# 2.GO! Mk4 8V 2.0 Turbo Wagon Build Thread



## VR6onDaBlock (Oct 8, 2007)

Been a while, my users not even accurate anymore. Used to own a 12V (06-07') and 24V (07-15') Mk4 Jetta which both by chance wound up the same color when I bought them last minute or suggested by my mom. Ten years later and still rocking a 3rd Reflex Silver Mk4 Jetta but this one a wagon and with the 2.0 BEV manual. I bought it when my 24V's Tiptronic took a crap and wound up being a very rare trans and a pain to swap to manual with a lack of free time so I bought this as a cheap practical car that would be easy to repair for $100 less than the transmission for the VR6. I was an hour away from hitting the road to pick up a different one when the car turned out to be listed in the wrong state and had to get a car that day or have to wait a week, couple phone screen taps later and I found this newly posted gem and headed off after a 2 minute phone call to the owner who was surprised when I actually showed up and just bought it immediately. Bought September 2015.



I swapped the coils, wheels, some interior stuff, and the BFI engine/trans mounts before parting out the rest of the old car. It will be missed after getting me through almost all of my twenties.



And this is how it sits now, on a hill so the ride height may look weird.



Also pictured is my other much much much faster car.





The subject of speed though is what brings us to the build thread. To me me this thing is slooooooow. I knew what I was getting into but going to a car with half the horsepower and a few hundred more pounds of the previous car has become too much for me to handle. And the only other car I have to compare it to weighs a third less with three times the HP, so it's fighting a pretty uphill battle. The idea of throwing a cheap turbo kit on it as a fun project popped up and stuck so I'm gonna have a go at it. Also well aware I can just swap a 1.8t or VR6 in it for less but want something unique and to learn how to turbo a car. 

With goals of only 200-230 WHP, daily friendly, and budget of $2,500 I have the parts list ready to go:

Garrett Dual Ball Bearing GT2554R .80 IntA/R - .64 ExA/R
Cast 8v T3 Turbo Manifold
T25/T3 V-Band Flange
Custom 3" V-Band Downpipe
Magna Flow 3" Catalytic Converter
Stock Muffler 
Forge 007 Bypass Valve 
Forge Manual Boost Controller 
Bosch 415cc Injectors
Innovate Motorsport Wideband O2 Sensor 
Southbend Stage 2 Clutch
Ported and Polished 8v BEV Head
Ebay Oil Catch Can
Ebay Intercooler

This thing barely runs anymore in the wet thanks to a faulty coilpack, corrosion on plugs, and 2 faulty O2's. So before I start moding I'm giving it a full tune up as well as both O2's and an exhaust leak fix. I just recently scored a job at a euro indie shop that's laid back with personal shop time so that's going to help this project a lot.







Threw front brakes on to replace my OE warped rotors, also put on some stainless lines I misplaced 7 years ago and just found.



What I asssume were 12 year old plugs based on the VW stamp...



...and the thimblefull of corrosion that fell out of cylinder 1's spark plug boot. I'm amazed that was still getting spark.



Last week I started this and it tried to stall out but didn't finish and stayed firing/dieseling just 1 cylinder at 50 RPM for about a minute before I shut it off, it probably would have just kept running. The whole ignition was shot.





Exhaust downpipe flange and flexpipe broke off and I had just tack welded it back up until I could get the new one. Found a kit online with a premade slip on flange and flex pipe for the 2.0, it was a clamp on but I wound up needing to weld it to make a seal. If I had cut it differently maybe it would have sealed but whatever, I own a welder and like excuses to use it. I have to pass emissions soon is the only reason I'm doing it and the kit was only $60 shipped.





Its almost pretty. The plan was to reuse the factory cat but it had other plans. I'll replace it with a 3" inlet one with the down pipe for the environment when I go boost.






Noticed that the tab that ruins your arm when you try to reach in the back of the motor serves no purpose other than to hold a bracket for the purge valve which itself runs all over the place, circling the coolant bottle, going along the pulleys then crossing back under the manifold to pop back up on the throttle body. No clue why, unless it's sensitive to vibration, especially since making it a straight shot required no extra parts. I just moved the valve to the fuel rail and shortened the factory hose. Now there's a huge hole in the back of the engine bay to access the block to fiddle with turbo stuff. I can reach both arms in and touch the steering rack from the top of the car. 









And that's where I'm at right now, awaiting my new Southbend clutch and various gaskets. Will probably order the manifold and turbo 2 weeks from now and start test fitting and modifying things.


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## rommeldawg (May 25, 2009)

nice... keep it coming :beer:


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## VR6onDaBlock (Oct 8, 2007)

Parts are being ordered left and right, 3 orders last Friday, 1 today, and 3 and a pickup this Friday. Got the Summit order today with the Magnaflow 3" cat flex pipe and coupler with a reducer to fit onto the stock muffler with a OE band clamp. It will go with the V-Banded 3" downpipe I'll make.





I had the fenders from my old Jetta lying around for months and always wanted to make a magazine collage on a body panel. My other car, a 1997 M3, I bought a few years ago and have been converting to a dedicated racecar with cage and NA motor and is quite intense. It's taken me away from my VW roots and plunged me deep in BMW territory. This piece and the project have brought life back into my VW passion. Taken from Eurotuner, Motortrend, EuropeanCar, Road&Track, a Waterfest 2012 Flyer, and many more sources I've gathered over 10 years of this stuff. From the Beetle to the Mk7 GTI its almost all there with cues to the shows, statistics, and lifestye that is Volkswagen.


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## gbcanadian (Apr 22, 2015)

Awesome build thread. I'm glad to see you are enjoying your 2.0. Most guys, like myself, go through months if not years of "how do I pep this thing up". I also have the bev block, I'm curious to see how this goes. Subscribed 👍👍

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## Recluses (Jun 14, 2016)

Definitely Following. We in the same state too!


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## VR6onDaBlock (Oct 8, 2007)

Well this project almost suffered a major set back. I was told by the owner the waterpump had been replaced Feb 2015 so when pulley noise started happening only for 30 seconds after startup I ignored it for a week or so. When I finally got to checking it out I realized it might be the timing tensioner and popped the serpentine belt off and started the motor. Noise still there. Really looked at the tensioner and realized how close I came to jumping timing. This would have failed probably on the first boost spike.



Fortunately since I've owned a Mk4 for 10 years and can break it down in my sleep I banged this job out in a very casual hour. Also my cut intake tab made the job much easier. I strongly recommend the mod to anyone with this motor since again it's completely free using factory parts and as far as I can tell has no effect on the sensor.





Fortunately the water pump is a new 2015 HEPU unit so I guess it wasn't a lie but the mystery deepened when I tried to put the old belt back on and it was dramatically too short with the new OEM VW pulley. It's my understanding that it was likely the wrong belt kit for my car, maybe for a Mk3. 





A trick I've picked up for timing. Slap a wedge of cardboard in the groove for the crank gear, it locks the belt at the bottom and you don't have to fiddle with lining up teeth as much. Alternative on other cars is a ziptie for serpentine belts and timing belts.



And good to go! The cam moved about a half to 1 degree when timed proper TDC and the car feels like it has a bit more low end between 1-2.5K so it was probably just slightly out of time.



Also I've changed turbos and will be going with a slightly cheaper slightly smaller Borg Warner AirWerks S1BG with a .46 AR, hoping to get a more usable powerband since this motor doesn't really do anything past 5K but make more noise. Also getting the C2 Headspacer and running 10-14PSI still shooting for a 200-220WHP car though it may exceed that. I have a storm of parts on order and am only $100 over budget at the moment with 70% of my stuff ordered.


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## VR6onDaBlock (Oct 8, 2007)

EPC light has been on for a while and I'm not sure which of the 2 things I did that fixed it but I don't care the lights off and the final fix was free with a $5 previous attempt. My entire Secondary Air system didn't work with purge valve, air pump, O2 heater codes, MAF, and idle codes. Researched it for a long time and came up with cleaning the throttle body which was coated in oil and apparently a common source of these specific set of codes, but I also replaced a blown fuse that was labeled with a "check engine" symbol on the fuse diagram. Either way whatever fixed it was free.



Terminals together resets ECU. Let sit like this for 5 hours while I worked with the throttle body at work.



I wish I took an original pic of the filth but just set about cleaning it. While I had it completely off I did a polished throttle body, the part leading up to the butterfly is slightly textured, so I used a 200 grit piece of sandpaper and the fine cross buffs from my head polishing kit. I did this on my last car and even if its in my head it feels like the idle and revs are just a bit smoother.





Shiny is good.



With the port and polishing kit out, I hit up the eBay manifold. It's heavy as hell so I'd like to think it won't crack but a very noticeable difference in the orientation of the manifold holes to the OE manifold gasket. As if the 8V didn't have poor flow already. I'll assume most people that buy this are missing out on 10-20 HP by not noticing this but its an easy fix that's a bit time intensive. Bottom already ported with carbide bit, steel was hard to grind through as well which further suggested this is a poor but well constructed copy.







Marked to show porting, probably opened the inlet by 15-30% which for headwork is no small amount.



After carbide bit came the 80 then 200 grit rolls from Summit Racings Port and Polish Kit. Its I think $30-50 and has so far been enough to do my BMW M3s head with 24 ports, this 4 port, and will easily do the 8V head as well. Coupled with a long reach air grinder it's let me do pretty good port and polish work for only 100 and to consider a port on my M3 head probably would have cost me 1-2K well worth it.



This was much rougher before, I didn't really bother with the low velocity parts of the manifold just the main air paths. Also because it was hard to get in there.









I got this big ol' pile of parts, just waiting to get turbo, tuning, A/R and boost gauge, and get and start fabricating my mandrel bent intercooler piping which hopefully will only have 5 connections for the whole system.


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## gbcanadian (Apr 22, 2015)

Moar!!!

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## VR6onDaBlock (Oct 8, 2007)

Don't worry not flaking on the build, quickly collecting parts. The plan is to bang this out over 1 week or possibly weekend, taking off road July 29th to be back on road before or on Aug 7th. I've also been preoccupied chasing down an idle issue on my M3 which has to be my daily for at least 5 days straight maybe a few weeks if I screw up bad enough :facepalm: Also I'm moving this month and the wagon is being called to duty with it's big booty.

All I have to offer right now is my Southbend Stage 2+ Clutch rated to 285tq which I was going to put in but cancelled after my friend from NGP advised it can be a single or dual mass in there and you don't know until you crack it open. When he told me I need a new flywheel I was ready to add 500 to this budget but my intentional choice of the 8V 2.0 is coming into its own. I ordered a Luk OE Single Mass which hit my budget but considering one for my M3 runs 600-1000 and this one I found on sale for $60 I'm fine with that. I bought the car after my old VR6 Jetta needed a 3.5K auto trans or 1.5K manual swap and landed on this choice because my research showed that NO repair would cost more than $500 for me to do. It still applies even with it turboed with the sole exception of needing a new Borg turbo which frankly costs more than a used BEV engine and O2J transmission put together :laugh:



Got an Agency Power 1.8T Replacement DV from FRSport and priced about $20-30 less than a Forge 007. It's made from just 2 CND'd pieces pressed together and is fairly heavy so as long as the spring is good seems to be a high quality competitor to the 007.


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## theleoatkinson (Jun 23, 2016)

This is great, can wait to see the final build 
A lot of 2.0 8v turbo build threads either don't finish,
Or don't go to much into detail
are going to use stock compression?


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## VR6onDaBlock (Oct 8, 2007)

theleoatkinson said:


> This is great, can wait to see the final build
> A lot of 2.0 8v turbo build threads either don't finish,
> Or don't go to much into detail
> are going to use stock compression?


Yeah it may seem like this project reached a stop on here because it has. I need my M3 to be my daily for a week and it decided to **** its thrust bearing so I gotta address that first. But yeah I like detail on my threads, there are so many out there where the persons like "We welded a custom tube chassis around the swapped Mazda RX8 motor we put in the Mk2 Golf" and there's like 2 grainy flip-phone pictures and no info on what parts used.

Shot Bearing Video, this took about 2 weeks to even get a hint of where to look, very strange and uncommon problem as the only indication it was shot was pushing the hydraulic clutch that doesn't use engine vacuum is the motor would stall.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QqnBxyQS4SY

That being said I am back up with the parts and build, I just ordered the Borg S1BG Turbo. I'll be dropping compression with a C2 headgasket. And I got in my turbo exhaust flange and hit it with the port and polish kit to smooth it as well, also had to grind down some stuff so the male V-band could slip into the t25 flange for a nice locked seal. Can't show the finished product though, I'm moving this weekend and its packed.



I did attend Waterfest and the girlfriend is in complete approval of boosting this after experiencing just how slow the thing can get with 3+ passengers and luggage. She apologized a few times for turning on the AC while going up hill as at 60-70 that necessitated a gear drop just to maintain speed.


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## VR6onDaBlock (Oct 8, 2007)

OK TIME TO GET TO WORK :thumbup:



I had to make another change as the company I ordered the Borg S1BG couldn't get the turbo they let me order online and waited a week to even inform me it was backordered, later discovering that whole line of turbo was discontinued or at least in the 3 low A/R options. I got a Garrett RB26 GTR turbo that was rebuilt and has a .49/.48 A/R. for less than half the price of my original turbo which helped get this back to under the $2,500 total build budget. I already ordered a slim t25/t3 adapter as I could, but don't feel like, welding a T25 to my turbo manifold. I'll have to remake the factory oil return flange so it sits closer to the turbo and has more clearance from the firewall. I might have to give the firewall a whack or two with the sledgehammer but everything looks like it will clear.





First quick thing is painting the intercooler flat black which serves two purposes. It hides the intercooler from easy sight and, without getting too into the physics, increases the intercoolers ability to cool with no airflow like at idle reducing overall heatsoak.





I'm using 2" mandrel bent intercooler piping and will be making a completely custom setup integrating the 3" MAF tube as part of the charge pipe which save money over the $70-100 3" premade MAF tube and hopefully will look decent. I'm using two 2>3" exhaust couplers welded end to end on the 3" side for a $17 MAF body.




Currently cutting my flanges for the turbo.


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## gbcanadian (Apr 22, 2015)

Looking great!! I love custom fabrication. I laughed out loud when you said you had to drop a gear going up a hill with the a/c on. In my 2.slow the ac robs like 10hp! I also have to drop gears with just me and the girlfriend, cooler and fishing gear going up a hill. Can't wait to see this come along and more importantly videos are a must when you go for the first drive!

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## VR6onDaBlock (Oct 8, 2007)

Got the flanges done. Using 1/4" steel which proves quite formidable even with access to a drill press which did make the job of drilling easier than I'm used to. Inlet was made using a 2" and oulet was 1-1/2" and I'll be using a 2-1/2" intake and 2" intercooler pipe.



Underestimated the 2 1/4" hole saw for the inlet and didn't like how little sealing surface it left me so that's that 3rd incomplete flange.



The one I fudged, I used a cut off wheel and a grinding wheel to make these.



Redo rough cut



And ground down and shaped. One had to have one hole bored wider so the outlet would be centered but fo rmy first attempt at making flanges I'm pretty happy with the outcome. Next is cutting and fitting the intercooler piping.


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## VR6onDaBlock (Oct 8, 2007)

Ran into a fitment issue with the T3 flanged manifold and the RB26 turbo T25 flange, but the solution to get a small adapter also solved the clearance issue I had on the compressor outlet flange. The adaptor had to be modified to fit the studs on the turbo as the T25 side was threaded so I had to drill the threads smooth first.




Also ran into the fact I had no way to bolt the turbo to the manifold so I rummaged the pile of bolts for 4 random headbolts. They had tips that make it easy for nuts to thread on which would be a huge plus when messing with it in the future. I measured what would be the shortest possible stud.



Stud length set to an inch to remove/install turbo.









Threaded the bolts in about 2-3 MM over so I can weld the ends and lock them in.



Took a carbide bit to the T25 sized inlet for a smoother transition and better flow from the T3 manifold.



Welded the T25 adaptor to the turbine inlet and bolted it all together. The setup is done and ready to be bolted up so it can be fitted for the downpipe and compressor outlet/inlet. It's fairly heavy so I will make a brace for it that bolts to an unused hole in the universal 8 hole T25 outlet flange which was a convenient design choice.




On the opposite end of the fabrication spectrum, eBay catch can. Just popped a hose on the inlet and threw some stainless wool in there for $25 all in.



Moving on to the intercooler setup. I'm using thin wall 2" steel tubing, it's what I'm used to welding and working with and will let me get a good looking, durable, reliable system. Starting by fitting the 27x7x2.5" intercooler which is attached to the front core support. I welded bolts to the front bar and used the provided brackets in the box to bolt it all together.



I only trimmed down the lip on the fiberglass that surrounds the condenser which let the intercooler sit flat and the bumper fit over with no problem. The 2 tabs that bolt the bottom on are still there and tuck behind the silicone couplers.

 

Tearing down the front to get access to the places my piping would go, there are a few things to cut or move around the battery and headlight to get a nice open area to send the charge pipe up through.



Horns are great for making noise but not for intercooler piping.



Bent the bracket for the top horn up and cut the tabs for the bottom bracket and rotated it in.



Connector gets relocated, main wire bundle ziptied under battery tray, move grounds to bolt for coolant system relay, and break all remaining intake pieces.



Decided to leave the passenger side alone, it will leave me access to my belts and solves the fact I can't clock the turbo in a better position. The pipes double back and will go up from the bottom and inbetween the engine and transmission to the compressor outlet. I'll have to heat wrap that.



Starting the good stuff and cutting the prebent mandrel bends, this is the intercooler hotside that will run along the radiator.



Before we get into it, I don't weld for a living 




The 3" MAF is part of the charge pipe and I made by joining two 2>3" reducers. The plastic MAF winds up being 2.75" ID but hopefully the sensor can make up for the slight decrease in air velocity of my 2.85-2.95" ID MAF tube. I'll have to sort out exactly how to make the mounting for the sensor later.







The pipe terminates in this big open space for a silicone coupler. As a mechanic for quite some time now I'm trying my best to engineer this forward, I don't want any odd or tight spaces and angles in the system. I hate jobs that take 5-30 minutes to remove a weirdly placed bolt or part installed underneath another part.



Now to send the cold side pipe up the charge pipe. This wound up being tricky because of the meandering path it has/I wanted it to take. I will probably make a bracket of some kind to support the pipe later.





Gonna grind this all smooth looking like one piece and will all be painted flat black to not be so jarring in appearance in the engine bay.




A tab cut here and there with a box cutter and the bumper slides right over top.



The passenger grille fits straight up and I ground a notch into the driver one. Real sleeper status which is just what I want for this car.


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## Tdc_shop (Apr 18, 2016)

Curious-whats your tuning gonna be? I have built many 2.0 turbo's aba's and asg's....and have never seen a 2.0l with oem tuned ecu using a blow through maf....just curious as i have asked many tuners and no one will tune that way as the maf's don't like the pressure and the density changing reek chaos on the maf calculations! I have tried and it has never been drivable!!! Very interested in your build and keep on fab'n!!!! 


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## Srbgti (Jul 28, 2006)

Is that exhaust tubing for intercooler ?


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## VR6onDaBlock (Oct 8, 2007)

Tdc_shop said:


> Curious-whats your tuning gonna be? I have built many 2.0 turbo's aba's and asg's....and have never seen a 2.0l with oem tuned ecu using a blow through maf....just curious as i have asked many tuners and no one will tune that way as the maf's don't like the pressure and the density changing reek chaos on the maf calculations! I have tried and it has never been drivable!!! Very interested in your build and keep on fab'n!!!!


Well I'm just going off the C2 Tune which uses a 3" aluminum MAF housing and a VR6 MAF sensor which is in a larger housing by about a half inch or more, I guess they simply rework the MAF imputs to the ECU. The Mk4 2.0 has been tricky to find aftermarket and particularly F/I support on, most of the market is geared towards the Mk3's ABA or Mk4 AEG, I'll be carefully modifying an ABA metal head spacer to fit on my BEV shortly. The tuning is the one loose end on the build, frankly I'm winging it and will just buy their $80 housing and it should work with silicone couplers.


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## VR6onDaBlock (Oct 8, 2007)

Srbgti said:


> Is that exhaust tubing for intercooler ?
> 
> 
> Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


Indeed it is aluminized 18 gauge steel and apparently the most FAQ about this build so far hahaha I got someone on every place I post pics asking that question. I don't know how to weld aluminum/don't feel like buying different gas/extra weight over the front wheels won't hurt. Though I am a mechanic of 6-8 years, most of what I'm doing here is above my abilities and/or don't have the proper tools for, but I love to DIY.


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## dogdog (Jul 26, 2007)

:thumbup::thumbup::thumbup::thumbup::thumbup:
haven't seen a good thread for a long while.


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## Tdc_shop (Apr 18, 2016)

I only said something because the vw maf is designed to only have air pulled through-thus on the intake for the turbo-not in charge plumbing-nice work though!!!


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## VR6onDaBlock (Oct 8, 2007)

Tdc_shop said:


> I only said something because the vw maf is designed to only have air pulled through-thus on the intake for the turbo-not in charge plumbing-nice work though!!!


Like I said this is not my specialty. Should I be putting the OE MAF on the intake for the turbo? That makes more sense now that I think about it lol and its a pretty easy fix as I haven't made the intake yet and can easily remove the MAF tube from the charge pipe.


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## Tdc_shop (Apr 18, 2016)

Yes-maf needs to be part of intake tube for turbo-still use the 3 inch vr6 maf housing and sensor as you were doing. Other wise car should boogie the way you have it set up!!!


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## VR6onDaBlock (Oct 8, 2007)

Started repairing my GLI kit to put on the car, 7 years have taken it's toll on the kit though. The front lip is in tatters, one of the sideskirts was broken in 3 pieces and repaired but has almost split in half, and the rear is slightly melted at the exhaust cutout and as I discovered not remotely a direct fit on the Mk4 wagon rear. First was the skirts which I stripped, sanded and fiberglassed. 




There were numerous chips and cracks that had to be filled.



I've found after many repairs that Rustoleum Bright Metallic spray paint is almost dead on Reflex Silver so thats what I use.



This will be the last time I repair this lip, next hit it takes it'll probably fall apart anyway.





Old "Drift Stitch" 



Put a hold on the front to fit the back and see what I needed to do to make it work. The GLI valance is about an inch too wide, 3 inches too short, the corners are sharper, and only about half the tabs line up. It looks like they do but they are all slightly off.



Had to make most of the tabs skinny and a little thinner to line up with the holes.



I will attempt to only cut it in 2 places, I think I can get it to take the shape of that corner without removing that piece you can see marked on the rear, I would need to take a 1/2" from each side otherwise. 



The GLI lip seems to be thicker all around than the wagon one, I cut out the sharpie marks and was pleased when it clicked into its spot.




And the rain stopped me here, I'll have to make this a permanent install to fill that gap with fiberglass but I've never had to remove a rear lip before so it should be OK



Moving onto a little project I'm pretty stoked about. A super stealthy A/R gauge that looks almost factory. Started with an eBay special ASPX V2 Wideband, reviews says it works and the only complaint is how cheap the gauge looks. Well thats what I wanted a cheap ass gauge. I wanted to put just the LCD screen inside the factory blank on my dash for traction control which is not an option on what I am certain was a special order car with is weird combo of base and luxury options. Started by pulling apart the screen and was disappointed to see the LCD soldered directly to the board, I was hoping it would have a small short wire bundle.




Very carefully used a thin dremel cut off disc to slide inbetween the chip and screen and cut the solder.



Mocked up the blank to make sure this would fit like I wanted




I then carefully cut as deep into the resin as I could to expose the circuit posts and found some thin wire to use.



Very tediously began attaching the wires, carefully inspecting to make sure no loose strands were crossing terminals.



Superglue and patience




Finished off with JB Weld sealing everything together permanently 



Made a little cardboard template after not liking the way it looked and realizing I could use the gauge face as a cover for the LCD.




And after more tedious cutting and fine sanding I have a pretty OE looking button that will be my A/R gauge. It's blue as well. And I've got more OE goodness in store when I get my boost gauge and put that where I want it. I'll solder the wires to the board later when I'm ready to install and figure out where to place the gauge face/chip under the dash. I want this car to have absolutelty no indications that it's boosted unless the hood is open.


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## VR6onDaBlock (Oct 8, 2007)

Alright one last lose end I NEED help with. What do I do with the Secondary Air and EGR Valve? I can probably integrate the EGR onto the manifold and the SAI tube into the turbo inlet but do the turbo tunes for these cars simply delete the whole system? It'd be easier not to deal with hooking up SAI but if there's not an easy tuning solution that will turn the MIL light off for the SAI system I'm going for that. I'm using C2s Stage 2 Turbo Tune.


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## Tdc_shop (Apr 18, 2016)

Talk with united motor sports-its a flash tune car anyhow-and yes/ they can delete the stuff-just leave the solenoids for the vacuum actuators for the sai and egr in place-some times the tune just turns it all of but the ecu needs to see the solenoids for "check errors"


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## VR6onDaBlock (Oct 8, 2007)

All parts besides tune have been ordered. In the meantime I'm getting the exterior in order. I threw a set of 70% used BF Goodrich G-Force Comp-2 summer tires which I am very pleased with.



Wheel I picked up in NJ at Waterfest in 2010 out of sheer luck, had just got into an accident a week prior and trashed on and a guy had a single one for sale at the swap meet. Had to carry the wheel about a half mile to the parking lot.





I set about finishing the repair of my old GLI kit I had pieced together over the years. First up was the front lip which at this point is literally in 3 pieces, I had to bolt a piece of Lexan to keep it together a few repairs ago. Also fiberglass is not one of my or I hope no ones favorite mediums to work with.



Cut about 1" out of the lips scoops to fit the intercooler. 



Years and years of repairs



Where the split meets by the scoop and the scoop itself is entirely fiberglass, I had to fill and shape as a hole about 3" wide was in the lip but thats why I got it for 80 back in the day. 




Moving onto the rear lip, I formed the basic shape with cardboard and laid the fiberglass sheets and resin over the form. 





Wound up gorilla glueing the lip on to get it to line up better before rattlecan.




Full kit on





Finished up with fake exhaust tips welded to a plate, welded to a piece of the chassis. I'll have a turndown muffler added in the near future or maybe add it to the build soon for a deeper tone from the 4 banger.



Slight stagger for OE look


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## Tybagv20 (Feb 14, 2016)

Car is looking so good!!!:thumbup:


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## VR6onDaBlock (Oct 8, 2007)

IGHT LET'S F*****G DO THIS! I didn't flake on this build, just had a looooooot of setbacks such as failed orders, damaged parts, another engine rebuild, and an emergency double root canal following an infection. But this weekend it's boost or bust before H2Oi 2016. First is what tied me up for 2 weeks making sure I had a drive able car in the event I completely fudge this. My fully gutted E36 M3 with a high compression emissions system free motor :laugh:. The company I ordered the main bearings from listed the wrong bearings for the application, part my fault for not specing the crank and/or plastigauging the bearings. The thrust bearing practically melted and took the crank with it. Fortunately at my job I pulled a junk 2001 330i motor which has the same crank part number as my 97 M3 so I got a free $500 crank :thumbup: The company I ordered the bearings still had them mislabeled but I got the right part number. But then they sent me trashed bearings. The picture doesn't do justice how scratched up from floating around in the box they were, I guess they were a return because the shrinkwrap was gone.





Engine only runs water pump and alternator after I accidentally broke a powersteering line which is not cheap and said screw it it will just leak anyway being an E36.



And popping it back in, now I have an emergency vehicle, albeit a rambunctious one.


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## VR6onDaBlock (Oct 8, 2007)

Enough BMW talk though, lets get this Jetta boosted. Finished off my A/R gauge by soldering the LED screen to the circuit board it came from, not pretty but the board will just get stuffed somewhere in the dash so whatever. 



Breaking down the motor.







Slapped a mark on the belt and TDC mark so I don't have to mess with timing.





And it bolts up. I have a feeling I'll have to take a sledgehammer to the firewall though to fit the turbo.





Hehe a message from Nissan and Garrett



Cut out the manifold support tabs from the exhaust shroud I can't use over the turbo.





Shoutouts to Marty Brown Racing in MD for their quick turnaround on both my resurfaced heads, this was knocked out in one day. 



Painted cast aluminum and gloss black engine paint.





In the future maaaaay get springs and a turbo cam as they are absurdly cheap compared to my BMW but for now it's 100% stock engine internals.



Made a 3" to what will be a 2 1/4" turbo inlet starting with the MAF. I made my own MAF tube for under $15 using a piece of 3" exhaust tubing, a scrap of 2" tubing, a 3-2.5 reducer, and some random electrical box I found lying around. 



Cut out just a 1" piece of the reducer and measured the factory position of the MAF element on the 3" tube from where it reduces, hopefully this is the best position for the tight spot I have it planned for.



Cut a section of my 2" piping to about 1 1/2" and rewelded it for the MAF mounting tube.





Probably 1/32-1/16" steel is what the scrap electrical box was made of, whatever it was free and was perfect for the MAF mounting face.





Cut off the mounting face for the VR6 MAF and JB welded it on the metal face I made. The o-ring can now make a seal and I'll bolt the element to the face.


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## Driftlover78 (May 13, 2005)

Good to see some progress!!👍👍


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## VR6onDaBlock (Oct 8, 2007)

Sorry for the lack of updates, I'm super behind the 8-Ball with this build and have been staying up until 1-3AM everynight for the week prior to H2Oi. The car is working, making boost and has about 500 miles on it so far and made it to H2Oi and back without relative incident. 
Starting with assembly of block, I made (that may have failed, more on that later) a hybrid of the CTS turbo ABA spacer and the BEV outer shells of the head gasket. 






Then got to dropping the trans and getting the new Southbend Stage 2 Daily clutch in.





Had to clean this grimy thing up





Single mass flywheel can be had for $65 



Old clutch





Finished the night with getting the manifold fitted and confirming the whole thing fit without having to really do anything besides cut away the heatshield blanket


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## Driftlover78 (May 13, 2005)

Nice!!!


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## VR6onDaBlock (Oct 8, 2007)

With the V-band adaptor on it put the turbine outlet pretty far over so I had to make a pretty sharp turn with the 3" mandrel bend. I only had 4" to make a 180 degree bend and only 2-3" for an inner radius. This is all mild steel.


Duct tape is your friend when mocking pipes.




One thing I've learned from moving to 2 places since I bought my 250v 50AMP welder is how many 220-250V/20-50AMP hookups there are that can be in a home. There's about 2 common 110V outlets that can be found in homes. There's a little under 2 dozen to 250V and not all can even run a welder at 50-75% power. Last place I made an adaptor that plugged into the stove outlet, and the new place we rent uses gas so it was just the dryer I could use and there was a slight difference in size but I did not feel like dropping 20-60 making an adaptor for this I just cranked the sketch level up a bit and jammed the plugs together, wrapping it in electrical tape.



First downpipe weld.




The time consuming part of all this was the constant getting up and down and fitting and unfitting the pipes.






Wound up having to make one messy transition but for the most part I was very happy with my first attempt at a custom downpipe.




Hookup for wideband just before cat 






After doing the head, clutch, and downpipe I needed to push the car into the garage and discovered I had no R,1,3,or 5th gear. After several hours and some serious reading from my Bentley I found that a shaft inside the boot for the gear selector on the trans had gotten bent causing the cable to bind. A hammer and some caliper grease got me back in action without having to drop $220 on a cable.


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## Driftlover78 (May 13, 2005)

I applaud u for the custom work!!


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## VR6onDaBlock (Oct 8, 2007)

One thing I've learned from all the research that goes into turboing this motor with virtually no aftermarket support is that the 2.0 and 1.8t are in essence the same design. When figuring out where to put the oil return, I simply tapped the unused blank where the factory one would go if this was a 1.8t. I used a 3/4" barb fitting to match the outlet for the turbo and a piece of factory hose lying around, it's probably a coolant line, but it curled around the downpipe and axles perfectly





I'm still learning how to weld so after discovering several pinhole leaks on my previous thinner welds for the intercooler piping, I cranked up the feed and volts and laid down thicker than needed welds but not a single leak resulted from the redo and all new welds after that. First up was the turbo inlet, made using 2 1/4" for the inlet then becoming 2 1/2" then 3" for the MAF. This was all tricky as I have 3 pipes coming from one small area so space was very tight but I managed to not need to alter any hoses or lines but I did have to bend a brake line coming off the master cylinder for this pipe to get where I needed it.




Moving onto the charge pipe redo I had to cut it and angle it to clear the battery better and give the MAF room




This wound up being literally chained with some thin chain to the body and a cotterpin to make a suprisingly sturdy hold down for the pipe.



It's just nice to have access to a garage and it rained for 2 days of this build.



Mocking up Diverter Valve, this winds up making a semi loud sound being only a foot from the outlet of the intake. Not overly loud, I can be stealthy if I want with a faint "whoosh" but 4k WOT snaps make a nice "psh". This turbo seems perfectly suited to what I wanted which was loads of torque and usable powerband. The T28 0.49/.49 A/R turbo kicks in at about 2,600 RPM taking over nicely from the relatively low torque and finishes making real power at about 5.5 to 6,000 RPM. It's definately satisfying having the turbo spool up right as I'm used to this motor starting to flatline and instead pull quite strong comparitavely.



Don't have much coverage of the turbo outlet, 1 7/8" to 2" running under the valve cover outlet.





With everything hooked up I turned the key and was a crank no start with the C2 tuned ECU. I got an immobilizer defeated ECU to tide me over for the week my ECU spent in transit. I retimed the motor, which was off a tooth or 2 and stuck the stock ECU back in. It started but with the worst idle ever and a fat exhuast leak I rerouted the throttle body vacuum line which I tapped the DV into after a drive down the street and the idle smoothed out a little. Drove it to my shop at night to check over my work and for a test drive.



Aaaaaand I then left immediately for H2Oi as it was 7PM on Friday the weekend of H2Oi.



One pipe wound up at different angle than measured so the driver fender grill didn't fit.



I do love my E36s



At Fort Whaley Campground. Had a great weekend though either my valve seals or hybrid head gasket has failed and the cars a little smokey and runs rough from a leak between the manifold and the emmisions ports that it doesn't completely cover as well as running a factory ECU which should all be fixed this weekend.


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## Driftlover78 (May 13, 2005)

U are a brave soul. I want to do the USRT mani, i gave a 1.8t in my garage..


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## turbovanman+tdi (Sep 22, 2014)

Digging all the wagon threads. Great work on the turbo install,  LOL'd badly on the downshift when she turned the a/c on. :facepalm: :laugh:

My only suggestion is the ox and wideband sensors, they have to be at least parallel with the car otherwise moisture forms and runs down the sensor, ruining them.


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## VR6onDaBlock (Oct 8, 2007)

Been quiet here for a while as I wasn't sure what the outcome of a pretty big problem following another problem was going to pan out. Also I went on a 2 week vacation. The EGR holes that the manifold didn't cover were the first issue I went after getting back from H20i. Cut a 1/8" inch steel plate to cover the holes.



I love drill presses, first time I've had access to one at a shop I work at.





Final grind/shape done with a carbide grinding bit 



I could've made the final nicer looking but who cares, its on the back of the motor of a daily plus figured it wouldn't warp as bad over time on the edges with just straight cuts.



At this point you may be asking why the head is off during this fitting.



The answer is 12 year old naturally aspirated oil scraper rings do not like the sudden application of boost. You can see from the picture that the oil rings were collapsed in the ringland compared to the others. The result was a massive amount of blowby right before pulling it was essentially putting up a smokescreen every time I got on it. 



New rings from our machine shop that does our work for engine rebuilds. 





First time ordering connecting rod bearings was a no go for me as the "OE" bearings didn't have the notch that would prevent the spinning of a bearing. No way I was gonna use these particularly on a boosted NA motor.



Did a redo with Glycos that had the notch, ARP hardware was actually $20 cheaper than OE connecting rod bolts so it was a no brainer to get those while I was in there. Crazy considering rod bolts for my BMW M3 S52 are $35 for 12.



New rings on, that's how expanded the oil ring should've been.





While I had the head off I replaced the valve seals to guarantee a smoke free motor. Used a O2 socket and a standard valve compressor. The fixed cam tray that was part of the head itself was a bit of a challenge compared to the other motors I've worked on.





Honestly I should've port and polished while I was in here but I was semi pressed for time on my daily, maybe when I get cams in the future to complement the turbo.



And then it burst into flames 15 miles and 9 hours after being put together.


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## MK3 LUV (Nov 23, 2012)

Thats on hell of a way to finish out an update, hope everyone is alright & the car is still salvageable


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## VR6onDaBlock (Oct 8, 2007)

Sitting at a stop light the car suddenly started running terrible then stalled. Black smoke started coming out of the hood and the paint started bubbling. I put 2 and 2 together in a panic and dumped coolant from a half bottle in the trunk on the fire so the car only on fire for about 15-30 seconds. The fire department showed up a minute later and gave me props for not letting the fire get out of hand.





The culprit was a fuel injector o-ring on cylinder 4 which trickled down the the exposed spark plug wire and ignited



The fire was contained and did relatively minor damage considering most of the time I hear a car catching on fire, its a total loss. It destroyed two fuel injectors, spark plug wires, throttle body, oil cap, various rubber lines, and the engine harness but not the trans or body one.







Repainted head and valve cover. 



Glad this intake is metal otherwise that would've been a loss too.





I had to get the Bosch 440cc's anyway so the fact I lost 2 OE injectors wasn't that bad. The fuel rail has to be spaced out about 5 mm to fit the larger injectors.



Went to the junkyard and pulled the harness from this 2002 BEV which turned out to not work, some wires weren't right. The final donor was a 2003 Golf BEV which was also different by just a single pinout going from the coilpack to the ECU resulting in a crank no start. I pulled the pin from the original harness and put it in the blank on the new plug and it fired right up. (the pinout on the far right bottom)



The melting of the wires then being doused with water took out several relays and the ignition switch.



In a stroke of luck our shop has a car for sale that I used as a loaner.



Part of the trouble shooting process had me put an OE junkyard fuel rail I got when getting the harness in so its running OE injectors at the moment, I'll try the C2 tuned box that failed to start the car a few months ago when I try to put in the 440s this weekend. But its driving around like it never happened and has about 150 miles on it since the fire.


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## Mk4 2.0 (Sep 28, 2021)

VR6onDaBlock said:


> Sitting at a stop light the car suddenly started running terrible then stalled. Black smoke started coming out of the hood and the paint started bubbling. I put 2 and 2 together in a panic and dumped coolant from a half bottle in the trunk on the fire so the car only on fire for about 15-30 seconds. The fire department showed up a minute later and gave me props for not letting the fire get out of hand.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


I love this build I’m slowly building my 05 bev 2.0l running all stock internals at the moment, soon getting duel valve springs the head shim for a aba and retro fitting it to the bev head then rings and rods! Hope she’s still kicking!


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