well, guys i'm back....

[DomJolly]

it's been a while!

i am considering the following because i was gonna change but the depreciation is so extreme, within only 12months, that modding is cheaper than buying!

i must confess to being very strong on my opinion of buying better being cheaper and better value than modding, but if a 99 8v with just 27k has depreciated by almost £2.5k (£3.5k trade) then modding a car you love, but want more outta, is quite sensible. you know the car as you have owned it a while. cost me 6k 12 months ago with only 18k on the clock. now worth trade 2.7k or retail/private 3.5k approx. with 27k. just 12 months later.

i am seriously considering the following:

full system cat back: advice and experience needed

3-1 manifold for max torque, cat retained

headwork (gas flowed) by autotechnik or exchange by tsr (is it preferable to keep you own head?)

crossflow head conversion with gassflow work to permit neuspeed supercharger!!!!!

relevant brake and susp. upgrade

rounding off remap

total: advice, opinions and any experience or 3rd party comments very much needed!

i still prefer a modded 8v to a std 16v, the driveability due to torque is highly preferable!

i have not found a other car, reasonably priced, that feels so solid and 'bulletproof' as the 8v cupra sport. i test drove a focus st170 and was far from impressed, as with the 16v mk2 ibiza, i just don't get off on 16v's as per my previous r19 16v. I love vr6's and maybe that mid-range torquesness is where i feel at home with the 8v? but it isn't quite at all enough as the vr6. problem is most vr6 engines are shagged now, and despite being advised to get a 1.8t transplant, i just would prefer a substantially modded supercharged 8v!


...may i be an example of amplifying the prefered drive?...

r.s.v.p.

dom

[Glenn]

To be blunt, don't bother.

I've owned a Mk3 Golf GTI with the AGG engine you have and I've a pretty good idea about what can & can't be done with them.

Do the suspension, the brakes, plus a Neuspeed quickshift linkage and spend the money that you'd otherwise pour into the engine on trackdays or put it towards your next car.

For all that a supercharger conversion will cost, you'll be no more powerful/quicker than a chipped 20VT, forget what the daft tw@ts at PVW, etc say - it's your hard-earned, not theirs. Enjoy the car for what it is, rather than try (at great expense) to make it into something it's not.

[slim_boy_fat]

Sounds like good advice from Glenn....:cheers:

[Fen]

You buy a car for £6k (presumably from a dealer, so you'd be lucky to get much over £5k for it if you spent the rest of the week you bought it trying to sell it). You then run it for a year and put 9,000 miles on it, not to mention the additional owner and the inevitable increase in chips and dings. 12 months on also means it is now 33% older than it was when you bought it.

It's now worth £3.5k, so that's £1,500 less than it would have been worth in a private sale the day you bought it. It has fallen 25% of the initial purchase price but it's 33% older. You aren't actually doing badly on depreciation.

The only way to do better is to buy older, either because an older car only cost £1,500 in the first place, therefore you won't have so much invested in it to lose or because you have bought a classic that may even go up in value as they get rarer.


Modding your car is in no way cost effective. Say you supercharge your 8V - what will that cost? At least the value of the car I'd guess, so it will stand you in at £6k plus another £3,500 = £9,500. Most people (even those who may intend to modify the car themselves) will not pay you anything extra, not one penny, because it's modified. In fact the majority of potential buyers won't touch it because it's modified. If you're lucky it will be worth the same as it was before it was modified. So it's £3,500 worth today, but you just spent all of that modifying it so to sell it would be like giving it away.

So you keep it then - it will be unreliable. Guaranteed. Even VW couldn't make the superchargers reliable on their Golfs. Also it was never designed for the power it will be making, therefore individual components will be pushed beyond their designed capacity and they will fail. At best that will be irritating and expensive. You could replace all the bits that will fit from a 20VT, but that's a lot more £££. Also the older it gets and the longer since it was modified the less desirable it will be to anyone else when you finally have had enough.

You also have to consider insuring it. Sometimes modified policies come out cheaper, but in the main you have hassle finding someone to insure the car, need engineer's reports every year and pay extra.

Overall then, what's the point? I'm not against modifying but in this case there is none. You can sell your car and buy a 20VT which is essentially the same but with the power you want by putting not much more on top of what you get for yours and the cost of the mods you talking about, you will then have a car that is newer, faster, easier to insure and sell and more reliable. It is also a platform for modifying itself if you still want to in the future and since it is the fastest of the Ibiza breed to start with it's actually going to get you soemthing you can't already buy off the shelf. And because it's got a turbo it's easier and cheaper to get decent returns than a NA engine will ever be.

[Steve]

I am inclined to agree. I have been through all the options in my head for getting more power out of my 8v. However I have decided it's not worth the bother or hassle and instead it makes more sense to improve the handling and braking. With simple brake and suspension upgrades my car is enormous fun at track days and will keep up, and even out pace, some far more serious machinery through the corners.

The 8v motor is quite nippy anyway, but getting more power out of it is too uneconomical (especially with the non X-flow head).

My engine is going to stay as it is (maybe with the exception of a remap), and when I want something faster I'll just get another car. I've been watching the prices of 20VTs gradually falling, and they can only get cheaper...

[WeeJase]

how come you got a 3 cylinder 8v anyway????;)

[Steve]

Originally posted by jason
how come you got a 3 cylinder 8v anyway????;)

LOL so that's why it's not fast enough!

[Dormouse]

The only way forward with an 8v these days is to a:

Do very little and keep it as a nice reliable, solid, warm hatch for day to day driving (as young Glyn Hopkins will tell you it's still a good B-road stormer)

or b:

Strip the feck out of it Phelps & Spiros stylee to save you weight. Add a cam maybe and get it remapped, stick a cage and harness's in. all up prolly 2K, but then you have a nice fun track car with prolly and effectivly 150BHP (with torque) equivelent power to weight ratio of the std car.

Don't forget decent pads and suspension.

Dor.

[slim_boy_fat]

Or buy a porsche 944 Turbo :D