The beige best is finally up and running
She is a 1984 Mk2 polo squareback or "breadvan" which started out as a humble little 1.05litre, 2 owners from new with a mere 52k clocked up in its life in sunny old wales. It was fairly nippy but i bought it with intentions of making it a sleeper.
I already had a 189bhp mk3 eaton'd G40 which was fast but by no means a sleeper so this fitted the bill nicely
Here she is
The interior is staying as it is, even the steering wheel lol
The car was in a really good condition
So, with a bigger things planned for the G40, the decision was made to take it off the road and take out it's original engine for use in the Mk2
Here's the powertrain spec
polo G40 1272cc bottom end (stock internals)
metal headgasket (raises compression to 8.3:1)
ported and polished head
51mm throttle body
Ported to death powder coated inlet manifold (inside and out)
b-r-motortechnik chip
G60 injectors
GT camshaft
emtec equal length turbo manifold
Water cooled saab T25 with .48 comp and .49 turbine housings
custom downpipe
supersport 2.5" exhaust system
lightweight flywheel
Helix paddle clutch
rebuilt G40 box with 100% locking LSD
uprated driveshaft
The engine was fitted and everything looked fine but then i fitted the turbo and realised why a mk2 turbo conversion is not seen as much as a mk3!!
There were some clearance issues with the turbo
This left my with three problems, where to put the oil cooler, the rad and the intercooler???
My first, quite frankly, stupid idea was to side mount the radiator
But this would not get anywhere near enough air to cool it. So i tried different ideas and decided to take the car to a radiator specialist who came up with the idea of a 4 core old school mini rad that would fit front mounted between the downpipe and n/s chassis leg. While this was being made a few things needed to be sorted.
Firstly, a nice phat 2.5" stainless exhaust system that i picked up fairly cheaply (probably due to the tailpipe lol)
I had to convert the car from carb the injection, a scrap Mk3 polo supplied it's fuel lines and lift pump/sender unit.
I had to pass the main pump loom through the boot floor
Next up was fitting the ecu and wiring loom, firstly i just placed it all in to get the engine running
click to see her fire up for the first time, wires everywhere
Once i was happy that everything was fine i cut the bulkhead to pass the loom through, mounted the ecu and tidied up the wiring etc
With all that done, it was time to sort out the exhaust and downpipe
"that exhaust is wicked mate, init" lol
the system was a nice snug fit
James, the downpipe guru, thinking hard lol
things starting to take shape
Meanwhile, due to the use of the emtec equal length manifold, i had to run a remote filter housing
The take off plate was fitted
and the decision was made to put the remote filter in the o/s wheel arch, behind the inner wheel arch panel
the pipes for the oil cooler had to go through the front panel
With absolutely no room in the engine bay for the oil cooler, it had to be mounted on the fornt bumper
with the oil lines running behind it
Not exactly sleeper but it'll have to do
With that sorted, it was time to get a little more air into the engine bay as the front panel was a little restricitve
Next up was the turbo oil return to the sump
If you look closely, you can see a VAG number on there, every polo came with one as standard, it's the wheel bolt brace bar from the boot lol
You can see how tight for space this install is, equal length manifold to the left, oil lines to the right
With that fitted we could finish off the downpipe, had a little clearance issue with the drivers side driveshaft, so....
Once that was sorted, the turbo was mounted
I bought a shiney boost pipe kit from eBay and had the co pot and isv take off made out of ally and welded on
a quick mock up with everything in place
With the engine bay near enough sorted, i lowered the car 60/40mm and fitted some 5.5x13 inch matt black steels with 185/60/13 toyo R888 semi slicks. The tailpipe was stealthed as well
I got her Mot'd and then took her down to the local weigh bridge, i was intrigued to se how much more than VW had quoted for the standard mk2 1.05 breadvan it would be, VW quote 700Kg
Sorry about the image quality but the car weighed in at 760Kg with all the interior in and a 1/3 of a tank of fuel.
Going on that and the fact that at a bar of boost, a turbo'd G40 engine is known to produce 190 bhp (i'll be running 1.2bar and a few more goodies than the two cars that made 190bhp) she works out to be 250bhp per ton!!! That is more than an evo fq 340 lol
I've had to take off the toyo's for the moment as the arches need some attention for clearance. Last night was the first time i drove her properly and the poor little 145 tyres squeal like pig under hard acceleration at the same time thanks to the 100% locking lsd.
Click here> https://www.youtube*.com/watch?v=XjcxTdCfV2M for a little video, more will be added to this thread as and when they are made
Thanks for reading
What do you think??
Gregg
Mk2 breadvan G40 turbo, the beige beast
Re: Mk2 breadvan G40 turbo, the beige beast
Mental. Amazing. Beautiful.
Great project
Great project