Should I? '91 Golf VR6 project

AAZCD said:

In reply to Hoondavan :

Yes, the "Not the best handling thing" is going to be a challenge for The Challenge. I have no dreams of being competitive in the Challenge, but I would like to afford myself the illusion of competing. Is there a trophy for Best Noise?

I shifted a few cars around, pulled out the trailer and washed the fleet. Next, I'll put covers on most of them, so I can ignore them for a week or two while I focus on the newcomer.

Keep the control arms as close to parallel to the ground as possible, then throw a bunch of rear bar at it. 

You keep buying low and building, we'll keep reading, and oohing & aahing!!  Never thought a Beetle would look like a Monster Truck.  There you go....Ooh &Aah.   Good luck tonight,and have a safe trip.

Look for Erik Reisner and his VR6 mk 2 hillclimber "Polar Express." The myth of nose heavy is over rated. Especially compared to a 16v.

https://youtu.be/l0arppQDc9M

I'm running later than planned, but all is well. Very well. Coffee in Siloam Springs, then home. More words tomorrow.

Mandatory shot:

hooray! 

I still don't know exactly what I bought.

Last night when I pulled in the driveway, SWMBO – Vi, came out to greet me.

“You have to get up early in the morning for work. Just cover it up and come inside.”

Me, “Right, yes, work... Did you see all the extra stuff I got with it? These are brand new tires...”

Her, “That's great, you can tell me all about it inside. It's starting to rain.”

Me, “Rain? Barley a drizzle. I just want to go through these boxes... You see this carbon fiber shift knob? I still really need to see what's under the hood. Here, look at this, I have an extra transmission...”

I had climbed through the back hatch, since the doors won't open with it on the trailer. There are 4 boxes of stuff and plenty of loose parts that I haven't even looked at yet.

“Just a minute honey, I have to move all these boxes so I can roll the windows up.”

“Now Jon. Stop playing with it.”

She was right of course. I would have spent hours looking over it, then maybe tried to roll it into the garage to start working on it. I needed to be reeled in. I took a few quick pictures, closed it up and put a waterproof cover over it. The sunroof is either open or missing and it was actually starting to rain.

Picking up the car went well. The seller had called me to say I could come early, so I started getting ready. At some point I set my phone down on the tongue of the trailer. When everything else was ready to go, I had no idea where the phone was and spent about 20 minutes searching the house and garage. Early didn't work out, but I did get there around 6:00.

Walking in the garage, I was worried for a moment when I saw a stripped VR6 engine on a stand with a transmission laying next to it.

“I though the engine was mounted.”

“It is. That's the old engine. You want it? You can have the stand too.”

...and the GTI banner, the VW banner, a nice 'parts sold here' sign, two brand new Toyo R888s, oil, coolant, and more. He is clearing out and moving on. I hadn't planned to haggle over the $800 and was happy to give him $900 for the lot. He has a VW Caddy pickup stored somewhere else that he offered to sell me. I'll pass it on to you guys when he lists it, or tell me now if you want to contact him directly for details.

I work 7 days on – 7 days off. Today I start a week of 7 am to 7 pm. I hope to get a better look under the hood this evening. Maybe get it in the garage tomorrow night. Until next Wednesday, I'm going to try to be patient and let it sit. 

I see a Garmin you can use for Gambler navigation in there too!

that's a nice pile of parts.  I'd love a rust free rabbit pickup.  I also need that 6 car shop... 

That's an awesome score! 

Nice new play thing.  Now to schedule it into your other projects.  Week on week off should help....But it's kind of like the week before Christmas.

Last night was light freezing rain, but I did take a moment to lift the car cover and check a few things out. I found the hand crank for the sunroof in the glove box and easily cranked it shut. I opened the hood and had a look at the engine.

It looks like all of the essential stuff is there and intact, but far from being ready to turn the key and hear the roar. Much of the wire harness is labeled, but not everything is connected. I'm going to go through and clean it up, probably replacing a few runs of wire, figure out the best routing and wrap most of the bundles. I found this web page yesterday and it is AWESOME: http://www.a2resource.com/index.html

I'm thinking: wires - cooling system - fuel system - then misc (belt, mounts, intake, etc.) before I try to run the engine. I bought a stock '95 Passat VR6 ECU: 021-906-258-BS for $50 on eBay. From what I read on Vortex and a couple other sites, that should work fine for an AAA OBD1 VR6.

I know that there are a lot of VW smart people on the forum and I am not one of them. I've learned from some pretty good mistakes so far and I'd rather learn from yours, so please feel free to jump in any time and explain to me like I'm a five year old if I start doing something wrong. The goal and purpose for this car is to have some fun at the 2019 Challenge. I don't think it will be a good ride for a Taco run, so sadly I think the Gastropod class is out for this one. I need another goal and some help. How about 'Not Last in any Event' and #1 Best Noise trophy?

Coolant tubes along the front of the engine are a weak point, as is the radiator hose with the integrated "Y" junction. As an OBD-1 engine, the chain tensioner guides can get brittle, crack, and fall off, introducing valves to pistons. Later VR6 engines have a better material for the tensioner guides. If you ever get in there to do a clutch, that would be the time to replace them. They will usually rattle at start up if they are on their way out.

G12 or G12+ is the required coolant unless a full flush has been done. Something about mixing coolants allegedly results in purple goo. 

I ran Castrol 10w40 in mine at 3,000 mile intervals and it was fine.

Looks like a factory airbox will fit, might be cheaper than an aftermarket piece. Swiss cheese the lower front half that faces the core support for a cheap cold-air effect. That and it helps release that sweet, sweet VR song. 

I guess I'll keep this exclusively here on the GRM forum. I have been lurking Vortex for years getting lots of good info, and finally decided to register today. After a couple hours and attempts on Firefox, Edge, Chrome, and Opera it has become clear that VWVortex does not consider me to be a Human. I don't need them anyway, you guys are more than enough.

"I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off shoulder of Orion. I watched c-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. ..."  -Roy Batty, Blade Runner

AAZCD said:

I guess I'll keep this exclusively here on the GRM forum. I have been lurking Vortex for years getting lots of good info, and finally decided to register today. After a couple hours and attempts on Firefox, Edge, Chrome, and Opera it has become clear that VWVortex does not consider me to be a Human. I don't need them anyway, you guys are more than enough.

"I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off shoulder of Orion. I watched c-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. ..."  -Roy Batty, Blade Runner

They are having a bunch of forum issues lately. They were purchased a few years back, and new ownership is faltering. I've been on there since 2007. Good wealth of knowledge if you can get past the morons on some of the forums there.

I use to be on vwvortex when I first got into water cooled vw’s(mk1 and mk2’s) but since they changed to format I could never get back into going through it for old posts and such. I still lurk there occasionally thou as there is a wealth of Vw info and I know have a mk6 GTI besides my mk1 and mk2. 

I've been on VW Vortex for over 20 years on and off at this point.

My time on vwvortex came to an end around the same time as the “Two curbs, one brush and a fents” thing or whatever it was.  

Shame the vortex has gone so far downhill, I used to hang out in their tech forums daily.

OP I’m pretty useless with vr6’ can’t provide anything more than the binary poster above did. But I love mk2 and have had mine for over a decade with a few different motor set ups. A2 resource is great and the old vr swap how to in the hybrid/swap section of the vortex should have all the info you need.

Then all you need to do is strap an m90 to the intake manifold run hood less and enjoy the beautiful vr noise with the added bonus of supercharger whine.

Following along :D

Stupid Questions:

There's a lot that I don't know or fully understand, so I've been doing some reading. Most of what I read leads to more questions. Keep in mind that this is a 2019 Challenge build, so budget matters.

I have never done any work with boost. For the VR6 it seems that there is a little more discussion of superchargers than turbochargers. I am thinking of using a turbocharger simply because that's what I have on hand, free. Its from a 2.0T Audi A4 - B7 that I got for almost nothing and more than recouped my cost with parts sales. Would I have a better car if I found a decent Junkyard supercharger and worked with that?

I have a couple small intercoolers from Audis and one big, full-radiator cooler from a Volvo 850. I'm thinking that the big one is best if I can find a way to fit it. Thoughts?

This car was already run for a while with the VR6 swap, so I assume that the basic harness and fitment is all good for a stock configuration. For engine management, all I have right now is a stock OBD1 (automatic transmission) ECU. From what I have read, it will work fine with a stock engine and manual transmission. If I boost, it looks like I can still run with a untuned/unchipped ECU, but should change to a 4" MAF housing and run larger than stock injectors. Additionally I have read some stuff about adjusting the MAF with a potentiometer. Does that sound correct or am I reading it wrong.

I have found lots of posts that talk about chipping the ECU with a "C2 chip", but I haven't found any specific info about it or a source for an OBD1 12V C2 chip. I think I can handle socketing and chipping an ECU, but exactly what will a C2 chip do for me and where can I acquire one? Is it only for OBD2?

That's enough for the moment. Thanks for any help. The car is still on the trailer and I plan to put it in the garage on Wednesday to start getting a good look at the current configuration.

It's been many years since I've played with a VR6, but I think the main problem with turbos is the space between the engine and the firewall.   The chassis this engine is usually stuffed into was really designed for and inline-4.  Granted, if it's a Challenge car, that problem can more easily be dealt with than for a car that still needs to retain some street manners. 

C2 is the company name.  www.c2motorsports.com although there's nothing there but his email and facebook page link.

literally LOL'd.  thank you.

In reply to AAZCD :

I’m all for using the wrong turbo for the job but that k03 from the Audi will be far to small.

An eBay t3 turbo could be had cheap. Cheap cast eBay manifolds fit well and you can get quite a large turbo behind the head before having to take a mallet to the firewall.

An m90 off of supercoupe would be easiest supercharger to use with an m62 or an m90 off of a supercharger gm v6 being my next suggestion.

C2 was the best tune for year and works well, their tunner left to start a company called united Motorsports, another chip worth looking for is giac. Or maybe looking into an fmu if your feeling lucky. 36 lb white injectors from a Buick will work with most 36# injector tunes. 42# injectors can be sourced from the gm guys upgrading to 60 pounders.

Honesty this will be a fun car even without boost, but if I had a vr it would have forced induction the second day it arrived in my garage. That being said I’m firmly in the “boost everything” camp.

In reply to 1SlowVW :

Looking at my A4's turbo this evening I realized that it's built into the manifold, so not an easy option to use even if it was big enough. The M90s look good to me. Most of the pictures show them mounted aft of the engine. I think there's a lot less fabrication for me if I can cut a hole on the intake manifold and mount it right on top. Is that what you are talking about in your earlier post?

Then all you need to do is strap an m90 to the intake manifold run hood less

If that makes sense, blow straight into the intake with no intercooler, I think that's the route I'll take.