My son and his mate have been attempting to put a secondhand engine into his 2004 Polo 1.4. The engine they brought from eBay also a 1.4 petrol BBY same as the broken one (snapped cambelt). But the engine is different. The old gearbox doesn't fit the replacement engine. I guess we have a few questions that we are hoping someone can help us with. How do we make sure we get a comparable gearbox and if we do will the replacement engine fit in the engine bay okay, will the engine mounts from the old engine be compatible and will everything else hook up okay or are we going to keep running into more issues?
Any guidance for a couple of teenagers attempting their first ever engine swap would be really appreciated.
Engine swap issues
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RUM4MO
- Bling Bling Diamond Member
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Re: Engine swap issues
Nothing really to suggest as a BBY is a BBY so I'd also be surprised if another one did not fit unless it was from a car with an autobox originally.
In my personal experience, the BBY was a dog of an engine, I chose that one when importing a brand new Polo back in 2002 from Holland - I expected the lower powered version of the 1.4 16V petrol engine to have better drivability due to hopefully a flatter torque curve and better fuel economy than the higher powered 1.4 16V in the GT versions, for other reasons I deliberately avoided the FSI version. All that thinking/logic was completely wrong as both my wife and I hated that engine in a Polo 5 speed manual, but your son is stuck with what he has now I suppose. The slightly later 1.4 16V 85PS engine which was just a "reduced features" version of the original FSI offering, is what the BBY should have been at launch, I've driven that a lot while looking after my older daughter's 2009 Ibiza.
Having said that, maybe your son could start saving up for a used Ibiza 1.4 16V 85PS SC, they are very light cars so make better use of a lowish powered engine - that 9N version of Polo etc was really far too heavy for the area of the car market it was launched into, ie VW Group did too little for too long and so messed up for their customers. Looking ahead, the 2015 VW Polo 1.2TSI 110PS 6MT is, in my mind, a very good car, my wife has had one from new in August 2015, that engine is the 16V version with a cam belt instead of the earlier 8V chain driven cam shaft which could cause problems, or at least more problems than the later 16V belt driven cam shaft engines.
In my personal experience, the BBY was a dog of an engine, I chose that one when importing a brand new Polo back in 2002 from Holland - I expected the lower powered version of the 1.4 16V petrol engine to have better drivability due to hopefully a flatter torque curve and better fuel economy than the higher powered 1.4 16V in the GT versions, for other reasons I deliberately avoided the FSI version. All that thinking/logic was completely wrong as both my wife and I hated that engine in a Polo 5 speed manual, but your son is stuck with what he has now I suppose. The slightly later 1.4 16V 85PS engine which was just a "reduced features" version of the original FSI offering, is what the BBY should have been at launch, I've driven that a lot while looking after my older daughter's 2009 Ibiza.
Having said that, maybe your son could start saving up for a used Ibiza 1.4 16V 85PS SC, they are very light cars so make better use of a lowish powered engine - that 9N version of Polo etc was really far too heavy for the area of the car market it was launched into, ie VW Group did too little for too long and so messed up for their customers. Looking ahead, the 2015 VW Polo 1.2TSI 110PS 6MT is, in my mind, a very good car, my wife has had one from new in August 2015, that engine is the 16V version with a cam belt instead of the earlier 8V chain driven cam shaft which could cause problems, or at least more problems than the later 16V belt driven cam shaft engines.
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CarbonChaos
- Silver Member
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- Location: South west uk
Re: Engine swap issues
Pictures speak a thousand words, if you can upload pictures of the flywheel areas on the old and replacement engines that would be a great help to everyone who wants to help.
As said if both engines are coded BBY they should be the same
As said if both engines are coded BBY they should be the same
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Smartrus
- New
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- Joined: Fri Nov 14, 2025 9:56 pm
- Drives: 2004 1.4 petrol
- Location: NORTHAMPTON
Re: Engine swap issues
Thanks for your input everyone. I got my hands dirty and you were all correct it fits like a glove! Learning experience for them both (they are enjoying the challenge). RUM4MO - thanks for the advice on the engine as well, I'll pass that on to the lads as I doubt it will be long before they are on to the next project.