SCIROCCO GTI
Welcome to my homepage that will show my VW Scirocco GTI.
I bought the car in august 2002 and since then it's been constantly upgraded,
The goal is to make it a fun trackday racer and small country road car.
This page was updated 061228 (c) Mats Karlsson 2004
Build Diary 1, from january 4th 2003 to september 7th 2003
Saturday 4/1
The first garageday of 2003. With help from Stefan we stripped both my engines into
pieces. In the original engine we found bits and pieces of metal in the oilpump pickup.
The spare engine I had bought was in much better shape so I'll use that one in the car,
but first it's going to be overhauled and maybe tuned a little.
Wednesday 8/1
Ordered new pistonrod bearings, misc gaskets, valve seals and drivebelts
Thursday 16/1
We washed the dismantled engine parts in diesel fuel, worked really well and didn't smell at all.
Monday 20/1
My fiancés father visited the garage and delivered the lightened flywheel, almost 2kg's lighter.
Thursday 23/1
The rods and pistons was weighed and the largest difference was 2grams. Good enough.
Monday 27/1
Cleaned up the garage a bit and sanded some more on the right rear fender that's gotten a new wheelarch.
Jani came by and chatted alittle.
Tuesday 28/1
More sanding and plastering. It gets alittle better each time.
Saturday 1/2
Started sanding and plastering the bottom part of the right door.
The engine block was cleaned and painted black.
Sunday 2/2
More sanding and plastering, darn I'm getting so fed up with it!
Put a second coat on the engine, turned out ok.
In the afternoon Stefan came by and helped me dismantle the cylinder head. Cleaned the head with diesel.
Friday 7/2
Turned in the head for repleacement of the valve guides.
Saturday 8/2
Started fixing the rust around the filler hole. Sanded some more on the door.
Sunday 9/2 My birthday! :-)
Celebrated it in the garage. Welded a new piece into the filler hole.
Monday 10/2
Got the cylinder head back with the new guides fitted.
Sanded the door and around the filler hole.
Thursday 13/2
Stefan started grinding the valves while I sanded the door some more.
Really teadious work to handgrind the valves.
Sunday 16/2
Finished grinding the valves.
Sunday 23/2
Put a layer of primer on the door and sanded it down alittle.
Looked in the big box of parts and found the calipermounts.
Mounted the caliper mouonts on the car. Painted the fillertube black.
Tuesday 25/2
Masked and primed the right rear fender. Afterwards you could really see
how uneven it was. Back to plastering and sanding.
Wednesday 26/2
I continued the sanding while Stefan assembled the engine head.
Mounted the new camshaft. Got to get the valve gaps right before it's finished.
Sunday 2/3
Was in the garage for a few hours, sanded some more. I also dismounted the
right front fender and could remove about 1.5 kg of sand and dirt that was stuck under it.
I wonder how much I'll find under the left one.
Monday 3/3
Primed and painted the right sill, sanded some more on the fender.
Getting closer. Brought the drivers seat home for some patching up work by my girlfriend.
Sunday 9/3
Got the valve shims out of the old cylinder head in case I need them in the new one.
Measured the valve clearence to the camshaft, 4 valves need adjustment.
Tuesday 11/3
Started assembling the engine block, mounted the crank, oilseals, pistons and
rods, oilpump, oiltray and middle axle.
Wednesday 12/3
Ordered some valve shims, injector seals and the screws that hold the brake rotors.
Saturday 15/3
Sanded and sanded some more. I'm starting to realize that my skills only extend so
far when it comes to plastering and sanding. I'll leave it as it is now and just paint it.
The rest of the car is alittle dented so it'll have to do. Got the distributor gear
changed and picked up the exhaust manifold.
Sunday 16/3
Put a second coat of paint on the door and added some clearcoat.
Painted and clearcoated around the filler hole. Ran out of paint.
Put in the new injectorseats in the head.
Monday 17/3
Got some more paint and finished the paintjob, looks like crap but it'll do.
Jani stopped by and picked up the rotors that he's going to put some slots into.
Tueday 18/3
Put the wheels on the car and got it of the jacks. I've had it off the floor for
so long that I've forgotten how low it really is. Cleaned up around the car a bit, lots of dust.
Thursday 20/3
Mounted the right side door, mounted the camshaft again after fitting the new shims.
Started checking the rear brakes. New brake linings was already mounted. Got the front
rotors back from Jani, slotted discs looks nice!
Sunday 23/3
Mounted new brakecylinders in the rear and new handbrake wires.
Monday 24/3
Changed the lower rear bolts the hold the shocks to the rear axle, the ones that
was mounted was way to long. Put the heater and heaterfan into the car but didn't have
any screws to fasten it. Typical. Found lots of leaves and stuff in the fan too.
Thursday 27/3
Went to Biltema and got 10m of copper brake pipes and connectors.
Started looking into how the brakebooster and maincylinder will fit into the car.
Stefan assembled my distributor. Thanks! Put new bolts into the exhaust manifold.
Sunday 30/3
Made the front right and left brake pipes from scratch. Mounted the cylinder head to the engine.
Monday 31/3
Cleaned up the gearbox.
Thursday 3/4
Bought a new clutch wire and brakebooster seal. Mounted the distributor and some other things to the engine.
Started to take the waterpump apart and of course one of the bolts snapped. Got it out after welding a nut to the
little pice that stuck out.
Friday 4/4
Cleaned the waterpump, fitted a new thermostat and seals and mounted it to the engine. Bought a new clutch,
declutch bearing and two overhaul kits for the front calipers. This is turning out to be an expensive month.
Saturday 5/4
Started putting the brake pipes onto the car but I cound't quite finish the work
since I didn't know what pipe went where on the main cylinder.
Got all the levers on the heat panel to work. Changed the control arm on the Audi
throttle body to get it to work with the Scirocco throttle wire.
Sunday 6/4
Put the rear brake pipes on the car, had to shorten them alittle to get them to fit.
Looked into how the fuel pump and pressure accumulator goes together and what's missing.
Stefan dismantled the calipers, they looked ok so new dust seals was fitted.
Thursday 10/4
Was going to mount the new clutch but discovered that it was the wrong clutch. Bummer.
Gonna get it exchanged for the right one. Worked on the inlet manifold instead, changed some
dry air hoses so I can use the ported manifold that fits the Audi throttle body.
Sunday 13/4
All the brake pipes are ready, just have to mount the pads and guide pins to the calipers and
bleed the brakes. Put some paint on the fuel lines.
Friday 18/4
Got some help from Stefan to mount the filler pipe, darn it was though to get in place.
We also mounted the lower stressbar that I got for free from Hazze Owenius. Thanks Hazze!
Sunday 20/4
Mounted the brake pads, alittle tricky to get the anti rattle springs in place but it worked.
Would have taken 20 minutes less if one of the guide pins had taken the threads alittle quicker.
Was going to mount the fuelpump and stuff but I wanted to get home in time for the F1 race on tv.
Go Raikonnen !!
Friday 25/4
Mounted the new declutch bearing in the gearbox.
Saturday 26/4
Today was the day that the engine was going into the car !
Mounted the new clutch, bolted the gearbox to the engine.
Then it was time to mount the exhaust manifold, when I torqued the
last bolt I stripped the threads. Darn!! Worked out though, put a M10
bolt there instead of the standard M8. Got the driveshafts in place to.
Sunday 27/4
Mounted the fuelpump and some hoses. Put in some new rubber suspensions
for the pump and fuel accumulator. Got the inlet manifold in place, need to
exchange one of the bolts tho. Mounted the cooling hoses and oil filter head and oil cooler.
Monday 28/4
Nothing done today, went with Stefan to Borĺs where he bought a '83 VW Golf GTI.
Tuesday 29/4
Filled up the gearbox with oil, filled the engine with oil and changed the oilfilter
Mouned the valve cover and a new fuel filter, new airfilter, new injectorseals.
Mounted the fuelinjection and fuel lines to the engine.
Thursday 1/5
Torqued the inlet manifold, mounted the alternator and alternatorbelt.
Mounted the throttlebody. Tried to get all the electrical wires into some sort of order.
Saturday 3/5
Put the cooler into the car and some other stuff. Put in new battery connectors and fixed some broken electrical wires.
Monday 5/5
Mounted the distributorcover, ignition coil, spark plugs, spark plug wires. Got most of the electrical wires
into their respective places. There's only a few that I'm still unsure where they go.
Tuesday 6/5
Torqued the driveshafts. Adjusted the gearlinkage and set the camber on the front wheels to a more credible angle.
Thursday 8/5
Mounted the exhaust down pipe, tore apart the old exhuast system so I can mount it once I've gotten some new
rubber mountings and clamps. Mounted the cooler fluid reservoir.
Sunday 11/5
Time to crank it up ! (or so I thought) I filled up the cooling system and found a leak on one of the hoses
that goes into the heater. Changed a bad hoseclip, then I noticed that the radiator was leaking too. Darn.
Mounted the exhaust. Rolled the car outside and hooked up the battery, I turned the key and.... nothing.
Started to investigate and I suspect that the alarm has something to do with it. Going to ger rid of it completely
at a later time. After a while I got the fuel pump going and noticed alittle fuel leak at the pump. Fixed that.
Finally I got the engine to turn over but it wouldn't start. Will try again later this week after I've replaced the radiator
Thursday 15/5
Got a new cooler from a Golf '88. Mounted it and it didn't leak. Noticed instead that the water pump leaked alittle.
Hopefully it's just the seal that's dry since the engine hasn't been used for 11 years.
Friday 16/5
Tore the alarm out of the car. Put in the carpets and the drivers seat. Cleaned out alot of dust.
Saturday 17/5
Tried to start it again but the starter motor would turn over. I borrowed Stefan startermotor and that
worked much better. The darn thing started !! We adjusted the ignition alittle and it ran quite ok.
I took it out in the sunshine and gave the car a long needed wash
Sunday 18/5
Was in the garage for a few hours but didn't get alot done. Think I sorted out the headlights, indicator lights
and rear lights. The reversing lights would work tho.
Wednesday 21/5
Stefan helped me to bleed the brakes but we found that the master cylinder was leaking so I'll have to get a new one
Thursday 22/5
Got a new master cylinder and took the old one out of the car. Cleaned the brake fluid reservoir.
Mounted the new master cylinder
Wednesday 11/6
I've not been in the garage much lately because of alittle lack of inspiration. But now I'll atleast do the last things so I
can get it past the SBP-check. There's still leaking fuel at the fuel pressure control unit, new seals are ordered. Reversing
light dont work, low priority. Fuel gauge dont work, it works if I take the fuel level float out of the tank, something weird.
Cooling temperature gauge dont work, havn't investigated that yet. The engine still doesn't run completely smooth.
The brakes need alittle run in.
Sunday 15/6
New seals for the fuel pressure unit mounted, seems leakfree. Fuel gauge works after I changed the fuel level float sender.
The brakes was bleeded again, was still some air in the pipes. Exhaust system mounted properly with rubber suspensions.
Still to do: Adjust the main lights, run in the brakes, mount the windscreen wiper, adjust the CO level, run the engine warm
and make sure the temperature gauge and radiator fan works. Mount the passenger seat.
Monday 16/6
Mounted the windscreen wiper, adjusted the windscreen washer jets. Sealed the rear light clusters with some
windowsealing tape. Ran the engine at idle until the radiator fan came on, took ahwile.
Made sure the license plate lights worked.
Friday 29/6
Time for the SBP-check. After four hours of waiting in the drive-in line the result was one "2:a"
(one thing that I'll have to fix and then go back for a second check) One of the fuel lines at the pump
sat alittle loose at the middle so it could shafe against the rear axle, a tiestrap will fix that.
I'm pretty pleased with the result, afterall I did buy the car with the engine laying in the luggage compartment.
The CO level was 1.2 (ok) but the HC level was 4000! Way over the limit which is 2000 but the HC isn't required
to meet the demand on such old cars. I adjusted the fuel mixture so it doesn't run quite so rich.
Friday 4/7
Lots of small fixes this week. Today I changed the oiltray seal to an OEM rubber one.
Hopefullly it'll work better than the cork aftermarket one.
Saturday 5/7
Today it's time for the first trackday ever! Was at the garage at 06:30 and noticed that the oiltray hadn't
leaked anything during the night. Drove out to Stefan and soon we were on our way to Kinnekulle Raceway.
The car ran fine all the way and we were there around 8:00am. We got the cars approved for taking them onto
the track. I drove two 20-25 minute rounds and the car felt ok. The tires get alittle slippery when warm but
thats to be expected. In the after lunch drive I noticed that the engine temp went up alittle to I interupted
that lap and went into the pits. There was alittle coolant missing and I guess bottom hose of the coolant reservoir
to be the guilty party. When we drove home I noticed the engine temp slowly creeping upwards and once I got home
there was almost a litre of coolant missing.
Sunday 6/7
Checked the suspected waterleak and changed a hoseclip.
Monday 7/7
Got the left front wheel bearing changed and both the front suspension ball joints. I also switched to some better
brake pads I bought two silencers and some 2" pipe to build a new exhaust system instead of the old leaky one.
Tuesday 8/7
Started to build the exhaust, alot of work went into the first 10" whcih had to be custom made.
Wednesday 9/7
Continued building, everything was sompleted except the hooks needed to attach it to the rubber mounts.
Friday 11/7
Finished the exhaust, it fitted ok and with a nice low rumble at idle. Mounted 3mm aluminum spacers on the rear axle.
Saturday 12/7
After noticing that even a 30 second startup of the engine caused bubbles in the coolant reservoir I started to prepare
the car to take the cylinder head off and check the cylinder head gasket. Drained the coolant and removed hoses and such.
Monday 14/7
Took the cylinder head of, couldn't find anything wrong. I replaced it anyway. Then I decided to take the whole engine out
and replace the crank end seals while I was at it.
Monday 28/7
Mounted the engine and gearbox in the car again, mounted the cylinder head, injection and all the other stuff.
Thursday 31/7
Finshed the work, new cam belt, oilfilter, oil, alternator arm bushing, vacuumhoses etc.
Adjusted the ignition timing and it ran quite well. Need to adjust the camber angles on the front wheels still.
Friday 1/8
Made a simple parcel shelf for the luggage compartment. Adjusted the camber angles to alittle more negative camber.
The car now runs much better than before, the engine pulls smootly from low revs all the way to the top.
After adjusting the camber angles it's less twitchy when accelerating and braking hard.
Sunday 3/8
Went to Kinnekulle again for the VW GTI-club meeting. We shared the track with Opel Sport Club.
Tried the RS-course (slalom driving around platic cones) for my first time ever and managed to get
first place in the "Evenest Time Competition" My first run was 44.86 sec and the other 44.87 seconds.
The fasted time was 41.54 and was set by Victor in his white Golf Mk1. The engine ran well all day but
I noticed some strange noise in the front suspesion while driving one of the long slow corners.
Monday 4/8
Took the valve cover off and measured the valve gaps, the 4th cylinder intake valve gap was 0.4mm and is
suposed to be 0.2 mm. Ordered a new shim that arrives tomorrow.
Tueday 5/8
Changed the shim and the ticking valve noise stopped.
Sunday 10/8
Was at Team 13's gocart track in Gothenburgh and drove a Sprint race (sort of a RS race)
No good laptimes but it was alot of fun and there was alot of fun cars to watch, Lotus 7's, Lotus Elise,
Marcos, Lotus Europa, Porsche 911, Renault A110 Alpine, Alfa Romeos, Miata's and even a Corvette.
Saturday 16/8
Started changing the front strut top mounts, alittle bit tricky but it worked at last. The car was alot
smoother to ride afterwards, the old ones was really really bad.
Monday 1/9
Got the car weighed today, the weight was 850kg's with around 15 litres of fuel, spare tire and some extra tools.
Rear axle weight was 310kg's which gives a front/rear weight distribution of 64/36 %.
Saturday 6/9
Was out and drove the last time for this season, around 100km's of winding country roads
before I parked the car in the garage.