Good work Steven! You'll need to give me a shot and let me see what the front end is like

Since the last update I've been working on the engine. Managed to get the Turbo and manifold all fitted and in place

Timing belt kit arrived from ECP so got that all on

Also cleaned up all the timing covers and clips, with all that on I could fit the alternator pulley and belt

The observant out there will notice I have used the G40 crank pulley and G40 alternator pulley just with a single belt, this is just a temporary measure so I can get the crank and ignition timing spot on, then I'll change to the normal CL setup.

That pretty much completed the engine, it is now just ready to be put back in

I'm waiting for paint to arrive so I can paint the engine bay before it goes back in. While I've been waiting I've been cleaning and painting all the other bits I have to go on, this included the CEG gearbox.

While I was there I got the rear 'box mount that goes with the subframe on and bolted up. The mount itself is a G40 Cup Car item :)

Hopefully the paint arrives soon and after a couple of days painting I can get the engine in and get everything sorted in the bay and front end in general.

Looks good mate really speedy progress! :)

Quick update, feels like I'm getting somewhere now.

I'll post a proper update when I'm on an actual computer haha.

Yay :)

Since I'm at work tonight I can take advantage and post up a proper update.

Finished painting the engine bay and front panel, then fitted the steering rack, 20mm master cylinder and brake lines. Seemed like a better idea to do this with the engine out. Brake lines aren't the neatest but they will do for now.

Then on Wednesday with the help of Ross (citrus) we managed to free then engine from it's stand and attached a clutch and gearbox to it instead :)

I think you can guess what happened next....

And it's as easy as that! We recorded the occasion on my GoPro using the time lapse feature so I'll post that up when I get a chance.

Not much pictures of what I did next, basically I just decided to crack on until I could no longer move. Managed to get the brakes lines finished off, braided flexi pipes on, boost hoses and coolant hoses hooked up, installed the fuel tank, fit the driveshafts, rear beam, GAZ coilovers, rear brakes and front brakes. By this time I had spent almost a whole day/night in the shed. Went outside and it was still light, which was a boost until I realised it was 5am the next day.

Anyway went home had a sleep and a few hours later I was back.

Here is a poor picture of the rear brakes.

Slightly better picture of the front brakes.

Then today I put the drivers door back on and decided to put the car in its wheels. So here she is rolling after a couple months of being on axle stands.

Put the front bumper on so I can see how much space I have to place an oil cooler, but I'm still undecided where I'm going to put it.

I'm hoping tomorrow (Saturday) I can decided on a place for the oil cooler, get it plumbed in and turn the key for the first time. If it does then it's off to a mates garage to get a downpipe made up for the turbo.

You've certainly been grafting with this one! Where did you pick up those rear spacers?

Cheers Scott, thanks everyone for all the likes.

The spacers I found on eBay last year. They are 25mm from FK. Not cheap but worth the money.

Its really cracking on Steven,

Edited 24 May, 201511 yr by Retrotub

Missed my deadline to get this finished and on the track on Sunday. Reason being I spent all day Saturday searching shops for a T piece for the cooling system so I can get water to the turbo. The one I ordered online never arrived and neither has it's replacement up till now. It is so annoying when the little things hold you up.

Because of the time I spent not working on the car I didn't have time to get the car ready and over to my mates to get the down pipe made up.

So Sunday saw me do the finishing touches to the 'custom' work. The rest of the jobs are just basic jobs to bolt a Polo back together.

First up was the fitting of the oil cooler. Its a 13 row cooler kit from Mocal. Fits nicely behind the bumper on the passenger side, I had to hack a bit out the bottle of the bumper and I cut out the fog light hole to give it air flow.

Here it is with the bumper off.

Next was round the back fixing the battery in it's new location. Battery tray held in place with rivets.

Battery in and tied down nice and solid. I've run the power along side the standard loom that goes to the rear and I've takes the earth from the old seatbelt mount next to the wheel arch.

Instead of extending the existing looms to meet the positive at the rear of the car, I've joined all the positive connections together in the old battery try using a BMW jump point from an E46.

Then I finished off all the loom and fitted the turbo chip into the ECU :)

After that I finally got round to filling it up with oil....which then proceeded to come straight back out the sump.....

Looks like the drain fitting warped the sump a little so it didn't seal properly at the front. So the car went back up in the air, all the sump bolts loosened off and I used a punch and a hammer to reshape the lip of the sump and also put in a bead of gasket sealant. Left it overnight to cure and this morning I double checked everything. No leaks from the sump any more so all was good there.

So for the moment of truth, hooked up a jumper packand turned the key. Fired right up, no messing about.

Here is a quick video

Bit loud and rough since there is no exhaust but it idles away fine and takes revs nice too.

So this week I'll get it put back together and have the down pipe made on saturday. Providing the T piece for the cooling system turns up....

I've not been on here in a long while, But you've inspired me great job!!!

Man your just an inspiration your attention to detail is serious wish i had half of your enthusiasm.Great thread top job!

Update time!

Downpipe has been started

Having a bit of fun trying out different fitments haha!

The above picture shows pretty much the completed down pipe. A lot of work has gone into it to make it fit in the small space between the subframe and the block, as well as keeping it nice and tight to the sump so I still have ground clearance.

I can take no credit for the work on the downpipe, my mate has been doing it all. Please go and follow his page Guess Workx on Facebook https://m.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1019607254723961 if you like the look of it. He can work wonders with a TIG welder.

Even had nice new lambda bosses welded in. One at the top for the cars lambda and one further down for a wideband.

The amount of parts arriving at the house has reduced a lot, this is all I got delivered last week.

And they were quickly out to the car and fitted :)

Also dug these out the depths of my lock up, my spare set of 13" RAs

Gave them a clean up and got them wrapped in nice new boots

Yokohama A539 tyres been years since I've driven on a new set, but I used to love them on my 6n Polos so hopefully they work just as well on the GT.

And that brings us up to how the car sits.

Current to-do list is as follows

Join downpipe to system (pipe ordered)

Pull sump off again and weld up return properly

Chase up body shop for my passenger wing

MOT

So hopefully I can complete that list long before the big drive down to the Polo Social

That badge is in great condition. You were lucky to spot that for sale so quickly!

The A539s were brilliant on my old squareback. You'll have lots of fun with them!

I'm hoping they are good, they weren't cheap and they are not an easy tyre to find now.

And again, sorry for beating you to the badge :(

All's fair in love and polos mate! I had the 50 profiles on mine and they were great in the corners. They gave me lots of confidence when driving the car. You'll find out all of this when your driving it.

We'll have to meet up in Aberdeen before the polo show if you're up for it?

Edited 10 June, 201511 yr by dougstar21

This is another one I can't wait to see!

Well don't I feel silly today...

Spent a good couple hours Sunday and about 3 hours Monday trying to find the reason the car wanted to boil its coolant and nothing else.

Turns out some absolute tool (which is me) got two of the coolant hoses mixed up on the thermostat housing. So instead of pressurising the system and feeding the radiator etc. it was just taking the easy route and pumping round the block and nothing else. At least the cooling system got a good few flushes and all the old dirty water and residue seems to be gone.....every cloud....

So once I finished putting the cooling system back together for the 6324^th time I was finally able to run it up to temp for the first time, now the exhaust is all together and its kind of quiet. Got it up to temp and set the ignition timing and idle. No major dramas here so seems the engine and ECU are both happy enough.

Tomorrow (or rather later on today thanks to working nightshift) is just a case of tidying a few things up. Putting on bits of trim both inside and out, then hopefully I'll still have some time left in the day to take it for an MOT :)

My MOT station is a couple miles away from where the car is so no matter what the result, just now I'm just excited to drive the thing :)

Here is how it is sitting now. Really needs a wash too haha.

Update needed! Looked good at ps mate, what's the power delivary like?

Update needed! Looked good at ps mate, what's the power delivary like?

You are right an update is needed. But due to me destroying my laptop just before the Polo Social I've only been able to get on with my iPad or borrowing laptops.

Anyway luckily I have the use of a pc and internet at my work so update time :)

So during the whole cooling issue thing I broke the fan switch, actually pulled it in half. So the next day was spent chasing round Aberdeen for one of these.

Finally got back to the car later on that day and got to fitting that and putting the interior back in. I thought I'd better start to make it look like a car again for Mr MOT man. Excuse the poor lighting and iPhone pictures.

Then came another issue, after leaving it running in the shed for the best part of an hour to make sure the cooling system was bled, fan kicked in etc etc I just happen to look underneath and spot this.

The oil had found yet another way out! Decided to call it a day at that as it was now the early hours of the morning and I was stressing out as I only had a few days before I was supposed to leave for the Polo Social.

The next day I managed to get the car in the 2 post ramp next door to me which was a big help.

Made dropping the sump much easier and also gave me the chance to check the torques on all the bolts underneath the car.

Here it is with the sump off. The subframe makes the job a little harder than it should be...

Was able to take my time, clean everything up and properly slapped on the black gasket sealer stuff. Left it overnight to dry and the next morning filled it up with oil and took it outside to run it up to temp and I was happy to find no leaks :)

So now it looked like a car I took it straight out to the MOT station.

Waiting patiently for a.....FAIL haha.

Fail was no big deal though. He was being extra picky as he knows the story with the car and I've built it from a bare shell. But a couple of spare parts and tiewraps plus a helping hand from Ross (Citrus) saw the fail turn into this just 4 hours later...

3 advisories which I couldn't fix in the MOT car park but they are sorted now.

Was so happy to be able to drive it home legally for the first time in ages!

First job was to take it from MOT height..

To my height :)

My ground clearance......

The rear has since been raised up a bit as it was scrubbing and was chewing the tyres when it did scrub. But the front has stayed and I love the rake I've got :)

Next task was to tidy it up. I put decent passenger side wing into a body shop a couple months ago to get painted. Went round to see him and he had been so busy he hadn't got round to painting it yet.

BALLS....Nothing else for it but to take it away and give it a go myself. No pictures of it but I sanded the wing back, filled the arieal hole with glass fibre and some putty, then painted it over 2 days. For a rush job it didn't look too bad after a cut back and a polish in my living room.

Anything would be an improvement on this though.

Old Vs New.

New wing on, you can see it is a bit flat but at least the colour matches. But now it shows up the rust on the passenger door.

Next thing concerning me was the low voltage once the car was warm, still haven't solved this but it is yet to cause me any issues. Just not happy with 13v or less once the car is warm.

Anyway only managed to rack up 170 miles in the car then it was time to get it packed up for it's long journey.

I did a 120 mile trek down to Crieff to stay with Ross (13kpologt) on the Tuesday and Wednesday before the Social. Once there I was able to give the car a much needed polish.

The result wasn't too bad I don't think...

Then finally the day was upon us, would it survive the long trip down to Northampton?

Obviously the answer is yes, but it did snap a clutch cable on the way. But it made it....

Since the Social it made it back up the road without any issues. Had a couple of things to sort out but it is mostly just checking and tightening bolts. But apart from that all is well. Still getting used to the handling...and by handling I mean actual handling, like it goes round corners now. The combination of the Subframe, coilovers and Yoko tyres has made such a difference. Can't wait to get it onto a track and see what it can really do.

Since the Social the only change to the car has been a new sticker, a couple of my mates who are into drifting started a group called GhettoFAB. Go check them out on Facebook and give them a like.

I have also turned the boost up to 14psi, pretty much 1BAR.

So to answer Buxton's question, power delivery is awesome. It seems to come on cam and boost at the same time, roughly 4000rpm. After that it pulls hard into the limiter. Off boost it is a bit laggy but it will still accelerate up to 60mph keeping up with traffic off boost so to me that isn't all bad.

My focus just now however is the handling, getting used to it and seeing what I can tweek to improve it.

For the future I just plan to drive and enjoy it just now. Just mainly cosmetic stuff and a couple other little tweeks I want to do but the bulk of the work is done. I am really happy at how it has turned out. I wouldn't have managed this without a lot of help though, so to those out there that sold me parts, came and helped me, gave me advice and even those who have followed my build and commented. Thank you all!

Hopefully the next update will be pictures and vidoes of me enjoying the car :)

Hopefully the next update will be pictures and vidoes of me enjoying the car :)

/\ /\ /\ Who was I kidding, I own a Polo...haha

Next update is this...issues. Had the rear calipers on my car for just 3 weeks and since they are mk2 Golf items they have done the usual and siezed solid. So tired of parking it in gear I had a rake in the scrappy and got a set of rear calipers off a mk4 Golf.

Also had to buy a conversion kit from Goodridge as the mk4 calipers use a banjo type fitting.

Been at work this week but in the couple hours I've had to do car things I've managed to clean up one of the calipers.

And then paint it red, because red calipers are more powerful.....

Hopefully get the other one done tomorrow and then I can get to fitting them during the week.

Other issue is the breather pipe off the back of the block. I've got a silicone hose off it which is currently just venting to atmosphere as silicone hose doesn't bend. So I've ordered elbow fittings to route the pipe into a catch can I've placed where the carbon canister used to live.

Final issue is the alternator, still not charging how I would like and I'm sure it has a drain on it too. Leave the car for a few days and the battery is down to 10v. Also noticed yesterday the top alternator bolt had rattled itself loose. So since the car has done half the job for me I'll take the whole thing off and swap it for another one.

But once all that is done I should be ready for the Club Polo track day :)

those lines going to be long enough?

my setup. I used Mk4 golf rear pipes as they go from Flexi-copper. I cut down the copper and just flared it where it needed to meet the bracket on the beam.

Yeah Mark they should be long enough. My current setup is the same as the Mk2 Golf so I have a flexi on the caliper and a flexi on the beam joined by a solid pipe. Hopefully my new hoses will clip into the mk2 bracket I installed on my beam so it is a just a bolt off and bolt on job.....

Anyway I had some spare time today and my fittings for the breather pipe arrived in the post :)

As I say before I just put a silicone hose on the back of it and left it open to atmosphere, seemed like a good idea at the time but the oil vapour does make quite a mess.

The pipe in question.

Cut up and fittings installed.

Goes into an old 1Litre oil bottle I have fitted where the old carbon canister thing used to sit.

Also while at work I've been going through old threads on here and Club G40 and reading about issues people have had in the past with the CO Pot being set wrong. Didn't suspect anything wrong with mine but thought since I'm under the bonnet I'll give it a check. First reading was something like 565Ohms, which is close enough but I adjusted the screw and got it to sit at 551Ohms. They are apparently meant to sit at 550Ohms so close enough :)

Off work tomorrow so hopefully get started on the rear brakes and do something with the alternator as well.

The CO pot should be set up with a gas analyser - 550 ohms is a suggested starting point for a standard G40 engine. The engine in my grey car has 310cc injectors, and to get the emissions in spec the CO pot is set at 1300 ohms. It was stupid rich at 550, so used an MOT gas analyser to correct it. Hope this helps!

It passed the emissions test just fine in it's MOT but I'll see if I can get it checked again this week. I'm running standard G40 injectors so should be ok.

So going by that does less resistance mean a richer mixture?

I believe that's correct - as soon as you get it on the gas analyser the effect of turning the screw one way or the other will be clear to see on the display.

When my car was mapped, the standard injectors leaned out at 160+ HP - you could probably benefit from bigger injectors if you add any more boost.

Edited 13 July, 201511 yr by sleag40