Project #11 From Jason: MK3 AWD 3.4L Twin Turbo Jetta

[Jason]

So awhile back I posted a picture of a rotisserie that a friend, his dad and I built. In the pictures was a white 94 Jetta that was mounted. The car has been a project of mine for some time and will continue to be one. I can't tell you how much time it has or will take but I can tell you that I have spent a couple days worth of time working on it to get to where it is. I would estimate that I have spent between 70 and 100 hours on it so far which included stripping the car, removing floor sections, cleaning the sound deadening and protection from the floor, removing parcel shelf and strut towers, removing glass and well everything to make it to the point in the pics. Most of this work was done on my own to this point. A friend helped tear down the R32 donor and another friend helped a little bit with stripping the car. Tools used so far that I can think of is sockets, wrenches, screw drivers, drill, spot-weld drill bits, panel knife, hammer, grinder, saw-zaw, putty knife, scrapper, mineral spirits, piano wire, and I am sure that I am missing some. I have tons and tons of pictures and will probably post them slowly over time rather than making this thread like 100 pages right off the bat. I will also plan to skip over many pictures. I have over 350 pictures of it already at this point so I will try to cut that way down.. There is no labor cost in this project and I can tell you still is not cheap.. I have ~15K into this entire project however I have almost everything that I need. Factor in the time I have already spent on it and the total is 20K+ at this stage so there is probably not many people who will want to pay that. I know someone who is having a shop do this same build but into a MK1 Rabbit and they currently have ~450 hours into it but I think for me to be at the point they are, it will only take me maybe another 100 hrs if even close to that much. I wouldn't expect it to be more than maybe 40 more hours but there has to be a reason why it has taken them so many. The reason for this build is because I have always liked this body style the best and when the 04 Golf R32 was introduced I wanted that drive train. I decided I had to have the 2 of them merged together to build a car of my taste. Enough Rambling....
The car as it starts out as



The Dash will be that of a MK4 Jetta when I am done and I plan to get R32 seats down the road to fit in.
Jetta dash, R32 cluster


The climate control in that pic will be sold or stored for later. Current replacement is the climatronic that the R has


With the power goal in mind of at least 550AWHP I decided the 11.3" single piston brakes are not going to fit the bill of my taste. These are the replacesments..

13.2" with 4 Piston Porsche calipers.
The rear brakes are upgraded to the ones that come stock on a R32.

So the tear down started.. Me here


The friend who helped take off the decklid, doors, seats, fenders and pulled the wiring from the trunk.


And then more tear down from me.




....

[Jason]

...

[Jason]

Drilled the spot welds in the parcel shelf to remove




Took the piece that support the front edge of the back seat out and then started to cut out the floor.


Almost


Gone


Strut towers next

….

[Jason]

Next here is the R32 donor that I wanted the floor from.

Driller more spot welds and ran the panel knife through




Cut off the roof to save the skin for the MK4 sunroof to be added to the MK3.


Rear end out


Hang it to get more access to the bottom


Cut in front of rail seam

After some more work, the floor ends up out


….

[Jason]

Then you cut the rest of it up.. Kept the sides incase and the front floor section but easier to fit in storage this way.




Then Build a motor.. JE forged overbore pistons with lowered compression. Final compression after stroke and change to the motor is some place between 8.25:1 and 8.5:1

ARP bolts in rods.

Knife edged 3.6L crank.. Bottom end is fully balanced…


Block


VW spring compressor


Put together


…

[Jason]

Forgot to say the bottom end also has ARP main studs

More motor assembly


24v 3.2L head



Cams with custom locking plate


Timing chains done


Closed up




Painted Block


For now that’s what I have to show you.. If anyone has questions or wants to see more pictures, let me know and I will have no problem sharing them.. The project will continue between working on other stuff. Soon I will have pictures taken of the turbo goodies.. The list of that stuff is as follows.
x2 GRT-TBO-022 - Garrett GT2871R Ball Bearing Turbo

Turbine_AR: 63
Select_Turbine_Housing_Style: Tial_Stainless_Vband
Polished: Polished_T


x2 TIL-WGT-022 - NEW! Tial External Wastegate, V-banded 38mm

Color: BLACK
SpringPressure: .7bar


x1 TIL-BOV-015 - Tial QR Recirculating Blow-Off Valve

COLOR: BLACK
FLANGE: STEEL
Outlet_Diameter: 125_Inch
Select_Spring_Pressure: 12psi


+ Flanges and clamps to fit with Tial Housings.
I plan for custom short runner and custom made exhaust manifolds. Will do either custom made A/W intercooler or custom front mount. The tune will be either Stock ME7 remapped or MegaSquirt3. I also have a full R32 harness that I will probably use most of but may remove parts.

[SeanMurphy265]

What brand of rods are you using? I see you are using JE pistons, that's good stuff! I'm guessing your compression figures did not include the turbo (8.25.2 - 8.5.1) or is that the final compression figures?
It seems VW's can make a ton of H.P.
I'm a top gear fan, I like this VW!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wlu5BS0jtMk

[Jason]

Rods are factory I believe.. I forgot pistons are actually made by CP rather than JE. The person I got them from told me he got them from JE but they are stamped CP.. Either way CP is also a good company for pistons and I have heard that JE will send out other companies sometimes so maybe that's what happened. The machine shop told me sometimes JE will have others make their pistons and sometimes they will make them for other companies. I was going to get stronger rods but did not feel like spending another 500-700 when I really don't have to. Maybe down the road I will. There are a couple cars making that power that I want on stock rods. VW uses forged cranks and rods from factory. The weak point in them is the stretch bolts they use but mine have ARP bolts in them now. The compression is the motor before any boost. I plan to run it daily when there is nice weather at ~20psi with the option and tune of 25psi and 30psi. When I bored the block I made the walls thin enough that I may run into problems. Some people get away with it just fine and others crack the block so it is hit or miss if the block will hold up.. The reason I want to stick to 550awhp is that's about the max the trans will stay together. There is a R32 with 556AWHP and he has tore up 3rd gear like 3-5 times. They make hardened gears but those even get tore up. I have heard of someone putting a slightly taller final drive in and fixing the issue. Not sure exactly what the problem is but maybe its the pinion shaft flexing causing the gap in gears to grow out too far it rips off the teeth. I figure this will be a problem I may get to experiment with later. If anyone wants to see the car I am talking about, search SmashR32 on youtube. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gIdey...eature=related That car is making ~565AWHP and ~620AWTQ

[SeanMurphy265]

Are there aftermarket transmissions for Volkswagen's with big horsepower? I'm not a big import car fan, but I do like the Volkswagen cars. I think they have always had a platform that makes some good horsepower. I have a friend that drove an old GTI for a while, that thing would move and it was bone stock.

[sportbike]

What fuel are you goin got run? Do you have a big intercooler that will allow you to run 20 psi on pump?

[presure2]

great stuff man, i wanna see pics of those twin tial vband housings mounted up!!
exciting project for sure!!

[Jason]

I will comment on both here.

The transmission is already one of the strongest for the transverse motors. There are no aftermarket transmissions as a whole but they do make hardened gears. These gears also get destroyed for some reason which is leading everyone to think there is a flaw some other place. I know of Audi's putting out over 1000WHP and not even thinking once about the trans. I was thinking about machining some new trans parts later down the road to see if I could come up with something to fix the problem and probably will but it wont be for a long while yet.

For the intercooler, I have not purchased one yet. the highest grade fuel I can get without traveling like 50 miles to get 115oct is 91. I run 91 on my current NA vr6 at 10.5:1 comp and get 30mpg highway and 28city. I know of many cars around running 91oct with 20 psi that have small front mounts and have no issues with compression starting higher than mine(9:1 if I remember right). I am either going front mount or air-water. Going A/W will only require a small core and less plumbing but I am not sure if I want to run everything else to go with it. The intercooler setup is one of the things that will be done towards the end.

[yotarover]

it's getting hard to keep up with all your projects. but im loving every one of them

[Jason]

got this stuff delivered the other day..



2 Garrett GT2871R Ball Bearing Turbos With Tial 64 AR SS V-Banded housings
2 Tial External Wastegates, V-banded 38mm, Water cooled .7Bar springs
1 Tial QR Recirculating Blow-Off Valve, 12PSI spring

+flanges and bands

[Jason]

Ihave not updated this in a long time so I will do by making a copy from another forum and over multiple posts since I am limited to 10 pics per post.


So I have been working on this on Saturdays for awhile now but before updating to the current point, I am not sure when progress is going to continue again. Since I have moved the car to where I live (a townhouse) I have been able to work on but recently I got a letter saying I must stop and that it is not allowed by the association. I guess someone complained about me welding even though I did it where no one could see it. :screwy: I need to either move the car to another location to continue work on it or wait until I move. Anyhow, on to the progress..

To start, the floor.


As I said before, the pinch welds on the front of the R floor were 1" too wide for the MK3. So each rail needed moved in 1/2"

Drill, Drill, and then Drill some more






And eventually you can get the rail off



Now moving it 1/2" led to a couple minor issues with putting it back. If you notice in the image above, the outside of the rail extended up in between the two layers of the wheel well. Moving the rail 1/2" means that this extended side would hit the bottom of the floor/seat pans. My solution was to bend it down flat, and then re-bend it around the pans to extended back up some.
Flat.


Re-positioned

[Jason]

Welding it back on


Re-bend around pans.


Another problem which is not really a problem is this. Simple enough to bend down.


Moving it then left a hole but it was simply patched


Sprayed it with some undercoating and moved on to the other rail.. The undercoat will probably change as I intend to redo the entire underside of the car later.


Drill, Drill again



And it comes off

[Jason]

And finally it goes through the same process as the other side and gets put back on




I then moved focus back to the mk3 shell..

Stared to remove the mk3 rails and found a little rust


outside rail




separate the pinch welds

[Jason]

Also cut the wheel wells leaving some material there.



cut the rails where the R rails meet them and cut some of the rear rails out so the new floor will fit. The rear of the rails will NOT line up so those will be dealt with later.



Next problem is the humps in the support plate that sits at the jack points.. These humps hit the inside of the R rails that curves around where the trailing arms mount.
You can see the part of the R rail in this picture..

Its the part right above my hand

So my solution was to cut that section off and swap it with that part from the other side of the car.




And then the floor will fit with a little elbow grease..

[Jason]

As I said that rear will not line up



My cuts where not too bad considering it was still a pain to get the floor in..


The front pinch welds have a wider top than they do bottom. This means it will not simply slide straight up from the bottom. In my case sideways... I had to basically slide it in from the wheel wells at an angle and then swing the back up.

The front of the rails do line up pretty well but the R rails are taller than the mk3.


I welded the R rails to the mk3 rails along this side touching and also the top as it matched up also. I will find a way to box the extended part of the R rail into the mk3 rail and also plan to remove the rockers later as they need some work anyhow and I will weld the these rails from both sides and possible plate across the seam to make sure they are plenty strong.
Top or front section of the rail


Welded for now. Tempted on plating both sides.. Hmmm (over kill??) And I will box that square opening or something to tie it into the mk3 rail.


Found more rust in the rear section of the mk3 rail :thumbdown:



My solution to remove the rust and well tie in the R rail is cut out the mk3 crap to fit a new rail extension.

[Jason]

Make the extension, this is actually thicker than the R rail but material I already had :thumbup:

Test fit

inside (will get closed up later)


And welded to the R rail solid on both sides and the bottom


Oh and I found more rust..... :banghead::banghead:


Other side




I now have the rails extended all the way back and I will weld what exists of the MK3 rails to the side of the new rails. I also still need to weld the new rials to the back of the car..