Prawny Baby

Absolutely awesome to see the Rocco back on the road! I love that car Two questions for you dude: how have you got your DV piped up currently? I can't see any sign of it in those pics at all? Did you want a stock working OEM DV? I've got one in the garage, I thought I gave you one, but perhaps not. other question: how are the crazy clocks in use? they look so freaky with the needles passing each other as the revs and speed go up! Must take some getting used to! Any pics of it inside now it's finished?

I'd go with the audi S4 or 335i if the budget can stretch!

that's pretty much my thoughts too Adam, hugely capable, and technically fantastic, but as a result less exciting.

What's Bessel driving these days then? Not heard much from him for ages!

I bet that still goes bloody well! I went out in a 330bhp buy-eye and it was pretty epic! The A3 is at 353bhp and 1133kg these days, still more weight to be removed easily, but I like things like my stereo and electric windows so they won't be going anywhere! Puts it in at 312bhp/ton it's about 65-70bhp / ton, but you'll be the one laughing all the way to the petrol station! (or should that be fuel station?)

I'd round that up to 218 if I were you It's amazing what a few bhp one way and a few Kg the other way do for power:weight ratio, mine's only got a bit more power, and only a bit less weight, but power:weight is almost 100bhp more Still, until the sun comes back out in March you'd probably still give me a good thrashing

Decent power, must go pretty well What do these weigh?

TPS and throttle alignment are self calibrating on ME3.8 mate, when you turn the ignition on you should hear it whine for about 30 seconds. later cars need an alignment doing, but these don't. Wouldn't hurt to whip the TB off and give it a really good clean out though, and perhaps try some isopropanol spray on the MAF element. really can't wait to see what it's like though, is it as loud as you first thought? or has it settled down now?

Put simply, they're amazing. Take anything that has a 1.8T fitted, choose your preferred body shape, be it Leon, A3, Octavia, Golf, Bora, then go forth and enjoy one of the finest engines of our generation. 40mpg on a run, 30-32 around town typically, 150bhp stock in the A3 and golf, 180bhp stock in the Leon and octavia, 210bhp for both after a £250 remap, far smoother and more refined than any soot chucker, stupidly cheap to buy now, £1500 will see you a good example of any of the above, cheap to insure, better second hand parts availability than just about anything on the road, as there's such a broad range of vehicles to take parts from due to chassis sharing across the group. Massive enthusiast base, huge amount of technical knowledge available on-line, constant on going development from tuners mean things are always up to date. I really do think that the 20vt in whatever form is the mk2 golf of the current generation, they're at that perfect age where they're modern enough to be fast, reliable, comfy, and smart, yet old enough to have a huge following and parts availability, and be stupidly cheap to buy, tune and run. I have shiney new adjustable top mounts

DOES NOT COMPUTE if you want cheap and powerful, £2.5k should easily see you a 3.0 M3 saloon Rainbirds leon was half your budget, and it's EPIC

looks insanely clean Luke, and really silly money too, prices have fallen even further this year it's just madness!

Just dropped the car off at the bodyshop to have the quarter panel repaired. Fingers crossed it'll come out OK!

I saw more from mine Good going though chap

awesome news on both counts lads : I want a ride in both of these 20vt beasts over the xmas break! As the saying goes, One black one, one white one, one one with a bit of shite on.... So I guess I'll have to go in jardo's car as well I have new shiney stuff too!

:D:D

not that anybody cares that much, but I did a little write up of the complete shifter install I've just finished, so I thought I'd post it here for anybody needing to waste half an hour Take several bottles of beer: Add some ebay: Throw in an auction that's listed in dollars instead of £ to add to the confusion, then wake up in the morning to find you've gone and bid far too much money on something you don't really need. Wait a week whilst pretending it never happened, then return from work to find this waiting for you in a box: So, I appear to have bought a VW MotorSport type shifter from a man in Slovenia, whilst bidding against Americans! I best make it work then! A few more pictures: Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm. this will need cables. stock ones won't be long enough. D'OH back to ebay, random scanning for gear shifter cables, volvo ones look pretty long, I'll try some of them! The ends were wrong, so I bought some of these: M8 ball joints, and m6-M8 thread adapters. I set about threading the ends of the volvo cables, by running an M6 dye down the end of the rod: Then screwed on the M6-M8 adapter: To which a ball joint fits nicely: Sorted. Next up, cable stops: Bit of 3mm plate cut to shape: And the volvo cable ends fit very nicely: repeat: I didn't like the lack of self centering on the shifter, so decided to add some using a massey fergusson tractor brake pedal return spring: Which would sit in here: Drilled the base plate to locate the spring: Then fitted it in, and forgot to take pics. works well though Moving onto the tower, I wasn't so keen on the look of the welds on it, so decided to grind them back: Then sanded it down and applied some primer: it came out fairly good. Not perfect, but i'm not a paint man on the whole! I finished adding threads to all the cable ends: Then found that the ball joint ends on an 2000 02J linkage were the same size as the ones I've bought. result! Onto the cable stop bracket at the box end, I cut slots into it to allow the volvo outer ends to fit: And that's the box end sorted: Moving inside the car, here's the old shifter, mounted internally: Removed, and the new tower placed into position: An idea of how it might look: The tunnel was a bit thin at the leading edge of the new tower where the hole used to be for the old shifter, so I made up a sandwich plate to bolt down through the tunnel and clamp the new shifter into place: Started removing the old box linkages under the bonnet to allow me to hook the cables up and position the inner stops: First volvo cable in place: Measured up positions for the first cable stop, and welded it to a base plate. my welding isn't pretty, so don't be nasty Cleaned up and in place: First cable test fitted: Second cable stop clamped up ready to tack: Decided to add a little gusset on this one as it'll take more abuse on the fore / aft movement Nasty welding, but it's strong enough! Cleaned up a bit: All the parts sanded down and primed: Then 3 coats of Porsche 8C6 orange: And laquered: Time to start installing Gaping hole needed filling: Painted black, and all bolted up and finished Sorry the last pics are dark, it got dark! shifter feels really awesome to use, to precise with ball joints on all ends now, really accurate from gear to gear, and a nice short shift too which I can adjust to suit my needs. Aside from feeling a bit more positive, there isn't really a great deal more to it, but I've seen these in the past and ALWAYS wanted one, so when one popped up on ebay, I just had to have it!

Looking good J-Rod So, after 3 whole days of work, this shifter is FINALLY finished! But more on that in a minute. I started this morning by doing the battery, so I could have a radio on whilst I worked today. I forgot to get pics, because I'm rubbish, but basically, I took the battery tray out and drilled it, then made up a second bracket from the channel section alloy to go under the tray, and cut some thread bar to hold the battery down in the tray. Sorted! I managed to use the original terminals, rotated through 90 degrees, with the tabs on the battery drilled out to 6mm instead of 5mm. The OEM junction box that sits on top of the battery even fitted on really well with a little tweak: Turned the key, and it fires the car up perfectly. Very happy with that, 12kg saved for just £40! On to the shifter, I started today by bolting up the left - right cable that I'd finished yesterday: Then I marked up and drilled the position for the fore / aft cable bracket and bolted it on: A few adjustments, and I was finally able to see how it was going to feel changing gear: Massive hole from the old shifter needed sorting, so I got on with making up a plate to blank the hole: Then painted it black: So, that's the shifter finished. Along with other little jobs, it's taken me 3 days! I do work slow, but I'm in no huge hurry and I like to get things right, so I'm really happy with it. A test drive has revealled that it feels AMAZING, so precise going into gears and really accurate feeling. The left/right gate is a LITTLE narrow compared to what I'm used to, but the self centering is really good and it snaps back to centre very nicely. I think I'll modify a box lever arm next weekend to increase the left /right gate slightly, but that's just a preference. All in all a really good weekend working on the car

Is the white one your old shell Alex? Arches look similar! Well done on the result

Tuning boxes are scary stuff. A box of resistors and shit is nothing like a remap! Another weekend, another update: New battery has arrived, and it's for a mobility scooter! 6Kg, 22Ah, Deep discharge, not hooked it up yet, but I'm convinced it'll work just fine, Dad found this one for us on ebay after I mentioned the idea after Andy did something similar on the volvo: Carrying on with the shifter, when I offered the base tower into the car, the old hole from the original shifter was slightly too wide, and didn't give me enough room to neatly get bolts through the front corners of the tower. I didn't want to drill messy holes right on the very edge of the alloy, so decided to make up a plate to match the tower under the tunnel and sandwich the whole thing into place: 6 holes drilled, and tapped to an M6 thread: Will also back the bolts up with nuts as well, as I don't think threaded 3mm plate is man enough. With that cut and shaped, I bolted the shifter in, no pics at this point, as it looks the same as it did last time I rested it in place. I moved onto the gearbox end, and removed the old shift tower and left right levers: And refitted the modified cable bracket, and the first volvo cable: Then I forgot to take pics for a while, and started making up the cable stop for the left right cable: Cut, welded up, and ground back a bit, because my welds arn't the greatest looking! Cleaned up and bolted into the tunnel in position: Cable taped at Mid travel, box and lever set at mid point, and the first cable is installed: Onto the second cable stop, Cut and clamped in place ready for welding: Tacked on before welding up further: I decided to gusset this one, as it's the fore / aft cable stop, and it sits a little higher, and will take more abuse Welded up, and ground back again. Welds arn't the prettiest, but they work Got bored of playing cables and decided to test fit the battery. For now, to save on cabling and make life easier, I'm mounting it in the stock location. This purchase was brought forward after my old battery decided to die whilst up at R-tech and I've ben jump starting the car ever since. Found it'll sit in the middle of the existing battery tray quite nicely, just needs something to secure it down: Time to paint some stuff. All primed up: Then 3 coats of orange 8C6 base coat: Then finally 3 coats of laquer. pics don't show up well at all, but it seems like a pretty good finish. Will know for sure in the morning when it's all fully dry:

bird: text me before you buy anything. If it's APP, it's ko3 not ko3s, so a really early pre facelift car. It'd have to be stupid cheap to even consider it IMO. Metal water pump no longer the prefered option, move with the times dude. Lack of vvt? no, no difference. Lack of ko3s? it'd be a deal breaker for me. I bet you can't, not without removing the TIP. I know how to spot it, but I'd bet good money you're thinking on the wrong lines dude.

mine last turned a wheel under it's own steam on december 12th last year Simon: allowing your car to continue along a road with the chassis rails grinding out and the gearbox getting smashed to f**k isn't manning up in any sense of the word. It's being a fukwhit with no mechanical sympathy. By all means, I LOVE low cars, but you have to drive them a certain way, just playing ignorant to the untold damage you're doing and bashfully carrying on regardless is retarded.

haha, Sam's right. 20v turbo car, half the parts from prawns garage.... could be half the forum now

This is true, 345lbft to be precise Still, the westy is epic, in every possible sense of the word, and I want it so bad.

Jesus, that's insane!!!!! I have 303bhp, and even that is pretty mental

what is the power:weight on that little thing anyway? I remember you saying it was 228bhp, forget the weight.