1.8 16v rebuild

[phil.16v 0]

Looking to rebuild my 1990 16v with 194,000 miles engine with a few new tweaks to spice her up.

As i am mechanically dumb has anyone any suggestions and a list of parts required?

want to do her right without spending an absolute fortune.

 

[timmaaah 0]

Your sun-roof and spoiler bust then - sort them first I reckon :lol: :lol:

Seriously - nice lookin 'rado - loving your pics in here but the last two but one, (not goof) look chopped?

None the less - the last 'rado pic looks the sh1t!

Can't help on tuning et al, but yeah - do the best by her!

Timmaaah

[boost monkey 0]

Is your engine running rough mate? No point rebuilding it if it doesn't need to be. Try doing a compression test and then a leakdown test to see what condition the innards are in.

 

To be perfectly honest, if you are mechanically dumb I wouldn't try an engine rebuild. It'll cost y9ou a lot less in the long run just to buy a rebuilt lump. A refurb'd KR should be £300 ish last time I checked? Parts for a rebuild alone will be way more than that.

 

Jon :salute:

[phil.16v 0]

not going to attempt a rebuild myself just write the cheque. Not running too bad just a bit lumpy ticking over just worried about the amount of miles.

The spoiler is working fine, sunroof just tilts though which doesn't really bother me.

[boost monkey 0]

the labour alone would be a few hundred I think, you'd be better off buying a rebuilt engine if you really want to, sounds like your car is running fine though.

 

if it ain't broke and all that.

[Rustynuts 0]

If it is running a bit lumpy this is more likely due to slight air leak and/ or a need for a tune up. If it does not clank, clatter and blow smoke I would leave it alone until it does (which may be a long way off yet)

[theWhippet 0]

Hi Guys,

 

I've decided to go and buy myself a sensible car (been running my Corrado 1.8 16v as a daily driver for 9 yrs now). However, I have decided to keep the Corrado and set her up as a dedicated trackday car. I was about to start a new post and spotted this one - bang on the subject that I was gonna start.

 

I have been thinking of getting a refurb'd KR recently (too lazy to rebuild one myself :D). My current engine has done over 170,000 miles now and you can feel that its getting slower. I figured that it probably wont last long on track - lol! Has anyone got any suggestions / recomendations on where to go for a rebuit lump? I would prefer to go through a company that people have had good experiences with if you know what I mean.

 

Cheers

 

Ben

[theWhippet 0]

Just got a quote for a rebuilt ABF 2.0 16v and they want £950 +VAT! Seems a little much to me. You can nearly get a 1.8T for that. Sure it won't be rebuilt and you would need to do the conversion... but you would have a much more upto date engine with more power potential.

[boost monkey 0]

Parts are gonna be easily £500 if they replace crank and pistons (let alone the rest) and the labour is eeeeeasily another £500 normally!

 

sound like an average price to me.

[Jay23Sx 0]

Just got a quote for a rebuilt ABF 2.0 16v and they want £950 +VAT! Seems a little much to me. You can nearly get a 1.8T for that. Sure it won't be rebuilt and you would need to do the conversion... but you would have a much more upto date engine with more power potential.

 

Rebuilt 1.8 16V (1,000 miles ago) on eBay for £399 .. I see why you think that quote is expensive but a lot of that has to be labor.

[boost monkey 0]

yeah completely jay, as mentioned twice now(!) a few hundred will be labour.

 

I'm not against anyone rebuilding their engine, I just think it's a false economy. I picked up a 10,000 mile showcar engine which just crawled everywhere so the bling didn't get dirty for a few hundred. Unless you have a specific engine that you want to build, I'd recommend buying second hand. There are a lot of good engines out there, as Jay has found.

[Toad 0]

But... You could end up with a sack of crap. You don't know what a second hand engine has been done or subjected to, the actual mileage, the actual service history. It could have been in an accident and have damage you can't see from the outside. If you have an engine rebuild by a reputable company, you know it's good for a long time, nothing will need doing it and you will have a warranty. Similarly if you buy a recon engine from a reputable company such as VEGE, you know that it should be ok.

 

Personally, I'd look at getting an ABF or 9A, and get the head refurbed (£300-350), and bores honed and rings replaced (~£100) crank checked, possibly reground and new bearings put on (~£200 perhaps). I'd then know I had an as new engine that should last 100,000 to 150,000 miles. If that work cost £1000, it would only equate to 1p/mile...

[boost monkey 0]

Yeah, you could end up with a sack of crap too. If the OP isn't mechanically minded, he could probably get his mechanic to find him a reasonable engine? I just buy engines from whoever and they've all been fine so far (apart from the one in my car - but i didn't put that one in) but they could easily have been dogs, that's true.

 

Yeah, it's fair points. I guess i'm just more aware of how insane engine rebuilds cost after thinking long and hard about whether I'm actually going to do mine now. Seems a helluva lot of money.

 

Do VEGE still do 16v engines?

[Toad 0]

Yeah, you could end up with a sack of crap too. If the OP isn't mechanically minded, he could probably get his mechanic to find him a reasonable engine?

 

But you could still end up with crap, no matter who looks at it, there are a lot of things that can fail which you can't spot unless the engine is running.

 

It's all down to luck at the end of the day, and I'm not sure I would want to put £300 of secondhand engine and £400 of labour on fitting (£40/hour x 10 hours) down to luck.