what makes the 1.8T so tuneable ???

[samg60 0]

well apart from destroying gearboxes mine been very trouble free, I think its mainly luck with any car, mine is 300bhp and its the most reliable tuned vw I have ever had, my g60 was a right pain in the arse, I think virtually every engine component broke at some time or another and as for my old 16v and 8v they both had an array of problems, the 20v I have is good in that it doesnt have a maf etc to go worng but so far it been fantastic.

[boost monkey 0]

I'm not sure why MAFs break so often.

 

Aren't they just a glorified spring and a flap?

[dr_mat 0]

I'm not sure why MAFs break so often.

 

Aren't they just a glorified spring and a flap?

 

Um, no ..

 

http://www.sensorland.com/HowPage060.html

 

.. they rely on the heating and sensing components in the assembly being perfectly clean and intact. It's usually oil contamination that kills a MAF.

[rado-steve 0]

Was chatting with some folks about this at the Summer Scorcher. Vaguely remember Karl saying you could pick up an engine for a few magic beans, and put it in yourself. The expensive bit was getting it all connected, particularly the computer, etc. Was surprised how cheap this sounded though. My 2.0 16v just doesn't have the pace I need!!!

 

Get one whacked in! Best thing I've ever done to mine :D

[boost monkey 0]

I'm not sure why MAFs break so often.

 

Aren't they just a glorified spring and a flap?

 

Um, no ..

 

http://www.sensorland.com/HowPage060.html

 

.. they rely on the heating and sensing components in the assembly being perfectly clean and intact. It's usually oil contamination that kills a MAF.[/quote:28c6c]

 

Oh.

 

Ok cool. I think I had quite a rudimentary one on the Motronic 4.1 system

[vwdeviant 0]

Different types of 1.8Tsas well isn't there?

 

Which is best (discuss! )

 

This has got me thinking.... Now where are those "Cheap" Ibiza Cupra brakes?

[Kevin Bacon 5]

Loving A20_Lee's comments :lol: The man had an S3 and that's about as honest an appraisal as I've seen on here, no rose tinteds on his head 8)

 

Why is the 1.8T so tunable? In a word, the ECU.

 

It enables you to easily and cheaply increase boost pressure. It takes literally minutes, all the tuners do is alter the PWM signal to the standard N75 valve and voila, more boost. The GOOD mappers would also tame down the electronic throttle a little (it's far to sharp off idle imo, coupled to a tiny turbo makes for kangaroo city) and look at the timing maps too.

 

Trouble is though, some people step onto that bridge that was a little too far. They over boost the tiny little K series blowers, way beyond the compresssor's efficiency, then they get mega hot whilst not actually increasing boost, causing det and all sorts of trouble. 280hp is about your lot from a BAM using the stock turbo, but you hear all sorts of tales of higher powers but power is proportional to the amount of air and fuel burned, so we have a good idea of what the 1.8T is capable of in stock form.

 

The 20V gets seriously interesting when you put a bigger turbo and manifold on it. The stock manifold is pathetic, you can barely get a finger up the runners (ooer!) and many folk make the mistake of uprating the turbo and not the manifold, which is conrod bendingtastic.

 

The 20V head is OK and 3 intake valves enables great cylinder filling, hence the fat midrange torque. I prefer 16V heads though personally, they give a more uniform power delivery, especially at the top end. I find 1.8Ts very lacklustre at the top end in Stock form (AGU, BAM, all of them) and no offense intended....it's how they were designed.

 

As a whole, not a fan of the 1.8T. VW cobbled it together and only the BAM was the proper effort. Compare the 1.8T's lifespan to the other engines in VW's line up....

 

16V - 1984 to current - 23 years

8V - 1975 to 2001? - 26 years

VR6 - 1992 to current - 15 years

1.8T - 1998 to 2006 - 8 years

 

VW are now back to the venerable 16V for their turbo engines, apart from a few remaining stocks for the Polo GTI. The AGU was the worst and had the shortest life span. It was truly awful. Nothing more than a slightly modded 16V block + 20V head. Even the conrods were 16V, which can't take huge torque....so it really was rushed together.

The BAM is a new casting and stronger, but oddly still uses 16V rods!!

 

The other engines evolved, the 1.8T was ceased. I think that says it all :lol:

 

Nah, they're OK really, and can be REALLY good with the right amount of cash and work.

 

Just my 2ps worth and offense to 1.8T owners.....

[dirtytorque 0]

Loving A20_Lee's comments :lol: The man had an S3 and that's about as honest an appraisal as I've seen on here, no rose tinteds on his head 8)

 

Why is the 1.8T so tunable? In a word, the ECU.

 

It enables you to easily and cheaply increase boost pressure. It takes literally minutes, all the tuners do is alter the PWM signal to the standard N75 valve and voila, more boost. The GOOD mappers would also tame down the electronic throttle a little (it's far to sharp off idle imo, coupled to a tiny turbo makes for kangaroo city) and look at the timing maps too.

 

Trouble is though, some people step onto that bridge that was a little too far. They over boost the tiny little K series blowers, way beyond the compresssor's efficiency, then they get mega hot whilst not actually increasing boost, causing det and all sorts of trouble. 280hp is about your lot from a BAM using the stock turbo, but you hear all sorts of tales of higher powers but power is proportional to the amount of air and fuel burned, so we have a good idea of what the 1.8T is capable of in stock form.

 

The 20V gets seriously interesting when you put a bigger turbo and manifold on it. The stock manifold is pathetic, you can barely get a finger up the runners (ooer!) and many folk make the mistake of uprating the turbo and not the manifold, which is conrod bendingtastic.

 

The 20V head is OK and 3 intake valves enables great cylinder filling, hence the fat midrange torque. I prefer 16V heads though personally, they give a more uniform power delivery, especially at the top end. I find 1.8Ts very lacklustre at the top end in Stock form (AGU, BAM, all of them) and no offense intended....it's how they were designed.

 

As a whole, not a fan of the 1.8T. VW cobbled it together and only the BAM was the proper effort. Compare the 1.8T's lifespan to the other engines in VW's line up....

 

16V - 1984 to current - 23 years

8V - 1975 to 2001? - 26 years

VR6 - 1992 to current - 15 years

1.8T - 1998 to 2006 - 8 years

 

VW are now back to the venerable 16V for their turbo engines, apart from a few remaining stocks for the Polo GTI. The AGU was the worst and had the shortest life span. It was truly awful. Nothing more than a slightly modded 16V block + 20V head. Even the conrods were 16V, which can't take huge torque....so it really was rushed together.

The BAM is a new casting and stronger, but oddly still uses 16V rods!!

 

The other engines evolved, the 1.8T was ceased. I think that says it all :lol:

 

Nah, they're OK really, and can be REALLY good with the right amount of cash and work.

 

Just my 2ps worth and offense to 1.8T owners.....

 

A very informative read,always good to get different opinions.

[davidwort 0]

I thought one of the main reasons for the 1.8T demise was fuel economy and emissions, the EU is squeezing hard in this area and the 1.8T isn't what you'd call economical in any form.

The 2.0T uses FSI technology and I guess required a complete redesign of the whole inlet system as well as head to work with this, interestingly the bottom end is 1984CC IIRC exactly the same as the 9A!

Oh, and the 16v died out in the old Ibiza, much the same as the 1.8T is doing now, the polo and golf 4 16v engines are totally different beasts.

[Kevin Bacon 5]

Don't think emissions is the reason chap, otherwise the R32, R36, W8 and W12 engines wouldn't exist today....nor the Bugatti, the Cayenne Turbo, and so on...

 

The 1.8T just reached the end of it's useful life. As you say, VW wanted to fiddle about with "in head" fuel injection and the 20V just hasn't got the room for it and don't forget the 1.8T is still being used in the current Polo GTI and smaller sporty Skodas.

 

I love what the 1.8T has brought to the VW scene, cheap, easily installable into practically any VW, reasonably economical in stock form, great power for it's size, light weight and so on..... but I'm just not a fan of that particular engine. The current 16V T is miles better imo....

[vwdeviant 0]

Hmm Large Fly seems to have appeared in my "Do I 1.8T the Valver" thoughts.... :?

[davidwort 0]

Don't think emissions is the reason chap, otherwise the R32, R36, W8 and W12 engines wouldn't exist today....nor the Bugatti, the Cayenne Turbo, and so on...

...

 

no, I didn't explain my thinking enough, my point was the 1.8T has been used over such a range of vehicles and for a lot of 'mid-range' high volume ones, with pressure to reduce a manufacturers overall (total) emissions across their model ranges VW had to introduce new technology to their mid size petrol range as it's such a chunk of vehicle numbers. FSI has effectively replaced the 2000-2004 16v 1.6 engines too (like the AZD in the golf4), so the 1.8T isn't the shortest lived engine at all. Like a lot of things, technology and product advancement not to mention political pressures are shortening product lifecycles, with that background I think the 1.8T has lasted pretty well.

[dr_mat 0]

I would have thought the 2.0 FSi was based on the 20v head, actually, since it loses one valve and replaces it with the fuel injector, yet still has four valves per cyl.

 

Further to the discussions of engine longevity, do VW still ship the 12v VR6? Didn't think they did, thought it died out in the late 90s. It's all 24v now, innit?

 

The FSi is a drive for emissions, economy *and* power. They get much more control over fuelling. They can actually run the engine overall well below stochiometric without pinking by putting a tiny "packet" of fuel/air mix into the cylinder right next to the spark plug - the rest of the cylinder contains only plain old air. The tiny packet burns cleanly because it is at stochiometric fuel/air ratio, the rest of the air in the cylinder is just heated and expands slightly.

[dr_mat 0]

FSi - how it works.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_Stratified_Injection

[_leon_ 0]

'packet' - thats very clever. but obvious when you think of it!

 

The 1.8T has been adopted by all sorts of enthusiasts owning different cars. Even various kit car owners are using them. Its an option for Elise owners too. I've a friend who's owned an s3 for sometime and he's not had any such problems with it. Of course he could run into problems - but fine so far. Like any motor - once you start to push it, things can give up early. However, for a lot of people I'm sure - transplanting an engine in thats std in form, putting out 280bhp and similar torque with a bit of mapping - is more than enough (better to spend money on handling after that and petrol to enjoy driving the car imo). lots of benefits of doing that over keeping the old engine (been discussed time and time over). I think its important not to get hung up on whats the best engine - otherwise there'll always be the assessment - did i fit the best engine to my car. Its unnecessary - if it fits the criteria you have for the car then great. If we wanted to talk about the 'best engine to fit' then who would say it'd be a VAG unit?

[Kevin Bacon 5]

I would have thought the 2.0 FSi was based on the 20v head, actually, since it loses one valve and replaces it with the fuel injector, yet still has four valves per cyl.

 

It's completely different, a whole new casting.

 

Further to the discussions of engine longevity, do VW still ship the 12v VR6? Didn't think they did, thought it died out in the late 90s. It's all 24v now, innit?

 

Yep, but it's still a VR6 though. VW just dropped the 'R' to distinguish the new engine from the old in certain markets. The Americans got the 12V in the MK4, we never did, so the 12V was used into 21st century too....

 

The FSi is a drive for emissions, economy *and* power. They get much more control over fuelling. They can actually run the engine overall well below stochiometric without pinking by putting a tiny "packet" of fuel/air mix into the cylinder right next to the spark plug - the rest of the cylinder contains only plain old air. The tiny packet burns cleanly because it is at stochiometric fuel/air ratio, the rest of the air in the cylinder is just heated and expands slightly.

 

Clever stuff. When they roll that onto the 'V6's, they should see a nice economy boost too.

 

Davidwort, I didn't consider the 1.6 16V a performance engine, so didn't mention it, neither the diesels :lol: The point I was trying to make was that of all the 'performance' engines VW made around that time, the 1.8T had the shortest life span and the reasons for why are now being debated ;-)

[StuartFZR400 0]

The FSi ... They get much more control over fuelling.

 

Clever stuff. When they roll that onto the 'V6's, they should see a nice economy boost too.

clever indeed, more efficient i guess - always the way to go. Lots of other manufacturers are doing it too now, Mazda, Ford etc.

 

So if its Direct Injection, does that make it like a deisel? chug chug LOL :lol: only kiddin

[dr_mat 0]

It's completely different, a whole new casting.

For sure, it would have to be a new casting, definitely. The cylinder surface area is wider, and lets face it you can't just shoe-horn a fuel injector in where a valve is supposed to be, but what I'm wondering is if they actually started from scratch, or if they (more likely, imho) just modified the 20v design to accept the new 2.0 block and the fuel injector. No company can afford to design major engine components from scratch every time they feel like it.

 

The FSi is a drive for emissions, economy *and* power. They get much more control over fuelling. They can actually run the engine overall well below stochiometric without pinking by putting a tiny "packet" of fuel/air mix into the cylinder right next to the spark plug - the rest of the cylinder contains only plain old air. The tiny packet burns cleanly because it is at stochiometric fuel/air ratio, the rest of the air in the cylinder is just heated and expands slightly.

 

Clever stuff. When they roll that onto the 'V6's, they should see a nice economy boost too.

 

Apparently it's already in the R36! Amazingly, the air/fuel mix in lean-burn mode goes from 14.7:1 (stoich) right up to 65:1 - with no det!!

 

And btw, when I said "packet" I clearly meant "stratified charge" ... ;)

[Kevin Bacon 5]

If the new 16V valver head has the same variable cam timing system as the later 20V head, then it quite possibly could just be a modification job. Either way, removing a valve requires a new casting anyway. so it's a brand new head which ever way we look at it ;-)

 

You're right, VW are experts at not changing things unless they absolutely have to, hence using a 25 year old block for the FSI, but at the end of the day, valves and pistons just go up and down and not much else, as they did in 1901, so the basic layout doesn't NEED redesigning.....except the head, which now incorporates your clever "Stratified charged", LOL!

They also have in cylinder knock detection now too, which i'm guessing is just Exhaust gas temperature monitoring. If it plummets on hard acceleration, and EGT is WAY, WAY, faster than antiquated knock microphones, it knows the flame temperature has sharply reduced (too much air) and takes counter measures.

 

65:1 - I bet that's on a over run condition as that is practically no fuel at all. 14:7 maybe the ideal burn in lab conditions, but not all engines like running that ratio, least of all turbo engines.... they're happiest at 13.8 - 14 AF on a cruise.....but OEs are under obligation to keep EGTs very high to keep the cat's working at their peak efficiency....

[vwdeviant 0]

Back on track for those of us mortals who go lost at the first A:F and layering discussion..

 

So a 1.8T is good for a "reliable" 280 with relativly little tweeking? (Maps/ intakes/ exhausts)

 

Now which are the best ones to go for? I've heard BAM's are the best...

[Kevin Bacon 5]

Yep and Yep, go with BAMbi....

 

You can buy an off the shelf MBE ECU and loom for that engine (for retro fitting into other dubs, MK2s, MK1s, Corrados and the like) and it makes a nice 265hp with 278lb/ft torque.... and that's with the original mechanicals. Now, imagine that much oomph in a 880kg MK1 shell, or a 1040Kg MK2 shell.....jesus!

[vwdeviant 0]

Yep and Yep, go with BAMbi....

 

You can buy an off the shelf MBE ECU and loom for that engine (for retro fitting into other dubs, MK2s, MK1s, Corrados and the like) and it makes a nice 265hp with 278lb/ft torque.... and that's with the original mechanicals. Now, imagine that much oomph in a 880kg MK1 shell, or a 1040Kg MK2 shell.....jesus!

 

Cheers Kev...

 

Now where do I find a BAM engine?.. Golf/ TT/ Cupra? Yes I am a little ignorant!

[junkie 0]

:offtopic1:

 

Was the G60 engine the most short lived?

[_leon_ 0]

You can buy an off the shelf MBE ECU and loom for that engine (for retro fitting into other dubs, MK2s, MK1s, Corrados and the like) and it makes a nice 265hp with 278lb/ft torque.... and that's with the original mechanicals.

 

Thats plenty i think. Cheaper to look after aswell. Kev - I've wondered about the loom and DTA - when buying such as engine - do you need the original loom (to get modified?) or do you get a modified one with the DTA package? Been told you get a base map for the engine which could be tweaked to marry up to the setup - but on a fairly std engine, shouldn't be far out.

 

Was the G60 engine the most short lived?

 

Nope as the G60 engine is 8v - so reflecting on that age chart - its been used for years and years

[_leon_ 0]

Now where do I find a BAM engine?..

 

TT, S3, maybe Cupra R

 

But I'll look for an S3 or TT version - should find a low mileage one