help me reach 100! - update! GTI HEAD BOUGHT!

[Dolly]

tuning a driver can be cool, carbs ect but i think youll struggle for £100. just to throw another one into the pot, i know someone who recently bagged an ABF lump on ebay for £70.. 150bhp...

[Khare]

tuning a driver can be cool, carbs ect but i think youll struggle for £100. just to throw another one into the pot, i know someone who recently bagged an ABF lump on ebay for £70.. 150bhp...

as said before, if i fit an ABF or gti lump, i have to claim it cos tehres a big difference. and being 17 with a gti insurance will rape me.
But if i stick a gti manifold, and head...well, it doesnt look much different than on the driver, so if something ahppens, the insruance man, unless hee's well into his mk2's, he wont be able to tell the difference.

[Cosworth Lee]

but even the things you have just spoken about all add up to way more than the price of a 2nd hand gti lump.
Theres loads of gti engines around, easily picked up for £150-200.

Dont get me wrong, im not against the chap tuning up the 1.6, after all it can be enjoyable and rewarding.

But from a money point of view, its TOTAL FALSE ECONOMY.

£300,400-500? to tune up the 1.6 with all the parts, rolling road, and not to mention the time to do it all. and all for 90-100bhp

£200 (£300 for a good lump with proven history/milage, or even a whole donor car i.e mot rust failure then sell the scrap shell to get some dosh back) and you have a guranteed 130bhp at least. and could all be done in a weekend!

i know what you mean mate, but if i said gti engine to insurance companies, my insurance would start going up like mad. i know engines can be picked up for £200, but im not gonna spend that on modding this one, if im lucky, and search carefully, i can buy all the bits for under £100 as mew said. ok, some bits like rejetting are better bought new, and it costs £25 to rejet to 1.8, but then i make up for it buy lucky ebay auctions etc.

Well fair play to you, wasnt knocking you mate. As i said tuning something like that can be fun and challenging, and thats half point isnt it! so good luck to you matey.

Its just from a personal view point, i still feel its money ill spent if you look at it in the long run. And i can promise you in 4-5months time you will be bored and want more power, and u will wish u had fitted a gti lump.

I am shocked that you plan not to tell the insurance tho, ive always declared everything. you only need one thing to go wrong and it could cost u a lot!!

I had an accident once, and they litterally combed the car over to check if it had been fettled with. its serious arse rape stuff if u do get caught!!

but on the other hand i totally understand. With the cosworth (which i only drive on the odd sunny sundays) i was paying £195 PER MONTH!!!! to insure it.
my car insurance premium this year was £3200!!!! and i have a clean licence with 4 years NCB
so i totally understand.

Saying that tho not im 25 my quote last week for a 1.8 gti 16v was £250 for the year
and for the mk2 vr6 with the 2.8 pushing 200bhp, the quote was.... £300. so no supprise which car i bought!!

Anyway good luck matey.

(i give u 5 months befroe ur bored )

[DOA]

Out of interest, do you even know how much power your engine is putting out at the moment? Have you questioned the purpose of the Hedgehog someone on here mentions (its there for fuel economy btw, not just to stop icing and think how much fuel costs nowadays)? Do you even have a concept of what to port in a cylinder head should you go down that route or any idea how close the coolant and oil passages are to the ports? Have you considered the cost of the tools you will have to buy to remove and refit the head, the gaskets you will need to replace, the bolts you SHOULD replace, the coolant you will have to replace, the oil and filter you will have to replace, the cambelt and tensioner that you may need and only find out about once the belt is off or even the potential replacement water pump you may find you need? I think that covers most of the bits that you may need to consider before you even buy a cylinder head or whatever else you want to modify to do with the existing head.

Sorry to be so negative but unless you really know what your doing (which asking for advice and not picking up on the above costs suggests you really dont), modifying engines isnt cheap and neither is getting towed home without AA etc cover if your fiddling breaks something down the line. For my peneth worth id spend the £100 on a new set of polybushes for the front wishbones, two new quality front tyres or a cheap suspension kit from ebay but only fit the dampers (the springs are normally complete trash that are worth more in scrap money than they are on any car).

[Khare]

Out of interest, do you even know how much power your engine is putting out at the moment? Have you questioned the purpose of the Hedgehog someone on here mentions (its there for fuel economy btw, not just to stop icing and think how much fuel costs nowadays)? Do you even have a concept of what to port in a cylinder head should you go down that route or any idea how close the coolant and oil passages are to the ports? Have you considered the cost of the tools you will have to buy to remove and refit the head, the gaskets you will need to replace, the bolts you SHOULD replace, the coolant you will have to replace, the oil and filter you will have to replace, the cambelt and tensioner that you may need and only find out about once the belt is off or even the potential replacement water pump you may find you need? I think that covers most of the bits that you may need to consider before you even buy a cylinder head or whatever else you want to modify to do with the existing head.

Sorry to be so negative but unless you really know what your doing (which asking for advice and not picking up on the above costs suggests you really dont), modifying engines isnt cheap and neither is getting towed home without AA etc cover if your fiddling breaks something down the line. For my peneth worth id spend the £100 on a new set of polybushes for the front wishbones, two new quality front tyres or a cheap suspension kit from ebay but only fit the dampers (the springs are normally complete trash that are worth more in scrap money than they are on any car).

i know what your trying to put across....
but
Ive got a mate who works in the trade, so oil and filter and all that i can get cheap. Tools, well im gonna have to buy sooner or later anyway. headgasket, and all other gaskets are always a plus to change anyway, keep the car healthy. Im confident holding a spanner, and haribo here has done the same mod, and he admited he got all the knowledge from here, before he didnt have mechanical know. Now his car goes like stick. basicaly im trying to achieve what he did.
As for spending the £100 somewere else, tyres are all reasonably new and have loads and loads of grip left, i got coilovers on the car, so handles great already. I will be changing bits as i go along. I will be rebuilding an important part of the engine by doing this and hopefully it should feel like new. Yes i know my MPG is already rubbish (22mpg with mixed driving, pretty heavy footed though)
but i preffer going from A to B, with lots and lots of fun in the proccess, rather than just from A to B. I hope you know what im trying to say.
"better to try make a dog into a horse, than make a horse go into a...horse?"


oh and btw, i already got AA cover

[richard s]

go for it mate you gotta start learning at some point and it might as well be doing something that you want to do rather than somehing that crops but if you were that way inclined i would imagine that a 8v gti engine would drop in and run on a carb

[Khare]

go for it mate you gotta start learning at some point and it might as well be doing something that you want to do rather than somehing that crops but if you were that way inclined i would imagine that a 8v gti engine would drop in and run on a carb

cheers mate.

thing is, if i was to put a gti engine, i would need to uprate fuel pump, and some other bits and bobs. Also do the loom and stuff. If i stick a gti head and gti distribuitor, with the camshaft i already have, i wouldnt be far off 8v gti performance.

[Khare]

just won this little beauty on ebay for £16. Gonna pick it up this weekend hopefully, so i'l spend most of saturday cleaning it and getting it painted. then i'l be buying an 8v gti manifold and downpipe to add to the collection, and then the headgasket set and everything.http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT&item=290264363707

[JC]

aye- think your Increase over  standard was the big shock ( apart from the shortfalls bhp of course  ) on satdee

[Khare]

aye- think your Increase over  standard was the big shock ( apart from the shortfalls bhp of course  ) on satdee

was happy with 6hp increase over standard, but now hopefully, with the work im gonna do to the car, my target is gonna be 100hp. RR session again sometime soon guys?