engine swap

im looking to get a bit more power out of the jetta but im on a very tight budget was thinking of doin an 8 value gti transplant but if im goin to do tht i may as well go 4 a valver jump and run it on carbs, but a mk 3 2 litre lump apeals to me but are the engine mounts in the mk 3 and mk 2 in the same place and would i need 2 use a mk 3 gear box, and also iv heard about running a gti mk2 head on a mk 3 bottom end does tht work fine or would i b better runnin on carbs,
Any help apreceated

ok. in short.

the mk3 16v bottom end is built a lot stronger than others (includin the 2l 8v i think...) so thats the main reason for the swap, as it's strong enough to take a 'charger wi'out damage. so can handle most forms of n.a tuning with ease. plus there are more of them about in good nick than kr's most of which are shot due to everyone running them on 95ron fuel! ( oops...)

if i remember correctly, the best budget option would be to take either a 2l 16v or 8v, or to spend around 6-700 on a set of second hand twin carbs, source a manifold and bosh them in. coupled with a full exhuast, velocity stacks and a good cam should see it heading to gti power.

the 2l 8v is a good base engine, as it has a crossflow head, so the exhaust is on the oposite side of the head inlet manifold. I beleive they will go in quite easily, as the mounts are the ame and it should bolt onto your box ok. If the head will fit, which i suspect it will, then fitting one to your 1600 will also be a great improvement over standard. looks better too!

the big thing to remember, is that the 020/k gearbox is not really capable of taking more than 160hp before it shats the diff pin out (we speak from experience. our valver was running close to 170 when it let go. still got the box round the back of the shed...) and thats a new box job. if you're going big you really need to factor a quaffe diff into the equasion, which is about £500(?)

plus of course swapping the motor will throw your insurance through the roof, so i would say staying with the 1.6 for now, and going twin carbs/cam/exhaust tuning is deffo the way ahead. thats how they did it in the old days before electronic fuel injection.

of course i'm sure someone'll complain about what i've said lol.

if you want my advice, pm your msn and i'll add you. makes it easier!

Jon.

Not argueing with what youve said but arent the crossflow 8v heads fairly rare to get hold of? Although i think i read somewhere that the new beetle has a crossflow head but the bolt holes need drilling out to fit a mk2/3 block as there smaller on the newer ones, so might be worth looking into

they can be rare yes, and i believe they are most common on beetles.

any decent engineering shop, such as jme engineering behind me can drill the headbolt holes out for relatively little cost!

It's a case of trawling scrappies. windley's had one a while back, but the motor it was on was tired, and i didn't fancy buying a gash motor just for the head. not when they wanted 300 notes for it lol.

Jon.

yer windleys are rip offs for engines n stuff like that!! Best bet will be to search ebay and forums and stuff like that to see if one pops up if your gonna go for that route.

Crossflow heads a way too pricey for Jamie atm which is a shame as a crossflow should always be able to produce more power. If I was you Jamie, 'd browse through ebay until you find a mk3 golf or passat (like my old one) 2.0 8v and use everything out of it to sort yours. You could run bike carbs, I'd sy a set off a ZZR1100 would be ideal and are reasonable in price. I think there is someone near Louth who is a dab hand at setting upbike carbs on cars called Bogg Brothers!

Have a think about the 1.9TDI out of a Passat too bud!

lol a diesel would be diferent, ya ill stay on the lookout for a mk3, is there a difference between the 8 and 16 valve in dificulty to set up

not really. depends what you do. if you ran a 2l and bought a weber 34/36 dtml (as on beetles...) you could probably modify your curent manifold to fit. that would give you around the 90-100 mark? not sure if it's been done so I cant say.

The prob with bike carbs is depth. on a valver they can be so long they touch the rad, on an 8v the rain tray gets in the way and needs cutting out. not a difficult job just a bit of a pain, as you need to re-locate the coil etc.

Also, unlike twin weber/dellorto's bike carbs can be utter C*nts to set up, as they are designed to be near closed at idle, wich will stall a car. so you have to set them open a touch, which makes balancing them v. awkward (not an easy job on a bike let alone a car!!!) plus of course you'd need a custom manifold made for bike carbs. Bog bro's are good, but expensive, which makes the cost rise a lot higher than you can prob afford. by the time you've bought bike carbs, roughly jetted them, then got a manifold on, set up, modified whatever else you have to change. got it trailered to a dyno to get the fuelling checked your gonna be getting towards the 1500 quid mark.

have a look on all the forums, ( mk1golf.org clubgti dair i say it, pee38) and do a search for carbs and have a read up.

To be honest, with bike carbs you don't necesarily need to go big, as they flow much better. i Knew a guy running a 1.4 mk1 polo on carbs from a gsx550, so you could probably get away with
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/vfr750-vfr750fh-carbs_W0QQitemZ150225826367QQihZ005QQcategoryZ10460QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

which would be good as they come in pairs, making manifold design easier. infact you could even just get one mig welded up as the carbs attach on rubbers. If irrc on the vfr these carbs pointed up slightly too, which would bring them away from the exhaust on an 8v, and on a 16v would clear the rad.

like i sed before. and especially if you're looking at bike carbs pm me if you need owt, or get jim to give you my msn.

Jon.

Ive been thinkin of the bike carb route for ages but never got round to doing anything, ive found loads of info on them searching about and theres a fairly good thread on ed38, and clubgti, basically you will want 750 or 1000cc carbs for a 1.8 or bigger and a 180 main jet to get you running then obviously a set-up on a rolling road, but like jon says they will be a t@at to set up first off.

If you want fairly easy power from a 1.8 i built an engine with a standard bottom end but port and polished head diy style head was skimmed at jme engineering for 25 quid, it was only standard carb head but a gti has bigger valves and would be better, with a weber carb a gti cam and gti exhaust manifold and that went like joe fook, would have been a bit better i reckon with a 4 branch, but there was a bloke on one of the forums with similar set-up to mine but without the head done and he reckons he made roughly 120 bhp on a dyno, if you could use a 2ltr bottom end then ive heard they give em more torque, but theres also a thread on clubgti on that aswell.

i put a vento 2E bottomend on mine with a rebuild mk2 k-jet head and larger exhuast,inlet valves and a piper ultimate race cam, and with my straight through exhuast and lots of rolling road time mine is making 140bhp with 160 lbs ft of torque

the reason i put a vento engine in is because its the same as the mk3 gti had 35k on it and you can garentee it wont have been thrashed as much as a gti