All these damned people posting on here when I'm prepping a response.... tsk.
Yes, the crossflow head WILL go "straight" on a 1.8 motor, provided you reposition the oil return on the head.
Dave at
www.Futbus.com can make stub manifolds to accept throttlebodies and carbs. Nick, he's already got an ABF head as a template and is working something cute up for DannyP.
Here's the stubs he made for the MG I'm working on:

OK, here's a couple of shots of my head:
When collected:

Try and get yours off a car, with all the stuff you'll need still attached, or like me, you'll wind up spending a fortune at VW, picking up bits.
After cleaning, porting and re-positioning of the oil return:

End of the head - these two are the only water outlets on the head - there is nothing on the front

Here is the re-positioned oil return, after work:

This motor can be found in most 1.6 or 2.0 petrol motors from the last 10 years - Golf, Bora, Passat, also Octavias and various Seats.
There are a bundle of photos of various installs of the crossflow motor on my site
here.
There's also a thread showing a manifold and carbs just
here