wow that is quite rough and ready, it makes me laugh that i bet if someone said lets go stop in a tent on the back of a trailor in the middle of nowhere I'm sure the response would be something along the lines of "no chance" but as soon as cars are involved it then becomes "yeah why not". the things we do for cars ey :)

absolutely great build going on here by the way

wow that is quite rough and ready, it makes me laugh that i bet if someone said lets go stop in a tent on the back of a trailor in the middle of nowhere I'm sure the response would be something along the lines of "no chance" but as soon as cars are involved it then becomes "yeah why not". the things we do for cars ey :)

absolutely great build going on here by the way

It was better than the ground up there, so soggy! Asking for a proper tent for my bday ths year!

Removal Men

The removal men have been and the engine and box are now out of the car!

Here is a must have tool for easy engine removal. 800mm long 12 sided spline socket from Laser. It allows you to undo the driveshafts without even needing to get under the car. The only issue is it won't fit in my tool box...

So now I'm left with an empty engine bay that needs a quick tidy up before popping the motor back in. She's surprisingly fresh for such an old car with only the smallest bit of surface rust in but a couple of places.

Here stands the wee 1272cc motor. It's going to get a scrub, lick of paint, lightened fly wheel, new clutch and sump and she'll be back in.

Here's a box with all of the engine mounts. These will be getting a lick of paint and then fitted with stiffer mounts.

I bought these mounts a year or two ago and have had them sitting in a drawer ever since. Made of stiffer rubber than standard they should help locate the engine better/stop any slop. Going from my experience of stiffer mounts in the Clio they'll also make the engine a heck of a lot louder and put more vibrations through the shell...the girls love it...jokes...

Great work.

Although Laser make some crappy stuff out of monkey metal (camshaft locking tool springs to mind) they do make a range of tools in really helpful lengths and sizes. I bought a lazer tool for removing a sump on a TDI and it made the job 10 times easier.

I have a poly rear engine mount to fit to my GT. Looking forward to the vibration induced driving erections

Like what is happening with this polo. Good to see you back in action on here.

Gear Ratios

I used the well known spreadsheet for calculating speeds based on gearbox/tyre choice. All figures rounded +/- 2MPH. Should prob. be running 7000-7500RPM so as not to put too much strain on the bottom end.

Tyres: 175/50R13 A048 soft or medium compound, undecided. Speedo reads +6.5% over due to smaller tyre.

Rev limit/1st/2nd/3rd/4th/5th

7000/30/50/70/90/120

7500/30/52/75/100/130

8000/35/55/80/105/135

Now that the engine is briefly out before going back in I've been saddled with a huge list of parts to get. From head gasket, to clutch, front suspension fasteners and oil. I've spent last 2 weeks in the garage almost every day so next proper update should have good progress.

Edited 27 March, 201214 yr by Tav

Trials and Tribulations

I trial fitted my PPP stage 2 subframe tonight. Ooooo it's a tight fit! Once I'd ground off the dimples on the chassis mounts, I needed to use a pry bar to leaver the frame over said mounts. Bit of cheeky trolly jack action and it was on! Antiroll bar mounts lined up perfectly without adjustment, so can only assume the shell is pretty straight for a Polo.

As you'll see the engine bay needs a good clean, but luckily there are only 1 or 2 little bits of rust. Can't wait to post the after photo as it'll be mint!

I think I'll treat the car to a new anti-roll bar as they are only circa £45-50 from VW. Gaz are currently making the front coil overs, so that'll just leave track control arms. I'm hoping PPP will sort me out when their's are ready!

I went to Grampian Fasenters this afternoon and got some high tensile bolts for my engine stand. Absolutely fantastic service. I only bought 4 x bolts and 20 x washers and yet the guy spent 10 mins taking me around the store room and making sure I got everything I needed.

I need to paint the block, but I'm not 100% sure what to use. I know I want to spray it, I hate brush marks. It's rusty iron, so I think I'll need suitable primer...suggestions? Then I guess I'll use proper engine paint, again suggestions welcome?

Doune is such a brilliant hill. Glad to see another racer on the cards.

great to see something different going on. high temp engine paint is shit!! me and few friends use Plasti-kote Enamel Super Matt Black 400 ml Super PKT3101 get it off ebay. give block good clean with wire brush in drill and degrease. get some heat on the block if you can with heat gun or little heater and put plenty of coats on keep the heater on to dry paint inbetween coats. will come up mint and wont flake or rust off.

I saw this and thought of this build, I you haven't seen it already check it out, looks like fun!

Awesome vid

Any updates tav?

Earlier I had h&r/bilsteins for my mk2 coupe trackday car. The complete strut was made for upside/down 50mm damper, other castor angle and different steering settings. Front main spring rate was 130nm, rear 90nm. The ride was terrible up to 40kmh, but brilliant from 40-240kmh! it was made for a berg-cup car, but.price was 2800 euros :-)

Looks good, enjoyed reading through this.

When I painted my engine, I used por15 metal read from Frosts (the web site) and then por15 engine enamel. Just thinned it down and put it through my gun. Got good results for an amateur set up. There's no need for a primer using this as the metal ready is a solution that primes the metal for painting

Check out my post in Yoof thread about rear diffusers. Let me know if you are interested.

That was a sweet wee video, love the noise!

Gaz are making struts now. I need some more bits this week then I have a week off do hopefully lots of progress to report as April comes to a close!

I'm getting very frustrated at current state of play but hopefully big step towards completion coming.

Working is a bitch...

Check out my post in Yoof thread about rear diffusers. Let me know if you are interested.

Cheers for heads up but it's not something I could use in my class.

i see you're going to run 13s, just wondered what you're planning on doing brakes wise?

Great to see you back and with such an interesting project!

Regards cams, i think you can get away with 272/272 without valve/pistons meeting. Remember Andy posting something up sometime back that when they tried a piper cam (280/280 iirc) cam on Yoofs old 3F that the piston had to have some valve cut outs to get it to work.

Can't remember for the life of me what cam he had but someone i know had a polo 3F with all the usual mods (exhaust, manifold, chip, GTI afm etc etc), a home port and polished head and a uprated camshaft and he produced 100+ bhp with dyno graph to prove. So with a healthy well tuned engine, that head, a lairy cam and throttle bodies instead of the OE injection you should be able to see 110bhp.

Good luck with it all and i will keep a close eye on this.

Kerrly hit 105bhp from what I gather - I have the cam from the engine in my cupboard

Nearly Marty, 103bhp. K&N panel filter, Golf GTi AFM, P&P TB, Schrick 268/268, 4 branch, de-cat, PoloAce chip. Thanks for remembering that car though, was a sad event when it was broken up by the last owner and scraped, but at least you benefited!

i see you're going to run 13s, just wondered what you're planning on doing brakes wise?

G40 Chris with DS2500 or similar. Needs cold bite. At doune I'll need to brake hard 2/3 times. Fintry similar. Forrestburn possibly a bit more. I'm hoping the benefits of less weight over 256's stopping power will work ok on hills. I kept rear drums for now as the disks seemed as heavy, may reasses later.

Any thoughts from yourself?

If that GT made nearly 105BHP I'd hope mine would pack a fair bit more on similar rollers...eeek!

yeah hillclimbing is a slightly different story to most other disciplines - you won't necessarily need massive brakes.

i ditched the drums and fitted mk4 golf/sharan/passat alloy rear calipers, mk2 carriers and discs. they're slightly heavier, but more reliable, need less maintenance, they do over bias the back end of the car but you can adjust that on a standard GT where as i fitted a bias pedal box which might be something you want to look into

If that GT made nearly 105BHP I'd hope mine would pack a fair bit more on similar rollers...eeek!

I thought it was a bit high myself, you should have seen the figures at the last couple of RR days at Alton their figures seemed silly high.

Cam Down!

Super excited to report that the cylinder head is nearing completion! With much deliberation Jason of JMR and I have finally managed to settle on a cam specification. The 3F engine's pistons protrude the block and actually enter the head gasket space under the cylinder head. With the cylinder head being flat this means that the pistons, cylinder head and valves all work very close to each other. The tight tolerances imposed by the engine's original design can limit the choice of duration and lift of an after market cam shaft. Despite the restrictions we still wanted to get a nice hot cam to help the engine perform!

I measured up the pistons using a dial gauge, to get an idea of how far they protrude the cylinder head. You can see in the photos below the piston sitting level with the deck of the block and then sitting 34 thousands of an inch proud at TDC. I also measured the depth of the valve cut outs in the piston. I've got a thread elsewhere which I'll prob. bring into here with lots of measurements others might find useful.

With the measurements collected, looking at every available camshaft and after speaking to a few people including Pete at PPP, Jason and I picked this Newman 270 degree camshaft. Whilst a 272 was available it would have been 50/50 chance as to whether it would work without modifying the pistons. I'll still be checking clearances once the head arrives using plastigauge...but I'm confident we've got it right.

Newman describe the camshaft as 'a free revving camshaft which retains low down power.' Lift is 10.41 mm and duration is 270 degrees. There should be power between 2500-7000RPM...most of it up the top I'd guess!

Edited 23 April, 201214 yr by Tav

good stuff mate. looking forward to more updates.

Shock and Awe II

The second set of coilovers arrives from Gaz today, woop! 275lb/in 7 inch springs and lowered steering arms. These are a complete gamble really but Alex has filled me with a bit of confidence after hearing his views on them. As long as they aren't overly stiff, too low and there isn't any bump steer issues I'll be happy...fingers crossed! What I hope for is a nice stable front end and that my 165lb/in rear springs will just need to be uprated to 200+ after a few races.

I've ordered lots of new bolts from VW and managed to pickup some new top mounts. Will get these fitted this week! Only slight issue though...threw my hubs away and they are £80+VAT each new from VW...! Hopefully I can find a cheaper supplier! The following parts are now obsolete: anti-roll bar, steering arms for G40, steering arms for GT and top mounts.

Edited 23 April, 201214 yr by Tav

Steering arms can be bought from GSF or ECP, VW would have arse raped you for them anyway.

Hubs, drop Kiz (youngprodigys) a PM, he had loads of MK3 struts for coilover conversions (he uses the steering arms) so he should have a gazillion of the polo hubs lying around i would have thought.