mk3 polo -switching heads

[pmMike]

(this is a carbon copy of the post I made in the mk2 forums, please delete it!)

First of all, i'm new here and also new to the polo scene so hi everybody!

Now, onto business and there's a little story behind this one... About 10 months ago my girlfriend bought this nice little red 1300cc H reg Mk3 Polo coupe and all seemed sweet (apart from the 80k on the clock). About 6 months later she went off to Africa for 3 months and I took the car off her hands to give it a good going over and service and whatnot, all seemed in order apart from one spark plug wouldn't come out... alarm bells rung *head gasket ahhhh* but it was running fine so I left it. However, over the last couple of months it started spewing up turd-coloured gunk from the cooling system (looks like the bloke who had it before knew there was a dodgy gasket and was just chucking loads of sealant in) and I got pretty concerned. Last week the worst happened and the gasket went. Towed back to my place and I took all the plugs out apart from the troublesome one from before, when I did come on to that one i gave it some serious welly and the ceramic snapped off inside the head. ****.

Long story short, the car is now utterly forked, and i've come to you asking some advice. I just so happen to have a 1.4 mk2 golf engine in my garaige with a head that looks remarkably similar to the polo's. I'm wondering if anyone knows if it's possible to do a swap? I've been gagging to get at this car to turn it into a project for ages, and if I'm able to do this it would sort me right out as the mrs is buying a new car anyway.

Many thanks in advance

[SpikeyG40]

Hello mate, firstly, welcome to the forum! secondly, i removed that post in the mk2 section for ya!

i wouldn't grumble at an 80k millage, that isn't bad for a polo of that age!

Unfortunatly, i've never heard of swappping heads over from a 1.4 golf lump to a 1.3 polo lump. sounds interesting though. i'd imagine both the heads would have some identification marks stamped on them, have you checked for those?

whats the damage like to the old head, could the old plug be removed from a proffessional machining company? they might be able to get it out and re-tap a thread for you? Just another thought thats all!

Hopefully someone here might be able to give you a bit more detail.

[yeha]

This is a common question on Clubpolo. I believe the short answer is that all the small block hydro heads are interchangeable and have the same valve sizes etc. The G40 has different exhaust valves but that's about it.