Hello,
Haven't been here for ages, the joys of having a new family and no money, means that the Golf takes a back burner.
Some time in 2009 I decided that the highly strung 1.6 EG lump I have in the Golf no longer cuts the mustard in the modern world of 250bhp hatches, so it needed a little more. I didn't need anymore top end, as although the bragging rights of high speed runs are cool, MK1's were never that stable at speed. I've seen 135 on the clocks, and it was beginning to get really unstable at that speed. I just needed a bit more mid range.
Helpfully a lovely young lady carried out an MK2 Valve / Oak tree modification, which didn't go too well, (the golf finished second), so I managed to get a mint MK2 for buggar all.
One engine and gearbox re-build later, and a mighty struggle to get it into the car, on a gravel drive, in the rain, I was nearly home and dry. (Every re-built the gear lever ball thingy? That has a huge spring in it, still waiting for some of the bits to land…)
Then the modded wiring loom took over (I had the original type ceramic fuse box), a Scirocco dash loom etc. Half way through that that I thought that I would put the battery in the boot. And so it got left with a heavily modded engine loom, re-located components etc (tip, make sure everything works, then chop and mod the loom:sad:)
As I decided to swap the Speedo head, as although my original clocks looked cool with an 8K rev counter and 140mph Speedo, I fancied something a little different. As most of you know, MK2 clocks don’t easily fit into a MK1 dash, they do now
.
I decided to then fit the posh bucket seats I had brought ages ago, but can’t until the rest of the interior is in…
The ‘cheep’ four branch Ashley manifold looks good (when wrapped in that heat sock stuff) and fits like a three fingered sock
. I loosened the front and rear engine mounts (breaking the rear mount studs
), in order to try and get it to clear the anti roll bar (which the link pipe won’t), and am now at the same point of most other people who don’t have £350 to buy a properly made four branch, and cut and shut the original MK2 and MK1 down pipes. When I phoned up the supplier, they first said, oh, are you running an anti roll bar? WTF? Then they said, oh, just put a dent in it with a hammer? Sorry, I thought the point of buying a performance exhaust manifold was to increase the gas flow, not hamper it by putting a dent in the pipe.
Oh, and the finial nail in the coffin, you know how ages ago I boosted about putting my brake master cylinder and servo in front of the driver? That means I can’t run a standard 16v manifold, so had to buy, at great expense a Scirocco 16v Intake. Now I need longer injector hoses etc – argh! It never bloody stops!
So my beautiful Golf has sat in the garage for the last year. But I am slowly amassing parts (German E-bay rules, at the moment), and maybe, it’ll be running before Stoner 2012!
Laters
kraM
