Fifth Gears Oak green....

[ABOO]

Did anyone see fifth gear last Monday. They had a mint MK2 Oak Green 16v, which they sent to TSR for some work doing. Result put car at an estimated 185bhp, and car looked awesome from in-car footage. After 5k rpm it looked like a Civic type-r with vtec, flew round to redline

Seriously considering selling my 1.8t mk4, and doing this conversion in a MK2. Anyone who saw the show and running a simiar set-up??

[Jay]

How about you buy a good MK2 shell and swap all your MK4 bits to the MK2 to complete a 20VT conversion 
You'd have one hell of a faster motor with a remap 

On a more serious side, I don't think many people bother boring out their engines, they usually just go for the ABF conversion from a MK3 2L

[Uruk Hai]

I think it was more about showing what TSR could do as oppose to making the car as powerfull as possible.

[danny_p]

IMO tsr are a bunch of monkeys.   putting that much effort into a 16v and only getting 185  bhp.   

i would say that an abf  ( with its efi ) is a far better conversion,  get a fully rebuilt abf with good headwork and a remap it'll present 185bhp  without any compromise for what tsr charge for there engines i would want to see more  and have a better reputation where engine life is concirned

[DarnPB]

IMO tsr are a bunch of monkeys.   putting that much effort into a 16v and only getting 185  bhp.   

i would say that an abf  ( with its efi ) is a far better conversion,  get a fully rebuilt abf with good headwork and a remap it'll present 185bhp  without any compromise for what tsr charge for there engines i would want to see more  and have a better reputation where engine life is concirned

Can't help but agree. It would be cheaper to get a modern engine and shoe horn it into a MKII. When you start looking at the figures for just the pistons, then the conrods, then add the rebore, grind the crank, do the head work, new cams which aint cheap either, etc, etc, etc, you would be looking at figures of 2-3000 quid for just the engine and a measley 46bhp increase in power.
And Tiff only knocked off something like 3 seconds from his initial lap time or something like that?
Not worth it.

To put things into perspective, I bought and semi race tuned a Chevy 350 (5.7 litre V8) with mostly new components for about half the money they spent on that engine alone. Its just a shame that engine would not go in  a Golf! 

[Kingt_mk2]

And Tiff only knocked off something like 3 seconds from his initial lap time or something like that?
Not worth it.

it was ol a short twisty track thou! but i do agree with wots been said, you can get alot more bhp with that kind of budget

[Conker]

Another option... Put in the 2L block, upgrade the exhaust, and fuel pressure, if theres budget left then maybe a bit of porting/polishing as well.

This would get you most of the way there for little money, and without the compromises of wild cams.

[monkeyalan]

wasn't the point on fifth gear to keep it all looking original tho'?

[Horney]

wasn't the point on fifth gear to keep it all looking original tho'?

Nail head and hammer interface achieved.

The whole point was to make it better but keep it original within reason. Banging in a 20vT or a VR6 is the easy/lazy option and would have transformed the characteristics of the car (especially the front heavey lardy VR6 lump). 2.0 ABF coversion or 9A bottom end would have been aother option. It would have had more power than standard but without rebuilding the bottom end of either of those would have not rev'd as high as the engine they built for it.

I like what TSR did and it's much more interesting than just chucking in a bigger engine and calling a car modded.

Nick

[sdall30]

Mee TOOO , much as the though of a nice big VR6 lump im my valver is appealing , I think it would loose some of the MK2ishness that made me buy the car in the first place, I fully intend to rebuild and rework my 8v 1.8 lump to get the most I can from here regardless of the conversion being the cheaper option.. Top Marks 5th gear !!!