polo engine.

[Toby]

mk4 polo engine. 1.4 8v, what upgrades could get this up to a decent spec,,, cam's exhaust etc? been looking for info but not getting far...

and the 2nd question, will this engine fit a mk2 golf gti?

thankyou

toby

[golf-sib]

Gains on this engine are small yet there is plenty to do as I did a fair bit of work on my one.

280mm Front brake setup
4-2-1 Manifold
Cold air intake to standard box
Green cotton filter (standard shape)
Smooth air box
Blank out breather to air box
Breather filter (can't member size sorry)
Uprated exhuast (Sport exhuast)
De-cat
Port polished
Change sump to the anti foam one (euro shop/part can't find a seller in the uk for these, don't know why)
Coilovers (a must this thing can easily be put on 2 wheels)
G40 Injectors (think they work with the standard loom without modification)
Re-map with all that like an extra 15bhp max 

But if you want to go abit more of a push there's a few easy options, such as cams, you can get aggressive cam's with a maximum of no more than 270degrees before you start to do damage. Shrick do a 268degree cam which would be perfect, but it depends how much of a daily drive this car is. If it is a daily car you can re-use another cam from another VW engine, its a 3F cam with 219 degree's so it won't cause discomfort, cannot remember what it came off, think it was off the 1.6 mk3 polo's and golfs, dig around its commonly known as a 3F cam, due to the letters 3F stated on the cam somewhere.

You can uprate the throttle body to off a N/A 20VT engine, again don't quote me which 20VT engine, but a flange is involved to make it fit correctlt, but the throttle cable link is on the correct side (and the plug is identical to the polo one). But this can seem abit pointless due to the need of a new air box and restricitons in the diameter of the actual intake manifold.

Then there is a turbo route, depending how well you are at welding, the standard pistons on the 6n polo can with stand 0.6 bar (8.7psi) of boost max, so if you handy with a welder you could pick up an old mini 1.3 low boost turbo and make the turbo side completely mechanically adjusted to react accordingly with the aid of a atmospheric dump valve. Low boost setups can see around 110BHP I believe.

However there is the whole compression ratio business, a common thing some people do is breed two of the engines together, such as top half 1.6 8v SOHC (AEE) petrol engine which has bigger valves and bore channels, whilst the bottom end and pistons are off the AEX 1.4 engine, can't remember what engine that is as I no longer have a polo or the Hynes for it, but if memory serves me well it was practically a similar if not idnetical to the APQ engine, but don't quote. This would drop the compression down considerably (from 10.2:1 too around 8.6:1), but if you do go this way, remember forged pistons as then you can break the low boost barrier and start talking more like 200bhp with a G40 ECU and a k03. There are companies that actually do a bolt on manifold for a k03 turbo to the standard polo, think they where "SLS" and "Rothe". If you do build this engine rmember due to the low compression it won't run very well as a NA engine. Other issue is the polo's standard ECU does not have a MAP sensor (or it does but it's only good upto 0.4bar), so people tend to swap for a g40 ecu.... or the lazy guys get a g40 engine to begin with as a conversion rather than complicating things with engineering know how.

Some other guys go down a slightly differernt route and use bike carbs followed by a custom inlet manifold, with the use of 2 or 4 carbs. A guy I once met had 125bhp on the carb set up on the 1.4 8v engine. Again some guys go down this route with a turbo system as well.

Dunno how else I can help you, I know the engines on the mk4 were not to different from the mk3 golf engines, so some engine parts can be sourced from golfs, think the 1.6 engine was identical even down to engine code.It's been a long time since I was into polo's I had two mk4 (6n1), got bored of them, but I always still think about having one maybe as a trackday project, better yet pick up an older Seat Ibiza mk2 (6k) or even the 1.8T Ibiza's  (mk3 6k2) with a strip out and some engine work its weight to power can be effective, but on the polo mk4 a 1.8T engine is a very tight fit.

[Toby]

XOR you no your sh!t:D well I'm only going down the 1.4 rout because I can get the car very cheap and insurance perpeses buy bein a mk2 is hevier than a polo thourght I'd give it a bit of umph

[golf-sib]

Polo's tend to become more and more responsibe with them mods and recover quickly from the bends, if you ever want more power easiest way is the carb conversion with some cams.

A  good forum use to be uk-polos.net but I stopped going there since they redesigned the site as it gave me a head ache and became difficult to read yet there is one guy on there that knows his stuff named Jarno. Apart from that everyone else is pretty much clueless except for the guys doing the carb conversions. But IMO it was better than clubpolo.

Good thing about these engines is how easy each engine fits over the next in terms of compatibilty through the 8v engines, not sure how the 16v heads work, you would have to reference that with Haynes as I imagine its a no no being a DOHC and pobably a different serpant layout on the cam side making it incompatable.

Not to mention the engines are cheap and can easily be bought for £100 with delivery, if you got the space and tools you can do some pretty intresting things with them.

[Toby]

So I can still put carbs on a later engine?

I will sign up to that club later, I am now on club polo but thourght is was a bit naff :/

[golf-sib]

Basically carbs can be put on any of them, 1.6 8v and 1.4 16v are the best engines to put them on.

Simply the 1.4 16v is already at 100bhp, the 16v allow better air flow and more air in due to the size of the inlets, whilst the 1.6 has alot more displacement and a slighly smaller valve area being 8v, which is 75bhp. The 1.4 8v you are on about is 60bhp. But like I said a 1.6 8v head can always be put in later to improve things.

Otherwise keep a look out on the 1.6 100bhp engines, which is what the polo classics have. Only thing you don't have access to is the 120bhp 1.6 engine, which was european only and was officaly a GTI model that came with some impressive colour coded interior.

It all depends on what power you want, how much work and money you want to put in.

[Toby]

Ll he said I can practically have the car so that's a bonus, how much would you recon to sped to get the 1.4 up to around 100/ 120 bhp ? And I take it that it's eisier to do cams and carb conversion whilst the engine is out and not in the mk 2?

[golf-sib]

Since your gettng it for free I'd go:

The intake side, smoothed air box, cut out breather, cotton filter and a cold pipe will set you back about £50.

4-2-1 manifolds will improve the mid range (£200ish, can pick them up for £120 second hand, heat wrap them to keep temps down)

Cam's will give you the biggest bang for your buck, this is where you will notice the power increase really, but again it depends which ones, if you can scavenge out a 3f cam it can be pretty cheep, however if you go down the shrick cam route its expensive, in comparison, but obviously you got the potential of cams with 268 degrees.

After that it depends where you wanna go, do you want to open up the ports, if yes look out for the AEE engine head, I've seen them for £60, obviously if you have just done the cam, you will need to take it out and put it in the 1.6 AEE head.

Then the carb thing, you can always find a polo at a scrap and take the intake manifold out for  not too much and use it as a template to design a new manifold for the carbs. I can't remember how easy it was to work on the polo, I remember exhuast manifolds where very easy to access and work, the inlet side I can only remember taking the TB off, you might even get away with being able to take the inlet off without taking the engine out, same might even be for the head, but I have never worked on the head myself so I cannot comment.

As for the carb option on the 1.4 I'm pretty sure you can easily push it too the 100-125 mark, obviously the 1.6 head will help with bigger ports. Whilst typing this I found a thread, basically with what I described above on the standard 1.4 8v with a carb conversion and 4-2-1 manifolds the guy was pushing 105bhp with 120lb of torque, not sure if the cam is uprated.

[Toby]

You are better than the Internet :d I'll start shopping tbh as for it going in to a mk 2? I take it a mk2 exhaust will work , but joining the manifold to the polo engine will work?

[Wayne]

Not going to fit a mk2 GTI without a lot of work also one has to ask why.