chris_wht - Jetta 16v track project

[jv]

[Chris-White]

Cheers JV.

The story begins in the beginning of September 2006. Having written off my previous mint Golf GTi 8v after *cough*two weeks*cough* I had very little money, but a desire to stick with the world of mk2 gti’s. After a little searching locally I found this Jetta 16v. It had no MOT or tax and was up for the pincely sum of 500 quid. I managed to bump the owner down to 400, and, after a test drive where I discovered gear linkages made of butter, I decided to buy it as a cheap project.

The main reasons for getting what is in effect quite a tatty car for the money were:
1.   It’s a Jetta, I like quirky things!
2.   It’s a 16V instead of an 8v.
3.   It’s the same price to insure as a 8v golf
4.   I fancied something I could easily do up and work on.

When I picked her up she came complete with mim 1900 dished wheels painted in a slightly chavvy white, a VW motorsport steering wheel, missing rear arches, and a large rust hole in the passenger side front door.

On the day I bought her:



Note the lovely grey bumpers.

Fortunately all it needed for MOT was a pair of front tyres and a pair of headlamp bulbs (MOT men don’t like green ones!) . Underneath was fortunately solid.

With the excitement of getting her through the MOT, I had a bit of a cleaning and polishing spree:

[Chris-White]

After this, I left Cornwall to go up to university in Oxford to study for my 2nd year at Brookes uni. After a couple of weeks up there I went with across to Kent to the Modded UK modified car show. This show happened to have a run what ya brung 8th mile sprint course, and it was here that I think I developed a love for racing my VW. I also discovered that I really needed to change my gear linkages!  I also snapped my speedo cable, which resulted in being pulled over not realising I was doing 98 a few weeks later.
 

[Chris-White]

My first major mod to the car came up next. My housemate, a Mr Mew, wasnt keen on the corrado seats that he had in his mk2 golf, so i snapped them up and put them in the jetta. Makes sooooo much of a difference! Really comfortable, and gives a nice low down seating position. Encourages gangsta lean a bit too much though. 

[Chris-White]

As part of university there is the 'oxford universities motorsport foundation'. they organise sprint trackdays up at curboughrough track near birmingham. In november of 2006 i decided to test out the jetta on one of these such days. The diagnosis after a day of thrashing was a need for better tyres, and some stiffer shocks and springs. I also discovered that, while irritating on the road, my cars noise at full chat on track was really quite grin enducing!

[Chris-White]

And then, we had a rather expensive disaster.........

One night after staying in late doing work at uni, i got very fed up and angry. You know how it goes. It was late and very damp, and i was in a terrible, i wanna thrash my car mood. You know those times when you really shouldnt go out for a drive?

Well, i did go out for 'that' drive.

And messed up, badly. I came out of a roundabout a bit sideways and waaaay too fast for the damp conditions and hit a kurb, bending a wishbone, twisting the hub (!), bending a track rod end and cracking a large chunk off my NSF wheel. Add this to the fact my driveshaft popped out, it was a costly error.

All this came to over 350 quid to fix, plus i had to find a new set of rims to replace the knackered one. These came in the form of a cheap set of P slots. To make the best of a bad situation, i sprayed them matt black in a bid to make them look slightly better. At this period my car was looking very ''ratty'', so i stuck on some old skool stickers i got for my long dead mini to get a bit more of the look.

Thing is, rat look doesnt really work when your cars bright monza blue, but i was stupidly skint at the time and really trying to make the best of a bad sitution, especially with money going out left right and centre over the xmas period, and onto a 'driver rectification course', a legacy of the big accident that claimed my previous Golf.

Oh, i also finally got around to riveting the rear arches back on. About the only improvement in this post!

Sad looking jetta:

[Chris-White]

i soooo forgot i left this thread at january this year 

anyways.....

About the beginning of february time a mr Mew shouted at me to have a look in the swaps section of clubgti. Turned out there was a guy on there who was after swapping these:


for a set of p slots. Same as my old white rims, but in slightly better condition, and with an ET of 13 instead of 25. he wanted rid due to them scrubbing, but i figured i could get away with it because my arches are rolled slightly.

Needless to say, within an hour of me seeing the post, a deal was done and i went on my merry way to northampton to collect, only to find they tyres were, in all fairness, knackered.

This is how they looked when i first put them on:



205/55/15    no wonder they were scrubbing 

so the next choice was tyres for these wheels. After weighing up the options between yoko a539's, toyo t1-r's, falkens and nankangs, i decided to go for the toyos, based on there pounds to grip ratio. the full set came to just over £110 from mytyres, and arrived within a week. Got them all fitted and balanced and looking like this:



lovely, and once those toyos have bedded in, man theyre sticky! 

[Chris-White]

Right, you may have noticed that the title of this thread is track project, and theres so far been a bit of a lack of track mods. Well, your just gonna have to wait, as theres a few more tarty mods before the tracky ones begin. bare with me.....

New plates arrived in march:


along with a black vw badge and i removed the gti badge:

[Chris-White]

Pure picture whorage -

Arsing around on the beach (spot my old wheels):

[Chris-White]

When i bought the car it had come with a dodgy powerflow backbox straight through pipe, which, imo, was too loud for my liking. It also looked a little suspect.

In may i picked up a suspersprint straight through mid box (the one by the rear beam) and also bought a standard jetta 16v back box off ebay for 15 quid. I fitted these whilst lying on my back in a river of rain water. Not a good decision. Once it was all together however, it looked and sounded far better than before. Also feels like it pulls better.