Project: 2001 1.8T Golf IV

[Rabbit Farmer]

Shawn C. picked up all the seats last night. Great shape, but need to be cleaned.

[Rabbit Farmer]

Another Episode of Nick vs. Steve / Subaru vs. Volkswagen (big turbo) / Burke #1 2009.... side by side work by Nick; pretty intro by Steve. Enjoy.

[Rabbit Farmer]

One can of Red Bull tonight and I'm a video making (and remaking) machine.

Remade of Okemo 2 (2008) with sound and added out of the back window shot:


First public viewing of Burke I (2008)... still learning the car... I can be so much faster once I drive this car more:

[Rabbit Farmer]

Shell is gone and parts are in storage for the winter project period.

Ralph's Foreign Auto installed new suspension bushings and James installed the hood pins (I figured I would walk the drill across the hood if I tried it.... plus I didn't realize that under the plastic was metal so I was thinking there would be a mounting issue on the body of the car... guess not).



Big thanks to the guys down at City Tire in Williston, Vermont (http://www.City-Tire.com) for their continued support of the local club racing! They help make the sport possible!



I will post video of the last hillclimb with the Golf in the next few days (Okemo #1 / July 11-12, 2009)

Well, it was time to finally get the 1989 Cabriolet back on the road. About 6 weeks ago (or so) I was driving it home when steam started to come out from under the hood. I didn't have time to work on it so it stayed under cover in the driveway until about a week ago. I was finally able to determine that the radiator was leaking. Inspection of the radiator showed that the location/orientation of the diverter valve was against the front of the radiator; a new radiator was ordered. I then had to source out new zip mounting hardware to reinstall the fans on the new radiator... enter Jegs (again!!). Working on the car I heard a noise coming from in back of the car. I looked around and found nothing. Must have been outside and my tired mind/body was playing tricks on me.

Intermission: Somehow Julie (I'll blame her since I have never used it) broke the lighted rocker switch that makes up the switch to turn on the reverse lights. I tried to locate a switch of the same size without any luck. When I was looking for the zip mounting hardware for the fans, I started with the make of the fans (good thinking, Sparky). Guess what... that lighted fan switch actually came with the electric fans that are on the car. I found an exact match and ordered it from Jegs. Hmmm, there's that noise again in the back of the car. Nothing in the trunk. Nothing underneath it. It seemed to stopped whenever I walked to the back of the car. Strange.

Back to the program already in progress: Fan installed and diverter location changed.





Source of noise identified.



While I was under the hood, I decided to identify the sparkplug wires that I hated. The boots were standard cut (e.g. not made for deep well sparkplug access wells). I ended up taking the wire set and covers that were intended for the 1.8T Golf and used them on the Cabriolet.

After installing the first two and thinking that they looked strange, I figured out that they should have been oriented parallel with the valve cover. (no kidding, huh?) I also identified a wire that went to the coil that was too short; sometimes when the engine rocks it would die. The wire (big ol' red power wire going to the coil) was extended.











I still have a number of items to address on the Cabriolet to make it an easier and more fun car to drive.... looks like a late summer project at this time as work and the racing schedule is keeping me busy.

...and I still have to dyno tune the 1.8T Golf so that I can get some low-end power out of it to make the hillclimbs (and perhaps the autocrosses) a little more fun.

Hmmmm, seems that I have a turbo Rabbit to get ready for Burke II.

I need a vacation.....

Steve

[Rabbit Farmer]

I ordered another set of spark plug wires (must be an Audi wire set as they come as a set of five) and spark plug well covers for the Golf... got them through Joe at http://www.Axismotorsport.com

Another present arrived in the mail....


Spark plug wire set for the turbo Rabbit (need to custom make the wires as the coils are mounted on the dash with four holes going through the firewall... one hole per wire... the size of the wire [with grommet]) and heat barrier with adhesive backing.

The heat barrier is for the Cabriolet to keep the heat from getting into the driver's compartment.




This would be a lot easier to do if the engine wasn't in the bay. I had to measure out each firewall mounted clip location to map out where I had to cut the slots. The bottom portion (bottom of rain train and down 10") took about an hour to complete. The rain tray portion took about 10 minutes. Very functional.




Sunday... jumping into doing the wires on the turbo Rabbit. If that doesn't fix the problem, I might need a new tach (it has a built in rev limiter). I also need to add some heat barrier protection to the Golf above the turbo and install the coils.

Another busy week, but I'm making progress.

Steve

[MX5 Driver]

I ordered another set of spark plug wires (must be an Audi wire set as they come as a set of five) and spark plug well covers for the Golf... got them through Joe at http://www.Axismotorsport.com

This is typical of wire sets like this. Most of these kits were designed for single coil setups. The "5th" wire would be for the connection between the coil and distributor.

[Rabbit Farmer]

Nope.... two different wire sets here. The 'set of 5' are the deep well style like I just installed on the Cabriolet. There is no single wire going from a coil to distributor. The setup is for a single coil for all wires to be connected. The fifth wire is exactly like the other four. With the next set coming in the mail soon (Wednesday, I think) I will have another fifth wire. I just need to order two more sets of 5 to get another complete set of 4. If the wires don't arrive in time next week, I'll just steal them from the Cabriolet for dyno tuning.

The wires you see in the image above also does not include the coil to distributor as it is just a set of replacement wires (looks like I have an 8 cylinder engine now!).

[Rabbit Farmer]

Turbo Rabbit is now back to 100%... it was old spark plug wires that did it in. I replaced them with the kit from Jegs. I also wrapped the wires (heat protection) where it is above the turbo.

Heat barrier installed on Golf.

Well, I'm almost ready for the dyno tune on Friday; right now it is just a street tune.

I tried my hand at fabrication.... as usual, it looks a lot better in my mind's eye than the final product, but it is functional. This holds the individual coils so I can run spark plug wires instead of the coil on plug setup.

Tomorrow night (nothing exciting) I will install at new air/fuel (A/F) mixture sensor and new gauge wiring harness.

[skivittlerjimb]

I tried my hand at fabrication.... as usual, it looks a lot better in my mind's eye than the final product, but it is functional. This holds the individual coils so I can run spark plug wires instead of the coil on plug setup.

Curious Steve... why did you go away from the coil-on-plug set up?

[Rabbit Farmer]

Heat kills the coilpacks. I have been through at least 3 of them on the track (at $25+ each). Not my reason for the change, but as I understand it, the new coils are programmable by the ECU so that I can control the dwell. I just did it because of the failure rate due to heat.

Steve