Mk3 Golf VR6 - My VR converted gti daily build diary.

[geo7087 11]

Ok I'll try and keep this fairly brief and condense down the cars history since I bought it in December 2012.

Before I get into the Black car this is the previous Mk3 VR6 I owned and also showed with VR6OC at Ultimate Dubs 2011.

Since selling it in April 2011 I went through a few cars, a Corrado 16v, a Seat Ibiza 1.8t, a 306 hdi, an Astra coupe turbo (keep those last two quiet! ), a Mk4 V6 4motion Golf, and then another Mk3 Golf.

So In September 2012 I owned a Mystic Blue Mk3 Golf, 8v gti. Which went from this...

To this...

However, the clutch then completely obliterated itself and the crank sensor was gone, the car was also nearing MOT time with fairly rotten front sill points and the car had been repainted with the arches off leaving a bad colour difference... all of this combined meant when I spotted a Black Mk3 gti pop up, 2 years newer, 50k less miles, the inevitable happened. December 1st 2012 I bought my current car, a Black Mk3 Golf gti.

From then until the start of June 2013 I built the car basically to be a low daily driven car, that I could enjoy. I rebuilt a set of Autostrada Modena split rims myself, tidied things up and refitted parts from the blue car. I achieved this and enjoyed the car through the early 2013 months, taking it with me to Early Edition 2013 also.

Before attending Early Edition I had already decided I was going to Vr6 the car, it made sense really, I hankered for that noise and wanted to get stuck into a conversion. I had planned this for the end of the year, however immediately after Early Edition a friend had a donor car available, OBD2 with a stainless manifold and exhaust fitted, just a rotten car.

I scraped together any cash I could and the car was mine.

I won't go into full detail here as this is already a very long post, but me and some friends (one of them very mechanically knowledged with a unit who I give full credit to for the conversion) cracked on and over the 1st week got the donor car stripped down, parts sold, the engine cleaned up and painted, and the exhaust tidied ready for putting into the Black car. Also replaced the knackered alternator and fabricated the Fiat Brava radiator with slim fan to the Vr6 slam panel ready for deleting the expansion tank.

The following week was then spent stripping down the Black car, removing seam sealer, repainting the bay, removing various brackets etc, running the loom, and fitting the engine.

And got it home. Had a few issues along the way including bleeding the coolant system, and the ECU which was sent away to be de-immobilised but unfortunately had a fault upon return, so purchased another de-immobilised ECU, also the coilpack was gone, car ran on 4 cylinders, this was replaced with a friends coilpack whilst I waited for my replacement to arrive.

After having the car back on the road I decided the following weekend to relocated the engine loom, It was thrown back in when the conversion happened due to wanting it back on the road, but I decided it needed hiding. I stripped the bay down as much as possible and re routed the loom around the engine bay, the result was a huge improvement. I also painted a VR6 DOHC cover that i purchased to replace the cracked item.

The end result, I will be relocating the air filter above the gearbox with a setup from a member of Edition38, and the engine cover is off again due to it rubbing the bonnet from the engine being raised slightly too high with pucks.

And there we have it, much more in the pipeline to come including plating the sump this weekend and changing oil, filter, coolant for Syntha silver and G13 For anyone wondering the car is on custom front coilovers with camber top mounts, coilovers on the rear, and a notched chassis

Thanks for your time, all comments are welcomed

[Daverse 175]

Good project, and looks lovely now

[Lukey. 381]

Heh welcome back I remember your old black VR

[VR6Pete 1,455]

yo ! welcome back to the fold, some awesome work gone on there fella!