I've owned this 1990 Gti for about 18 months and it's made for a great daily drive, I just found myself wanting a bit more power! Now I've got the luxury of a garage to work in I thought I'd do a DIY conversion which is something I've always wanted to do. Here are a few pics of the car before it came off the road for the conversion: I've decided to do a 2.0 bottom end conversion as it's the first time I've done anything like this and it seems like a good place to start. I'm using an AGG bottom end which I bought off ebay. It came with the head, gearbox and all ancillaries so I'm hoping to sell these on to make some money back I'll be keeping the PB head and fitting new valve guides, stem seals, getting 3 angled valve seats cut and fitting a high lift cam of some description (around 270ish). I'm also going to try a bit of porting and polishing as per mr hillclimbers guide. I'll let the pics do the rest of the talking: My new home for the next few months! Engine out on makeshift engine stand! Oily ports = stem seals virtually non-existant! I stripped the head down then gave it a hot bath the missus went mental!!! I then took it into work and pressed out the valve guides with a little tool I made: Valve throats look like they've had some 'work' done before on a mill, leaving a big step around the guide boss. Any thoughts on this? PB on the left, AGG on the right. Both are absolutely filthy! AGG got soaked in Mr Muscle oven cleaner then scrubbed and painted - not a fun job but worth it I think... I also got a bit carried away and painted a load of other bits: Rocker cover: although I may decide to use the AGG rocker, not sure yet. I'm using an AGG block as opposed to a 2E, meaning the distributor won't work with the PB management so I've had to modify the PB dizzy. The drive gears were swapped over and I turned an adaptor ring to locate the dizzy in the new block. This needs modifying to include an O-ring groove though... I think that's about it for now but I will keep this updated when I've got more pics!
I'll second that about your car looking Great on the Sebrings!!!! Gaz- You really got 40 for your old engine????
Great looking car and another vote for Sebrings. Properly underrated wheel in my opinion (even if they are pig heavy!) Your attention to detail is superb, top work.
Now I know what my car will look like with sebrings on, very nice, wish I bought that set last year :-( very clean car, keep up the good work!
Thanks for the comments! I do love the look of the Sebrings but wish they were a tiny bit wider - 7j would be perfect but then they'd be even heavier!! I'm planning on keeping the old block just untill I've got the new one up and running and I know it's ok. 40 for weighing it in sounds good to me though! Just put a load of the Mk3 parts on ebay which should fund some more bits and pieces
It's all money in the pot! I've got a 2.0 agg in mine but want to change it next year for a abf 16v for a little extra power.
The step round the top at the valve seat looks pretty normal for VAG 8v heads of the 80s and 90s - I'd say the same about round the guide boss, but I'm less sure. I reckon that's original factory bodging, rather than aftermarket bodging.
Good looking. Im in the proces of doin that conversion too, also using the agg. Could you do me a favour and post the inner diameter and the height of the dizzy spacer? That will save me pulling mine from the golf.. Going to make it by cutting the agg one up, that way i can preserve the o-ring groove and not have to make it up on a lathe (wich i dont have) Will be following this
Ok, thanks Mike. I won't worry about this too much then. When I come to do the porting that will all disappear anyway I don't quite understand what you mean about cutting the agg dizzy up to preserve the o-ring groove? The inner diameter of the spacer is 34.5mm, outer diameter 44.5mm and length is something like 8mm from memory but I need to double check as I'm not sure it's right...
Good stuff matey. I've did the conversion in my old MK2. Was very pleased with it and it only had a 268 and C20XE Injectors. I'm currently in the process of building another 2.0l 8v for my new one. This time I am using a 2E Block, And luckily I saved my 2E Dizzy! PB head, 285 Kent and vernier, 4 branch and all the rest of it. Hoping for some good results! I had an ABF Last off and was happy with it but there's nothing like the pull from an 8v
Would have. But im from denmark, so it would be too much trouble with shipping and all.. + dont really think there's any buyers for the dizzy..
Not had much time on the Golf but I've got a few bits done... Took the head to work and gave it a light skim - 0.1mm cleaned it up which I'm happy with as I don't want to raise compression too much. The fly cutter I used didn't give a great finish but it was all I had available and it did the job. I've just dusted it over with some emery paper to get a better finish. Also ordered some carbide burr tools so I can start the porting when they arrive! I turned up a new dizzy ring as the first one I made didn't have a groove for the o-ring which was a pretty bad idea! I don't have a picture but it was the same just with a 3mm groove, 2.5mm deep. I spent over an hour trying to get the dizzy to locate in the oil pump drive before realising I'd put the dizzy gear on the wrong way round as you will see in the previous photo! DOH!! Anyway, I got that sorted and it's working well I'll get some pics tomorrow but I've started building the block back up with the freshly painted water pump, PAS pump, oil cooler (had to use the AGG one which I didn't realise before). Also, took the sump off and checked oil pickup gauze which was clean and everything else looks pretty good down there. Anyway I'll get some pics up tomorrow as there are a few things I'm not sure on and I'm going to need some help!
Didn't get much done today, just been messing around with the belt covers trying to work out what I need to use and drilling out and replacing a couple of broken bolts on the water pump. I've got all of the belt covers from both the AGG and PB but can't seem to find a combination that works without cutting/bodging which I'm not keen on. Here's a pic of the block with most of the bits put back on: Bit of a strange picture as the block is on it's side/upside down as I was checking out the oil pump pickup etc: It's nice and clean so I'm not going to touch it, just going to clean out the sump and fit a new gasket. I may even just use the gasket from the PB sump as it's only about a year old. One more thing I'm not sure on is the tensioner bolt for the PAS pump. My car never had one, it just had a bolt holding the two brackets together but when I came to reassemble it I noticed in the Haynes diagram there should be a tensioning bolt? Does anybody have a picture of this setup as I can't get my head around how it works and whether I need one! It was working fine before...
I've started a bit of head porting tonight with the new burr tools. I took a bit of a gamble and got some cheapo ebay ones from Hong Kong but they're suprisingly good quality and are more than up to the job! http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/10-pieces..._Metalworking_Supplies_ET&hash=item2a1ade9c9c I started on the guide boss to get a bit of practice but soon got the hang of it and this was all that was left... Also started opening out the thoat a little... Still got work to do on this port but I'm feeling a lot more confident with it now and it doesn't take as long as I was expecting - about 20mins to remove the boss and only a few mins on the throat so far. Hopefully get a lot more done over the weekend then I'll feel like I'm getting somewhere with it!
how common is the 2E engine over there? because you can just drop the 2E dizzy right in and it'll work with PB management without any messing about the other option is swap a 4 window trigger wheel into the AGG dizzy, the PB one may even swap over
