R32 conversion

[LeeElite 10]

Morning all, I will hopefully be purchasing a rado in the next month or so...

 

So I'm just wondering if there are any good quality R32 build threads on here? I'm looking to either purchase a rado with one already done or convert myself

 

Thanks

Lee

[seanl82 23]

Welcome! There's a definitive 24v guide in the engine bay section which should answer most/all questions, but it's quite a slog reading through it. It's a mish mash of 2.8 and 3.2 conversion bits, but there should be everything you require. Quite a few have carried out the conversion to very high standards on here so I'm sure any qs you have along the way could be answered.

[LeeElite 10]

That's great thanks a lot :)

 

I just can't wait to purchase one now I'm upsetting myself looking haha as I don't have the funds yet waiting on a completion date on my house then rado time!

[swiftkid 1]

I'm midway through mine, plenty of info in the 24v conversion thread but make sure you read it all thoroughly! Putting the engine in is the easy bit, the rest is the fun part!

[borachris 0]

Me and a mate have managed to bodge mine together :lol:

 

I got swict (south west in car tech) to do the wiring and immo removal, I wouldn't recommend using them though because they made a right mess of mine which resulted in me being a couple of hundred quid out of pocket and requiring a new ECU!

[clumpy1 11]

On the other hand I believe swict had some dealing's with baron the previous owner of mine regarding wiring/software and mine seem's ok apart from the map which I had redone up here by a DTA agent who is very knowledgeable. I do hear what your saying though chris and have heard of other's having issue's with swict.

[bristolbaron 10]

I've had work done with Mark at SWICT as above, and also on other cars.. My general opinion:

 

Mark is very good at what he does and very knowledgeable, I'm surprised to hear of issues with his standard of work. The ECU etc wasn't touched by Mark on clumpys car, but he rerouted a lot of wiring he wasn't happy with and added sensors etc which were missing. Everything he did he insisted on doing 'the right way'. The people who had previously wired [and mapped] the car hadn't done great.

 

The downside is [like a lot of small business owners] he constantly over promises/under delivers in terms of timescales! Book to arrive at 9am, he's not there till 10am. Get quoted a week, it'll take two. It's nothing I wouldn't say to his face and nothing to put me off using him again, but definitely something to be aware of! He'll always do what he can to make up for it, but if deadlines stress you..

[Kevin Bacon 5]

Buy Corrado.

Buy R32 engine. Any R32 engine will do.

Buy DTA S80 ECU + STC controller (for DBW)

Install it and wire it up using OEM harness terminated with DTA connectors.

Bring it to me or Stealth for mapping.

Not the cheapest way to do it, but definitely the best way, imo. Bosch ME7 sucks big hairy balls when it comes to conversions. Lovely in it's intended home. Shat in a conversion.

 

Or be different and stick a TFSI engine in it. 8P S3 or Edition 30 lump. 340hp with an intake all day long.

[LeeElite 10]

Cheers lads! How much we taking to purchase all that and how much you charge for the work Kevin B? You anywhere near the north east?

 

Lee

[Kevin Bacon 5]

Lol, I don't charge, I'm not a professional outfit, just an enthusiast willing to help :D

 

South east mate, miles away!

 

DTA kit will set you back £1500ish.

 

Don't get me wrong, it works OK-ish with the factory ECU, but it's all torque mapping based. Without the 4WD and other ancills connected, it's just not the same. With a standalone you're letting the engine off the reigns and it runs a lot better.

 

I tried both and mine was definitely better with a standalone, but they're not for everybody. It's a steep learning curve!

[LeeElite 10]

Hmm yeah canny far!

 

I'm hoping to have one before November I want to goto that stance show in Telford

 

Yeah it's that what I love about customizing cars it's all a learning curve. I've never done a engine conversion before so on a scale of 1 to 10 how would you rate the difficulty for this conversion?

 

Lee

[Kevin Bacon 5]

Getting the engine into the car, probably a 5 / 10, it's fairly straight forward.

 

The wiring and mapping is where it gets interesting. If you just want to get in it and drive it come rain or shine, I would stick with the standard management and get Vince at Stealth Racing to map it for you. I would get him to convert the loom for you as well. The guy is a legend :D

[LeeElite 10]

Hmm I dunno what to do haha! Yeah I don't mind doing the mechanical stuff it's the looms and ECUs I'd struggle with just found this for £895 DTA S80 PRO cheap?

[LeeElite 10]

Or there's a S40 ECU + stc controller for £645

[Kevin Bacon 5]

£895 is about right. You need the STC box as well for the DBW, which is another £500.

 

Might be worth hanging on until DTA release a newer ECU with it all built in.

[borachris 0]

I've had work done with Mark at SWICT as above, and also on other cars.. My general opinion:

 

Mark is very good at what he does and very knowledgeable, I'm surprised to hear of issues with his standard of work. The ECU etc wasn't touched by Mark on clumpys car, but he rerouted a lot of wiring he wasn't happy with and added sensors etc which were missing. Everything he did he insisted on doing 'the right way'. The people who had previously wired [and mapped] the car hadn't done great.

 

The downside is [like a lot of small business owners] he constantly over promises/under delivers in terms of timescales! Book to arrive at 9am, he's not there till 10am. Get quoted a week, it'll take two. It's nothing I wouldn't say to his face and nothing to put me off using him again, but definitely something to be aware of! He'll always do what he can to make up for it, but if deadlines stress you..

 

 

I'd agree with the timescale comment but that's about it.

 

He ignored calls, pretended to have phone problems. Took a voicemail to tell him I'd be driving down to see him if i didn't hear back from him, funnily he got that message straight away and called me back within minutes. He lied to me about posting my parcel, made up numerous BS courier problems and couldn't/wouldn't provide tracking info. When the parcel finally arrived I checked the tracking number on the label and it had been posted the day before it arrived not a week before like he said it had. He sent my ecu back with checksum errors that prevented the engine from running, I sent it back for him to check, he told me it wouldn't work in a corrado conversion he just happened to have in at the time. It was a very odd issue but he could fix it, apparently nothing to do with the checksum errors vcds had shown. Surprise surprise again we had courier problems with the ecu, when I lost my cool and told him I knew he was full of **** and explained how I'd checked the label on the first parcel he suddenly realised he'd got 'confused' and it was a different ecu that had got lost with the courier and mine was actually still there as he had just finished fixing it. When it finally came back it started but then cut out straight away, no checksum errors on vcds though. It was at this point he started ignoring my calls again. I bought another ecu and Andy Outhwaite de immo'd it for me, he also looked at the one Mark from SWICT had de immo'd and he confirmed the immo file was corrupt and he couldn't sort it, another local tuner also looked at it and came to the same conclusion. I know for a fact the ecu was fine when removed from the donor car as it came from a supplier I've known for years and trust 100%.

 

What did he do to make up for the issue? Absolutely nothing!!

 

Appalling customer service and I would strongly advise anyone against using SWICT.

[LeeElite 10]

Yeah I'd defo look out for that! I'm not sure on any places in newcastle that do work ECU, Looms Etc... So may have to source that first

[Kevin Bacon 5]

S40 can only do 4 cylinders sequentially. S80 is the minimum for R32s :D

[borachris 0]

Yeah I'd defo look out for that! I'm not sure on any places in newcastle that do work ECU, Looms Etc... So may have to source that first

 

Have you heard of Andy Outhwaite? He's pretty well known in the vag scene, co owner of ACR in croft near Darlington, absolute genius with vag wiring. I would have and should have used him for my 24v conversion but swict offered a better package as it came with a remap which Andy doesn't do.

[clumpy1 11]

Mine is S60 phone DTA and they will tell you who is an agent near you there will be someone.

[KipVR 1]

If you lay the wiring diagrams out in front of you and you have the looms in front of you, it's actually fairly straight forward to do the loom- I found it to be rather like doing a puzzle. I'd like to think that I have a better wiring loom now than the original car came with. Not only that but you also get a better understanding of what's going on. There were two big mistakes I made with my conversion, firstly I paid a friend to do the wiring, and I wasn't happy with it at all so ended up doing it myself, and secondly I initially tried to not use the rear lambdas. Like Kev says the Bosch management is good as a complete car, but it's harder to get to work right as a conversion but if you follow the guide I think you should be fine. If you go down the DTA route, you can truly release all the engine's potential.

 

Do it, it's a fantastic conversion and makes the car feel way better imo. We are here to help!

[VW_OwneR_85 2]

Agree with Kip ^ , that's if you want to stick with oem management, I didn't have the confidence to modify my wiring loom myself, instead I waited months and then some for someone else to do it for me, only for me to basically be thrown in the deep end and have to learn about it to install it and get it working and then find out why it wont start, If I was doing it all again from scratch I would lay both engine wiring harness's out in front of me with all plugs labelled up and go for it, that way I know whats what and whats been done and what hasn't been done, I got united motorsports to do my ecu work and they were great! , if you ebay search vw engine conversion theres guys on there offering wiring conversion looms and ecu work for this , cant vouch for there work but there service is there... good luck

 

looks like a good place to start , price includes immo removal http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/VW-20Valve-Turbo-OEM-Engine-loom-conversion-AUQ-AUM-AGU-AYP-BAM-BDE-SEAT-VAG-/161422816200?pt=UK_CarsParts_Vehicles_CarParts_SM&hash=item25958cb3c8

Edited September 21, 2014 by VW_OwneR_85

[LeeElite 10]

Awesome cheers lads! Yeah I would defo label everything up before pulling the loom out other wise I wouldn't have a clue!! Do they offer that service on eBay all the time and would the 20v loom work on R32 engine?

[KipVR 1]

Awesome cheers lads! Yeah I would defo label everything up before pulling the loom out other wise I wouldn't have a clue!! Do they offer that service on eBay all the time and would the 20v loom work on R32 engine?

 

No it needs the 24v v6 looms, one that goes from ECU to engine and one that goes from ECU to cabin. Don't forget you will also need the pedal and lambadas from the donor vehicle.

[VW_OwneR_85 2]

don't take much notice of the advert being 20v turbo, It would make more sense being listed as "mk4 engine loom conversion" as the work involved wiring wise is pretty much the same thing, and amongst the engine codes he listed he has "BDE" and that's one of the 24v 2.8's , your just have to message them on ebay and tell them your engine code and what your doing but they seem like a good place to start and trouble shooting later on...