Evening All, Our old '97 Mk3 2.0 8v convertible is a little battered and tired and so we have picked up a newer replacement with a good body and chassis, but a gutless 1.8 engine that appears to have a head gasket issue as well. So.. I'm looking to take our old 2.0 8v engine and drop it in to the new car. As far as I have rear it should be relatively straight forward. The engine and gearbox will go over complete and I gather that I also need to move over looms, ECU, key and locks and transponder and probably also the fuel pump. Does that sound about right? Whilst I am at it I was thinking of trying to tweak the engine. Are there minor tweaks like changing headers and exhaust (I need a new one anyway), chipping, etc. that are worth doing at the same time? Any pointers would be appreciated. Thanks
You'll need ecu and loom plus fuel pump yep with immobiliser side couple options: 1. use registered copy of vagcom to code the existing immobiliser box to the new ecu, keep locks, keys, chips etc etc 2. swap 97 immobiliser box over, pop chips out of 97 cab keys and swap to new cab keys, no coding, no lockset swapping use the 2.0 8v exhaust manifold and downpipe, it'll probably fit to the new cabrio cat. if not swap that and other exhaust components as desired. I think the 1.8 system is same bore as 2.0 post cat, but double check that regarding the loom though, you may find it needs a bit of effort putting in before it will fit depending on just how new the new cabrio is. The later ones have different lighting loom to early, and since 96ish onwards mk3 chassis have ecu and lighting loom as one big lump this means you may have to split both looms down and mash together to make a new cabrio 2.0 loom. with regards chip/mapping get the car up and running 100% first, then you can work from a solid base to get where you want to go with it
Hello, Julian, Whereabouts are you? (I didn't think that the so-called '3.5' cabrio was supplied with the 1.8 engine in the u.k) Between the 'regular' mk3 cabrio and the 3.5, the type of immobiliser box used changed. The later one has different connectors, and a different reader spool to suit the later type steering lock. If you wanted to use the older set-up in the newer car, the dash harness (from fusebox sockets P and Q) would also need to be altered/transferred. This could leave the later cars' radio, if there is one, not working, or items such as glovebox lamp and a/c switches lacking their connector(s)
ah missed it was a 2000 cab in the title yes the later cab uses a polo type immob box and those are a fair bit more tricky. For a start you cant pull the SKC code out of them with the likes of vag-tacho, you have to read the chip inside direct then get it pulled from there, Chris Bellman on Facebook has performed this task for me a couple times but if you swap early mk3 type immobiliser box over the wiring is very simple, the loom splits off from the main dash section once you split the tape down, as there is only the ignition live wire to plug E fusebox side. Then there's a plug to ecu loom, a plug to diagnostics jumper and a ring terminal to earth on the chassis somewhere. Main issue is as said you got to swap ignition lock housing over so you can retain the early reader coil. but again this is no problem undo and remove the bolt at the bottom holding UJ to column, and the bolt up the top holding housing to column tube. The whole column and lock comes out together, swap to new cabrio
