Rabbit Farmer's various VW Projects

[Rabbit Farmer]

While geeking out on Isaac's MK1 1.8T project on VWvortex this morning, I got some good ideas for my MK1 Scirocco.

Here is the project thread: The original 20vT mk1 "re-build" thread.

Meanwhile, work continues with the MK4 Golf.

The Tial turbo housing was very loose, yet the bolts were tight and, after removal, did not stretch.

The lip that connects to the Tial housing corroded over time and pretty much went away.

This picture shows me holding the mounting surface for the Tial away from the turbo center section. That difference is the missing center section mounting flange. This is why the Tial housing was loose. Some horsepowers snuck out.



Current turbo is Garrett Gen 1 GTX2863R. We are ordering a Garrett Gen 2 GTX2860R today. Around $1275 before shipping and taxes. Ouch.

I wanted something that works with the current Tial housing so that I didn't have to make any changes to the exhaust.

The 2860 should spool up a little quicker, and surprising, it actually has a little more horsepower potential because of the improved technology. I don't need more HP at the top end, but good to know it is an option.

The new turbo should be here in a week. Then we have to schedule a retune at VEMS before the Ascutney hillclimb.

I think over the winter I will take apart the engine to go through it for next season.

Steve

[Rabbit Farmer]

New turbo temporarily installed to work out the clocking of the oil in/outlets.

The fittings to change how the lines that will be connected to the turbo should arrive tomorrow. One of the challenges we had at the Burke hillclimb this summer when trying to troubleshoot the turbo is that it was extremely difficult to get a wrench around the fitting to remove the coolant line. The plan is to add a 90-degree, male/female, -6AN fitting to the turbo that will stay on the turbo. It will make it easier to access and install/remove the lines.

Tuning is planned for 11am on Wednesday (Sep 06) at VEMS in Colchester, VT.

The Ascutney hilllclimb is Sep 9-10. Cutting it close, but we think we can do it.

Huge thank you to Joey Kale for traveling to my house to get the new turbo setup and make a new braided coolant hose (what failed at Burke).

Oh... and some pretty pictures of the turbo and the test fit install.

Steve

[Rabbit Farmer]

Picture of the final assembly of the turbo. Joey was having a hard time getting the broken bolt out of the hot side, but was successful.



Turbo 100% installed and car is running. New plugs with .025 gap. Joey fixed the leaking coolant line (from Burke hillclimb 2023) by cutting of the end of the old hose and installing a new fitting. The plan over the winter is to replace some of the old braided hoses, replace the silicone hoses on the boost controller with braided, rebuild the engine, and install the manual timing belt tensioner. You know, small stuff like that.



I purchased an oil filter cutting tool. Pretty easy to use. No offending metal bits in the oil or the filter.



The STI has been sitting in the trailer for over a month... I did take it out for two days that I had to drive to work. I didn't want to park it outside as the Golf was in the garage. Golf glass is fogged from sitting in the air conditioned garage and then going out into the incredibly hot and humid outdoors. Yuck. I went through three t-shirts today.

So... spirited drive is planned for tomorrow with the STI while the Golf is getting tuned at VEMS.

Mt. Ascutney hillclimb (last event of the season) is this weekend. Looking forward to it.

[Rabbit Farmer]

Not the best day to tune the car on 93 pump. The outside temp was around 87F and humid as heck.

One thing we learned... the FMIC is too small. Timing was pulled when intake temps exceeded 59C/138F. Looking at FMIC options over the winter along with other improvements that I have been planning. One suggestion was Treadstone 600 HP version. Same width, just taller. Will see what dimensions work. And perhaps use that sprayer setup I bought years ago.

Dropped the car off at VEMS this morning.



Two hours later the car is done and ready for the weekend.

Thick line: Generation 1 GTX2863R with pump fuel, residual leaded fuel in lines and on parts, mild temps

Think line: Generation 2 GTX2860R (smaller/new turbo Sep 2023) with pump fuel, 87F and humid as heck.

[Rabbit Farmer]

The 2023 New England Hillclimb Association (NEHA) hillclimb season wrapped up with the Ascutney hillclimb.

Rained sooooo hard on Friday... lots of lightning, heavy rain, took down some canopies, minor river going through the campsite, and fuel to grow moss on the road.

Driving up the hill on Saturday for our first practice run showed a completely green road in the lower half of the mountain. My experience is that moss doesn't exactly make for good traction. Times were slow on Saturday.

The weather forecast for Sunday looked bad with the mossy Saturday as the fastest times of the day. But, we got lucky and didn't see any rain on Saturday or Sunday... the times were pretty good.

I was working through trying to determine by shift-points with the new GTX2860R (smaller than before) turbo. It didn't have the top end like the old GTX2863R, but I was benefiting from the power that was coming in lower. I will have to review the dyno chart vs. my gearing to figure out the shift points.

There is a track event in mid-October. That may be the last event for the Golf this year. The format of the track event is like a hillclimb where we have cars spaced out on the track and it is timed from point A to point B (pit exit to pit entrance). At the end of the day the format is HPDE with laps of the full track. It is a fun event. I just need to address a leaking tire issue that I discovered at Ascutney.

Then... work through all the improvements I want over the winter while building that darn Scirocco.

Steve

[Rabbit Farmer]

Getting Golf ready for the track event.

Unfortunately, I don't have dedicated track brake pads. The pads are pretty good on the track for short sprints, but I won't be trusting them for repeated deep dives.

Front are Hawk Blue and rears are Hawk HP Plus.

I used to use the Hawk HP Plus on the street for my 2009 WRX and loved them. Squeaked, but they came on quick.

This week was spent checking all the bolts, etc. Found one loose bolt on the skid plate and the lower collar on the coil over loosened to about 2" below where it should be.

The beating at the Ascutney hillclimb requires post event bolt/nut checks.

Saturday included new brake fluid, pad inspection, cleaned and reoiled the air intake filter, blew out the water tank and lines to the radiator sprayer (won't be needed), new cabin air filter, torqued all tires, air pressure in all tires, and found better way to mount the Go-Pro camera.

Sunday was at it at 5:30am cleaning up the tools, etc. from the car project and started washing the car at 6:00am. Car, truck, and trailer done by 7:00. Had breakfast and headed to an American Cancer Society fundraising event/5km walk-run.

Long weekend. Car in trailer and ready for the event.

All that in one picture.

And... I switched over to PNG file types after learning about how JPG files lose their quality over time when copying to a new location. Don't need that.

[Rabbit Farmer]

Wrapping up the driving portion of the year... time to get going on Golf changes and building the Scirocco for the 2023/2024 winter.

Last event of the year was a time trial at the Club Motorsport track in NH. Fantastic track and facility that I am very pleased to be able to drive the track. Especially with the fall leaves as a backdrop. B-E-A-you-tee-full.

The remote wired mic did not work (it had a new battery). Unsure if the wire was damaged or the GoPro converter (allows for 3.5mm RCA plug) was damaged. I could hear some very distant and muffled sounds on the video, but decided it wasn't worth posting.

So... you get my first run of the day on a track that I have been to a number of times... but first time we were running it backwards.

I had no idea of the proper lines, braking, points, etc. for a good time. Watching the video, I was more in the middle of the track vs. actually driving the lines.

Oh well, it was my first run and the only run with working sound as I didn't use the remote mic.

Make sure to watch in HD to get the best picture.



Photos from hash tag, at-symbol, whatever... "noahmouth" on Instgram





And... the Mt. Washington "Climb to the Clouds" hillclimb has a date in 2025.



Julie, the lovely wife, and I look forward to helping organize this event and I hope to be driving again... perhaps with the Scirocco.

(nearly) Time to head to the garage to get those dreams going faster.


Steve

[Rabbit Farmer]

I was looking through some old hillclimb racing event photos and found this gem from 2002 at the Mt. Philo hillclimb.

One of the Rutan Sciroccos; I currently own the FWD Scirocco.

This lovely shade of green is AWD and propelled by a powerful V-6 engine. I heard "Busch type race engine" in the past, but I don't recall exactly what it was for the engine. It was a fast car and fast driver.

[Rabbit Farmer]

Welcome to 2024... and off to a very slow start.




The Historic Mt. Philo hillclimb, hosted by the Sports Car Club of Vermont (www.SCCV.org) and sponsored by A-Plus Towing & Recovery in Orwell, VT (https://aplustowing802.com), is this coming weekend.

That means all the issues and improvements that I had all winter to work on come down to 6 days before the first event.

So, this past weekend was oil/filter change, inner tie rod, spark plugs, running issue at the last 2023 track event, new RBF600 brake fluid, tire inflation and wheel torque.

But... I didn't get to any of the "improvements" that I wanted to do over the winter. Lazy and busy with local club and hillclimb organization stuff didn't help.



The running issue turned out to be a very rusty #4 spark plug wire on the coil end. Replaced it, cleaned and applied dielectric grease to all four coil posts, replaced the spark plugs, and she is running perfectly again.



One of the improvements for the 2024 season was to install the much larger Mann W940/25 oil filter.



Given more time to see if I could relocate the wires on the bottom of the fan shroud, perhaps I could have made it fit.

This is how close the stock size oil filter is to the wires. This is because I have a much thicker aftermarket radiator.



Replaced the inner tied rod. The ball was a little loose in the socket. Surprised as it is relatively new. Since it was a concern of the hillclimb tech inspector at the end of the 2023 season, I replaced it.



Changing of the guard. The MK1 Scirocco returns to the garage and the Golf is heading out for the Mt. Philo hillclimb.



In other news... last summer I had a tire blowout on the trailer on the way to a track event. Replacing a tire in the breakdown lane of I-89 isn't all that fun. Thankfully, I was able to jack up the trailer without removing the car.

On my way back from the track event, I checked all the tires again and noticed that one (same side as the blowout) was low on air pressure.

(don't worry, I'm getting to the point)

My cigarette plug in air compressor wouldn't reach from the truck to the back of the 24' enclosed trailer nor did I want to remove the tire. So, I had to use my air tank to ferry air from the air compressor plugged into the truck dash to the tire on the trailer.

What a pain.

Enter the new Milwaukee M18 battery air compressor. Very simple and very functional.

It threads onto the tire. Bonus.

You can hold the manual inflate button to add air.

The real bonus is the memory. Connect the hose to the tire, press the 1 of 3 memory options, press Start, and it will inflate (and draw back down if it overshot) to that setting. Great for setting the pressure for all tires on a vehicle. Hit the truck tires next.

[Rabbit Farmer]

Not much to report so far in 2024.

I raced at the Mt. Philo, Mt. Ascutney (Oxford comma) and Mt. Okemo hillclimbs. So far, it has been a little wet this season.

Mt. Okemo was this weekend... we got home early as we called the event due to rain. I didn't want to race in the rain (my car doesn't like it), but was willing to work the event if the driver vote was in favor of having the event on Sunday. My wife in her 2015 Volvo S60 R-Design also raced this weekend... same boat, didn't want to drive in the rain, but would have worked a checkpoint.

Even on Saturday, with the on-off rain, I parked the car after 3 of the 5 runs.

During the Ascutney hillclimb, I noticed that I was spinning the wheels in 4th gear in the straights... knew it was time to get new tires. Another set of Toyo R888R just because I haven't tried other tires. Run what I know.



The 2001 Golf is 23 years old, I have been racing it for 18 years, and she still looks pretty good.



Action shot from the Mt. Okemo hillclimb