Mk3 2dr Project Car (1.8t swap)

[Weeman]

Update: 29/10/2024

And now the accelerator pedal mount. This was a bit of fun, very happy with how it turned out! Would be keen to see any pics of how anyone else have done this.

So I drilled out all the spot welds for the bracket from my donor audi and thought I would use that. I'm not one to do much welding so was able to make it work just with nuts and bolts and folding and cutting some brackets. Anyways, heres the bracket.



This was a good start as the bracket bolts to the brake booster which is the same pattern in the golf. Needed to pickup a few more points of strength so went ahead and used the spot weld holes I had drilled out as a starting point. One of them I just added a spacer between it and the firewall, the other I just added a weird Z angle bracket kinda thing.



Few rivnuts in the firewall to keep it tidy...



Then a bit of the old "nothing to see down here" black paint added to the mount and taadaa, a cheap alternative to buying one off the internet, that probably wouldn't have worked.





While I was in there, removed a crap tonne of this HEAVY insulation. Must be at least 15kg of it.



Cheers,
Thomas

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[Weeman]

Update: 01/11/2024

Another little effort today. Picked up the correct gearbox cups from a wreckers, now downsized from the 108mm cups to 100mm cups to suit the mk3 drive shafts.

Next up I deleted the SAI, PCV, Evap system, that was pretty straight forward. A lot of potential for vacuum leaks now gone lol... cleaned the engine up a heap!

Coolant flanges swapped over from plastic to aluminium, pretty standard.

To fit the oversized turbo inlet pipe, had to give this hard coolant line a bit of smacking to get the clearance! Got there in the end, had to make sure I didn't cave it in too much lol.

Then test fitted the start of the intercooler piping and threw the mega exhaust on, its all coming together. Intercooler is on its way as well as a few other bits n bobs. Its all becoming a bit more exciting now...


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[sports racer]

Any chance you could move all the bits a lot further away from the MK2? Don't want the classic contaminated with all that modern crap.

[Weeman]

Any chance you could move all the bits a lot further away from the MK2? Don't want the classic contaminated with all that modern crap.

Ha! Modern crap makes cool noises tho

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[Weeman]

Update: 19/11/2024

So she continues, homestraight surely!

Swapped over high and low pressure sensors to suit mk3 dash.

Fitted the audi brake switch in as well as the mk3 brake switch as I need to wire it in to the ecu otherwise might suffer from some "rev hang" between gear shifts. Required a bit of filing away at the plastic to get them to fit. Did the same for clutch switch.

Cause I'm AC delete, can yoink off this relay now. Good thing is, all I need is a standard relay to control the high fan speed off the thermoswitch. The SAI system which I deleted ran off a standard relay so I've repurposed it inside this tiny black box, which also houses the ECU relay. Where's the coolant mount you say, well thats on the otherside now to help with running the air filter and intercooler. Also freed me up a nice spot to put a catch can in. Just drilled out the coolant mount, replaced with rivnuts. Looks tidy!

Speaking of SAI delete, finally put in a blanking plate for the combi valve.

Engine mounts arrived, engine now sits in the bay woohoo. Intercooler is now fitted as well. Fairly simple for me as I freed up some space by taking out the AC condensor, chopped out some heavy/not really structural metal out of the crash bar, carved out the fan shroud a bit, made some mounts, bolted it in, chopped up some intercooler piping, and wallah. Soz, just a boring Ebay intercooler, I'm broke. [emoji24]

Not much left now! I'll do a bit more of a write up on my wiring at a later time, I just got a bit more fusing and soldering to do but its mostly complete. Some minor plumbing and fiddly jobs, need to figure out my battery? Can't use factory sized battery anymore with intercooler/air filter running through that spot now, so its either boot relocation or a small battery?? Dunno, boot relocation shifts the weight and will be cheaper and that's usually the deciding factor...

Cheers,
Thomas

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[Weeman]

Update: 01/12/2024

Damn close now that's for sure!

Coolant bottle mounted, clears the bonnet by about 3mm lol. Few rivnuts in the strut tower, like I did on the mk2, and its sorted.



Battery relocated to boot. 5 metres of 2 gauge wire, I've earthed to the chassis under the rear seat to save a bit of money on cable. Used the old battery tray from the engine bay, cut it to bits, slapped in some riv nuts and bingo bango, battery is in the boot.



Power steering ressy mounted, used the powrer steering rack U-shaped clamp to clear the intercooler piping lol.



K&N filter, yum.



Rear engine mount spacers cut up and put in, gives me an extra 10mm which helps a bit with the timing cover hitting the master cylinder and lining up the front engine mount correctly. The timing cover still sits a bit too close to the master cylinder so I think I'm going to have to find a stubby one...



Got this intercooler piping piece sorted out for the air sensor to mount to, works a charm.



Anddddd yucky old fuel out, new fuel in.



A heap more wiring has been done with getting fuses in and getting cables the right length for wrapping up. But in terms of cabling, it's finally doneee. Will fire up first before I get too keen and wrap the loom up!

Watch this space..... fingers crossed it comes alive this week...

Cheers,
Thomas

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[Weeman]

It lives...! pops n bangs n whistles n all

[Weeman]

Update: 09/12/2024

Made up this mighty bracket for the gearshift cables. The original bracket (left) is literally exactly where the new Turbo inlet pipe sits so I had to move everything over to the right side of the bolt holes to clear the pipe, which you can see on my new bracket (right). Also had to cut a bit of the inlet pipe to give as much clearance as possible... there is quite literally not much room to run these large inlets, especially with the coolant lines as well in the way. Anyways, got there in the end.


Dashboard in!


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[Weeman]

Update: 15/12/2024

Here's a pic of the gear linkages clearin the inlet pipe.


Shaved master cylinder, now got about 10mm clearance.


Cause I'm broke, rather than making a 3" stainless exhaust system whole way through, I got this little beauty made up to convert to my existing 2.5" system for the time being. Quite happy with how it turned out.



Windscreen bonded in, always a nerve racking one to do...


Also had to buy a new slave cylinder as the one in the audi 02J was a weird push fit, the mk3 connection is a threaded connection.

Car still running nicely, few small issues, can't seem to get my coolant temp working on the dash. Also getting a weird rev overhang too, so might need to adjust or replace my clutch/brake switch...

Just need to buy tyres now and that's it! Too bad santa won't be bringing me any this year [emoji52]

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[Weeman]

Update: 17/12/2024

Bumper chopped up and fitted. My goal when installing the intercooler was the bottom of it would sit on the bottom lip of the bumper, and believe it or not, but my measuring worked. All i had to do was cutout the 6 vertical braces and scallop out sections of the bumper where the intercooler elbows were hitting and it fits like a dream. Plenttty of flow, no worries at all there.



Seriously though, this thing is starting to look like a driveable car...


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[Weeman]

Update: 23/01/2025

Starts, goes, stops. Had to redo my gearbox linkage stuff as everytime I was putting it into 1st it kept going into reverse lol, almost took out the rear windscreen on the bench vice... haha.

Everything seemed good when driving, other than I lost both speedo and rev on the dash so that'll need some backtracking done.

Tyres I got were some Pirelli P-Zeros, too bad the tyre shop couldn't even wash their hands before putting the tyres on, absolutely disgusting after giving them freshly painted rims.

Rant over, very happy [emoji41]

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[Weeman]

Update: 02/02/2025

Steering wheel wasn't flicking off my indicators automatically. Pulling off the aftermarket steering wheel I quickly noticed this white tab, which needs to be pushed either up or down (depending on which way you have indicated), to release the indicator stalk.


So looking at the OG steering wheel, it has a nice fat plastic tab which hits it when the wheel is turned. My aftermarket steering does not...


So a drill and tap later, I put these M3 studs in and now works a dream.

In other news, my dash is working very intermittently, so that'll be coming out for some inspecting... I never lose the coolant temp but the rev and speedo occassionally dies and the needles just sit there bouncing at 0 RPM/kmhr.

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[Weeman]

Update: 7/03/2025

Next up is gauges, dabbled down the path of putting an acrylic sheet over the centre console storage bit, but hated it... acrylic bends very nicely though when sizzled with a heat gun!


Ditched that idea, googled around and noticed people 3D print up some vent replacements with 52mm holes in them. So decided to fix the neglected 3D printer at work, drew these up at and they look nice. Will print some of these for the mk2 as well, I like them that much.



Also printed a cute little bracket for my kill switch. Redrew the same tabs that the blanks used to have so it is somewhat original still and doesn't require bolting in.



Final product. Need $$ for some gauges. Thinkin I'll pickup SASS ones: boost, oil pressure and battery. Just not sure if oil temp is really that important. I might figure that out the hard way...

[HaydEn]

Kill switch blank is a good idea!

I like it.


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[sports racer]

Now add another kill switch but hide it. Slows down anyone trying to steal the car and we know no one in Tassie can be trusted.

Better yet, on/off pressure switch for the fuel pump hidden under a soft part of the dash.

Otherwise all good. Congrats.

Cheers

Paul