Need some ideas from ya fellers

[8v-of-fury]

What year was it Lucas? For the three different combination's you could have gotten in a Mk1, you could have been turning 3800, 4100, or 4700 doing 65mph in 3rd

Thanks for the link by the way on the shifters. I was reading that like two weeks ago! and I never bookmarked it! VERY GOOD READ! However I cannot decipher what the hell I was reading at some parts.. very bad setup on his site What exactly would I order from there?

Now what are my options for say... deleting power brakes? will it still be able to stop the jetta? I mean i have a 67 mercury with manual 4 wheel drums.. and it seems to stop that 3500lb car alright. I have heard something like needing to get a Bus master cylinder? Like how much vacuum is needed for it to properly run the power brakes?

Thanks for all the good info guys!

[theman53]

it was an 84 and when you hit 70 in 3rd you could feel the vibrations in the pedal 

[8v-of-fury]

An 84 eh? They came with the GY (3+E 8/82-7/84)  4.17 3.45 1.75 1.06 0.71

70mph in 3rd gear with stock size tires (175-75-13), you would be turning 4500rpm! hot damn! lol

What do I need from that Missing Linkz site Lucas?

[maxfax]

IIRC the vac pump is supposed to pull minimally about 15 in/hg of vac (or whatever you metric people use) at 750 RPM.. With no vac in the system it should be able to pull this in under 15 seconds from startup...  Upon shutdown it should not drop more than 5 in/hg within a minute.. 

[8v-of-fury]

just got confirmation that the vacuum pumps will swap over without a problem. Some guy pulled up vacuum pump part numbers and it only listed two for the rotary style, 1980-1992 and then everything post-1992 for the other one. Good to know. Swap it over and hopefully that does away with the brake problems eh

[theman53]

An 84 eh? They came with the GY (3+E 8/82-7/84)  4.17 3.45 1.75 1.06 0.71

70mph in 3rd gear with stock size tires (175-75-13), you would be turning 4500rpm! hot damn! lol

What do I need from that Missing Linkz site Lucas?

He has a bunch of different ones but I am going with the teflon ones that are supposed to be best. Since I have a 3" DP and it will be close I want it to be the most heat resistant...You could just buy one of everything he has. Oh I am also going with the weighted shifter rod thing. I could make a weight and hose clamp it, but his would probably be heavier and work better.

[8v-of-fury]

His kits do look stupendous Lucas

Got another idea I need your input on guys. The springs are rotten on the '81 and the rear has actually broken half to a full coil off on both springs however it still rides quite nicely lol. I am getting a set of good used springs from a buddy that he has laying from when he went to coils.. Yeah he's a Vortex guy through and through, he also runs like 155/45/13 wheels.. Looks good, but not my style really. pics for shiggles (shakes and wiggles, not **** and giggles lol)




As you can see he has less then half a beer bottle's height of ground clearance..

Anyway this is not about the Tiki-Taxi up there, this is about Doug (name for the gold 81??? ) What I was planning on doing is cutting a few coils off each of the old springs and seeing how well it looks/rides. It's already running like a 175/75or80/13 tire.. so I'm not to terribly worried about the quality of the ride as the road vibrations shouldn't have that much affect with that thick of tire eh? plus if it rides like feces then i just throw on the good stock springs and be done with it. However just as I am writing this it has come to the front of my brain that the stock suspension is something retarded like 4" of suspension travel to begin with..  Will i be bouncing off the bump stops if i cut the springs? or will the shorter springs require more force to compress?

How many coils do you figure I would have to cut off to get between 1" and 1.5" drop out of it? any further and I think it would be too much don't you? or should i go further since I will be putting the other springs in anyway? 2" of drop safely? I guess the best bet is to measure how much ground clearance the oil pan has, and drop based on that.. I think i should be able to get away with 1.5-2" now that i think of it.. but that only leaves 2" of suspension play.. Will this affect it at all do you think? This is mainly for fun to be honest.. i would like to see how it looks and what it feels like and all that.. but most likely won't be staying on the car.. unless if rides better than i expect it too lol.

Any suggestions? What are the bump stops for? to prevent complete coil bind of the springs?

[8v-of-fury]

No ideas on cutting the coils off eh guys? Coommmmeee oooonnnnnn

Where are al you guys who are following this thread? you never cut springs before? I haven't so I eed to know LOL

I was checking alignment on my 84 tonight.. because it has been off ever since I did the drivers side tie-rod in the fall.. and i have been jsut rubbing off one tire ever so slightly i guess.. oh well I was wayyy off! ALMOST A FULL INCH OF TOE IN!!! Jesssusssss!!  So now I have it to within a 1/16" between the measurement on the back of the tires and the front of the tires. I hope this puts it back to where it needs to be.. driving it on snow is SKETCH! Imagine going down a snow road, and the tires fighting for which one is gonna make the car go straight.. lets say the right one wins.. and the left one is left to have toe in and slip along the snow... the left tire hits pavement and suddenly shoots the car to the right because now the left tire has won the traction fight!! It has been a basket case to drive I tell you lol.

I was reading up on some exhaust ideas for a free flowing upgrade and some said that a 1 3/4 - 2" would be a good choice with a very free flowing muffler on there... would be lot cheaper to come by.. however, if I ever want to make any sort of real power.. im probably gonna want a bigger exhaust from the get go eh? I will probably go with a 2" minimum.. most likely a 2.25" ehhh? I have heard good things from people who use a 2.25" on a N/a.

Now here's a really juicy question, what would be the best car to scope out for a complete turbo setup. I was thinking if i could find a 1.6 in the junkyard with a full engine.. i could grab both manifolds, turbo, lines and maybe even oil pan.. What do you guys think of this? Will the 1.9 pan fit on the 1.6? What turbo's came on the AAZ? Pardon my ignorance, I have never delved in to the idea of turbo's yet.. this is where i think I will start looking in to the turboing of my Diesel.. Sounds like a good option to make its life easier..  Gonna run reasonable boost for the little guy and enough fuel to only reach 1000F tops for the EGT.. should make it really happy eh?

[Rabbit on Roids]

No ideas on cutting the coils off eh guys? Coommmmeee oooonnnnnn

Where are al you guys who are following this thread? you never cut springs before? I haven't so I eed to know LOL

I was checking alignment on my 84 tonight.. because it has been off ever since I did the drivers side tie-rod in the fall.. and i have been jsut rubbing off one tire ever so slightly i guess.. oh well I was wayyy off! ALMOST A FULL INCH OF TOE IN!!! Jesssusssss!!  So now I have it to within a 1/16" between the measurement on the back of the tires and the front of the tires. I hope this puts it back to where it needs to be.. driving it on snow is SKETCH! Imagine going down a snow road, and the tires fighting for which one is gonna make the car go straight.. lets say the right one wins.. and the left one is left to have toe in and slip along the snow... the left tire hits pavement and suddenly shoots the car to the right because now the left tire has won the traction fight!! It has been a basket case to drive I tell you lol.

I was reading up on some exhaust ideas for a free flowing upgrade and some said that a 1 3/4 - 2" would be a good choice with a very free flowing muffler on there... would be lot cheaper to come by.. however, if I ever want to make any sort of real power.. im probably gonna want a bigger exhaust from the get go eh? I will probably go with a 2" minimum.. most likely a 2.25" ehhh? I have heard good things from people who use a 2.25" on a N/a.

Now here's a really juicy question, what would be the best car to scope out for a complete turbo setup. I was thinking if i could find a 1.6 in the junkyard with a full engine.. i could grab both manifolds, turbo, lines and maybe even oil pan.. What do you guys think of this? Will the 1.9 pan fit on the 1.6? What turbo's came on the AAZ? Pardon my ignorance, I have never delved in to the idea of turbo's yet.. this is where i think I will start looking in to the turboing of my Diesel.. Sounds like a good option to make its life easier..  Gonna run reasonable boost for the little guy and enough fuel to only reach 1000F tops for the EGT.. should make it really happy eh?

the snow thing with the worn out front end. been there done that. scarry as crap. alignment was off 5 inches on my toyota once. and wasnt ridiculously obvious. it was more obvious by how it drove, rather than how it sat and looked.

and if i were you, i would run 2.25 atleast, and run a glasspack behind the shifter for a resonator, and then some sort of a cheap welded muffler, not a cheap turbo muffler. turbo mufflers dont flow for crap. magna flow, borla, flowmaster, all those mufflers are good. magnaflows are about the cheapest name brand muff. i get all my flowmaster knock offs for around 30-40 bucks.

as for turbo, if you can find the whole car, and it runs, and you can afford it, just buy the whole engine and swap in. a 1.9 pan fits fine. K03's were the most common AAZ turbo. i think you could get them with T2s and maybe a couple other ones too tho. i would look for a 1.6 with a T3 or K24 on it. they seem pretty tough, but kinda laggy at the same time. but i dont mind lag. thats a part of turbo charging that you can never fully get rid of. and if you are only looking for 1000EGT, you can get that much fuel out of a stock n/a pump and injectors. turbo pump and injectors would make it way more fun.
 
and this topic kinda flows back into the exhaust paragraph. if you are going to put a turbo on it, you need to run at very minimum 2.25" pipe. i would run full 3" with a turbo tho. atleast 2.5"

[8v-of-fury]

I fixed my alignment it worked.. and is straight as an arrow now! Score!

I think I will go with a 2.25" with a good muffler. Maybe some magnaflows... they sound awesome.

The only reason I would want to swap on a turbo setup, is honestly about the engine.. if it were some 150k mile motor, swap it in a heartbeat.. I want to put a turbo on whats in the car.. so I can say i drive a car with over 620k miles on the engine you know? Completely for nostalgia reasons

a ko3, n/a pump, and injectors.. golden Low rpm boost is what I'm looking for I think.. in the 1500-3500 range really.. is it possible wit ha K03?

[8v-of-fury]

Anyone on the cutting of springs?

Thinkin' of doin this on Friday.. What Would Jesus Do?

[rabbitman]

I put mk2 jetta front springs on my rabbit and cut 1.5 coils off and got about a 2" drop, mk2 springs are tougher so that only got it down to stock mk1 height. Maybe you'll have to do some trial and error.

Remember that cutting coils off changes the rate and strength and all that so I thiiiink it would ride stiffer.

IMHO the bump stops are so the strut bodies don't bang into the strut tops when you hit potholes and stuff.

[8v-of-fury]

Trial and Error seems the route to go. cut each 1 coil, see how it looks and feels.. lol I was thinking of the mk2 direction, but I have a friend giving me his old springs, so I figured.. take em there free, and these ones are broken lol.

I am looking for a stiffer more defined feeling ride, so this may just what I am looking for. I don't generally drive where I ever need a ton of ground clearance anyway.. this car will most likely not be subjected to the off roading the current one has been. I have been down some trails and parked up beside atv's and trucks with mud splattered on MY windshield

It seems as though the bump stops could be smaller.. no? having them be so large is effectively reducing the amount of strut travel. Surely you would have to hit a majorly huge pot hole to ever bottom out the strut completely eh? Plus with increasing the tensile strength of the front springs by cutting them.. this would be even harder to achieve..

Could the bump stops be trimmed to allow another inch or two of strut travel? Or done away with completely? How many times have you ever hit your bump stops? maybe driving way to fast down some rough road? My current car hits hard on some hard ruts, but i blame most on the sachs struts, and some on the 185/60/14 tires...

This car will be running thick balloon tires, as I see no purpose in running low pro's or anything close to them . When i buy new rubbers for it they will most likely be a 165-175 tread width, 75-80 sidewall ratio, and 13" rim.. maybe 14..

[rabbitman]

Cutting heavier than stock springs will stiffen it a lot and maybe keep it off the stops, but if you're cutting the stock spring then it'll just sit closer to the bump stops and probably hit it more. Shortening the stops will give more travel but won't let it absorb as much shock, gotta remember that on a good hit the weight of the car plus inertia is landing on the stops .

On sharpish corners that have frost heaves I've slammed into the stops a few times in quick succession and it feels terrible. I've never had GOOD struts though, I've had new sachs and napa ones but they're a waste of time, some high perf struts might fix that though.

Be sure you don't heat the springs too much during cutting .

To add to that, the stock springs have a "flatter" coil on the bottom spreading the weight out so it doesn't stab a hole in the lower retainer with the spring end. Cutting them will get rid of that and the end will push rather hard on the retainer, I wonder if it'd be possible to somehow "flatted" the last half coil a bit without heating it and ruining it?

[theman53]

Everyday I bottom out my GTI. There is always a pot hole I miss...and I look constantly. Sometimes the road doesn't look bad but after you hit 10 little bumps fast enough the suspension doesn't know which way to go and I bottom out. I don't have the bump stops either. They got bumped off after several hits and are just gone now. I recommend them. I swear to you I have replaced 2 wheel bearings that were perfect other than a little dimple that I believe was caused by hitting a hard bump and the little ball leaving its mark.
This is also the reason I started the suspension upgrade thread for me. I want the jetta to last when done.