Cowboys Screwed Me Over

[lucifer666]

Right. I got my engine rebuilt because the lower end was f***ed

Problems. Banging noise, oil pump ruined, pulley ruined, coolent leak, no oil pressure+ leak......hence f***ed

Had plans for alot of mods so decided to get the engine re-manufactured as opposed to a second hand transplant. Which cost me £1200

Since i got it back 3 weeks after promised, i still had an oil leak, coolant leak, and the power is way down. Its been back and fore the last 2.5 months and its still leaking oil. They refuse to give me a refund even tho i have a warrenty.

Im now taking them to court with trading standards. Anyway, none of the above is relevent really. Just wanted to know is it actually possible to rebuild a 2.0 16v 1997 cupra sport engine because i was talking to an ex seat mechanic and they said you cant get hold of the cilinders/pistons anymore if its an alloy engine. If its a non alloy engine then you can. How do i know what i have, and is he correct that a certain type of engine cannot be rebuilt.
I thought that any engine could be re-built.

cheers

 

[F2 Stu]

The 2.0 16v ABF were all a steel block with an ally head, and can be rebuilt.

un-rebuildable all alloy engine is all tosh.

 

[lucifer666]

okay. The guy was talking about a 2.0l engine from a tt and if some of the parts were just mm's out then it would just burn oil like f**k. And it wasnt humanly impossible to get it any less.

Any idea where the best place to get a rebuild is after i get my dosh back?
Ive heard of heathrow engines being good.

 

[F2 Stu]

I'm confused - using bits out of a 2l tfsi to repair an NA ABF? LOL.
Are you looking to build it back up as standard or with added spice?

 

[surcalation]

hope you can get your money back, was it a standard re-build or where you goin for more as stu said?

 

[lucifer666]

standard rebuild, with port n polished n skimmed head.

 

[F2 Stu]

where abouts are you? can suggest the place that rebuilt my ABF if its not too far for you

 

[lucifer666]

south wales. i wouldnt mind going far if i had the peace of mind that a decent job was done.

http://www.reconditioned-engines.co.uk/

how does this look? they said standard re-build & collection £1250

 

[m0rk]

that's a hell of a lot given the choice of replacements out there, £350 will buy a known mileage complete engine, with sensible mileage

and you could fit it in a day

 

[lucifer666]

yeah was thinking down that road, if i cant get anyone i trust to do a good job. the previous engine camshafts would need swapping over because ive already got that done. wouldnt they need to strip that down partially anyway?

also, im thinking of saving up a little more and when i finally get the rebuild done, do as much as possible to the engine whilst its been taken apart.

was thinking, port n polish n skimmed head, manifolds(4-2-1/4-1), bored out to give 2.1-2.2l or as much as i can. Upgraded pistons(no idea what kind)

And whats the advantages of choosing between a 421 and a 41.

 

[Czechboy]

And whats the advantages of choosing between a 421 and a 41.

Well if I was you then I'd firstly have a look at which one you can actually get as they are rarer the rocking horse poo for the RHD ABF lump. They you can start choosing, but TBH I recon you won't really have much of a choice. BTW for £1250, Roly off of here might even do you a 1.8T engine transplant

Mig

 

[goble]

tsr are good and if you want more power

 

[hopkinsgm]

As a general rule of thumb, any gain you get from a 4-1 will tend to be up at high revs, whereas a 4-2-1 will tend to give a bit more in the mid range. It's all to do with flow characteristics, and in the case of a 4-2-1 the actual and relative lengths of the primaries (4-2 bit) and secondaries (2-1 sections) can make a massive difference.

 

[lucifer666]

how hard is it to put a 1.8t into it, are there different versions for this engine from different cars/years etc and what work would it require. Was talking to someone the other day who said it was almost a straight swap.


* Pardon my ignorrance but what is RHD and TBH, are these just engine codes like my ABF?

 

[Daz_gibbo]

RHD- Right hand drive
TBH - To be honest.

Stick a 1.8T in it! A lad called roly has done it. Might be worth PM'ing him or do a search on his threads

 

[lucifer666]

arnt there different 1.8t engines tho with different bhp figures. do they all fit or is it the mk 3 one only?

 

[Jamin Berry]

You can fit anything in....

I believe people choose the ones out of mk3 because they came out of the same engine bay.

 

[hopkinsgm]

When folks first started dropping 1.8 20vT's in various VAG products old and new, the early mk4 Golf GTi units were considered by many to be the engine of choice, primarily because they used a cable operated throttle. Later ones have a "drive by wire" system where there is no mechanical connection between the accelerator pedal and the throttle body.

 

[lucifer666]

thanx, some useful information, so for a simple straight swap its the mk 3, more powerful choice is mk4 golf but not from the same engine bay, anything later and your looking at more expence and more work

 

[hopkinsgm]

No. Motors from mk4 Golfs are generally 150bhp variant, so actually about the least powerful of the various 1.8 20vT's - the main variants were 150bhp (156bhp claimed for mk3 Ibiza Cupra), 180bhp, 210bhp and 225bhp. The reason I mentioned early mk4 Golf motors was because they used a regular throttle cable between the accelerator pedal and the throttle body - this removes some headaches from the conversion process. There are still plenty of things to trip you up, like the gearbox (02J cable change box, though as you've currently got a 2.0 16v then you'll have the 02A box which is also a cable change...), clutch (hydraulic operation), immobiliser (hard coded into ECU, I believe there's some jiggery pokery to do with swapping clock pods, or removing imobiliser transponder from the car the engine and ECU came from), and there's probably a whole heap of other potential pitfalls, not least of which will be wiring/electricals... Oh, and of course, heat management becomes a major issue when dealing with anything involving forced induction...

That's not to say it's impossible - there's a few mk2 Ibiza's about with 1.8 20vT's in them, and plenty of mk1 and mk2 Golfs. Worth doing a search as there's a couple of folks on here that have done conversions, and there's threads detailing some of the headaches they've encountered. The above are just a few of those I've read about, either here or in various VAG magazines from a few years ago.

Note that there may well be all sorts of other issues depending on whether the car the engine came out of had a transverse engine (i.e. mk3 Ibiza, mk4 Golf, A3, Leon, etc.) or a longitudinal engine (e.g. Passat).