im picking up another b3 passat at the weekend for my girlfriend to use as a daily, its a real minter and low mileage but has got the old RP 1.8 8v 90bhp lump in it. think its some some of single point injection, the block looks identical to a PB but it has a slightly lower compression ratio. is there anything simple i can do to this engine to get a few more ponies out of it? I have a GTi cam out of my old PB engine, is that worth dropping in? any other ideas, can the injection be modded in any way?
Looked into this myself and the limiting factor seems to be the spi system,on the german sites the general opinion seems to be alot of work/money for small gains but if you do drop the gti cam in please post the results as i'm considering this along with a gti manifold.i think the fuel pressure regulator can be tweaked as well using spacers/washers but don't know the exact details.
fair enough then. tbh its only for my gf to use for work, doubt i'll ever be driving it much so probably wont bother, thought it was due a cambelt so was gonna swap the cam at the same time but just found out its already had it changed so wont worry about it, think i'll leave it stock. ive got most of the injection system from my PB but the compression ratio is wrong so dont think it'd work that well to digi it
PLEASE SOMEONE HELP THIS MAN as it would help me no end. i have one of these engines in my golf and it's RUBBISH.
the rp is deffo 9.1 compression ratio and i think it maybe because of the pistons as they have a different part number in vagcat.Could the head be skimmed enough to raise comp to 10.1.What cam is in now gti or an aftermarket one and how does it run ?
yep these are 9:1 and a PB is 10:1 never mind not too fussed, as long as it gets from a to b and does 70mph for the motorway and dont break down i dont care too much heres the car its in: should do nicely as a second car for when we go for weekends away and stuff, will save the girlfriend curbing my porker alloys on the passat of doom hehe
looks like the compression is down to the pistons as the crank & rods are the same. bit much to change so you're stuck with it short of dumping a pb lump in there! injection might pep it up a little and should improve the economy a touch, but that would require a head swap if its an spi so hardly worth the bother! abf would fit in there nice I'd expect, not hard for an experienced chap such as yourself
well i drove it today and it was nowhere near as slow as id imagined, pretty torquey guess it helps the passat its in is pretty basic so no leccy windows or sunroof weighing it down. as for an ABF swap, one of those is quite enough! cba doing that again, what a faff my next engine surgery is gonna be adding an eaton m62 to the abf in the black passat, but need to paint it first!
hmm well had an interesting find yesterday when i went to VW for a water pump. the parts bloke put it through dialog and turns out its an ABS engine code. which is still 90bhp but has a higher 10:1 compression ration. i think its the replacement for the RP engine but with a cat converter and lambda probe, and increased compression ration to make up for the cat? so digi 2 and the gti camshaft might work ok . . . J reg is 91/92 year isnt it so i'd get away with ditching the cat?
Yep, cats became a requirement around (IIRC) July-August `92, so anything registered prior to that doesn`t need one.
