the 10 grand question.

[Golf Loon]

i know the first mk2 gti vr6 the guy that built it is a friend of mine james mckinon worked with him at barlo oak green two door mk2gti he showed me his pics of the build up it floating around sydney in wollongong i think

Amost right, started as a 4 door white Mk2 and then was painted black. I`ve seen the photos too. Mullers and Jaimo were both involved in the build. I think it is in the Gong tho, or crashed

[william]

that would be one nice car to get my hands on jaimos work is awesome and the car was imac in the pics

[aussieg60]

look at this bay

[Oneofthegreats]

Amost right, started as a 4 door white Mk2 and then was painted black. I`ve seen the photos too. Mullers and Jaimo were both involved in the build. I think it is in the Gong tho, or crashed

You're on the money Loon

I just stumble across this thread & thought I could shed some light on this mk2 VR6.

The original owner was a friend of my dad's. His name is Daryl Donald.

I think from memory this conversion was carried out before the VR6 was released in Australia & maybe the first Mk2 VR6 conversion out right! Correct me if I'm wrong, it was along time ago & I was a little tacker.
It cost him an arm & a leg using alot of new genuine parts.

Anyway, here's some pics of it that I've had for quite a while. A friend took them when Daryl picked him up from the airport. He left him very white knuckled as the story goes. I think it ran 14.4 ET MPH unknown.
The back was totally stripped out as indicated by the pics.

This car should be a piece of VW history in OZ.

[Golf Loon]

Nice pics Tim. Good find. Car looks like a South African Import, not an Aussie digi car as I thought. That would make the conversion harder as the fusebox is wrong. I reckon it would have to be 1993.

[GermanwithaVdub]

Go an r32 conversion if you have 10 grand... ok well 10 if you do the work yourself... but i guess that qualifies. look on german ebay theres engines and drivetrains from r32s for under 6k euros.

[DaveMack]

Go an r32 conversion if you have 10 grand... ok well 10 if you do the work yourself... but i guess that qualifies. look on german ebay theres engines and drivetrains from r32s for under 6k euros.

Fit in a Polo, you reckon?

Dave

[syncro]

Nice pics Tim. Good find. Car looks like a South African Import, not an Aussie digi car as I thought. That would make the conversion harder as the fusebox is wrong. I reckon it would have to be 1993.

Daryl changed the fuse box to the late Mk2 type as it was an '86 South African from what I can remember.
He worked the conversion out by himself and bought most of the parts new before VR6s were in Australia. Daryl and I went to LA in August '93 and went to a VW dealer to get the measurements and take photos of the Golf VR6s.

This was probably one of the first conversions in the world and he found out later from Tim Styles or Brian Rickets(?) that he should have lowered the engine. As you can see by the wear marks on the engine cover.

Does anyone here know where Daryl is now?

[Oneofthegreats]

Go an r32 conversion if you have 10 grand... ok well 10 if you do the work yourself... but i guess that qualifies. look on german ebay theres engines and drivetrains from r32s for under 6k euros.

I hate to say it, but even if you do find one for approx 6K euro that's over 9k AUD! Then you've got to ship it here & fit it. So your budget is blown to start with & all you have is an engine sitting oversea's.

I reckon to do a conversion like this incl. fitting the R32 AWD system & the work's & also buying the running gear, you wouldn't get much change out of 25 - 30K & that's if you do i yourself.

10K isn't really much when you think of it to spend on a car, especially if you plan on modifying everything. Engine, suspension, exterior, interior etc.
But if you only plan on modifying or upgrading one aspect you'll be fine.

I've spent 12/5K on just running gear in one of my previous car's & that was engine, tran's & diff. & that's all I done. That wasn't even crazy equipment too.

Saying this which just came to me, with that kind of money you could find a smashed VR6 & you could do most of this with the engine, tran's, brakes & suspension(just the control arms, trailing arm's etc. wouldn't use the shock's & ARB's)

Does anyone here know where Daryl is now?

Last I heard, (which was plenty of year's ago now) that he wasn't very well at all, but like I said, that was plenty of years ago. I hope he's better now.

[static1800]

Go an r32 conversion if you have 10 grand... ok well 10 if you do the work yourself... but i guess that qualifies. look on german ebay theres engines and drivetrains from r32s for under 6k euros.

If you're going to do that with 10k, go to the auctions and pick up a vr6. You will need running gear for the conversion that you wont get just from buying a crate motor and you could scrape in under the 10k mark.

[GOLFBALLS]

Yep. Get a wreck/write off from auction. I just bought a 2001 Audi S3 wreck for $4900 (minus interior)!! Only has 47,000 k's. I'll be taking the 20vT outta that and dumping it in my Mk2. As this motor already has 220bhp (which i'm quite happy with) i wont have to faff about spending $$$ modifying a "normal" 150bhp 1.8T
This way you can also take all the extra bits you want for the conversion and sell off the rest of the wreck to make some money back. You could possibly break even if you play your cards right with some luck! (obviously depending on what ya buy).
Personally, i've read that the VR6 lump can be a bit of a bitch to work with and it also is a heavy engine. To modify it, you will need to spend a lot of time and $$ tuning it just right to make sure it wont need to be rebuilt every two months. On the other hand, the 1.8T is very strong, relatively light, and capable of massive power increases without lunching itself.
BTW: Keep those small bumpers dude! Too many big goofys around