1990 Golf Cabrio, 2.0 16v, Throttle Bodies, BBS RS

Love your car I almost bought it when it was up for sale but you beat me to it! I ended up with another black one on ATS cups I loved that car! Glad your car is getting the treatment it deserves with the engine etc. Ill be keeping an eye on this!

Thats correct yes thats me I had a great car with that but then financial situation wouldnt let me keep it!

I'm a VW nut moved to germany home of the VW and have a citroen ZX volcane!?!?!?!?!! and I like it too! But really need another B3 passat in my life I had one just before the citroen and it was amazing! But technically I'm saving for a bay hence the lack of volkswagen in my life (cant leave them alone!!) It was a very nice car the guy who bought it loved it and only drove it to show etc then was on his way to a show and a 206 wrote it off!

Tonight was the night for pulling the engine, all going well, got all the relevant hoses, wires and pipes undone, and removed the bonnet



However, it wasn't going to happen, got all the mounts undone went to undo the offside mount, and the f***ing bolt has seized inside the bush in the mount, no bother we thought, we'll just apply a bit of leverage, so attached a 3' bar onto the socket, but couldn't get the movement...

So, off with it's head, easier to undo the headbolts than the manifolds, so off it came:



But the curse word bolt still won't undo, so looks like my only option is going to be cutting either end of the bolt out, can't unbolt the mount from the engine, as the mount is in the way of the bolts, don't want to burn it out as I'll wreck the pain, less than happy tonight

As it sits this evening:

Finished painting the engine mounts, got the new inserts pressed in, as luck would have it, the insert that bugpack supply for the earlier Mk1's happens to fit more or less perfectly in the gearbox mount, so that should help stiffen it up a bit.



Also picked up my exhaust manifold from work, obviously I'm going to appear a bit biased, but it really is a nicely put together bit of kit, the welding is neat, the finish is great, and it looks like it should flow well (no obstructions, or nasty bits of weld inside) ok so it's not as shiny as an ebay one, but chrome don't get you home, and I'd rather have something that fits and is made in England by craftsmen, as opposed to something shiny that's made by children :ph34r:

Anyway pics...







Should hopefully be getting the bay steam cleaned over the weekend.

Had a major tidy up in the garage today as it was getting stupid trying to climb over various bits of 8v and 16v engines, besides I'd lost a fuel injector, and wasn't happy!

After that decided to crack on with getting more done, so gunked the whole bay again, the steam cleaner wasn't available so had to resort to good old elbow grease, a bit more room to play with now there's no lump in there.

Removed the steering rack mounts and gave them a coat or two of paint, along with the rear gearbox mount:



"placed" my new 4-2-1 in as well, hopefully getting the rest of the system tomorrow



Once the mounts were all dry, I got on with fitting them, with the new Bugpack bushes, along with a test fit of my Wiechers lower brace.



Hopefully getting the block, head and box dropped in tomorrow to do some calculations on inlet manifold length.

Thanks for reading, and comments.

Having had a play about with the chopped down inlet manifold it's become clear that to get the ideal inlet tract measurement we're going to need to run a shorter rad, so after a bit of research it appears that a Corsa B 1.2 16v rad is the one (the inlet and outlet are on the same side as the OE Mk rad) and whilst it's a thinner core, it's also a bit wider, so with addition of 2x 9" Spal fans it should stay cool enough, after some geeky workings out the fans will cover 54% of the surface area of the rad, and shifting around 1000 m3/hour each they should be more than up to the job.

Whilst waiting for the rad and fans to arrive I decided to tackle the rear beam bushes, not a job I've been looking forward to but actually they went pretty easily, loads of people say the OE bushes need pressing out, b0llocks, a few squirts of GT85 and a lighter and they popped straight out :lol:



and simply pushed in the new ones:



I'll be ordering my Corsa radiator next week to go with my 2 x 9" Spal fans:



also got some new boots, a set of brand new 195/45 T1R's delivered to my door for a lot less than it would have cost me anywhere else, hopefully this will mean I can get the RS's built up and on, which should allow me to set ride heights etc, and get the mojo flowing again in these cold evenings. Originally I was going to run 185/45's but with Nankang being the only option it seemed stupid to spend a load of effort on getting the thing to go, stop and handle (at least for a cabrio) to then stick a set of DitchFinder II's on it... I've used T1R's on various cars before, and next to SP9000's they're my favorite tyre so hopefully it'll all be good



Got my Pipercross filter backplate too, won't get the foam until we know what size trumpets we're going to run...


Just waiting for our delivery of wishbones and balljoints to be unpacked at work then I can get the new urethane bushed wishbones back on, and get it back down on all 4 wheels

Went and picked up a few bits from TPS today on my way home from work, got some new injector seats off a Digi 8v, and some new injector retaining clips for my 20vT fuel rail.

Beauty of this is that the injector spacing is the same on the 20vT as it is on the 16v, so by removing the original K-Jet injectors and seats, then screwing in the new Digi ones (same thread) it allows me to fit the 20vT injectors straight in.

Like so:









More soon, thanks for reading, as ever comments or criticism welcome

more BBS related tomfoolery...









Centres Ceramic Polished by Mike and Darren, Rims, Centre nuts and barrel nuts done by me, Gold Bolts by Just Matz and Barrels satin black powdered by my mate Richard at GLF, proper job B)

curse word photos ©iPhone

Gotta say not really into Golf Cabs. but the standard of workmanship here is superb. Love all the powder coated and polished goodies, it's all in the detail.
The 9A conversion on throttle bodies should make a lovely noise and produce decent power too.
A really well written and interesting thread.