Great work as usual Tav. This is gonna be the very best spec GT out there.

TBH, I'd be a pissed off with the subframe not fitting. I know your not the first person who has had fitting issues. At over £500 they should be a perfect fit. I can understand some tolerance issues where they attatch to the bodywork as some cars are gonna be a bit "different". However, the "wishbone" front mounts should be perfect as they are not a car related fitment. The gearbox mount surely can't be that difficult to make once they have a proper jig, which I assume they do? I think that Pete and Henry (I'm not blaming them personally) may have to kick some arse at the manufacturers.

I had to grind the pimples off the back of my TCA mounts too when I was making up the rear part of my subframe. So it seems that mk2 Polo's have them too! At least I know my subframe will fit perfectly, and cost less than £100 all in!

Keep up the good work and excellent write up's. Also more pics please.

Cheers,

Richard.

Edited 24 May, 200818 yr by breadman

Great work as usual Tav. This is gonna be the very best spec GT out there.

TBH, I'd be a pissed off with the subframe not fitting. I know your not the first person who has had fitting issues. At over £500 they should be a perfect fit. I can understand some tolerance issues where they attatch to the bodywork as some cars are gonna be a bit "different". However, the "wishbone" front mounts should be perfect as they are not a car related fitment. The gearbox mount surely can't be that difficult to make once they have a proper jig, which I assume they do? I think that Pete and Henry (I'm not blaming them personally) may have to kick some arse at the manufacturers.

I had to grind the pimples off the back of my TCA mounts too when I was making up the rear part of my subframe. So it seems that mk2 Polo's have them too! At least I know my subframe will fit perfectly, and cost less than £100 all in!

Keep up the good work and excellent write up's. Also more pics please.

Cheers,

Richard.

Hi Richard,

Firstly, the subframe fits... :-) Remember you're dealing with a polo chassis and a bespoke hand-made suspension component, with distances of circa 650mm and descrepancys of 1/2mm between cars you're looking at an error of 0.3%- something so small I can't do anything about it- the only way to get round it is to have once custom made on your car.

However a little bit of tweaking is always necessary, it's also important to have the frame in almost static tension, to ensure it's holding everything together as it should be- the best roll cages are made this way.

Some of Tav's problems occured because he'd had stuff powdercoated, adding a layer of 1-2mm on every surface- the nut/bolt problem is down to Henry & myself for trying to improve upon the standard nuts with nylock items (something we thoguht customers would apprechaite- despite the extra cost) alas we hadn't considered that the frames had been made without this in mind, but as Tav did a £0.68 fix and by no means the end of the world.

Well done for making a frame so cheaply for yourself, I made a rollcage for £0 for my mk1- it's by no means as good as a custom cages item, and I've not told them so yet

We've sold near 20 frames now, with over 15 reported fitting and working fine, with only minor tweaks needed- somewhat of a sucess in my eyes, only 1 so far has been (or will be) returned for modification due to a new front end being fitted to the car (so it's probably too striaght!!) Easy to criticise when you've made your own and it all goes swimmingly but please remember what we're up against here.

Mark- well done for finally fitting it :) look forward to hearing some feedback after a good hard test drive.

Cheers

Pete

Steady Pete, I did say I wasn't blaming you and I certainly wasn't criticising you.

Read my post carefully, I did say that I can understand that some people may have fitting issues on the car itself because of the different tolerences on different cars.

What I can't understand is why the tension strut pick up is inacurately fitted. One side is absolutely fine, so why not the other? I believe GiorgioGT had exactly the same problem? To me this sounds like a fault at manufacture - not design. As you have stated, you have sold nearly 20 subframes and 15 have gone on without any issues.

The gearbox mount is a small and easy to make bracket, I can't see why each one isn't trial fitted by the manufacturer to ensure it fits. I don't mean fit it to the car, just try it on a spare gearbox? It'd take seconds to ensure that all three bolts fit.

BTW, I totally agree with the use of nyloc nuts.

Anyway, my subframe isn't finished yet so I'm not boasting - yet!

Love and peace man.

Edited 24 May, 200818 yr by breadman

No worries Richard- I'm probably too quick to defend our products, but we've put alot of hard work and effort into them :-)

I'm not sure about the gearbox mounts and how they could go wrong, they're actually made using a gearbox casing as a jig!

Pete :-)

good work geez.

bit suprised by your choice of disks an pads tho, lots of lads down my way hate greenstuff, and for good reason, also suprised you didn't go for grooved brembo disks...

anyhoo, other than that, a sweet polo.

Lots of people seem to not get on with Greenstuff but I have absolutely no complaints at all. Plain disks are fine as well and will give me a base to compare to when I upgrade in future. Car will lock its wheels at quite high speeds if you desire, no fade found yet...they are quite dusty son's o' bitches though. EBC must be doing something right as they are quite popular.

Jetback, why the dislike of Greenstuff pads? You say with "good reason"? What is your reasoning?

I had a set on my G40 when I bought it and they seemed fine.

Grooved discs in principle are a very good idea. However, the set I had (Tarox) on my Manta were crap. I had matching Tarox pads too and they were noisy in operation and the grooves soon filled up with brake dust causing the pads to float and flutter on high speed stops.

I got my Greenstuff smoking within a 2 mile stretch of the Brecon Beacons but they were an old set so I'm willing to try them again.

I'm using Pagids at the moment but haven't really tested them properly.

i never had any real issues on my greens just when i went to raicams they were alot better. i did notice the greens when worn down started cracking and falling off the backings

Any news on this? Excellent topic btw.

Be interested to see how you tackle the rear disk conversion, and the bias valve as I'm planning to do the same.

Rich

Any news on this? Excellent topic btw.

Be interested to see how you tackle the rear disk conversion, and the bias valve as I'm planning to do the same.

Rich

i already have all that on my car and it is not as simple as first made out! :-D

Guessing you used goodridge 600 series hose then? Also..the bias adjuster, do you need one for each side of the brake circuit? or just one? where is it located in the circuit?

you dont run a sided circuit, you have to split the brakes front to back for it to work. and yes used 600 series stainless braided hose and all the fitting. word of warining, the hose is cheap at £6 a mtr but the fittings are extortionate. it cost me £120 to do £30 of which was the hose!!!!

you dont run a sided circuit, you have to split the brakes front to back for it to work. and yes used 600 series stainless braided hose and all the fitting. word of warining, the hose is cheap at £6 a mtr but the fittings are extortionate. it cost me £120 to do £30 of which was the hose!!!!

Ahh i see, I'm just trying to get my head around how that works, I'm guessing you have completely redone all the lines? Yeah i was amazed at the prices!

yes completely new lines

Whoopsie I seem to have gone and made a bit of an impulse buy to bring some (temporary) go to the GT:

Fook me that looks sweet.

Is that Yoof's old engine?

oooh yes that was possibly the nicest sounding GT that i ever did hear! reckon it runs pretty well too, you likely to be running nitrous with it like yoof was?

No nitrous for me, I think Pete must have inhaled too much of that stuff...bit OTT for me I don't have the first clue about it either, never even been in a car with it fitted.

I've just bought the ITB/induction/injection/ECU set-up to bolt onto my GT from Currie who bought it from Pete. Should make for an interesting foray into the world of N/A tuning and mappable ECU's. From what I can gather Pete was hoping for about 125bhp when finally set up, I'm going to copy some of his set up and maybe try some different items here and there and make that power output my aim. Hopefully be able to get the benefit of his knowledge given that he put it together.

Only thing I am worried about is liking it more than the prospect of a G40 and wanting to keep it...but that won't happen...surely...

Edit: ....the above post is correct the car sounded simply awesome at Polo Show '07. I never thought I'd fit a K&N to a car...now I'm going to buy 4...

Edited 4 July, 200818 yr by Tav

haha 4 K&N's you massive barry. in all seriousness though it should give you a fiar old insight into mappable ecu's, was a megasquirt set up iirc so a fairly decent base to start with. seeing as this is just a road car i'm sure nitrous isn't much of a concern for you but i'm sure after a couple of 1/4 mile sprints you'll notice how much of a difference the cars running "gas" make times wise. as for liking it more than the idea of a g40 just think if you acheive around 130bhp'ish with this, a g40 has the scope to see 200 easily so theres just no contest!

This is turning into a right beast ..

I know the pain getting annoyed with a car your working on

Mines in the gargae being finnshed off i cant be arsed any more

I'm dreading the bill though

Hope all goes well putting the new engine in mate

haha 4 K&N's you massive barry. in all seriousness though it should give you a fiar old insight into mappable ecu's, was a megasquirt set up iirc so a fairly decent base to start with. seeing as this is just a road car i'm sure nitrous isn't much of a concern for you but i'm sure after a couple of 1/4 mile sprints you'll notice how much of a difference the cars running "gas" make times wise. as for liking it more than the idea of a g40 just think if you acheive around 130bhp'ish with this, a g40 has the scope to see 200 easily so theres just no contest!

haha massive barry...

The megasquirt will come with the map for Yoofs car I believe so if I can match the engine spec. there shouldn't be too much to do. You are right about 1/4 mile sprints, but I'm more likely to be taking it to track days to start...nitrous would good for the climb up the Knockhill straight...might take it down to Crail though and see if I can't surprise a few people.

This is turning into a right beast ..

I know the pain getting annoyed with a car your working on

Mines in the gargae being finnshed off i cant be arsed any more

I'm dreading the bill though

Hope all goes well putting the new engine in mate

haha I feel your pain, I've still got the car on stands fitting the subframe conversion. Waiting on a couple of bolts from VW and it's testing my patience. Don't envy you waiting on a nasty bill, sure it'll be worth it when it is done though....just don't go selling it it like a lot of people do

Edited 4 July, 200818 yr by Tav

Awesome stuff going on here and i have to say i am impressed by the depth of your pockets.

Although if you are going to do a job you may as well do it to the best of your ability and there is no corners cut on this job.

If i am ever that far up North i insist that you take me for spin in it. Also may be interested in some information about the setup in the not so distant future.

Great job and i can't believe currie sold you anything

from me.

Thats gonna be lovely if you get it all fitted.

I have to disagree with philly though, I think this could be just as much fun as a 200bhp G40. It'll probably be no more than 120 bhp, but the sound and throttle response will really make up for the power and torque defecit. Its not all about outright performance, it'll still be quite quick.

IMO, you can't beat the sound of a 4 cylinder engine with individual throttle bodies/carbs.

7k rpm through 4 individual chokes

Oh yes please!