my old gearbox off the DX engine. Many thanks to my dad who upon returning from his hols has got stuck right in even when im at work which is fantastic. Looking at the clutch it is very worn and looks like the oil seal had given up too. So new clutch and oil seals. We also test mated the gearbox up to the ABF engine to ensure it went on okay. Engine is now on the floor too and the stand is back out the way.

Heres my dad getting to work on removing the flywheel off the old engine (note the one gloved Michael Jackson style he is going for!!)



and the gearbox test mated to the ABF

So tonight i got the old engine mount off the DX engine, its knackered but wanted to test fit it, turns out it will foul on the cambelt cover. Has anyone else done this conversion and got round the problem? Im assuming i will have to cut it back to allow the mount in there, wondering if there may be an alternate cover that fits?? Nothing else much to report other than cleaning of the engine.

One issue i have comne across is the engine management, i dont have the transponder box for the engine which means ECU problems, ive been reading into using the Kjet but most examples tend to be KR to ABF rather than DX to ABF, any ideas chaps?

I didnt bother with the cam belt cover on mine.