Mk2 GTI 16v Racer

Hi, this thread is about a mk2 golf gti 16v racer project that myself and some friends have just finished. The project started when an old family friend of my mates asked him if he could build a car to compete in the production GTI race series. http://www.productiongti.com/
After quite a long hunt to find a suitable donor to build upon we found an advert on this forum for the perfect car for sale from a member called Todd. The car already has a thread about its time with Todd, https://fendubbers.forummotion.com/t10547-todds-tornado-two
That was about 4 months ago, since then we have spent many evenings and weekends at my mates unit, where he runs a mobile car alarm, audio, and electrics business called D6-ICS. The car had its first races last Sunday at Snetterton coming 13th and 12th, room for improvment I know but just glad the car finished and didn't come last.








The car had covered about 150000 miles when we got it and every thing was getting a bit tired plus the fact the car was destined for the track meant it needed bit of a freshen up.




First thing we did was strip the interior out and remove the inner skin for the sliding sunroof, fitting the sunroof out skin in place in the roof, for a better fit for the required rollcage. The regs for the race series dictate that we had to use a 6 point bolt in cage. The car was dispatched to rollcentre at St Ives who made us a cage slightly modified from their normal one in that the main hoop was slightly extended to make up for the sunroof removal and the front legs go through the dash rather than in front of it and crossed double door bars.





Next job was to remove the engine and strip the bay for painting.



We had to weld in bars for the mandatory bucket seat and 6 point harness and strip and paint the inside of the car to match the engine bay and wheels arches.

Also fitted was a 4.5 litre plumbed in fire extinguisher, the main tank mounted in the rear of the passenger compartment, with outlet nozzles coming out under the dash on both the driver and passenger side and 2 outlets in the engine bay. It can be remotely triggered from the dash and the outside via a pull cable on the scuttle panel, just in case.




The engine was treated to a +1mm rebore with new pistons, the crank and rod bearings were replaced with heavy duty items, new bearings for the intermediated shaft as the old ones were completely knackered. The head was treated to new valves and guides and full rebuilt. The regs for the racing forbid any major tuning of the engine apart from some basic balancing and lightening of the crank, rods and pistons. I lightened 3 of the new pistons so they are the same weight as the lightest one. Same with the rods, which were balanced.
The crank assembly was professionally balanced with the clutch, front pulley and flywheel. New injectors and seats were fitted to be on the safe side as we are after as much power as possible within the regs. The standard exhaust manifold had to be retained but the rest of the system is free to choose what you want, as long as it meets track noise control. We obtained a very expensive stainless system which sound the mutts nuts but only registers about 84db. The intake side of things is taken care of by a bmc panel filter and lots of big holes in the lower parts of the air box. Sfs silcone hoses were fitted, ngk iridium plugs and magnicor silcone plug leads. A vernier cam pulley was fitted for fine tuning the cam timing. We also fitted a windage tray to the bottom end and made our own baffled sump to stop oil surge out on the track and an oil cooler to keep the temps down.







All the detachable cross members at the front of the car and the rear beam were all cleaned, derusted and painted. Every rubber bush on the car was replaced with rock hard urathane replacements to help with handling. Top notch revalved AST coilovers were fitted along with g60 top mounts, new ball joints and new bottom arms. Basically every thing that could be replaced was.
The brake calipers were all rebuilt with new seals and pistons and painted red. A new master cylinder, brake pipes, goodrige hoses, discs,wheel bearings and race mintex brake pads. The gear box was sent to fish motor sport to be rebuilt and the rivets in the diff replaced with bolts, when refitted we also put in a new clutch and driveshafts.
New 15"x7" Team Dynamics alloys with the race series control toyo tyres finish the car off.


Im sure I've missed out loads, but will add more pics as I remember stuff.



Had a run done on the dyno and by the looks of things we need to find another 15 bhp before the next race, but I'm pretty confident I know where they are hiding.

That is awesome. Will be keeping an eye on this mate.

Good luck in the race series

looking good mate,been to watch this gti sereis at snetterton last year,awesome racing.

good luck mate

I was just wondering how you got on with this recently!
You have done a great job by the looks of it and having fun
I only had the car about a year but I loved it
Post up when you're at Snetterton racing again and I might pop up to see the old girl in action.

Thanks for the kind remarks.
Its not actually me who is racing it, I just had a big hand in building it and will be acting as pit crew. Although the car is still fully road legal so I will be driving in and around Cambridge when I need to put a smile on my face. It really does handle just like a go kart so is a blast to drive round the country lanes.
Was hoping you would see this thread Todd, didn't have enough posts to PM you. The next race for the car is in another race series http://www.golfgti-racing.co.uk/ at Snetterton again on October 16th, so please do pop along and come and say hello.

Finally remembered my log in details!!!

When Jamie says he had a big hand, he is being modest, he is the head mechanic on the project and myself and Simon are trying to help as much as we can

he single handedly rebuilt the engine himself, which is an impressive feat, so if any one on here is wanting an engine rebuild, Jamie is the man to see!!!!

the car is amazing, its brilliant to drive and sounds great looks the busniness and turns heads allot
we will bring it to the meet this month as it will be up and running with in the week after we had the gearbox fixed after the first race, as for the race every one is welcome to come and vist, the whole weekend should be a good time just like the last race we attended

Just a little update.
Been busy since the last race refining bits and bobs on the car.

The front Mintex pads had cooked themselves and were falling apart so have been changed for Ferodos, also we have flushed out the brake fluid and replaced it with Motul RBF 600. Fingers crossed the brakes work a bit better than last time as Simon had found the brakes faded after a while, the fluid should sort it out with luck.

Fitted a 8v gti radiator, which is bigger than the puny 16v one, to keep things a bit cooler. Played about with the bottom part of the air box, filling some holes and making some bigger ones in the right places to get nice cold air into the engine with a nice new K&N air filter panel.
To try and keep engine bay temps down the exhaust manifold and front pipe have been wrapped in heat wrap. I Did'nt think to take before and after temps but it must work because once the car is hot you can touch the manifold without getting burned to buggery.

We have fitted a TSR gear linkage kit which should help with the gear change feel. Much more robust than the standard plastic items.
The cam timing was dialled in properly via the vernier top pulley, we had not done this before the last race because we were expecting it to be played with at the last dyno session, but it wasn't, so the cam timing was 8 degrees out!!! We also obtained a fuel pressure gauge set up and set the fuel pressure, which was a bit low, and did the WUR mod.

The car has been at Jabba Sport for the past couple of days and they have dyno'ed it and we have got another 10 bhp, with more to come. As time allows. The suspension has also been set up properly now, so we are hoping for a better position this time round .

Got a busy time ahead this weekend, Simon has entered the VAG trophy meeting at Snetterton this weekend. He is also hoping to get an entry into the Golf GTI challenge, again at Snetterton, this is going to mean 2 qualifying sessions and 2 races on Saturday and 2 races on Sunday. It's going to test the car and Simon but is the last meeting of the session and a good chance to put the car through it's paces.
If anyone is about at the weekend come and say hello, we are car number 24.

Heres a little vid from last months race.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sBX11-GcxqE

Best of luck for this weekend, I would like to venture up if I had the time but i'm buried under writing a dissertation.

Ended up at snetty a couple of months back waching the 24 hour citroen 2cv event, ended up having a good chat with a few of the drivers down the pitlane really sound people, and if another team struggled to get their car out on the track eveyone else would pitch in to help, racing as it should be really.