Crushed Boxster - What am I doing?!?

I was a VW service writer for 5 years. It should be there but it's not on this one. I had asked the seller to check. But figured it was a decent enough deal just being a running and driving 1.8t especially with the color concept interior.

dan0 said:

I was a VW service writer for 5 years. It should be there but it's not on this one. I had asked the seller to check. But figured it was a decent enough deal just being a running and driving 1.8t especially with the color concept interior.

oh wow, thats interesting, not sure i've ever seen that

Small update:

Silver shell still sitting in the garage. Waiting for Spring to roll out and work on. Hoping I can a hardtop at a reasonable price in a few months. 

Blue original, not sure what to do with. It's either sell off suspension components and wheels for money for the silver one or keep messing around with it. Thought would be to hang all the body panels I can and cut more of the back off and tube it along with a roll cage. Making the engine compartment very open and easy to access. 

If I did that I'd need another transmission and engine for the silver Boxster, so I'd look for a B5 Passat with a 1.8t and manual transmission. Then I could drop that into the silver shell pretty easily. Even easier than the New Beetle 1.8t to Boxster would have been. 

With the rain and snow haven't pulled the silver Boxster out to work on. But This past week have gotten to pulling apart the blue one. 

Well the original "crushed" Boxster is now gone. Aside from some parts the shell is gone. I really dreamed of still keeping it and doing something but needed to clean up around the house. 
 

Still want to sell off more of the parts I have left because I have a tally going of what I've spent versus sold. Would be neat to see how cheap I could make it on paper. 
 

And still waffling on engine choice.

Touareg 4.2l V8 - 310hp. Pros I have it already and spare parts. Cons more work involved. Other Audi 4.2 V8 have been swapped but this one will be a little different. 
 

VW 1.8t - Seems like the easiest option. Been done a bunch, main thing is building one engine mount to tie into the stock front mount. Could even potentially find a FWD Passat parts car and have engine and transmission together already. 
 

VR6 - It has been done before, in between on difficulty. But wookie noises... And I have a 3.2 VR6 Audi so twinsies...

24v VR6 with a small frame turbo would be a blast!

Well this has just been sitting in the garage. I did do a major garage cleaning back in May, so work can resume soon. Incidently a day after I totaled my 2011 Touareg VR6, ouch my ribs weren't happy doing that. So now I have a few bucks from insurance, paid some bills with some, but minus a true "daily driver" So I've been waffling about looking for a nice daily, or just saving more. One thing that has come up in searching though has been hardtops. Kind of a big chunk to spend, but would be nice have. The first Boxster had the soft top crushed, the current had the frame removed by previous owner because he had a hardtop on it.

Current registered vehicles, 09 Audi TT 3.2 (gets me in trouble), 04 VW Touareg V8 (bigger tires and going bigger, poor gas mileage), 95 Honda ACTY (it's kinda slow, but fun), 22 Honda Grom (great on gas 125mpg+, but don't always feel like taking a bike). 

Current projects finish parting the totaled Touareg, another 04 Touareg I'm turning into a truck. 

Spend $1500-2500 on a hardtop or something else as a basic daily driver...

6 hour round trip drive to Staten Island from CT yesterday to score these.

fifteen52 stopped making these in 5x130 a few years ago. And since I have a set in 5x112 waiting to go on the Audi TT, I couldn't resist having a set for the Boxster. 

In reply to dan0 :

That's a sweet wheel. Had it on my audi90. My only complaint is the little gap behind each spoke. Hard to clean and always trapped dirty water when washing the car.

Needs to be lowered more. Plus there's no engine/transmission in it right now. 
 

This sums things up nicely...

So I gave the Boxster some attention this weekend. Trying to get the transmission attached. 
 

I assumed since people had swapped 4.2 Audi V8 engines that the VW Touareg 4.2 I had would be the same. These are both similar year engines and belt driven timing not the later monstrosity chain version that was in the S4. 
 

Well I was wrong. I had to remove a stud at the bottom of the transmission first. Then got everything in place. The three at the top line up perfectly and one starter hole lines up. Peering through a small hole it does appear the input shaft and crank line up. But the rest means somewhat of adapter would need to be engineered. Not impossible but I'm no engineer or mechanic really so I'm kinda stumped on my next move. I can think of three ideas.

1. Continue with the VW V8. Learn something new. There's plenty of companies like SendCutSend, that once I design a piece could be accurately made. 
 

2. Since I really kinda want a V8, get a proper fitting Audi V8, either engine alone or buying a parts vehicle to pull and get whatever I need from. 
 

3. Just get a 1.8t VW/Audi engine as that's also a safe confirmed bolt up. 
 

Touareg V8
 

Does line up

What the Audi V8 looks like. 
 

And the fit currently

Fingers crossed. A few hours of Marketplace searching later I found a pretty irresistible deal. Message sent to seller and now I wait. 

Picking up an engine and transmission after work today. I'm hitting the easy button on this one. I've never really done anything more than maintenance and bolt-ons on cars so the fact alone I'm taking an empty shell and going to make a running vehicle is enough of a challenge. 
 

So a 1.8t will be the power plant... And I'll still have an extra transmission if I want to try for a V8 in the future. 
 

I liked the V8 for well noises, but also felt the stock 310 hp was a good number. The 1.8t will be less to start but could get up there. 

Good choice.

The 1.8T always seemed to me like the smart way to swap an engineless or broken 986.

Reliable, tunable and light compared to the alternatives, while size is also a plus.

What was the donor? Passat or A4?

Will follow this with interest :)

1999 Passat was the donor. AEB engine code. 1.8t's across the VW/Audi were rated at anywhere from 150 to 225hp plus from the factory. But all have potential. Hopefully off the bat with some basic stuff have it around 225-250 to start. So about the same as the stock Boxster engine albeit being a little lighter. 
 

Out it comes. Got it onto the lift table and the V8 onto a pallet for now. 
 

So I was debating if I should separate the transmission and use the Boxster transmission, but I think I'll just use the Passat to start. 
 

That way if I do try to make the Touareg V8 work later the gear ratio and final drive will be better suited. Or go to find an Audi 4.2 the same to have the Boxster specific transmission. 
 

Im assuming the top speed possible with the Passat transmission may be lower overall but the ratios are likely better suited to its powerband. 
 

I may try this weekend to get it on Quick Jacks in the garage and see about sliding the engine under the car. 
 

Slow progress is better than no progress. Got a little more cleaned up in the garage and up on Quick Jacks. If I take the rear bumper off I might be able to roll the engine in on the Harbor Freight lift table.

When I removed the engine from the other Boxster I used my engine hoist to steady the engine as I removed the transmission first. I guess it will be buy or make a new tool time and get one of those brace bars to go across the top. Then I can get the transmission in its place and position the engine to build out a mount for it. 
 

From what I've read some have just used the Boxster front mounting point, deleted power steering and used that mounting point on the 1.8t to make a mount. I'm going to try leaving the p/s on at first and build a small subframe and use the standard side mounting points as I've seen people doing the 4.2 v8 swaps. 
 

slow >> no.  good to see the progress!

Practically finished now. Ha! 

Pulled the bumper off and it rolls right in. When I took the other one apart I had removed the transmission separate and then the engine did come out on the same lift table but being a flat six it took a bit of wiggling. The smaller 1.8t just rolled right in.

Next up. Get transmission mounted as normal. I'm using the Passat transmission currently. The case does appear slightly different but so far all the important bolt holes seem to be in the correct places. The CV flanges are slightly different, but I may be able to swap those.

Once that's sorted support the engine with a bar overhead and verify it's correct position. Then build a mount / subframe. I have the Passat subframe so I can get the measurements side to side from that then build forward to the stock Boxster mount.

I am glad I'm starting with the 1.8t swap. The 4.2 would be a tighter fit and a lot harder. With this I should be able to sort some of the things with the engine in. Like not everything has to be engine out. 

In reply to dan0 :

I'm excited to see some progress on this.