Bri,s G60 Build

[Brian1975 13]

Hi all,

i thought it was high time i shared my G60 build with you . This car is now completed so the thread updates aren't in real time so its a copy and paste exercise for the most part but i will try to keep to thread updated in the future . Thanks for reading .

 

Okay so back in 2020 i already had a G60 in black as a project bought on a bit of a whim and which needed quite a bit of work !
Always on the hunt for parts for it i had bought a few random parts off a uk ebay seller , by chance i spotted in one of his pictures the faintest outline of a what looked like a fairly complete car in red. enquired what the story with it and i turned out that this was the car he was breaking the parts for sale off !! Turns out he had owned the car since 2001 and had embarked on a semi refresh of the underside of the car not long after purchasing it ,the usual jobs ,subframe ,rear beam ,wishbones blasted and powdercoated ,new supsension etc. only it seems like he had bitten off more than he could chew ,along with a very small workspace ( see below )it just seemed to have gotten the better of him and he lost interest in it .
Years later he starting selling of bits of the car gradually on ebay where i came across him.
He was willing to sell off the remains of the car so a deal was done , i bought the whole lot sight unseen ,i was taking a bit of a chance on it but the cost of the new spare parts that came with it alone was worth the asking price. 

Edited October 8 by Brian1975

[Brian1975 13]

The Journey home.


Back at base.

[Brian1975 13]

Inspection time. what had i bought! Turns out i did very well indeed , the car or remains thereof was in very good condition overall ,
rust free shell , a few dings and scratches here and there ,a bit of RHS  wing bodgery but all origional paint and no rust to be found anywhere .
Spares included,
4 x koni sport dampers ,
H&R lowering springs ,
All suspension components powdwercoated.
Genuine vw track rod ends ,lower wishbone balljoints and top mounts.
Powerflex bushing set.

Minus points ,
No engine ,gearbox ,complete front end missing ,
Engine wiring loom mangled,
Headliner missing ,Front doorcards gone along with some dash trims

Edited October 8 by Brian1975

[Brian1975 13]

So as I said I already had this complete black G60 ,in fairness it was quite a ropey old thing that needed extensive work in every dept , had at least two poor resprays in its life , got a major repair to the rear quarter at some stage with was also poorly repaired and significant rust had set in , Main engine pulley bolt had loosened and damaged the crank nose and key way so a engine strip down was required , indeed I had already pulled the engine and box and was in the process of rebuilding it when I obtained the red one ..

[Brian1975 13]

No prizes for figuring out what happens next ! i decided to break out the black car and use it as a donor of parts to build back up the red one .
Wasn't a huge task really as i had already the whole front end pulled on it for the engine and ancillaries rebuild .

The engine at some point had its crank pulley bolt come loose and as a result had damaged the crank nose and keyway so that the pulley was moving on the crank under load . i cleaned it up as best i could and pinned a new main crank gear onto it . it worked but there was still a slight wobble so i didn't feel i could trust it , so the only option was to replace the crank for a new one . 
Thought if i was doing this i may as well have a look inside and see what's what.

Engine out and teardown.

[Brian1975 13]

it was in reasonable condition overall, the crank its self was in great condition so a bit of a shame to scrap it really .
however i found quite a lot of cylinder bore wear at the top of the ring landings ,More evident after honing .



The consensus was that really it was too much wear to be ignored so the only real option was to bore it out oversize . Thing were about to turn expensive !!

Engine bored out to 83mm / IE max oversize on these blocks .Blocked decked also to gain a bit more CR.



Supertech ultralight high compression forged  pistons 





New ex 16v KR crank and rotating assembly polished and balanced .Fywheel lightened by 2.5 kgs


The main reason i got these pistons is that it allowed the use of 144mm con rods instead of the G60,s heavy 136mm items . I used OE KR rods which were in excellent condition , these have been used in 16v turbo applications and are well able for big power , more than ill ever need to bother them with . This set came exceptionally well balanced from the factory ,Only 0.5 g between them.


KIng /ACL race spec bearings and special order comotec head gasket.


Building it back up!

[Brian1975 13]

While the engine work was ongoing i had my paint guy look over the red shell to see what was needed to be done to get it looking its best again .
Although the paint itself was in good order overall there were small marks/Scratches on most panels ,The rear bumper was burnt by the exhaust at some point so that needed replacment anyway ,the whole front end needed paint anyway so when all was weighed up we decided the only way to do it right was to paint the whole car top to bottom .

He was,nt ready to take the car in for about 6 weeks so i carried on with the underside and suspension .

Got all the underside components powdercoated.




Built up the front subframe with a mixture of powerflex and OE bushes .
New Oe mk3 golf GTI ps rack .

[_Matt_ 29]

Solid efforts, it is great to see these build threads showing these cars being saved, especially when people DIY as well. 

[Brian1975 13]

Front Crossmember built up with powerflex bushes


Got a set of H+R ARB,s 23mm front +25mm rear. I had these on a previous mk2 golf gti and loved them !


Fitted on the front


The koni dampers and springs came with the car but needed to be built up with new bumpstops and top mounts

[Brian1975 13]

Car came with no brakes and i had robbed the black cars 280mm front setup to put on the green 16V Rado.
So i was on the lookout for a new set when i friend of mine was looking to sell these.

305 mm 4 piston brembo,s from a seat ibiza Cupra R . These are a direct fit onto the front hubs and are a 4X100 pcd so bolt straight on .
They got a rebuild kit fitted and a paint of brembo red to freshen up.

Now this put me in another situation ! there was no way the OE 15" wheels would fit over these brakes so had to go shopping for some 16"
i wanted something retro but oem looking but with a nod to motorsport at the sametime ,in the end i contacted compomotive direct in the uk and purchased these bad boys!



Compomotive 16" TH2 7x16 ET25 in Anthracite .Delighted with these and the guys from Compomotive were excellent to deal with .

[Brian1975 13]

Next stage was to get the engine and box back into the engine bay . this went well enough ,i spent a lot of time getting all the wiring loom and hoses etc nice and tidy looking in the bay .
Had a major issue the first time i went to start the engine ,it simply refused to start! no spark so spent hours checking every component of the ignition systen but to no avail ,all components in themselves appeared to be working correctly .
The only thing remaining was the ECU itself ,but surely not , it was working fine last time i used it ! Anyway took it apart and checked all out ,all looked fine !
Now i had got a custom chip for the engine spec flashed by reputable company in the uk and this was fitted in the ecu . out of desperation i swapped the chip back to the original one and reassembled and tested . First f~~king tip of the key it fired up ! Over the moon but yet fuming at the same time cos id spent so much time trying to diagnose the problem .
Anyway to cut a long story short the chip they supplied wasn't flashed at all . Once they sent out a revised chip it worked fine .

first time this car drove under its own steam in 22 years .

[Brian1975 13]

So next step was sending the car off for painting in original tornado red .



The guys had it for about six weeks and they did a great job on it.
Back in the shed and reassembly started . I love this part of a build .

[Brian1975 13]

I generally like my cars oem or oem plus ,at least visually but one thing i had to improve on was the intercooler setup.The oe system is pretty poor and barely adequate for a standard engine .
They mounted the small IC behind the ps bumper in front of the wheel arch and plumbed it up with a convoluted series of narrow bore piping so the chances of lowering the intake temperatures are pretty slim and the number of pipes and joints makes it difficult to have a non leaking setup.
I wanted a front mount IC on the car but didn't want to go hacking and chopping bits out of the slam panel and move the battery away to the boot .Frontal space is minimal on these due to the odd position of the rad in relation the slam panel . I ended up steping back the rad off the crossmember on the DS to gain more clearance of an IC . I also got rid of the original rad fan as the motor on there are massive and replaced it with a Spal fan that fitted perfectly on the fan housing .



After much trial and error, buying intercoolers the didn't fit properly etc ,mocking up ,making brackets /remaking brackets i ended up with this !


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With front slam panel fitted ,very happy with the way it turned out and i didn't have to fettle and of the slam panel with the grinder! (almost lol) i also installed a setrab remote oil cooler with AN fittings and hoses and got rid of the factory water cooled setup . These G60,s run very hot so this is a must have mod .

[Brian1975 13]

So after all that messing the front end could finally be put back on !


Got the set of plates made up to mimic the original sales brochure




The build up continued and i had some parts ordered from classic parts in germany .

After being obsolete for many years the roof trims are available again , At a price !!

[Brian1975 13]

My original set of foglamps were in good enough condition but the reflectors inside were a bit tarnished and rusty , i came across a seller in Europe on insta with these and i had to have them !


There was a guy in the UK T/A vw stainless that was making SS fastener kits for various vw,s .I got the complete set for a Corrado ,its a very well thought out kit , i havnt used all of the parts as i dont like a lot of bling but they look a lot cleaner than all the original rusty stuff



I fitted a B3.5 Passat glass sunroof (or Moonroof ) it brightens up the dark gloomy interior and the sliding mechanism is much more reliable than the origional.

[Brian1975 13]

So bringing this thread up to date here is the car as more or less is at present.










ITs fully legal now and ended up being only 214 euro VRT due to being over 30 years old .Result!!

I've also got these VW Sebring 16" wheels made by Bstar  for that oem+ look .Have got around to fitting them as of yet !

[harin 0]

Amazing work and some great inspiration for my VR6 build, especially seeing all of that fresh looking paint!

Quick question, how hard was the sunroof fix and do I need to get a specific b3.5 model/year?

 

Thanks,

Harin

[Brian1975 13]

Hi, 

Thank you .

its not too difficult to replace the sunroof mechanism , just a bit time consuming .

The way i did it was to remove the complete sunroof cassette from the B3/B3.5 and transfer into the Corrado ,Its all a direct fit ,even the motor wiring plug is the same.

The headliner obviously has to be removed so you have to unscrew all the pillar inner trims and sunvisors etc 

As for model years i think any year B3 or B3.5 sunroof will work . its also said that the mk1 Skoda Octavia pre facelift sunroof will also fit ? Dont know this for sure ,I've additionally heard it has to be a combi model ??

Edited Monday at 12:26 PM by Brian1975

[harin 0]

Thanks, I might do some more research on the MK1 Octavia as already a couple of scrappies don't have the Passat sunroof or if they do most likely it will be at a premium!