Are all 1.8 turbos 20 valve???

[John Goldick]

or is it a different car??

[richy]

Yes. All Mk4 1.8T's are 20valve. 

[D Owen]

I think all MK4 1.8 non turbo are 20valves too

[John Goldick]

cheers....  thinking of getting one and having it remmaped. Any idea how much that woiuld cost???

[Phil_M]

cheers....  thinking of getting one and having it remmaped. Any idea how much that woiuld cost???

Your looking at about £500. Well worth it imo

[richy]

I think all MK4 1.8 non turbo are 20valves too

Yep. Like mine 

[GazB]

Are all 2.0, 8 valve and why?

[richy]

Yep.  They are - it's the old 2.0 8v engine out of the Mk3 GTI.

According to someone I spoke to at VW, the Mk4 GTI range started out as 2 models: 1.8 20v NA (125bhp), 1.8 20v Turbo (150bhp), but there wasn't a marked enough difference in performance, so they abandoned my model (non turbo), and replaced it with the old 2.0 8v unit out of the Mk3.  Dunno if this is true, but it's what I heard.

Another story I heard for why they abandoned the 1.8 20v NA is that they couldn't produce enough 1.8 20v engines, as the passats & audis were using them too, and they still had lots of 2.0 8v engines lying about - so they decomissioned the non turbo 1.8 GTI and replaced it with the 2.0 8v.

Both sound feasible.  Who knows. 

[jasonpi]

i had the 2l 8v and imo it was the worst engine they could of stuck in a mark4 slow as sh8te and prone to breakdowns like mine did on regular occasions its a shame its taken them two generations to get it back to gti standards i.e the mk5 gti
ok fair enough you have the mk3 vr6 the very tuneable mk4 turbos and the r32's but they cost a bloody fortune even the mk5 for what it is really should be for the masses as it was meant to be, the only thing that lets them down soooo much apart from the prices is the dealerships (who ive had plenty of experience with) are the most obnoxtious rude and damn right unintelligent bunch of b8stards you will ever meet half the time they sell you a dud never can fix a problem 1st 2nd 3rd or even 4th time you go in and when u are in they try and sell you something your car doesnt need there vw for christ sakes not bentley why are they stuck so far up there own arses???

sorry to hijack rant over

on a lighter note i tuned up my 2l 8v just because it was so slow and when i rolling roaded it was producing 127bhp at the wheels
not bad for a 115bhp standard at the flywheel even the guy was amazed