Royal Blue MK2 GTI, 16v KR then ABF, now abf management+widetrack

Cheers guys
Ronals have a deeper dish and a slightly different spoke design, my mate J_S has a set on his and they look awesome

Lowering the car dodn't go as easy as planned, took over twice as long in the end
Tip for you if you use rally design bushes, make sure the metal slieves will fit in the gap before you try to fit, mine were too long and needed grinding down. Took over an hour of bashing & swearing before I got them in!
Then getting the old struts off was fun, one bolt was completly solid and warped 2 allen keys! Took it round a mates house (carefully, as the other side was already lowered ) and got an airgun on it, that soon got the bugger off

Anyway, the results:

 

Ah well since you ask so nicely...

 

Here you go

 

Cheers
it's just on the edge of looks/practicality atm, the ET25 wheels help the look a lot. I sometimes get mild scrubbage at full lock/steep angles on the outer arch lip, so could do with a little rolling but I just can't be arsed

 

oh but I can't be bothered, it takes soooo loooong!! You're welcome to do it next time I'm over

On another note, the Corrado 1 touch window loom is installed & working, and I fitted a mint set of door window rubbers which has reduced the wind noise and made both windows wind up silky smoooooth

 

Hah you name a niggle, it had it!

But touch wood they're all fixed right now apart from the bodywork which still needs alot of work! [:^(]

 

TSW Omegas


Most recent 2.0 8v pic with tidied up breathers:

 

Right its been a long while since I posted up any progress, and there has been 'some', picked up these BMW MIM copied off ebay for pricely sum of 50, then sold the tyres (good eagle F1s) for 80


Unfortunatly my assumption they would be ET24 like my other E30 wheels turned out to be incorrect, they were in fact ET13s, bang goes my widetrack plans


A (long) while ago I fitted a 'rebuilt and flowed' head, plus a new 4 branch to my 2e block. Once they were fitted it was clear that the 4 branch was 4" too short to reach the rest of the system, the build quality was pants and the end of the pipe wasn't even pointing straight down the tunnel! After using a dremel on a miltec front silencer (took aaaaaayyyges) I eventually had a pice I could graft in and seal the zaust up.

The fitting kit I got for it was rubbish so it was blowing like a fecker, plus the front silencer was hitting the tunnel due to it pointing off to the side, result!
I eventually got a fitting kit that worked, but the banging continued.

Then a few moths later it became apparent that oil was being burnt, plus it was ****ing out the side of the head gasket. Not only that I had oil pressure warning at idle when hot, a new oil pump didnt solve it so head was suspected. Before the thing died completly I decided to swap in the 1.8 KR lump originally intended for my cabby, luckily I managed to source a 90spec KR loom from a mate and found a stainless zuast for 80 locally on the day I planned to start the swap! Another mate supplied me with the fuel pump & lines, so I was all set.

Half way thru I realised the downpipe wasnt going to fit thru the gap, so since I had an eibach arb lying about I decided to drop the subby off, not a job I was planning but hey ho. Here it is at the end of day 1:


I took a risk and fitted a spare 1.8 8v gearbox I had lying around, as it was planned to only be in there for a short while, I wanted to see if it was worth keeping. Which turned out to be a mistake
Some more spannering and lifting, swearing and appealing to the gods, it was in:


Once I had engine and box bolted in I decided to try the clutch, it didnt feel right. Then I put it in gear and cranked the starter to see if it was releasing, the car drove along for a bit so no, it wasn't
I then took the gearbox end cap off, and found 2 washers bodged under the release finger, which is never a good sign
Then once the release bearing was removed I found the pushrod was mushroomed at the end, aha, that'll be why then, the pushrod has been crushed down so much its not long enough to release the clutch. So I tried to pull it out, and nope it wasnt coming so I figured the other end must be mushroomed too! Joy, I've now got to drop the gearbox.
Luckily I bought one o' them engine support bar thingies off ebay a week earlier for a bargain price, made my task a bit easier!
After the box came out I found the other end was indeed mushroomed, so I had to cut the end off with a dremel. Swapped in another rod I had lying about, plus I changed the release bearing, clutch arm and cap. Put box back in with fingers firmly crossed, 2nd time lucky and all was well, after 6 days on & off work thanks to the rain on and off most of the time it was all in. I tell you, trying to refit a subframe with all the wishbones, shafts and hubs still attached by yourself isn't much fun

 

The 1.8 KR engine swap had the advantage that I now had a 2.0 block I could sell, the head was suspect but I knew the bottom end was in fact mint! After lots of ABF hunting my Bristolian mate mattneck/bevis found an ABF lump in his local scrappy for 250, and with much cojoling and persasion he finally aggreed to buy it and drive it down to me in exchange for my 2.0 8v. Now this might seem liek a poor deal but in fact he did pretty well out of it, I gave him EVERYTHING required to digifant GTIify a carbed MK2, as non of my old gear was any good for the KR. He also got 2 GTI zausts, an AFM that was only a few months old, uprated fuel injectors and a kent cam. Imagine the back of a stripped out 5 door 1.3, and then imagine it packed to the roof with GTI stuff, that was how he drove home that day

Once the head was removed from my 2.0 8v it was clear all the cam cap bearings were completly shot, hence the low pressure problem, the stem seal from one of the zaust cams looked like it had been installed by a blind monkey, and the 'flow work' looked like it had been done by the same monkey using the wrong end of a dremel. Well that was me well and truly done over by the forum seller then! (I did make it very clear to matt I was 99% certain the head was knackered, he was only really interested in the bottom end)

Anyway, back to my project. With a suitably cleared out garage I started work on the ABF, new flanges, timing belt, and general clean and spruce up of the ABF occured in a haphazard fasion over the next few weeks. During these weeks I also noted unhealthy sounds coming from the gearbox, and lots of play in the flange cups, looks like that box is a gonner then
With that in mind I spruced up the 2y box that was on my 2.0 8v lump, which I knew was mint. Cleaned it up and replaqced the clutch arm seal which was blown, and dug out bits of the speedo gear I had dropped in during the head swap months before

Then came the day of the swap! since I had done all the hard work already converting the car to k-jet, I anticipated this would be a relative walk in the park, and for once things went my way

Started around 10:30 pootling about in the garage moving stuff out of the way and finishing off my gearbox rebuild (just a couple of seals and an end plate) Then got to work. Had my first coffee/**** break at 12:30ish, and this was the state of play:


After some nice crumpets I went to work again, had another coffee/**** break at 2:00ish, and this was how things were standing:


Feeling refreshed I went to work again, engine was in by 4, fitted all the alternator & pas setup but then found out the alternator belt I revieved was too long so it had to come off again! Luckily I could pinch the old MK3 setup off the cabby engine. I called it a day around 6:30 cooling system installed, slam pannel fitted and most of the electrics connected up:



Work started at 10am the following day, by 12:30 it was finished and the car was a runner!


System pressure was a healthy 5.4 bar and warm up pressure spot on 48psi, had to tweak the dizzy but thats about it! After some idle issues and strange behaviour I found that my previously working ISV had packed in and the temperature switch for the 5th injector was stuck open circuit, so the cabby ISV was pinched and I've disconnected the 5th inj for now, doesnt do much anyway.

ABF swap in 10 hours

 

And that brings the project bang up to date! I havent stopped planning for the MK2 though, I have been quietly collecting everything required for converting it to run on proper ABF managment. This was jump started when I swapped a KR ign controller & loom for a complete non-immobilised ABF ECU & loom

I still have a pile of bits to get but this project is now on the back burner due to me concentrating on my cabby build, which thanks to the welding FINALLY being done is coming along very nicely!

edit: Oh and over the years some slight changes were made inside, VDOs, Corrado 1 touch windows, electric adjust headlights, height adjust column, JOM chrome handles and rear headrests

 

Cheers
They're oem GTI, but re-trimmed. guy at storm reconed they were the most comfortable hed ever sat in, which was nice to hear. They always come out purple in pictures, real life they're more a dark charcoal grey. My dash came out blue in one of the pics as well, my camera skills arnt up to much

Least I dont have missmatched Recaros