H'mmmmm, guess I should keep a closer eye on this thread.
I can understand your concerns about this all being a waste of time because Andres isn't going to get another million, billion BHP. He's pretty articulately explained why he's doing this and validated it fairly well.
The 16V motor is a much better base for a performance engine. It breathes better, so revs much more freely and seems to use about the same/less fuel than a tweaked 8V. It's a good, fun motor. Lots of the French boys swap the motors in their VTRs for 16V motors, so why's this so different?
Andres current car has a sound shell and he's happy with it. He's also done quite a lot to refresh the chassis. Why go off buying another load of someone else's problems?
The car the motor's coming out of has the right bits to make the conversion easy. It's also been tested reasonably well and not let go. Before anything happens we'll pull a compression test and check the basics. I'm comfortable that it's a healthy motor.
The whole conversion won't cost that much and I think the clutch is sound, too. This will be checked before it goes in though. It also gets him a cable-change gearbox set up, so why not?
Further down the line, he's got the option to put MS and bodies on it if he wants. This should easily exceed 190bhp on an NA 2.0 16V. It's just my opinion, but for a fun motor he'll get something pretty frisky for less than a weighty 20VT set up, which has a lot more on it to go wrong.
The whole project, once the shell from the donor is weighed in and other bits and bobs are sold should come in under £500. You won't do a 150bhp TDI conversion for that. You won't do a 150bhp 20VT conversion for that, either.
Horses for courses folks.
