# What to do next: 8v 2.0L N/A



## dutch_diy (May 23, 2010)

Hello all,

I've been reading here on vwvortex for quite a while now (even though the search currently isn't all that helpfull..), and was hoping you guys could share your opinion on my engine. The engine is being used by my all-student-team in local rallye-events. Last winter we had this engine build and tuned, and we are currently planning the next steps in extracting more of those lovely BHP's, which we will start doing this september. 

I'm hoping for any advice as to what we could do in addition to the list below, that will gain some more performance without spending 1000s of Euro's. Now I know this is basically a FAQ-type of question, but I've done quite a lot of searching and reading before we came up with the current list of mods. I'm just looking for some advice and extra tips 'n tricks. The engine is a 9A 8v hybrid running on E85. Due to our budget, we currently want to stick to the 8v head, mostly because of all the work and money that has been put into it. And due to regulations, the engine must stay max 2.0L and N/A.

*Current engine spec:*
-9A block (stock internals)
-running on E85
-14:1 compression ratio

-counterflow 8v head, solid lifters
-head fully ported/flowed
-41mm intake / 35mm exhaust valves
-"high flow" valves with 7mm valve stems
-valve guides shortened, they are now level with port roofs
-new+bigger valve seats, other material for the E85 fuel
-catcams 291/285 (@0.1mm+cl), 11.40mm total lift. camshaft type 7640014 (can't link directly to their specsheet)

-exhaust heat-wrapped

*We are planning to do these additional mods in a few months:*
-MS2 ECU
-42mm GSXR ITB's
-Stainless steel exhaust system, 4-1 or 4-2-1
-adjustable cam gear
-????

I know lots of people knife the crank and change the conrods/pistons, but could you give me a ballpark figure as to how much this adds in performance? Cause those are all quite expensive mods...
(as for the drivetrain, we are already running a cintered bronze clutch, light flywheel, modified diff etc, but this thread is mainly about the engine)

Hope you guys have some ideas!

Thanks in advance,

-dutch_diy


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## Svedka (Jul 4, 2008)

We are planning to do these additional mods in a few months: 
-MS2 ECU 
This will be your biggest improvement 

-42mm GSXR ITB's 
Not easily done lots of fabrication will be needed to fit bike ITB's behind a counterflow head look into DCOE ITB's or having a super custom manifold made 

-Stainless steel exhaust system, 4-1 or 4-2-1 
low end 4-2-1 
high end 4-1 

-adjustable cam gear 
suprized you don't have one 

-???? 
no mention of lighter flywheel or intermediate shaft pulley also ceramic coat for heat despesing 


try and post in carbs SEMS forum for info on MS and ITB's


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## dutch_diy (May 23, 2010)

Thanks for the quick reply Svedka! 

I'll look into the SEMS forum for additional info. 

Since plug n play manifolds for the bike ITB's will be hard to find for this head, we were planning on doing some DIY work. We have acces to a lathe, mill and TIG welding equipment. So I guess that's gonna take some long hours in the workshop. 

As for the cam gear, due to some weird and hypocrite regulations (dont ask..), those were not allowed in the class that we compete in this year. 

Flywheel has already been lightened (see last bit of my first post). Will look into a aluminium int pulley. 

As for the ceramic coating, what parts are you referring to, just the exhaust? I've got no experience with those coatings, do you reckon it works way better than the heat wrapping? 

And what about things like external water pumps or dry-sump setups?


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## Svedka (Jul 4, 2008)

ceramic coating can have 2 different effects heat dispersant or heat retention both can help reduce heat soaking and engine bay temps and can lead to more HP to be gained. 

I run this also helped my heat soaking issue 
http://www.evolutiontuning.com/evoheatshields18SOHC8V.htm 

exhaust = heat retention so the heat all flows back and out 

valve cover, oil pan, water pump housing, oil flange, Intake manifold = heat dispersant 

I took it 1 step futher and did my cam gear and intermediate shaftgear in heat dispersant to see if i could drop a little more heat? 

Only pieces that come in direct contact with the block are worth coating as the can give off the most heat or retain the most 

I have played with different combos of powder-coating and ceramic coating and that was the combo I came up with 


As far as the bike tb's I don't like them I have yet to see one that runs and has the benifit of a match ported manifold that BOLTS to the ITB's not have silicon coupler there is always a flow restriction with the couplers and itb's . 

with MS you will get the same if not more power from a big bore TB and a narly ported intake manifold than you will with bike tb's and silicone coupler. 

for reference im sure you can make/port your own 
http://www.scientificrabbit.com/node/2 


maybe find a set of bolt able ITB's from a m3,ae86 or something along that line for the manifold project or any DCOE itb. DCOE manifold are getting cheap used and lots of new production still going on BFI is selling a down-draft version that dcoe itb's could be used with also just for refrence 

http://store.blackforestindustries.com/spa8vcainmat.html 

jenvey,badger,extrabuddy,twm and a few others sell really nice itb's 

I personally tried the bike itb thing and scrapped it, went to dcoe carbs scrapped it now i have a 
MS2, AE86 itb's with a much customized manifold (to much work to say its a rowland manifold) on a 3a 2.1 bottom with all custom internals and a 026H solid lifter head with 42-34 valves and a 296 web custom grind 

still no dyno :banghead::banghead::banghead: 


to compliment the MS2 try a msd or mallory cd ignition and bigger coil this made a huge diffrence in my car 

as far as knifing the crank its so it cuts through the oil faster reducing the load on the crank making it spin up faster  

So any pics of your beast id like to see what your school kids get to play withopcorn:


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## Scorp67 (Apr 30, 2009)

Lightened pullys and balanced IM shaft are my sugestions 
I know a few ppl on vortex have found the Im shaft to be pretty bad 
Not a lot of extra power to be gained from those two mods but the engine will rev a bit quicker and smoother


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## Prof315 (Jan 5, 2009)

Svedka said:


> We are planning to do these additional mods in a few months:
> -MS2 ECU
> This will be your biggest improvement
> 
> ...


Actually If you use a DCOE manifold adapting GXSR ITBs isn't that hard and since I'm guessing that you are using a 1.8L head you can use Digifant injector bungs and a digi fuel rail to get the injectors spraying on the back of the valve. We did this on our GTL tube frame race car (MS powered as well)
and used the injector ports on the ITBs for IAC. 14 to 1 compression, BIG Web cam (256 @.050 .480" lift 102* lobe centers) and idles warm at 1000 rpm smooth as glass.


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## Svedka (Jul 4, 2008)

Prof315 said:


> Actually If you use a DCOE manifold adapting GXSR ITBs isn't that hard and since I'm guessing that you are using a 1.8L head you can use Digifant injector bungs and a digi fuel rail to get the injectors spraying on the back of the valve. We did this on our GTL tube frame race car (MS powered as well)
> and used the injector ports on the ITBs for IAC. 14 to 1 compression, BIG Web cam (256 @.050 .480" lift 102* lobe centers) and idles warm at 1000 rpm smooth as glass.


 What im saying is it will be hard to make bike itb's work efficiently in a MK2 or MK1 shell on a COUNTER-FLOW head, it would be more feasible to run dcoe style itb's instead of spending money trying to fabricate something to work and still not be perfect. 

Again I have yet to see a 100% perfect transition from bike itb's or carbs to a made manifold with silicone couplers especially on a counter flow 8v head. 

I suppose you could buy a dcoe manifold uses velocity stacks cut down and attach the bike itb's this way but firewall room and transition factors from stacks to itb to filter next to firewall might not be the best for air intake. 

In a tube framed car i could see this application being used but not being 100% effective, again the transition from itb to silicone to manifold can not be 100% effective for the air flow it must get interrupted during the transition even thew it may be minimal it is enough.


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## dutch_diy (May 23, 2010)

wow, a lot of usefull information since I last posted, thanks again!!!  I'll try and respond quote-by-quote 



Svedka said:


> As far as the bike tb's I don't like them I have yet to see one that runs and has the benifit of a match ported manifold that BOLTS to the ITB's not have silicon coupler there is always a flow restriction with the couplers and itb's .
> 
> with MS you will get the same if not more power from a big bore TB and a narly ported intake manifold than you will with bike tb's and silicone coupler.
> 
> ...


 Good point, I understand the problem with being sure about the exact fitment of those ITB's in silicon couplers. But I have to admit: I bought this complete set (including TPS sensor, injectors and everything) good as new for just $150 . Shame not to buy such a thing when jenveys will get you down at least a few hundred more. 
However, we _could_ try some 'aluminum couplers' (as part of the manifold) with o-ring grooves, by creating a very thight fitment on the lathe and mounting the itb's independently. Any thoughts on that idea? 
We will look for the m3 ones anyway, see what those things will cost us. Always better to avoid messing with the whole coupler-thing! 



Svedka said:


> to compliment the MS2 try a msd or mallory cd ignition and bigger coil this made a huge diffrence in my car
> 
> as far as knifing the crank its so it cuts through the oil faster reducing the load on the crank making it spin up faster


 Good one, we will probably hook the MS2 setup onto some kind of a DIS ignition system. 



Svedka said:


> So any pics of your beast id like to see what your school kids get to play withopcorn:


 Haha so school kids right?  Don't know if it seemed that way, but this car doesn't have all that much to do with our education. We are a group of friends that have this type of racing as our hobby. Some of us are structural/civil engineering-students, and some of us (including me) are students in mechanical engineering. So that's why the budget is always short, especially when we are racing against much bigger budgets, and people with much more experience. But hey, we'll just beat them by out smarting them . 

We are running all of this in a stripped down Golf mk3 by the way. I've asked the guys about some pictures, but they are too scared our competitors might be reading through vortex, hope you guys can understand that . I'd be happy to PM you a picture though! 



Scorp67 said:


> Lightened pullys and balanced IM shaft are my sugestions
> I know a few ppl on vortex have found the Im shaft to be pretty bad
> Not a lot of extra power to be gained from those two mods but the engine will rev a bit quicker and smoother


 Never heard of that one, I'll certainly take a closer look at that IM shaft. I know how important it is to have a smooth an balanced running engine before letting it make more bhp. Thanks for that one! 



Prof315 said:


> Actually If you use a DCOE manifold adapting GXSR ITBs isn't that hard and since I'm guessing that you are using a 1.8L head you can use Digifant injector bungs and a digi fuel rail to get the injectors spraying on the back of the valve. We did this on our GTL tube frame race car (MS powered as well)
> and used the injector ports on the ITBs for IAC. 14 to 1 compression, BIG Web cam (256 @.050 .480" lift 102* lobe centers) and idles warm at 1000 rpm smooth as glass.


 Maybe I'm getting you wrong, but you mean you used stock injector holes in the head for the injectors? We have the old 'eurospec' solid lifter head, that was used on monopoint engines, so no (pre-drilled) injector holes in our head.... 



Svedka said:


> What im saying is it will be hard to make bike itb's work efficiently in a MK2 or MK1 shell on a COUNTER-FLOW head, it would be more feasible to run dcoe style itb's instead of spending money trying to fabricate something to work and still not be perfect.
> 
> Again I have yet to see a 100% perfect transition from bike itb's or carbs to a made manifold with silicone couplers especially on a counter flow 8v head.
> 
> ...


 Again, I understand your concern about the silicon couplers. For what it's worth: the car is (off-course) modified with a decent rollcage and a set of strut bars. So if we need to cut some room into the firewall, this won't be too much of a problem when it comes to car stiffness.


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## Svedka (Jul 4, 2008)

Scorp67 said:


> Lightened pullys and balanced IM shaft are my sugestions
> I know a few ppl on vortex have found the Im shaft to be pretty bad
> Not a lot of extra power to be gained from those two mods but the engine will rev a bit quicker and smoother


 I also had a IM shaft lightened balanced and polished on my 3a if I had pics of it factory then lightened and polished you would see how much material was taken off its actual allot.


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## Svedka (Jul 4, 2008)

please send pics to [email protected] as i am very interested in the build in car and will not share pics with anyone. 



what carbs were you running? you said it was a euro-spec head with no injector ports so is it a 1.7 head casting? all the euro spec heads i've seen for a solid lifter 1.8 have injector holes? 

does the front of the head actually say euro spec?


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## vwpat (Oct 25, 2000)

Svedka said:


> please send pics to [email protected] as i am very interested in the build in car and will not share pics with anyone.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


 I think he means European specification not Eurospec (the company.) Those monopoint heads were like carb heads with no injector holes. It uses a single injector in the manifold and they were 1.8. Europe never got the 1.7 anyway.


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## jerrymic (Apr 19, 2007)

*ITBs*

ITBs fabbed correctly for a counterflow head FYI 

http://forums.vwvortex.com/showthread.php?942528-DIY-ITB-project-Teaser-pix-)


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## Svedka (Jul 4, 2008)

jerrymic said:


> ITBs fabbed correctly for a counterflow head FYI
> 
> http://forums.vwvortex.com/showthread.php?942528-DIY-ITB-project-Teaser-pix-)


 Your kidding right :sly: 

Although its a great looking concept the manifold was made from steel and was cut chopped welded many times 

Also there is no dyno sheet just his said #'s so you be the judge the 16v itb build with links to it made 135 whp maybe there was some confusion or the dyno was not accurate either way 150 whp out of a counterflow 8v is alot. 

http://forums.vwvortex.com/showthread.php?1170041-DIY-ITB-Project-number-2-16v-version!/page2 

ON another note he had more then 50hrs into building the manifold and making it work, hr rate x 50 hrs = more than jenveys or similar ITB's would cost IMO.


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## jerrymic (Apr 19, 2007)

it got results... it made 150whp with stock sized valves and stock displacement...


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## Svedka (Jul 4, 2008)

NO dyno to prove it


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## dutch_diy (May 23, 2010)

Thanks again for your replies!  



Svedka said:


> please send pics to [email protected] as i am very interested in the build in car and will not share pics with anyone.
> 
> what carbs were you running? you said it was a euro-spec head with no injector ports so is it a 1.7 head casting? all the euro spec heads i've seen for a solid lifter 1.8 have injector holes?
> 
> does the front of the head actually say euro spec?


 E-mail has been send . As mentioned before up until this moment we were competing in a class that had some very limiting and sometimes hypocrite technical regulations. Due to these, we were forced to mount a completely stock carb, inlet and exhaust that comes with the mk2 1.8L engines. So this season we are still running a pierburg 2B5. 
Thank god we decided to move up to a higher class for next year! 



vwpat said:


> I think he means European specification not Eurospec (the company.) Those monopoint heads were like carb heads with no injector holes. It uses a single injector in the manifold and they were 1.8. Europe never got the 1.7 anyway.


 You are 100% correct, sorry for the misunderstanding in the "eurospec". 



jerrymic said:


> ITBs fabbed correctly for a counterflow head FYI
> 
> http://forums.vwvortex.com/showthread.php?942528-DIY-ITB-project-Teaser-pix-)


 At this moment I'm planning to do something along that same line of DIY-work. I've started modelling our ported counterflow head in 3D CAD, so we can start designing the entire ITB-setup before starting things up in the workshop. 
Apart from what setup we eventually decide to use (GSXR silicon couplers, or the DCOE ITBs), I'm going to design a ~10mm aluminium plate that mounts to the head and fits our ports (just like your steel plate). Once the designs are ready, we will have a lasercutting-company cut out this mounting plate. The runners will be all aluminium, probably roughly made from billet aluminium on the lathe, and smoothed out and matched once the runners are welded to the mounting plate. I don't like welding together piping, since this messes up the inside of your runners. 
Either way, the plan is to make the runners+ITB's as straight as possible, so straight towards the firewall. 

Here's a pic of tonights work, only modeled the head with a "stock exhaust". The reason why I've modeled this stock exhaust is because it allows for less room than the aftermarket SS exhaust we are going to use. This way I can be absolutely sure that the ITB setup will clear the exhaust, no matter what exhaust we mount to the engine in future setups.


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## Svedka (Jul 4, 2008)

cant w8 to see how this turns out opcorn:opcorn: 


mine on mockup day


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## Scorp67 (Apr 30, 2009)

Why can everyone else make such pretty looking renderings but i cant, even for simple stuff  
Solidworks?


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## dutch_diy (May 23, 2010)

Yep, the design is done in solidworks, but I used the standalone rendering package Photoview 360 that comes with Solidworks to do this quick rendering... really amazing what results you can get if you put some time into it, thinking that this decent rendering only took me 2 minutes to make! 

@svedka, what car are those ITB's originally from?


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## Svedka (Jul 4, 2008)

Toyota corolla itb from 85-86 and was also in some mid 90's toyota's commonly found on ebay or on toyota forums but there is no injector spots in the ITB so stand off injection or mount them in the intake manifold on a mono-point head. 

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/4age...ptZMotorsQ5fCarQ5fTruckQ5fPartsQ5fAccessories 

I bought my horribly (cant stress this enough) made manifold from Rowland (MO45) was the worst service ever and took 4 months or longer then when i got it it did not fit for anything I assume they made the mold and never installed one because I had close to 20hr's into making it fit like they said it would. There is injector ports in there manifold but they placed them facing straight down no angel at all. 










http://www.manifolds.co.za/?page_id=41 

If I was ever to buy a product from ROWLAND again I will use a local dealer so at least I have someone I can see/talk/yell at in person instead of someone in South Africa who can chose not to email or call me back. 

http://extrudabody.com/ they deal with ROWLAND and also make some cool stuff I bet it would not be hard to make these work on a DCOE manifold with a small adapter plate.


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## dutch_diy (May 23, 2010)

haha read enough threads on the vortex to know that rowland isn't the best choice!

I'm still thinking of doing my own design and production, does anybody know (or know of a *good* sideview image to measure from) at what angle the inlet port starts at inside the head, compared to the mounting-surface? I know they're not perpendicular to the mounting-surface as is with many other engines, as far as I can tell right now I'm guessing a ~20 degree angle (so 70 compared to the mounting surface). Hope you get what I mean.

I'm not near the engine for the next couple of days, and would like to continue my design...


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## dutch_diy (May 23, 2010)

Ok, tiny update here:

Found an example of someone that made flanges to press-fit onto the ITB's to make them suitable for ordinary DCOE manifolds, looks like a decent solution...










Apart from that, we have got our SS 4-2-1 system, it's absolutely beautifull .
Furthermore we're swapping the camshaft for a higher lift/longer duration camshaft, along with the proper valve springs, and titanium spring caps.


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## Jettaboy1884 (Jan 20, 2004)

Very informative thread. :thumbup: :thumbup:

For what it's worth: I've occasionally seen true direct to head counterflow ITB's for sale. I believe that Bertils made them at one point. I know that Holden McNeil had a set for sale some time ago, and someone else had a similar setup...


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## Prof315 (Jan 5, 2009)

jerrymic said:


> it got results... it made 150whp with stock sized valves and stock displacement...


 We make 145whp with a 14 to 1 1.8L, Eurospec Counterflow solid lifter CIS head (stock valve sizes) with 4 42mm GSXR ITBs and 30lb/hr injectors in the CIS bungs (we used CIS o-rings in place of the normal ones on the bottom) ,Big Web Cam, MS2 controlling fuel and waste spark and sucking all of our air through a 25mm Single Inlet Restrictor. Got the dyno sheets to back it up and in 2 weeks we take the restrictor off and retune on the dyno to see what it can do at 8K (the restrictor chops the power at 7200rpms)


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## dutch_diy (May 23, 2010)

Prof315, do you have a thread on that car? Sounds like a very interesting project! 

As far as this thread goes: 
We're mainly working on the car right now, lots of work to be done there. Cooling radiator in the back, entiry wiring, custom suspension etc. 
About the ITB allignment: we are definately going to use a similar solution as the pics I posted above; pressed flanges on the ITB's. We'll use a normal DCOE manifold that is currently being tuned to our ported head. 
The head will house a new cam with higher lift and duration, as well as some minor changes to the spring caps etc. We're hoping to go through the 200HP crank barrier, but I'm currently asking myself if this'll force us to use an oil cooler. Any thoughts on that? I have no experience with oil coolers, I assume we simply need a connector-piece on top of the oil filter which reroutes the oil through two hoses?


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## Svedka (Jul 4, 2008)

lots of different styles of oil cooler systems this is most common 
http://www.bahnbrenner.com/vw_audi/products/1392/BBM_4cyl_Universal_Oil_Cooler_Kit_Stainless_Steel 

also older GTI's from germany had came with external oil coolers if you search the classifieds:thumbup:


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## Prof315 (Jan 5, 2009)

dutch_diy said:


> Prof315, do you have a thread on that car? Sounds like a very interesting project!


 No thread, it's a full tube frame Scirocco SCCA road racer. It still has a Scirocco factory metal roof and the rest of the body work is fiberglass. Weighs ~ 2000lbs with a driver and runs on 15x23x9.5" Hoosier Bias ply racing slicks.


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## LT1M21Stingray (Sep 14, 2006)

Scorp67 said:


> Lightened pullys and balanced IM shaft are my sugestions
> I know a few ppl on vortex have found the Im shaft to be pretty bad
> Not a lot of extra power to be gained from those two mods but the engine will rev a bit quicker and smoother


 The more balanced the internals are, the less they rob you of some power. 

My friend Fred showed me this video: 

Connecting Rod Balancing


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## Road Boss (Jul 16, 2004)

How is this during normal driving? Will you have to rev the **** out of it to get to the next stop light?


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## eurotrashrabbit (Oct 25, 2001)

Do this







[video=facebook;1539621618243]http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=1539621618243&comments[/video]


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## dutch_diy (May 23, 2010)

Decided to follow up on my old topic to let the vortex know how this one turned out.

Eventually the engine ended up as follows:

-9A, knife edged, balanced and lightened crank
-stock rods n pistons (balanced)
-14:1 geometric CR
-head was modified as stated in the OP
-decided to go with a 309* @0.1mm , 14.5mm lift cam
-E85 
-ms2extra
-full standalone ignition (DIS-coilpack)

42mm gsx-r ITB's, fabbed a CNC full aluminium press-fit flange that bolted to a DCOE manifold

The engine pulled 190BHP at the crank (not bad for a counterflow-8v), with the torque kicking in at 4000rpm up till 7500, around 210Nm max. Dyno was no happy-number-dyno, so figures should be pretty decent.

Problem was the engine wasn't getting as much air as we'd hoped for, the VE/torque/BMEP being not as high as should be. Engine did not respond well to ignition timing changes or even a complete change to ogygenated fuel. It wasn't getting the air it needed.

The manifold was a late-saturday kinda job, the ITB flange was perfect but the DCOE manifold as it turned out had already been "tuned" by a former owner, thus making it pretty crap when it comes to smooth flow. Decided to bolt it on anyway, few days until dyno, I'm sure you guys have been there .

This winter we're planning on doing some minor mods to our nice little engine:
-wiseco piston kit
-aftermarket lightweight rods
-better/smoother and longer velocity stacks
-proper manifold with smooth transition from the ITB's to the manifold. Possibly replacing the 42mm ITB's to 45mm.
-Custom cam, slightly lower duration, same lift. Engine powerband started approx. 1K to high.

Hoping these mods will allow us to break the 200BHP mark.


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## 02vwgolf (Oct 6, 2009)

Just read this and it was quite impressive and informative...here's to hoping you reach the 200 mark:beer:


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## root beer (Jun 22, 2004)

Wow, this is wild. Keep us updated.


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## root beer (Jun 22, 2004)

More pictures too, or i'll get you banned or something.


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## 02vwgolf (Oct 6, 2009)

root beer said:


> More pictures too, or i'll get you banned or something.


HAHAHHAH best encouragement I've heard from a moderator in awhile!!:laugh::laugh:


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## dutch_diy (May 23, 2010)

Sorry guys been meaning to come with a meaningful update to this thread for a while, however some troubles over the winter meant this 8v engine is still not mounted together (can't do some of the machining jobs ourselves, and the people that would have been doing it didn't). Was hoping to show some dyno-charts somewhere around march, quite frustrated the engine still isn't running.

Car currently runs our back-up engine, stock ABF running 45mm jenvey ITBs, but would much rather have been blasting around with some 8V alcohol!

Still a bit reluctant to show pics though, know some of the competition lurks on the vortex, don't want them to know exactly which car it is that runs these specs!


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## Svedka (Jul 4, 2008)

root beer said:


> More pictures too, or i'll get you banned or something.












idle threats......:sly:


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