# 130 hp on 1.8 8v jh engine? Can it be done?



## jem144 (Dec 22, 2009)

Hi...Please post your suggestions & experiences on how to achieve 130hp on a 1.8 8v jh engine. I need help please. ABA is not available in our place to start with. I did some research but I didn't found documented data on how to achieve this. Any suggestion or opinion is highly appreciated. Thank you.


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## Tom A (Oct 20, 2004)

130 at the wheels or the flywheel?

We got 100.4 HP 85.6 tq to the wheels on the race car, it was a stock bottom end and CIS, a Techtonics 280°/276° cam (with adjustable gear, retarded slightly gave the most power), and early exhaust manifold with TT downpipe, with a short race exhaust (downpipe, to flex, to bullet muffler, then turn to exit behind the driver door).

We never drove it on the street, but I from tooling around the paddock, I expect it would have been fine. 

Does this need to pass any sort of emissions testing? 

What is your budget? It is certainly doable with a big pile of money, and race gas:
http://forums.vwvortex.com/showthread.php?1518884

Another one:
http://forums.vwvortex.com/showthread.php?3764564-Help-me-reading-this-dyno-1-8-8V


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## jem144 (Dec 22, 2009)

Tom A said:


> 130 at the wheels or the flywheel?
> 
> We got 100.4 HP 85.6 tq to the wheels on the race car, it was a stock bottom end and CIS, a Techtonics 280°/276° cam (with adjustable gear, retarded slightly gave the most power), and early exhaust manifold with TT downpipe, with a short race exhaust (downpipe, to flex, to bullet muffler, then turn to exit behind the driver door).
> 
> ...


Wow! My intention is to have the car driven daily and go to the track occasionally. I want it to be reliable and be driven daily. I have a budget from $1,000 - $2,000 for it. And yes, my gti is still using cis with a/c...I wanted it to be pull from low range, mid range and high range...I can still spend a little more if necessary.


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## vwturbofox (Jul 31, 2010)

my fist build on my 8v was all out hi flow heads port and polish the shi$ out of everything big injectors. I even cut the intake to polish the inside. after all that I only got 106 hp 
that's why I went boost now I have 400hp:laugh:


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## Tom A (Oct 20, 2004)

Assuming you want to stay with CIS, and for your stated requirements, "pull from low range, mid range and high range" you don't want to go too crazy on the camshaft, and with your budget, you probably are not going to be getting extensive head flow work done.

Stock JH was 8.5:1 compression, You definitely need to go higher than that to reach your goal.

A good recipe:
Bore the block out 1mm over, (displacement will increase from 1780cc to ~1825cc) 
Higher compression forged pistons, Wiseco makes some that are 10.5-11:1: http://www.wiseco.com/Catalogs/SportCompact/Volkswagen.pdf
(these two items are why the ABA swaps are so popular, Instead of spending a bunch of money to do this to a JH, you get the same compression and larger still displacement out of the box).
You will need a good exhaust system, the early style cast iron manifold with Techtonics downpipe, or a quality header.
A hotter camshaft, I wouldn't go any hotter than the Techtonics 280°/276° if you have a solid lifter head, not sure what the equivalent Hydro cam is, never owned a hydraulic lifter head. You will probably want an adjustable timing gear, and spend some time on a dyno finding the sweet spot.

I am still not convinced a larger throttle body will do anything, but you can make an A2 throttle body work with some grinding on the intake manifold. 
Working on the flow of the intake manifold appears to show some improvement, see http://www.scientificrabbit.com/node/2

Something else to consider, add lightness. If your car weighs 2200 lbs, and puts down 90 HP that is about 24 lbs per horsepower. Every 24 lbs you remove from the car will be the equivalent of adding 1 HP to the engine. Also, horsepower only makes you go faster in a straight line, lightness makes you go faster in every direction.


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## jem144 (Dec 22, 2009)

Nice info on this, guys. I really appreciate it. Basically, 130hp on the wheels is what I want & still use cis. I will check such pistons available & cams to achieve 130 whp. What I can do now is port & polish the heads and I would probably think about getting turbo if it would be impossible to achieve the said whp on a natural aspirated engine. I'm kinda worried about turbos as I don't know anything about it..I mean I have the impression that turbos requires high maintenence & I heard rumors that it easily makes the engine wear out easily. I don't know how true is this. But any info would be appreciated as well. Thanks.


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## jem144 (Dec 22, 2009)

If turbos are a solution, how about turbo lags? What turbos to use and can it also use a variable geometric turbo from modern japanese cars?


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## ps2375 (Aug 13, 2003)

You could get a 1.8L short block (RD or RV code) to raise the CR to 10:1. Or the ABA short block to increase displacement and CR. Too much more compression will require the spark box from a CIS-e 8V car to help control spark to deal with knock. An 8V motor with 130whp will not be cheap and not to good of a stop-n-go traffic car, and will require a healthy budget. A 16V motor would be able to hit that target much easier and still be able to be fueled with the CIS. We did a 16V swap into an 80' Scirocco, ran it on CIS and used the 16V spark box and it was all stock and it made about 123whp. And that was before exhaust cam mod, the 4-1 header and the ported TB.

But, you could have the head ported, get a ported intake from Scientific Rabbit, drop in a 276 or a 280 cam and a header and a 2.25" exhaust and one of the a fore mention short blocks, with the needed tweeks and have a very fun car to play with.

My GX coded 1.8L(8.5:1CR) with a header, Bosal 2" exhaust, an AT286 cam and MS made 94whp. And that motor had at least 100K miles on the rebuild and no porting done. And it idled much better with the MS than it would have with the CIS, and still returned 30mpg @ 80mph. The change to MS prolly netted 5whp or more from deleting the airflow meter. And the reliability and hot starts were never better.

***The higher compression 1.8L 8V should be available from any 8V mkII GTI/GLI.


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## Tom A (Oct 20, 2004)

Random thoughts, in no particular order.

Naturally aspirated or turbo, you should decide and plan before you go any further. Things you want in a hot normally aspirated engine and things you want with a turbo engine are pretty much the opposite of each other. If you go with forced induction, you don't want high compression or a radical camshaft, the stock compression and cam are actually not bad for a turbo.

Transmission. With the stock open differential 020 transmission, you will have problems putting power to the ground at the power level you want. We had wheelspin in 3rd gear corners with DOT-R race tires with 100 HP to the wheels. There are a couple of option for Limited slips:
http://www.usrallyteam.com/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=13_49 We tried the Peloquin 80% Shim Kit and found it to be a waste of money.
Either, with installation will be over your proposed budget.

Turbo: Pretty sure you will be on your own at this point. There used to be a couple of kits out there for 8V engines, but I don't think any are still available. You can probably find a used kit, or piece something together if you can find the CIS system from a old Volvo Turbo, but it won't be a simple off the shelf, bolt on install. I would spend a long time reviewing the forced Induction forum. http://forums.vwvortex.com/forumdisplay.php?113-Forced-Induction

A 130 HP 1.8l 8V N/A engine will have probably idle roughly, and not run all that well at low RPM part throttle. Probably not be much fun on the street.

To do either right, you will probably be well above your proposed budget. A proper port/polish, with flow matching alone will probably be close to your budget. 

Where are you that ABAs are not available?


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## jem144 (Dec 22, 2009)

Hi...these information are really helpful, especially the experience that you shared. I will definitely think things over and plan it out. It sounds like 100hp to you will give so much fun without compromising reliability...Thank you...I really appreciate it pal.


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## jem144 (Dec 22, 2009)

Tom A said:


> Random thoughts, in no particular order.
> 
> Naturally aspirated or turbo, you should decide and plan before you go any further. Things you want in a hot normally aspirated engine and things you want with a turbo engine are pretty much the opposite of each other. If you go with forced induction, you don't want high compression or a radical camshaft, the stock compression and cam are actually not bad for a turbo.
> 
> ...


Hi...thanks for the heads up. You're right. I need to plan the build carefully. Thank you for the crash course, I really needed it. I'm from Manila, Philippines. Our country is overwhelmed by the Japanese market. But I always believe that VW and the mk1 GTI always have that edge when it comes to a pocket rocket and mototrsport as well. Here in our country, there is like 7 of us who owns a mk1 GTI, about 5 on the mk1 cabriolet and 3 on a mk2 scirocco...and less than 20 on the mk2 golf/jetta...However, I recently saw a 2001 model engine that came from a new beetle for $1,000...all it has is an automatic tranny with a 2.0 displacement with a 9CAQY engine code according to the ads. Is this the ABA engine that you are telling me about? Is it worth it for the price? What should I be looking for if this is the one? Thanks.


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## Tom A (Oct 20, 2004)

The ABH is the 2L 8V engine from the MK3 Golf and Jetta, made from (If I remember correctly) 1992 to 1999.

The popular conversion is to just swap the bottom end, the block and rotating assembly, and use the head and fuel injection from the A1. The bore is the same, but with a longer stroke, and the block is a little taller, meaning you need to use a custom downpipe, and as it is a 10:1 compression engine, you should use a later ignition with a knock sensor.

Others who have done it can probably provide more info, or search the forums, there have been a few threads on it. I should add that it is popular in this country because of the availability of donor cars/engines in junkyards, if that is not the case in the Philippines, it will not be as cost effective. That aside, this bottom end with a slightly hotter cam will get you close to your horsepower target.


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## vwturbofox (Jul 31, 2010)

jem144 said:


> Hi...these information are really helpful, especially the experience that you shared. I will definitely think things over and plan it out. It sounds like 100hp to you will give so much fun without compromising reliability...Thank you...I really appreciate it pal.


I have been driving my boosted vw fox 8v on cis-e for 3 years and not one break down. and good on fuel. you see it also depends on how you build it and maintain the car.


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## chois (May 12, 2000)

Tom A said:


> A 130 HP 1.8l 8V N/A engine will have probably idle roughly, and not run all that well at low RPM part throttle. Probably not be much fun on the street.
> 
> To do either right, you will probably be well above your proposed budget. A proper port/polish, with flow matching alone will probably be close to your budget.
> 
> Where are you that ABAs are not available?


It does always come down to the budget. If you pay attention to all of the details you can get in that neighborhood with a 10.5:1 8v with stock cam/valves/head, which will idle fine, and have the beefy low end torque characteristics of a stock engine (but with bigger numbers). The details include - working with a good machine shop for the 1mm overbore (using a torque plate), line boring the crank journals, balancing all of the rotating assembly, minimizing accessory drag (under-drive alt and wp), dyno time to get the fueling and spark really right, custom header, etc.... You can get into the 110-115 whp range with CIS-E.

By the time you invest in this, it would have made sense to take another approach, like a swap for a more powerful motor (ABA swap mentioned above is a simple/popular one) with more mild modification - unless you are working within the constraints of a set of racing rules.


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