Mk2 Golf 8v GTi to 16v ITB Build Thread (Pic Heavy)

Shame about the problems, you wouldn't expect issues like that with decent kit....no matter how caused.

On bit of advice I would give is to replace the K&N type filter on top of the catch tank with a rubber pipe and run it down behind the faint wheels somewhere. In my experience a filter like that just allows an oil mist out that then covers the area around it in a film of oil. Ok it works, but it makes a mess long term.....on the plus side it stops anything rusting

 

Also, the fumes out of this pot are not really healthy.
In my Golf I have a breather filter, as it runs only a few days per year, but in my DAF I've applied the hose option Tony describes as the fumes really were getting into the interior of the car.

 

Yeah it is surprising to have something like this happen with a well known and trusted company. The good thing is that they are concerned about it and they do want to investigate what’s happening and get to the bottom of it as they said it’s not something I’ve ever had before with any of the throttle bodies not just VW ones. I’ll make sure to update this thread. Once the issue is resolved just in case it helps anyone in the future.

I did notice on the drive home, but there was a little bit of a smell and a few vapours escaping from that filter so I might change it to a hose or maybe I return to the engine down the line. The same people I’ve got my cam cover from do an option where the oil filler is raised and you can have a return fitting welded on underneath, so maybe that’s an idea

 

As you say, problems happen in any business and its not really that they happened (unless its a continual issue of course) but how they are dealt with. Yes, it often has a knock on effect on time and additional costs, but the supplier inherits the same issues, so didn't do it intentionally. Nothing to be gained by anyone jumping of social media to rant without even talking properly to the supplier, and that doesn't mean just ranting to them either, unless you just want to be the center of attention.

Hope it gets sorted quick, as I'm sure it will with established suppliers like these.

Whilst its not a fix, you can see I have an extra return spring on the Jenveys on my 16v (for regs not necessity)......although thinking now you have the DTH ones don't you, so maybe no help.....but maybe an extra return spring for peace of mind might be worth it anyway?

However you can also see how I have the breather set up, its a two part baffled catch tank, but should it fill up the vent pipe goes back down the chassis rail, on the right as I mentioned above....keeps everything clean. I've found on big power/revs 16v's you need a decent high flow breather system or you have all sorts of issues. This setup works 100% efficiently. Feel free to delete this pic later and clean up your thread BTW.

 

Yeah things like this happen and to their credit they have handled it very well so far. The car is booked in at Vara again to have a brand new set of ITB's installed and the existing ones returned for investigation. I've not made a fuss about the issue and apart from putting it on this thread for the sake of the story (and for me in future to remember what happened) I've not mentioned it as like you say, there's nothing to be gained. Hopefully by early January it's resolved and I can work on tidying it up for the summer, but we'll see.

So when I received my kit from Badger5, there were no return springs included. So I had a bit of a faff trying to get the throttle to work as it didn't want to return, as there was no tension on the cable. Vara immediately noticed this and put the spring on and it then snapped shut as it should. Whether there should have been a spring in the kit I don't know, but that did resolve it.

Thats a proper breather system you've got there! It's definitely something to think about once it's been on the road. This can has an outlet that's currently bunged up so it's just venting to atmosphere at the moment, so there is scope to let it vent elsewhere if needed.

 

Right, update time. The car was loaded onto a flatbed and taken back to Vara Technik for some investigation.

Turned out after a bit of hunting around, the throttle body was fine and it was actually the spindle on the side that was causing the problem. This came ready assembled when I got the kit, and all I did was bolt it onto the housing of the throttle body. Turns out that there are two little grub screws within the spindle and one was slightly too tight, this meant it was making just enough contact to hold the spindle open and therefore open the throttle blades, causing the engine to rev up. They backed it off just a little bit and it was sorted. They also found the throttle pedal was slightly bent out of shape so took it out and bent it back in line, now it's working as it should and the pedal feels heavier and more solid.

While it was there, it was running outside and decided to puke it's coolant out the overflow on the side of the radiator. It was tracked down to the slimline fan I have bought shorting out and not turning on. It was replaced by a larger (and 4x more expensive!) fan which does the job. That being said, I took it out the next day and it spat it's coolant out all over again. Not sure why as I was just cruising around and it didn't steam or smell hot. I rigged a temporary overflow bottle up Roadkill style to catch any overflow and took it out again, beating on it a bit this time and absolutely nothing came out. Something to keep an eye on. My current theory is that the thermostat on the top of the radiator has a lower opening temperature than the fan switch, so it's puking coolant before it gets hot enough for the fan.


Aside from that, I bought the Crazy LED kit to convert the gauge cluster and the switches to blue LED. I found out that the lights on the 16v clocks I bought did not work (drove home at night with a gps speedo on my phone) so crossed my fingers that the gauge wasn't busted, but luckily they all powered up. It's a huge improvement over the old green bulbs.

 

Do you have a graph of that dyno pull, showing torque per rpm?
The "171" peak power is useless, because it cannot be referenced to cylinder fill engine speed on a standard ABF head and block.
DTHs on a standard ABF engine have a very clear characrteric for engine acceleration, which allows a 10% reduced cylinder fill and torque over a standard plenum but tuned engine, peaking at 1000 rpm higher from 5000 to 6000 rpm and slowly dropping off after for a larger powere mesurement overa standard tuned engine.

It has been covered over and over on this forum with many dyno days and road accelerartion plots demonstating.


Why did you fit a cam phase sensor to an alpha N set up when really provides zero benefit?

Especially with an Emerald on an ABF. Again this forum has many threads showing how to get these engines to pull pretty hard with parts like that or less.

 

Didn't get a dyno graph, just a photo of the power figure. In all honesty I'm not overly concerned with the peak power or 'area under the curve etc etc, if I had unlimited budget I'd have it on there all day and really tune it for maximum potential. But for now I just want a car that works and I can drive and have fun in, more mods down the road will hopefully see it back on the dyno and maybe tuned a little bit more.

I bought the cam sensor before I knew what management I was going to use, partly as a just in case measure and partly as I like the way it looks on the side of the head. As it turns out while the emerald had the sensor mapped, it wasn't dependent on a sensor reading so now it's been removed the car still runs like it did before. If I built it again I wouldn't bother and will probably put this one up for sale

 

The benefit is the possibility of a full sequential injection. This means significantly less fuel consumption and also better emissions.
In general there is no benefit in power output (there are options though, but rarely used bc quite difficult), but to say there is no benefit at all is abit unfair.

 

I choose my words on the basis of experience, both as a tuner and as an OE powertrain professional.
With an engine mapped crudely like that on an Emerald ECU with wasted spark, there is like no benefit to any of the items you suggested.
On a production engine with a 3 way catalyst targetting lambda 1 and sequential ignition timing with knock windows and a CO2 rating yes.

 

I am here to help if I can.

A dyno is a safe place to calibrate a vehicle at full load, which is a small part of the engine operating conditions. "Peak Power" and "area under the curve" are jagon used by end users.
To tune an engine properly, takes much more time than just operating at full chat on a dyno and needs to involve extensive road work, for transients light loads, motorway cruising a within the load limit. All calibration work must be back up by data as generated from the ECU and backed up by the experience of the tuner on the specific engine.

Just get a blank from T-Mount (Tristan Clarke from this forum) for the dizzy hole as Emerald runs wasted spark and does not require cylinder head recognition.

The part you bought from USRT, is great for retrofitting a 1.8T ME7 ECU on a 16vT, as it provides cylinder recognition and cam phasing, for sequential spark and knock control windows for that type Motronic ECU.

Feel free to contact me for powertrain tips when it comes to the ABF/EA827 16v engine. I worked with all of them.

 

My bad, you are right. With the Emerald ECU there is no point. But given a capable ECU - which you also already pointed out - it can for sure be used for some neat functions. At this point we could just delete my comments haha.

Only thing I would say that even without a 3-way catalyst, running sequential injection will give you better emissions regardless of your catalyst system. Also fuel consumption will be reduced significantly.

 

Nah, you all good and all comments are important in this discussion.

Sequential injection to avoid wall wetting or injecting in an open intake valve does lead to better combustion yes and lower brake specific fuel consumption. However that attribute is beyond to scope of what is being done in this case.
Owner only wants a car that drives well enough and to have fun with, which I know all too well a standard ABF engine with ITBs can do, if the hardware is thought out and it is calibrated correctly, driven by data.

 

I have also updated my "How to ITB your EA827 16v engine" thread ,with recent content on a project completed last year with prototype parts.
Hope it enlightens folk what is involved and the path taken to achieve objectives.

 

would you recommend the jetex system?

 

Yeah it’s not bad. Wasn’t overly loud with the 8v in it but made a decent noise once one you were the power. Quite a heavy system though so bear that in mind as you’ll need good rubbers / poly mounts

 

I found it moved less with the poly mounts, with the rubbers it was banging on the rear beam & the bolt that holds the coilover to the rear beam, but with poly’s it was fine

 

Right, update time. It's been another month or so since I updated the thread and I've kept myself busy with odd jobs on the car.

I picked up some Eibach anti roll bars off of marketplace, they were almost new having been used for only 6 months before the car was stripped. They came with all the polybushes and brackets so it was a no brainer. The original ARB is 19mm thick and the Eibach is 25mm, not a huge amount of difference but better than the original one.





I used these helpful guides for fitting the ARB's.
Front http://www.clubgti.com/forum/showthread.php?t=130503
Rear http://www.clubgti.com/forum/showthread.php?t=130673

The front was a pain to fit with the engine in place and would 100% be something I'd do with the subframe off the car - but as I didn't have the ARB's at the time I didn't have a choice. The rear wasn't too bad to fit, I just dropped the rear beam to make access easier.




Despite all the bolts coming out of the front without issue, the rear bolt on the passenger side would not go back in and was sticking out by about 15mm.



I acquired a new tap (as I had m10x1.5 and m12x1.75, and the bolt is m12x1.5..), ran it through and pulled out a load of crap. Ran the bolt back in and torqued it up and it was mint

 

/While that was going on, I was also sorting out my centre console. I had fitted a top mount Coolerworx shifter and wanted to incorporate that into the centre console I had previously installed in the car, with the Pioneer CarPlay headunit. This involved a lot of cutting to create the hole of the shifter, but I wanted to be sure that I didn't take too much off so I could keep it looking kind of OEM. Once it wascut out, it looked like this




I bought some U shaped trim from B&Q which slipped over the cut plastic edge nicely and gave it a nice shape. This would take most of the work out of filling the edges to create a consistent shape. Rather than keep the little dip at the front of the console, I decided to raise the level to make it flat, this involved using a piece of plastic (defiantly not an Xbox game case..) and some glue to hold it in place.



Once the trim was on, flexi plastic filler was used to fill the lip between the trim and the console, as well as reshape some areas for a smoother overall look. This was a constant process of fill - sand - clean - fill - sand - clean to get the desired shape.






With the shape generally sorted, I primed it to reveal the 'look', and this showed more work was needed




A few more hours work however, and it was in primer and looking good.



A couple of coats of textured trim paint blended the filled areas to the oem texture nicely. It's not perfect but it's a 9/10 and I'm happy with it.




Popped the headunit back in and stood back to admire what I'd created