the 2.0 rabbit pickup build

So..  I've been kindof quiet here for the past few weeks.

First I commissioned, and graduated from MI Tech. I'm now a bonified electrical engineer and 2d Lt in the Air Force "Hua!"  Then I moved from Houghton to Grand Rapids.  That was quite a move.  I'm pretty sure i overloaded my 25 foot trailer and my 1ton chevy.  Either way, I got down state in one piece.

Then I sold some motorcycles (previous post)  I figured i can always buy another project bike when I have more time.

Remember that 020 transmission I rebuilt for my friend?  Well.. In case you missed it

And that engine I removed from the blue rabbit? Btw.. that car is on the road and getting driven from what I am told.

Well.  On my old to-do list the next thing up was the aba/1.8 head deal.  For you non vw folk.. This is taking the 2.0L aba block found in most Golfs and jetts in the mid/late 90's and mating it up with the older 1.8L head.  This lets you use the old  CIS injection system found in the older cars, and also (as a bonus) give you a high compression 2.0L 4 cylinder engine.

My good friend wanted one of these for her 81 rabbit pick-up.    As a note, i adore these cars.....  but being over 6 foot i have a hard enough time fitting in my Rabbit sedan..  the rabbit pick up seats don't go back as far as they do in the sedan, and well..  I don't think i'll be able to ever drive a rabbit pick up comfortably.  But behold.. my friend is probably barely 5 foot something.. and she could probably fit in my pocket, so..  it's the perfect pickup for her.

On to the car porn!!!

First I had to tear down the old motor, and figure out if it had any issues.

First, its dirty....

Then i found some other issues.  Initially i thought the head gasket was just leaking

Then i found the root of of the problem, someone decided to take out a stud, and replace it with a bolt?  Jeeze..  Anywhos.. I wasn't feeling too great about this motor

Pulled the distributor, only to find that it was also broken.

And things don't have pictures of..  electrical tape and plastic in the oil pikup tube.
Either way.. This motor was going to get done up right. Full rebuild.

First was a good cleaning, and then some polishing.  The block was hot tanked and the cylinder head was cleaned.  The cylinder head was also warped (probably from missing head stud/bolt issue...)  so it was also milled down .012 of an inch.

The cylinder head before:

and after:

And then powder coating!  by the way, Peninsula Powder Coating rocks if anybody is up north and wishes to use them.  Their rates are cheap and their work is top notch!

I havd them do the block and some other parts in hi-temp black.

And then the guy there showed me this blue... and i fell in love. (prepare for pictures galore!)

It almost glows in the dark, its a really cool blue.

I also had them sandblast the header so it could get repainted.  It was pretty nasty looking.

And then this is where the project stopped until after I moved.
Once I got down to Grand Rapids, I dove into the actual repairs on the the little rabbit pickup.

First I had to remove the motor

And then I found out that the strut tower rusted out....  Not good, considering that its a structural part of the truck.. Time to get sheet metal and try out my new welder!

You can see the rust holes here

Here is a support I fabbed up to add some material to weld too

And this is after i added some material to the strut tower its self.

A little fiber glass and bondo to smooth things over

Cleaned and primed

 flat black baby!

Well, After that crisis was resolved, I went on to finishing up other mechanical issues on the truck.
First was stopping the water from leaking in.

I found the leak

And seeing that we were going to delete the AC box out of the car anyways, i just made a patch panel.  Its not too pretty, but it works.

Then i moved on to deleting the AC box.. for any MK1 enthusiast out there.. I don't recommend this mod. The AC cars and non-ac cars are different.. Just be happy with the ac box.. Its a lot of work to get it to switch.  You WILL NEED a whole parts car to do this mod correctly....  And then there still is alot of fabricating work.. And the gain is minimal... (actually I don't see much gain, I only did this because the spare heater core we had was for the non-AC car, and we had a non-AC box...)

First the hole in the rain tray is different, so you need to make a patch plate.
Looks like this:

And installed it looks like this:

Then you have to figure out wiring, cables, and vents...
If you do want to do this.. Send me an email, or contact me here if you want to know the long boring story of that.

Then, after that i decided to get rid of the left over head liner

After a few minutes it looked like this

and i looked like this....  It was dirty work.

Plus, i did a whole bunch of things not pictured... New electrical harness, new/repaired wiring under the hood, fixed the gas gauge, blahblahblah...

Now on to building the engine!
Some pictures of the block put together

Here is a freeze plug that i installed over the crank position sensor... For future reference.. USE SILICONE WHEN INSTALLING THIS!!!

Got the lower brackets installed

 I dunno about you.. But I'm kind of jealous that i'm not building this motor for myself.. I think its beautiful!

Modified the intake.  the owner has a bigger techtonics tuning throttlebody.
went from this (it was smaller yet.. its 1/2 modified in this photo)

to this! I'm sure that helped the acceleration a little bit.

and on to its completed glory

you'll notice that its running the MK3 style alternator and belt. I think this mod is worth while. And its really easy to do!  Ask me if you have any questions about how you do it.

And then i had to install it into the car

A word of advice.. When building a high compression motor, the stock 8valve starter will no longer have the guts to start it.  I suggest using a starter out of a older VW diesel, or a mk3 2.0.  Here is a picture for comparison.  The 8valve starter is he small one.  The diesel is the big one.  The 2.0 is somewhere in between.   Both the 2.0 and diesel starter work great.  I know, i tried them both to see.

And well.  Thats it!  Kinda..  After some tuning and tricks with engine timing it was running pretty darn good.    Really good! I was hoping that it made somewhere around the 115HP mark.

We took it to the dyno, to see what power it makes.

The end result.  This little bugger produces 131.5 HP at 5116 RPM  and the torque curve is impressive at 147.9 ft/lb at 3251 RPM.  There is still more power there (indicated by the torque curve not dropping yet), but with the engine being so new, we decided to break it in first before we beat up on it any more.  I was more than pleased.  It goes to show what a little tuning can do!  Btw this is a premium only machine... Running it on anything but will probably cause some spark knock, and nobody wants that.

Proof!

Well. Its 1:48..  I'm gonna go to bed.  I need to drive to Indiana tomorrow.  Enjoy =]