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Model specific boards => Golf mk2 => Golf mk2 gallery => Topic started by: jv on 22 August 2007, 13:29
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:)
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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:
(http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c39/chris_wht/Jetta%20Project%20page/102_9575.jpg)
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:
(http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c39/chris_wht/Jetta%20Project%20page/golf014.jpg)
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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.
(http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c39/chris_wht/Jetta%20Project%20page/DSC_4727.jpg)
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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. :grin:
(http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c39/chris_wht/Jetta%20Project%20page/JTA007.jpg)
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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!
(http://photos-c.ak.facebook.com/photos-ak-sf2p/v51/19/78/277002734/n277002734_216542_4415.jpg)
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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:
(http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c39/chris_wht/Jetta%20Project%20page/JTA2003.jpg)
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i soooo forgot i left this thread at january this year :lipsrsealed:
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:
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v470/broken-halfshaf/mim1.jpg)
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:
(http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c39/chris_wht/Jetta%20Project%20page/Image026.jpg)
205/55/15 :sick: :sick: no wonder they were scrubbing :laugh:
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:
(http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c39/chris_wht/Jetta%20Project%20page/CIMG2187.jpg)
lovely, and once those toyos have bedded in, man theyre sticky!
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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:
(http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c39/chris_wht/Jetta%20Project%20page/Image009.jpg)
along with a black vw badge and i removed the gti badge:
(http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c39/chris_wht/Jetta%20Project%20page/CIMG2175.jpg)
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Pure picture whorage -
Arsing around on the beach (spot my old wheels):
(http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c39/chris_wht/Jetta%20Project%20page/Image060.jpg)
(http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c39/chris_wht/Jetta%20Project%20page/Image058.jpg)
(http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c39/chris_wht/Jetta%20Project%20page/Image048.jpg)
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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.
(http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c39/chris_wht/Jetta%20Project%20page/Image052.jpg)
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The car was then on the golfgti.co.uk stand up at santa pod for the Vw summer festival. Well, 'on the stand' is a loose term as i ended up on the strip most of the day testing out the times my car could do as a ''base'' before engine mods began. She performed very well, doing about 7 runs (beating a couple of 1.8T mk4's) with my best run being a 15.9 seconds.
pre-race burnouts did seem to hurt my tyres a little though :rolleyes:
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Ok, so now it gets a wee bit more serious.
I managed to pick up a set of g60 brakes, complete with braided hoses for a good price from a guy breaking a car on here. They came with all but new zimmerman cross drilled discs and green stuff pads. Im not feeling the greenstuffs, but they will do for now until i can afford some new ones.
(http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c39/chris_wht/Jetta%20Project%20page/Image000br.jpg)
After hearing about issues with low offset wheels and g60's i decided to do a 'dry run' fitting of my wheels, and, lo and behold..... wheel collision :sad:
good thing i picked up these from the same guy then really isnt it:
(http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c39/chris_wht/Jetta%20Project%20page/Image031.jpg)
Compomotive MO's in classic white, admittedly could do with a refurb, but this project isnt really about looks now. Theyre wrapped in 195/50/15 Yoko A539 rubber, which ive found to be all but as grippy as the T1 R's, but with a more impressive wear rate. They also manage to clear 280's, which is clearly a bonus.
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Next up was weight reduction!
(http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c39/chris_wht/Jetta%20Project%20page/Image001s.jpg)
(http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c39/chris_wht/Jetta%20Project%20page/Image003.jpg)
(http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c39/chris_wht/Jetta%20Project%20page/Image002.jpg)
you may well have noticed i left the front carpet in. This was for two reasons:
1. Its a pain to put back in should i ever feel the need to or want to sell the car
2. The extra grip it gives you feet outweighs the minimal weight saving it gives in my opinion
What i did remove however was:
Rear bench
parcel shelf cover
lower dash trays
door cards
rear seatbelts and mounts
B pillar trims
rear carpet
boot carpet
spare wheel
central locking pump (didnt work anyway)
centre console
certainly makes a difference to ride height and driving. Feels a bit more nippy, but the biggest improvement i felt was in the braking, seems to stop a hell of a lot better with all the weight out. It does however make the back end feel a lot more twitchy, which can be both fun, and annoying.
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After arriving at a roundabout tail first, i felt that it would be a good idea to set up my brake bias valve. It was a bit seized, but copious amounts of wd40 and a little swearing, i mangaged to free it up.
(http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c39/chris_wht/Jetta%20Project%20page/Image028.jpg)
My expansion tank had a little leak under pressure from the cap, so i updated the cap to a later spec blue one i picked up from a scrappy. Cured the problem fine.
(http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c39/chris_wht/Jetta%20Project%20page/Image033.jpg)
Also got a pair of later style mirrors with the blind spot glass in them from my old golf. I do a fair few motorway miles so these do come in useful, a worthwhile upgrade for little pennies in my opinion.
(http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c39/chris_wht/Jetta%20Project%20page/Image032.jpg)
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Mew and i were quite bored one rainy day, so we though, what better to do than set up the timing on my jetta?
Pretty simpleish job:
1. Pop the green cap off the top of the gearbox next to the flywheel. I found this needed to be done with a hammer and screwdriver as it was quite tight and a funny size.
2. With an assistant, turn the engine by hand until you find the 6 degree btdc timing mark on the flywheel. Paint this mark so it stands out. Lilac house paint was our colour of choice.
3. On the coil, disconnect the red plug.
4. use the digital rev counter on the MFA and the idle screw on the throttle body to set the idle rev range to between 900 - 1100 rpm. I set mine so that the display was flicking between 960 and 1020.
5. turn on the timing light, and loosen the dizzy enough to turn, and twiddle it until the mark on the flywheel lines up with the little notch on the gearbox casing.
Voila! One timed engine. Mine was surprisingly close seeing as it was previously set up by ear when the idle was too low :laugh:
This process should usually be carried out in a good, dry environment, but this being us, it was done using the following garage set up:
(http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c39/chris_wht/Jetta%20Project%20page/Image002-1.jpg)
Ideal, im sure you'll agree.
obviously, once the car was set up, i had to find an amusingly named road to test it out on. The local oxford ringroad provides just this within easy reach:
(http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c39/chris_wht/Jetta%20Project%20page/Image093.jpg)
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Coming up to more recent times, it now gets a tad serious as far as biting off more than you can chew is concerned......
Time for the tired 1.8 KR engine to come out:
(http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c39/chris_wht/Jetta%20Project%20page/Image015.jpg)
The gearbox was cleaned up and then put onto my new rebuilt 2.0 9A that will be running kr head, cams and injection. I also reused my Sachs power clutch as it looked in a good condition. This will do the job until i can afford to get a decent Helix or similar clutch man enough to take the power im planning to get out of this motor:
(http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c39/chris_wht/Jetta%20Project%20page/Image036.jpg)
When i took the engine out i decided to give the inlet manifold a bit of a clean up, which was when i found this:
(http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c39/chris_wht/Jetta%20Project%20page/Image035.jpg)
oopsie. Broken injector sleeve. I bought a new one of these from VW for about 50p. Then got busy with taking the old one out. This is actually a blinking nasty job, the injector was an absolute battle to pull out which ended with it finally giving and me flying half way across my garage.
The brass insert is a pain to get out, simply because nowhere seems to sell the correct sized adaptor, and using a slightly smaller one, being brass, I managed to round it off inside :sad:
Once the brass insert was out i swapped in the new sleeve, put the new injector seal onto it and put in a new brass insert. That promptly rounded off again :angry: I finally got it sorted using tape around a drain plug that fitted a bit more snugly than the 12mm i was using. Once the injector finally popped back through, all was well with the world.
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Riiiiiight.....long time no see....... and a few changes
- I decided that i like interiors, and being able to hear myself think, so its no longer a track car. I also like girth and blingy stuff.
Cars got the 2.0 9a fitted, but its still not running. I did have an issue with no spark getting through, but this turned out that i hadnt earthed the ECU properly (read: earthed the ECU at all). Having sorted this the car now turns over and starts, but will only run on a couple of cylinders for a few seconds before dying. Most upsetting. Ive now had to go back to Uni so im now a very long way from my car without time to sort it for the minute.
G60 front hubs, discs and pads are fitted, as are one sides worth of braided hoses. The other side however the nut on the connection has rounded off, so i cant get the rubber hose off. Not eintirely sure how im going to sort that out tbh, probably involve a new copper hose and connection nipple, PM me if youve got any thought :undecided:
Ive also been spending some big monies on:
Eibach ARB's
A recaro interior
A set of wheels.....
Ive sold off the compomotive for a bit of profit and bought these:
(http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c39/chris_wht/102_9940.jpg)
(http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c39/chris_wht/102_9941.jpg)
bit of 9x16 all round euro porn for y'all :wink:
Theyre running 205/45/16 tyres, so a hefty streeeeetch. This means i will probably die :grin:
Got the recaros pretty cheap so had to do a bit of a cleaning sesh on them -
Before
(http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c39/chris_wht/102_9945.jpg)
(http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c39/chris_wht/102_9944.jpg)
After
(http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c39/chris_wht/102_9947.jpg)
Not got any pics of the fronts, but theyre the same as these ones:
(http://i112.photobucket.com/albums/n200/craighix/DSC02394.jpg)
so yeah.... but we now have a dilemma, a big one. One which i shall detail shortly.
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so yeah.... but we now have a dilemma, a big one. One which i shall detail shortly.
This is my dilemma.....
Im currently at uni, over 250 miles away from this car which is at my parents house. I'll be here for at least another year, maybe two. I have a job up here that will almost certainly carry on over summer, so im getting very little time to be home doing the car, and when i do get to go back home, im usually busy catching up with family and old freinds.
So in effect, its just sitting there rotting 3/4 of the time.
Theres just sooooo much thats needed to get this car up to a standard that i would be happy with that i just dont have the time, knowledge or more importantly, cash, to sort out.
I think there is also one other simple fact: I cant be arsed with it, and im beginning to wonder just what the point in this whole car game is.
On the other hand, i know if it ever did get finished, its a car that i've built myself. Will be pretty fookin rapid and look (in my opinion) quite the fatness.
So heres the options:
- Keep going, but take ages, and spend lots more cash that i dont really have, and drive sh!tters in the meantime
- Break it, sell my pug, sell all my bits, and get a tidy 8v or 16v golf / jetta and do some minor cosmetics
- Break it, sell all my bits and pug, drive nothing for a few months, save up and buy a Polo G40 plus insurance
- Break, sell, buy something quick that isnt dub related, current options being a xsara vts or Volvo 850 T5.
- Sell everything, fcuk the car scene, and get an old man diesel and get on with my life (not sure i could do this!)
Feel free to give advice
Yours truly, a very undecided Christopher White. :huh:
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Go for option 2! Be wary of the things you are going to sell during the break up as you will want a couple of them for your new Golf.
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Deep down he knows he is going for option 2 anyway!