Up! Project

[Sharkie]

Looking at doing a project on an Up! for my son who turns 17 next year and need to get into his 1st car. His dream is a Mk1 Caddy (which will happen a bit later) but for now the Up will have to do.

I have always loved the Up! and have always wanted to do 1 up (lol). He does not like the idea much, so maybe this will be my project .....

Looking at acquiring a cheap Up! (and they are getting quite cheap now) and doing the usual mods .... exhaust, intake suspension etc, but also going down the forced induction route ..... probably supercharging the little beastie and making about 100kw ..... I have researched all of what I need to do and it might just take off this XMas break.

It looks quite do-able and I could potentially make some supercharging kits available once I sort it all out.

[tigger73]

Sounds interesting. I had heard that one of the limiting factors (other than cubic inches) was the transmission in these was not up for a lot more output.

Interested to see where you head with this

[syncro]

You could fit a 3 cyl turbo Audi A1 engine/transmission it it.

[99_FGT]

I like the way you think, but don't think the p plate restrictions allow it.
Any engine mod that requires a plate is automatically a high powered vehicle.

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[alexaescht]

up!'s gearbox is only rated to 120Nm which would be your limiting factor but I have (briefly) toyed with the idea of throwing a turbo on mine. Won't ever do it though

[Sharkie]

So, almost exactly 3 years after I wanted to start this, I did take the 1st step this week and bought an Up! in Tornado red.



Essentially a Little Red to match Big Red who brought it home



This 1 thanks to Pickles auctions was a police impound ... what do you need to do to get an Up! impounded ?

Luckily, not much needed to get it going again.

[FckBullerScott]

Wow.... impounded? Does it already have a supercharger fitted to it?

Nice find! I'm presuming your son is now even further away from the idea of a "worked" up, than he was 3 years ago - and that this is exclusively YOUR toy now?

How many km's on the clock? I'll be following this with interest - wouldn't mind picking up something like the UP! for occasional trips into the city (Albury/Wodonga) or otherwise just down the shops (less than 6km round trip, 2-3 times a week.... funnily enough, living in the country, I do fck all km's).

Same plans as before? Or are you gonna get carried away?

[Sharkie]

It will be a toy yes, but also used often (almost daily).

Thanks to COVID my wife still works from home at least 3 days a week. This does mean that she needs a car at home that she is willing to drive (she refuses to drive the Mustang as it scares her) and I take the R to work almost every day. The kids' cars are out most of the time so sometimes she has nothing to drive .... (other than a little Getz I've been fixing up (light hail damage) for a family friend that is struggling a bit at the moment, but its done and ready to go now).

My son, now almost 20 and drives the Amarok daily. He is studying and normally needs to do a 50km roundtrip to Uni a couple of times a week and the Amarok is big and uses a bit of fuel.

Enter the Up! ... it needs to be daily driver for Uni runs or my wife's needs, although she is quite willing to drive the Amarok when its home though and probably will do that whenever she can ... AND ... it needs to be a project car.

Project wise it will get suspension work, a brake upgrade, nice black 16" wheels, tint and badge blackout, rear sensors (and maybe a RVC), CAI and a cat-back exhaust to start with. In the future, I will supercharge it for a some more torque and kws, though I'll keep to low boost to protect the gearbox. At the same time I'll keep looking for a stat write off new Polo 1.0TSI which runs the same engines and gearbox found overseas in the mildly facelifted Up! TSI and GTI (2 different states of tune being 70 and 85kw too).

My local VW specialist reckons the Up!s are pretty bulletproof and VERY good on fuel. Also, it is a very nice drive and rated very highly by motoring journalists all around the world.

EDIT: This little 1 has 92000km and after fitting a new battery on Saturday arvo, runs and drives just fine. Turns out the previous owners/drivers appeared to be into dealing in illicit substances .... found some interesting "appliances" in the 1st interior clean.

[tigger73]

Nice! It's a bit of a pity that these didn't take off as it's tough to compete against the Koreans at the lower end of the market.

[Lucas_R]

This will be a cool and unique project Sharkie - I cant remember when I last saw an Up! on the road.

[Sharkie]

As an update, I have now done a lot of reading up on Up!s .... LOL

There has been a number of TSI upgrades in the UK, and apparently not that hard to do. Will absolutely happen to this 1

I have now ordered H&R sport suspension from VWCentral .... and ... an AMR300 supercharger which is suitable for 0.6 to 1.2l engines and will only provide lowish boost. Might buy an AMR500 (for a bit more boost) too later if it looks like there is space.

I have decided on the wheels already too, just need to get it roadworthied next week 1st before I start in earnest.

At the moment, its still hidden in my shed so SWMBO doesn't see it before its properly on the road.

She wanted a new Jimny, instead she got an Up!, so I'll probably be staying with the Up! in the shed for a while ....

EDIT: I did order a new Jimny though, but its only due next June, so I have 7 months to play with this in the meantime ....

[Sharkie]

Not project related, so I'm posting here.

Did drive the Up! to work most of last week (could not be bothered to take the R out the garage with holiday visitor's cars in the way) and boy is it light on fuel !!!!

Did my normal commute @ 4.9l/100km. 40km roundtrip each day with all suburbs and inner city. Also took no longer than any of the other cars
To put that in perspective compared to the others I drive (same trip, same duration):

Up! 4.9l/100km
MK7.5 110TSI (OK 150TSI now) 6.4l/100km
MK7.5 R 9.8l/100km
Amarok TSI (with 200+kw) 11.5l/100km
Mustang GT 18.1l/100km

[sambb]

I'm so glad someone is going to mod an Up! I've always liked these little things so i'll be watching for sure.