1302s Custom - going water cooled!

[Bugsy_malone 666]

Ok so after starting the idea of this project on my 1303 (getting some bits and ideas together) I have decided to transfer this water cooling project to my 1302s long term project. I have had the 1302s for just over 10 years now and I spent about 12 months with my dad restoring it the first time, then I drove it 2000 -2004 then it came off the road where the heater channels had gone for a 2nd time. Shortley after i took the bug off the road I was driving a fastback as a daily for about 6 month before I got my mk3 golf which has been my daily now for almost 4 years needing at most a weekends work at anyone time.

So the 1302s project got more and more complicated as It wasnt urgent to get it back on the road with my ideas constantly spiraled in all directions, I spent ages replacing all the panel work on the car which I havent finished yet (only a few bits to do) which included a new framehead, new floorpans, new heater channels 4 new wings and a hell of alot of bits of metal to rebuild the rear arches and fill some gaps!

I'll show you some pics of the car just before I took it off the road at the end of october 2004 and the pictures of the build up, let them do the talking then I'll go onto the new plan!

as it looked in 2004:



the buildup:

heater channels wrere like this inside so hence the rebuild..








*wonders if he had enough panels*























so that was 2 years ago it was looking like that, roll on to the 2nd of January 2009 and its looking like this....



basically 2 years ago I had rebuild the floorpan with new framehead, joining section, napolean hat section modified and pans, it just needed the suspension stripping off the back and that area cleaning degreasing and then I have type 3 rear brakes/trailing arms to replace my tired originals (one A arm was slightly bent causing tyres to scrub out). Bodywork wise I had replaced the heater channels/door pillars and made all the bits round the rear luggage floor along with inner arch repair bits.

Stuff that still needs doing is the front wing mounting nuts all need replacing, drivers side bumper mount needs cutting off and the body to frame head mount point rebuilding/repairing if it needs it and the new bumper mount fitting then inner wing to heat channel repair panels needs fitting then its a case of a few bits here and there and the shell is pretty much solid ready to be filled primed.

this now brings me on to my new engine combination aquired just before xmas 08, its an ideal time to do this sort of thing as the project is mid resto meaning I can make any changes I want before I paint it.

The engine is a ebay find 2litre 8v bottom end from a mk3 golf, 16v KR 1.8 head which has had the cambelt tension moved for some odd reason although i need to investigate and has been put together with new headgasket and bolts. the guy i bought it from was going to fit it to a mk3 golf driver like my own and run it on bike throttle bodies which he also let me have with the engine for £60 the lot, it comes with water pump and pulleys although i really need diff pulleys to get some clearance i think. He had already sold the alternator although i managed to get one for 20 notes delivered and it didnt have an exhaust manifold, once again ebay helped for £28.

So 2nd of Jan 2009 and I started fitting up..
My golf adaptor plate which i got for £45 apparently looks like an early kennedy adaptor, think the later ones have more mounting positions..


It protrudes just a fraction from the firewall which i thought would mean my engine would clear..


had it been an 8v apart from the heater outled hose I suspect it would have cleared, not this engine...



unlike other manufacturers it seems vw decided to link the twin cam together with chains on the back end rather than just have 2 cam wheels on the front, although it does sort of help out with doing hybrids like this lump, although im slightly annoyed that a couple of months earlier I could have got a VR6 lump for about 100 quid complete except the loom/ECU and i would have had to clear the same bit, but instead i could have had the glorious 6 cylinder sound which i want, still i have 4 cylinders of naughty watercooled to play with so i'll have to make do.

so anyway what i did is draw a box around the head section and cut 2 side and 1 top cuts to allow the head to just poke through..

then I mated it up tight to the gearbox best I could..


held in place I assessed I would just have to make a small bit of metal work to cover the end of the cam and the water outlet on the end of the head, it doesnt stick through to much..



but like this will save totally ripping out the firewall like some of the subaru installs I have seen, I want to make sure I lose practically nothing space wise as i want to make this car a crazy daily. I'm ot going to leave it as you see it, I will cut it just a bit more so it is properly boxed with the piece of firewall I have cut going properly vertical giving me room to make some sort of heater pipe outlet.

the thing about this car is I want it to be my crazy daily when its done, this means it needs to have all the power I have ever wanted, good handling and heating! I'm planning on a having a heater matrix/box under the rear seat with one golf heat valve connected to one of the levers either side of the handbrake, this will feed heater outlets under the rear seat like factory and be turn on offable, then i will have flexible pipe work running one up the inside of each heater channel to behind the dash where heater matrix 2 for the windscreen/dash vents will be located, I'll have a second golf heater valve controlled by the other heater lever by the handbrake to turn the whole lot on and off much like the original system!

once the engine was fitted i found my second problem which was the valance..



with stock mk3 pulleys on which have an extra V belt it totally interferes with the valance, so i took them off and it cleared 10 times better, looking at the design of valance I will make my own as I dont want exhaust cut outs anyway so I can just use a piece of flat sheet steel and cut it round the pulleys as required. so then decklid thats a bit of a problem too!

to get it close to the top hinge mounts its miles away from the valance which isnt to good, so i had a play around and got it onto the valance with a bigish gap at the top..





its not bad but needs to be better, it was actually sitting against the cambelt which could be a problem!




but I had a think about this as I dont want some stupid lump in my semi w decklid and i dont want a wing or anything like the porsche whale tail which would solve this problem easy, instead im gonna mod my spare semi w engine lid to look a bit like the empi eyebrow decklids...



or theres another one which looks like this...



basically they seem to be sort of 60s-70s styled racing lids which could help with my cambelt problem but not look out of place i will still have to have engine lid stand offs I think but at least a lid like those wouldnt look to bad on my custom styled 1302s.

stuff I still need to research is the fueling system, I have been looking at programable EFi and it seems mighty expencive as I want to run it with bike throttle bodies and i figured hell if im going to this length of work I may as well stick in a pair of turbos or a nice supercharger to satisfy my sound and power needs

cooling system could be fun as I have to hid it would cutting to much out, cooling a turbo/supercharged 2litre lump could be a project on its own! part of it I will be gettign one of the US front valances for 1302s that already have a grill pressed into them like the one under the rear window meaning I will have the airflow at the front to fit a rad or 2 in the sparewheel area without it being to noticable from the outside of the vehicle

I think I certainly will have my work cut out as I have a resto and an engine project, so any pointers or useful infor/links are most welcome
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Second Gear All The Way Baby!

Doing Thing Differently.

[caddy]

i would be swayed towards moving the transmission forwards an inch or 2.
every inch will improve handling, and its not too much of an issue with the 1302/3 shafts.

keep up the good work , i enjoy your in depth discriptions and photo's
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1969 bay with vw 1.6td

[Bugsy_malone 666]

yeah richie was on about this on my thread of golf engined beetles and iain ambrose was said it on my thread on VZi, with quite a few people saying it and because I'm faily early on in the engine stage I'm inclined to actually do it, richie also said about using a bus gearbox as they are stronger so i need to research into that put out my feelers and see what i can find out.

The idea being that I have the metalwork on this car sorted my march/april time (doubt it'll happen like that) so that I can then start preping the whole shell ready for painting in the warmer weather that is may giving me a good month to put it together in terms of windows and sealing it up ready for the rain of July time, If i can get this bug upto scratch as a crazy daily this year means I can have a look at doing my golf as an even crazier daily next year.
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Second Gear All The Way Baby!

Doing Thing Differently.

[gerrelt]

I would move the gearbox too. If I would do my conversion again, I would do it.

They say, that you can reverse the rear gearbox cradle without a lot of trouble. Of course you would have to shorten the gearstick-bar. And I think I've read somewhere that there are some space problems with the reverse-switch.

Good choice on selling the other project. Focus on one project is better.

Of course, me being a 1303 owner, I think you should have sold the 1302 and kept the 1303...
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VolksRomeo 13033 S 1.4 IE
(VW 1303 S with Alfa Romeo 33 1.4 IE engine)
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[Bugsy_malone 666]