Hello all, I have recently taken ownership of a very clean MK3 golf GTI 16v which has been FA converted, currently running the following spec.. 2.0L 16V ABF engine Cylinder head fully stripped and rebuilt valves re-seated and re-faced by Ring Engineering who also bored and honed the block to 83.5mm. Wossner 83.5mm ABF Turbo forged pistons Integrated Engineering forged rods ARP head stud kit, con rod bolts, crankshaft stud/bolt kit Multi layered steel head gasket 8.0:1 compression ratio Modified Audi RS2 short runner inlet manifold Audi S3 fuel rail with 4 bar pressure regulator Cast exhaust manifold Garrett T34 hybrid turbo with 360 thrust bearing built by Turbo Developments. Synaptic fully adjustable wastegate 3 mandrel down pipe TIG welded 2.5 decat exhaust supplied and fitted by Storm Devlopments 3 thick frount mounted intercooler Adjustable blow off valve Four pouint 420cc Bosch fuel injectors In line Walbro 255 LPH fuel pump (noisy but apparently theyre all like this) Boost adjustable water injection system Fully adjustable Emerald ECU with 3 Bar map sensor supplied, fitted and mapped by Storm Developments 10.8mm ignition leads with individual earth leads Lupo GTI coil pack Oil catch tank Turbonetics in-cabin boost controller Helix organic clutch However after some investigation in appears the forged ABF has at some point in its life unfortunately been swapped for a standard ABF engine, all be it excluding a set of ARP head studs, a rebuilt head and a slightly thicker head gasket. This car is now going to be a project for me and i intend to eventually forge the bottom end and explore exactly what the thing has to offer however at this point safety of the currently engine is my main concern. Would anyone on here have any experience of what the standard ABF bottom end is capable of taking power / boost wise? im finding a lot of conflicting information via google and just wish to make the engine safe until i have the time to build a forged unit.
Hi and welcome to Club GTI. Whoever built the first engine, seemed to have been looking loosely at this website. In 2006 I built the WOLF R as in my signature to be a 280bhp engine. It was built after a benchmarking exercise I under took on a few JDM 2.0 16v T I had worked on over the years. I shared the build on here to help others in this community. Most engine bits are still stock with the exception of the 2 MLS gaskets added to reduce the static compression to 9.1:1, so detonation could be better controlled at various loads. The result was a 315 bhp with up to 285lbft. I used no 'ARP' fastners just the existing head bolts to achieve that. Engine still in one piece to this day. George at turbo developments was also the last person to rebuild my turbo. Since then, several other individuals on here copied the base engine idea to their own flavour. tshirt2k built a MK3 16vT on stack gaskets but with ARP fastners, and used an S2 turbo and manifold, with the inlet made up as mine. This car was a show car and the owners pride and joy and displayed his skill. He did not track it. Tests with it measured 260-270 bhp and around 260lbft. After a benchmarking drive in the WOLF R, vw singh decided he wanted some of that of action in his track MK1. So that engine was built based on the WOLF R engine initially with stacked gaskets, stock rods, VW bolts and fasteners but with a GT28 turbo, S2 manifold . His car is a regular on the UK/ EU trackdays. Gurdip's set up was a 290bhp set up a 0.9bar, It was run to more than a bar of boost on track to be even quicker, but never evaluated on the dyno. Somewhere in evolution of the car and he fitted some h sectioned rods, over the proven OEM items and the bolts in these aftermarket components failed and destroyed the engine. He has since built another powertrain with turbo pistons, proven IE H sectioned rods, and the rest with lots more power. Nigel Pinder, another regular on here also moved on to forced induction. After driving in Gurdips 16vT. His base engine at that time was essentially based on mine. Stock MK3 engine with stack gaskets, stock rods etc, same S3/TT/LCR inlet manifold etc. He did a lot of UK trackdays with this set up, including many ring trips/laps. Alas in the quest for he thought would be extra durability, he fitted the same rods that Gurds subsequently fitted and in a similar fashion the rod bolts gave up and the engine was destroyed. Another engine was built with proven IE H-sectioned rods and fasteners, but still retains the stacked gaskets. His engine is over 300 bhp at some rpm point and his torque is rolled in progressively via boost control and I estimate to be at 280lbft@ 6000rpm I have been researching and working with these engines for more than 14 years looking at NASP, supercharged and turbo engines and I can say the base stock ABF engine based is pretty strong if the right supporting components are fitted.
Firstly thankyou very much for the informative reply, honestly i can say ive gotten so much conflicting information from people and sources which i would have thought would be able to provide the answers to my questions. I've been a BMW for years and this is my first real dip into the pond when it comes to highly modified VW engines so its all a bit of a learning curve! Currently the boost gauge fitted to the car states im boosting around 15psi when on full chat, its fitted with a manual boost controller and appears this is where its been set however i have located a 3 port boost solenoid in the engine bay which is wired to the Emerald K3 however in the map itself the solenoid for some reason has been set to 0% across the whole table and i believe they are using the manual boost controller exclusively. Ill find out the exact head gasket thickness and the current compression ratio and see where to go from there, the map from what ive seen is very crude and needs considerable time spent on it and a lot of the K3 features are not being used sadly, i'll post some screen shots of the map if anyone is interested in what ive found. So what in your opinion would be a safe level of power for me to aim for on this engine, i would like to be able to use this as a regular road car with some spirited use with a view to taking it to some of the events which my work is part of, usually a small sprint circuit and a couple of quarter mile events.
Does seem stage that they are not using the map controller in the ecu Maybe a call to Dave walker may help a very helpful chap
That is no problem, that is why I shared my experiences here. What makes you think the map is pretty crude? Was the ECU set up for boost control in the first place? If you give Emerald the ECU serial number, they can tell you the set up history. Just a call away and John and Karl are pretty helpful. Engine hardware confirmation is important for any further opinion. T34 is a Cossie turbo capable of ~ 280bhp (dyno dependent) @ 15 psi. I ran one on a 9A once. You would have to define more limitations to recieive a better opinion. A 1200kg MK3 like that for road use, needs good response from various throttle openings to WOT from 2500 rpm to 6500 rpm . That T34 will be able to achieve that pending engine condition. Sprint circuit, requires agility, grip, gearing and a fast responding engine. Engine suggestions for road use will apply here also. Drag racing car, you will have to define what bracket interests you. 14 secs, 13 secs 12 secs? This all depends on the engine and how robust it is built in the first place.
