I picked up a mk1 polo bread van on the weekend with the intention of putting a 1.8t engine out of a mk4 golf that I have , does anybody happen to know if the mounting points are the same as a mk1 golf ? Or where I might possibly be able to buy mounts to do the swap ? Any information would be useful

What year is the car?

And there isn't really an easy way nope, probably need custom mounts, shafts etc, coupled with the fact it'd be very tight and tall for the engine bay too.

It's a 1984 ,

Fabrication isn't a problem I just thought there might a mount available to purchase as they do them for the golf,caddy etc

Lots a fabrication needed. Will need a very shallow sump and have the engine sat as high as you can in the bay. Custom mounts. It's not a straight fit like golfs etc as the polo platform of that age were only designed for small block engines.

Yours will be a mk2 polo btw.

It's pretty much a none starter, the engine bay isn't tall enough and that's just the start of the problems. I'm not going to say it's impossible, there's one or two left hand drive ones over on the continent, the but we've had many people say they're going to do it, show us pictures of their engine bay empty and chopped to bits, then go suspiciously quiet.

The car is small and light, if you want to go fast you don't need torque, work with that in mind and within the constraints of the little car and there are plenty of ways to do it, which is why there are so many 1.4 and 1.6 valvers on here.

Salzmann do a subframe for the Polo to convert to a Golf engine...but at £700 last I checked it isn't cheap. Also that is just the start of the story, there will still be lots of cutting and fabrication to do after that.

As Steve says lots of people over the years up to the present day pop up and say they are going to put a 1.8T or Mk2/3 Golf GTI engine in their Polo. They get told it isn't worth it for various reasons and the usual response is "I'm a mechanic, fabricator, machinist, magician" or whatever but then you never hear or see of the car or person again.

There are plenty of tried and tested engine swaps and modifications that can make these cars very nippy and have upwards of 200bhp in some cases. I'd suggest spending your time and resources going down one of these routes instead.

Lol I'm a magician

Well if there's a couple in Europe then it must be do able , thanks you for your help , we will be mock fitting the engine on Saturday and will post information on the work we do/don't need to do to the bay ! We are even more determind to do it now know that there's none in the country haha !

Put a build thread up!

look forward to seeing it finished

Me too.

May need a floor mounted pedal box too to free up some space around the bulkhead

The continental ones are left hand drive, so the steering rack and master cylinder are on the gearbox side and even then, if you look at the ones that have been done, the engine bay is stupidly tight.

You don't need torque in an 800kg car, and you don't want to be adding weight. If you want to to something original that would really work well in the Polo's lightweight body - stick a big bike engine in.

Bike engines have been done Steve

It's far from impossible, but it is a hell of a lot of work. You will have to chop large sections out of the chassis legs and re fab them (look at yoofs G40 passenger chassis leg for an example of what's needed).

Getting the engine in is just one part of the problem. The standard front suspension setup is well out of its depth long before having to cope with the weight and extra power of a 1.8t. I'd say a wishbone conversion would be a bare minimum. Spring rates ect will need adjusting to work with the extra weight if you want it to handle even half decently.

M/C and servo being in the way isn't even an issue, you can buy parts off the self to get that out of the way, no idea why people make such a big deal of that tbh. You'll be wanting to convert to hydraulic clutch anyway, so an after market peddle box will solve both of these issues.

Will need a custom down pipe ect, but if you are capable of fab bing up new chassis legs then a D/P isn't going to be an issue.

Rather than pissing about with trying to wire in the standard 20v management I'd just go with an after market setup so you can keep the cars wiring mostly untouched.

Bigger brakes will be needed but this has been covered lots of times on here so there plenty of info already available on that.

Yeah I've never really understood people making such a fuss of the brakes either guy, like you say pedal boxes and shit are off the shelf parts

Due to the extent of fabrication needed, if it was me I'd cage it and space frame the front end. That gives you the functionality of making your own suspension set up and more room in the bay. Tbo if I was going to put a 1.8t in such a light car I would 4 wheel drive it, otherwise it would just be unbearable on handling with anything over 250bhp