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Hi, I know theres been a few posts about things you can do the AE series engines, I have a 1.4L AEX and was wondering what serious yet relativly cheep mods could be done. I dont mean K&N and Exhaust systems, I mean cylinder heads, cams carbs? etc.

I would love to stick on a set of carbs but i doubt i would have time and money, but what other mods are good? Im thinking about porting an AEE 1.6L head? Im not to sure what diffrence it makes and if it will work. Also a custom inlet manifold, mainly for looks but i like the idea of it.

Has any one got any pictures of heavily moded AE series engines? and as much advice on what can and cant be done would be great!. Im not afraid of custom making things! and if i can get enough info together i plan to do a step by step on every mod i do to create a pretty mean N/A 1.4L engine


PS, im talking N/A Mods only, I cant afford turbos or supercharges, as much as i would LOVE TO!

Rmachines wrote:serious yet relativly cheep mods

That's a combination that doesn't match most of the time m8

And what's your opinion on "serious mods"?

Hi, sorry i didnt make it very clear did i lol.

When i say serious, I mean engine in bits, new parts, Not just stick on mods. When i say relativly cheep, i mean in comparison to fitting a 1.8 turbo or turboing the exsiting engine or somthings thats in the thousands.

Im trying to do everything to my AEE myself to keep costs down, im having the head ported, polished and skimmed, fast road camshaft, 4 branch exhaust manifold, and currently attempting Bike Carbs, read my post 'New engine/carb conversion', oh and i keep having to raise my budget!!!

What they said lol.

Though to be fair bolting a turbo on isnt nessesarily that expenisve in itself. Now if you dont want to blow then engine up in a week then it becomes expensive.

I may well be bolting a turbo onto mine soon. I have at my mums cousins hous the turbo and flange thing from an 1800 diesel for transit and the intercooler to match. i intend on setting up in such a way that it will not be running alot of boost so that i hopefully wont blow nothing up, though i will see some performance gains from it (hopefully).

Ill explain the theory.

The turbo im getting comes with a connection above and below it. Meaning an attachment needs to be made above and below it on the exhaust manifold. Im hopefully going to have a manifold made up in some crazy way that will bolt onto this, vice versa with exhaust outlet on the turbo flange thing.

Now when ive run the turbo into the intercooler then out again i intend on making a sort of bleed valve type of thing that lets a fair amount of air out, to stop the turbo building up too much pressure that could potentially blow my engine.

All in all i think i can get it done for under two hundred quid. Being that i know the people that would do the work and supply the expensive parts (turbo being the foremost). Only problem really for me is the manifold as i have no idea where im gonna get that done...

I may even stick a whistle in the bleed thingy. Just to make a completely f****d sound. Like a referee with the lungs of god bwahaha.

No this wont be my daily driver lol.

Lol Hi LeMeph, Thats quite interesting, it would be interesting if you could pull it off using the method you described.

Me and a freind did once turbo charge a Mk3 golf AEX engine for a bit of a laugh. He was given the car and he gave it to me to play with and use for parts but i decided to go mad and slam a turbo on it. ALL The parts we used were from the scrap yard or custom made by me cheeply. The turbo was off a volvo and i used a £60 overhaull kit. Now i replaced the head gasket and stacked three off them, it didnt like to start after than without a struggle but when the turbo kicked in it realy realy did shift! I didnt do the engine management side of things. my freind used a custom ECU thing which he programmed but he needed that back for his own car. The car would stutter under heavy boost badly. (when i say heavy it was relativly low but allot for the engine). It sounded amazing but was never intended to be driven, just ragged about untill it blew up, the amazing thing is between us we coverd a good 400 miles in it and since then shes been tucked up away in his garage. Its not in very good condition now but it was interesting. No doubt the engine would NOT last long and i cant test as i dont have the ECU to re start the engine.

The idea was great but without a full uprated overhall on the engine, realisticly it wont cope well, to be fair the AE series engines can blow a rod perfectly well without the help of a turbo lol.


Currently im thinking of the following.

AEE Ported and fast road cam'd head (if it will fit an AEX)
4-2-1 Manifold and full de-cat zaust system
Custom made Induction manifold (any one know of any that will already fit??)
Lightend fly wheel? (not sure about this but a freind said it might be a good idea?)

Im sure theres other things i can do but i cant think of them lol.

LeMeph wrote: The turbo im getting comes with a connection above and below it. Meaning an attachment needs to be made above and below it on the exhaust manifold. Im hopefully going to have a manifold made up in some crazy way that will bolt onto this, vice versa with exhaust outlet on the turbo flange thing.

Now when ive run the turbo into the intercooler then out again i intend on making a sort of bleed valve type of thing that lets a fair amount of air out, to stop the turbo building up too much pressure that could potentially blow my engine.

All turbo's how those two connections one where the exhaustgasses go in, to charge the turbo, and one where these gasses go out again.

These manifolds already exist, many german firms make these and they're not to hard to weld yourself. Also when getting a KKK K03 (which is of perfect size for a AEX or AEE/AEA) it already has an internal by-pass valve (almost all "stock" turbo's have this), this valve is used to regulate the turbo's pressure, which is controlled by nothing but a little screw

Rmachines wrote:Currently im thinking of the following.

AEE Ported and fast road cam'd head (if it will fit an AEX)
4-2-1 Manifold and full de-cat zaust system
Custom made Induction manifold (any one know of any that will already fit??)
Lightend fly wheel? (not sure about this but a freind said it might be a good idea?)

Im sure theres other things i can do but i cant think of them lol.

That's about the set-up I've finished lately, building back the engine at the moment. AEE head will fit AEX, but it also needs to be skimmed to get a proper compression-ratio, make sure to calculate this correctly, since a too high ratio will blow your pistons and fry your pistonrings. And a too low ratio will negatively affect performance. I went for 10,5:1 to be save with a slight performance increase.
Also got a AEE head (bigger inletvalves and -ports), ported it myself, polished it, and got it skimmed to the compressionratio of 10,5:1. Also got it totally refurbed. It's bolted on my ADX engine (1300, small stroke engine, more fun in revving it ) got a 268degree cam in it, adjustable campulley, a Golf mk3 1600 inletmanifold, 4-2-1 exhaustmanifold, de-cat muffler by Supersprint, higher fuelpressure, bigger bore free-flow exhaust, flowed and polished throttle and lightened fly-wheel. See my topic for further details.

That set-up your talking about will garanty some good fun, but depending on where you get your parts and of refurbing the head or not (which is recommandable!!) etc. etc. I didn't do it the major cheap way, didn't save on parts or refurbing, but did save on doing it all myself (except the refurbing of course) and yes, a lightened flywheel does have a nice effect, makes the car go up in rev's faster

i know nothing of turbos....

Still just means less work involved

Jarno, thats basicly what i want to do to my AEX, I plan to get another engine and rebuild it with everything it needs and just swap when im ready.

I am tempted to look into a turbo now though.
What else would need to be changed, i would only run light boost. I guess the ECU Would need to be changed? Or would the stock one cope with a low boost?

Also. Would i / could i change the inlet manifold to a metal one? The problem is the injectors mount into the AEX one so i guess any other one will have to have the same injector holes.

Sorry for asking so many questions but i need to build as much knowlage about this as i possibly can before i start planning to get parts etc...

Guess you could have your own inlet manifold amde with space for injectors mounted. If you go for the motorbikie throttles you dont have to worry as they have the injectors on em. Id do that personally. That way you also dont have to worry about the ecu. Plus if you do that then your only going to get mroe power from it!

If you do a turbo properly your gonna need metal head gaskets, piston rings and low compression pistons i should imagine.

Then you can also consider camming it.

On the safe side there are things to consider like race grade tappets and springs etc etc. Just like make everything bulletproof so you know it aint gonna break on you.

i considered fitting the supercharger from a mini coopers (eaton m45), but the space infront of the engine is a bit tight and a metal head gasket was £100, then all the pipework, intercooler, and then you need uprated fueling using an aftermarket E.C.U, which when i asked about was £1000 for the E.C.U, injectors and loom, and £500 for it to be put on the rollers for a day and to be mapped, it went from being a realy cheap easy mod, to a realy difficult expensive one!!

I think ditching the EFI and sticking carbs in would be a VERY good idea in that case.
I would idealy uprate the head gasket and pistons, I plan to get all new parts anyway, If i was to turbo it i will probably fit new big end bearings and piston rings and just stack the gaskets. doubt i would bother with the tappets etc, the ones on it are pretty strong, springs would be a good idea if it was going to rev hard but the AEX limits quite low anyway so i wouldnt like to push it if it realy cant handle it, With it being an 8 valve engine most of the power will be before 6000 RPM anyway.

As for cams, Fast road would be ideal for a turbo setup, i would worry about it shifting the power band a bit to far up the rev range with it being a small one anyway, there would be little power, then the turbo would kick as the cams do and will all of a sudden pick up and by the time it does it would be pushed to the limit, Now i know it wouldnt have a limiter as such on carbs, it could be where you want it to be .... but VW put it at 6000 RPM which IS low... im not sure if the engines cant cope with it or they put it there to be very safe?

Lot of comment, not much time to type, so:

-rev-limiter can be taken out electronically (software)
-when mounting a 1.6 head on a 1.3 or 1.4 you already decrease your compression to about 8,2:1, torbu-proof
-stacking gaskets isn't an option, not that reliable
-fitting turbo and trying to keep it reliable is a big moneyspender, would require forged pistons and annual change or crank/pistonshaft bearings
-remap or swap of ECU is necessary (TIP: G40's ECU try to look into that)
-and yes, there are metal inletmanifolds, get one from a mk2 or mk3 Polo 8v, will fit, but you will also need the throttle etc., take one from a G40, match it with the ECU (another free little hint there innit? )

Hopefully made most points, if any questions, just send me a PM m8, I'll answer in more detail when I have some more time

Fantastic mate cheers!

Im still not to sure about turbos because like you say, the engine realy isnt made for it lol. I think im gunna try to milk the absolute maximum i can out if it using N/A.