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Rindiesel's Car Story

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9 December, 200817 yr

The Love Affair

This thread was created, as some people didnt know the basic story of my car, how i got it, and whats been done.

I first saw the car, the first day I came from New York, and was immediately interested in it..

It was a small (to my American standard) but nice looking car, and almost never got used.

It had 40,000km on the clock, and had spent most of its life in my parents garage, being dust and element free, and was driven by my step mom for a number of years once per week.

My parents sold it to me for 3,000 euros :)

i immidiately joined clubpolo, and started finding out facts and figures, and looking at other peoples cars to see what these little things can become

I'm more of a speed and turn guy, than a show and shine guy.. and took the car out on to my track, Zandvoort, stock...

as you can see, the car needed some suspension, (i kinda forgot how tall these things are from the factory haha!) and after waiting months for the suspension to come in, i drove down to the other side of Holland to get it myself.

THE GUMBALL STORY

I heard about the student gumball rally from some one here on the forum, and was immidiately excited.

i paid 300 pounds per person (my cousin was my co driver) to get in, and was ready for about 1 week of good driving..

from Brighton UK (starting line) down through Le mans, France, and around spain ending up in a small town in spain to throw tomatoes with the locals..

i was there for the drive, my cousin was there for the women.

here is a few pictures of us, the night before the start getting the car waxed and stickered up (we were called Team Holland of course)

(thats my cousin waxing my car)

At the starting line, i was excited.. we had a goodie bag with 4 cans of red bull, a pair of scissors, and two gumball tshirts with our names on a big list of participants..

here is the car on our exciting day of glory.. that I have been saving up for for months:)

We were the first car to leave the starting line, and we were driving slowly through the city, in semi-convoy style..

I had a camera mounted on the outside of my car, and everything was perfect. As I turned down a street some kid in wigger attire shouted at me, "EY MAN PHAT CAR!!!!"

I was on top of the world..

then... 15 min after the start...

disaster struck...:

(video1)

(video 2)

a piece of the airfilter got sucked into the intake, and the debris got stuck on my exhaust valve on my number 4 cylinder.. causing it to stay open, and smash into the piston..

I had to drive back on three cylinders from UK to Holland...

VW wanted 4,000 euros for the complete installation of the same 75 hp 1.6 8v motor . This was not an option!!

After walking around every where for about a month, i made friends with one of my friends dads, who has hand built his own Golf R32 (Was a TDI, and he had bought an r32 engine and had a new chassis put in, and drive train)

He said for about 2 grand we could get a brand new GTI motor, with all the goodies needed.

In late september, we bidded on a a GTI motor, with only 5,000 km's on it...a "test motor"

after 2,580 euros spent, we won the auction, and I had myself an engine!

It was brand new, but it was missing ...a few things!!!

it only had exhaust headers, no downpipe (which vw wanted 1,300 euros for as it had the catalytic converter, which i already had), it had an ECU, but NO wiring loom, and we didnt have the original key....

SO! we had to wire the ECU up, by hand, one by one...

Instead of buying the downpipe for 1,300 euro, we had some pipes bent and we welded a home made flange to it

Finally after six long horrible months of driving this,:

and 3,500 euros intotal project costs

i went to driving this!!!:

and added some race goodies to it: a racing seat which was a gift from my old boss (was from a renault megan)

and two full sets of racing slicks(very good tires!

We added a straight pipe to DE-cat the car (making it very loud, as there is only a back box from a 1.9 sdi on the back)

Here are some glamour shots

a bit of a 'before and after'

The Numbers (good stuff!)

0-100km/h= 6.8 seconds

top speed=215 kmh (fuel pump cuts the RPMS at 6700 rpm, instead of 7000)

weight: about 885 kg (bit more than a golf one gti, if i remember)

Best lap at the Nurburgring 9 min 30 seconds

and this is what happens to the tires, when you drive it properly!

anyway, plans for the future are to bring it up to about 175-200 HP, get a roll cage, upgrade the brakes, and maybe a lupo GTI 6 speed gearbox, if i can find one.:)

Edited 28 September, 201015 yr by rindiesel