• WINWAR
  • Ripened Lemon
  • Offline
  • Registered: 2009-05-04
  • Posts: 136

Re: Watercooled VWs and reliability

We ran an 88 Golf with not a single real issue last year in CT. The ones we did have have been taken care of for this year.

1. Exhaust falling off. We went through about 5 donuts. It was getting so hot it would just rip right through. Came in with the muffler on the ground twice. We ended up getting Eurosport HD units that have a tiny chain in the middle.

2. Power steering. Res broke and was leaking all over the place. Had to glue it together to keep going. This year we removed it all and looped the PS racks in and out lines together. The PS racks have a quicker lock to lock then the manual racks and I made the loop out of the old PS lines. Saves some weight and makes getting to the water pump easier.

On the WP, do not remove the thermostat completely but just cut out the moving parts. It should look like a plate with a single hole in the center. Without that, you wont have enough pressure.

Team Victors of War (those idiots in the wife-beaters and white pants)
  • From: Arizona
  • Registered: 2010-06-23
  • Posts: 44

Re: Watercooled VWs and reliability

I'd suggest backdating the FI to CIS basic, also known as Bosch K-Jetronic.
As long as it has fuel pressure it runs. (This is assuming the timing is set correctly and the intake manifold is bolted down and sealed.) This eliminates 80% of the drivability problems encountered with CIS-E. You now have to tune the engine manually, rather than relying on archaic computers to do it for you.

Pick up this book.
http://www.amazon.com/Bosch-Fuel-Inject … B000GKONP2


Also ditch the stock water to oil cooler in favor of a sandwich plate and a remote mounted oil cooler. This prevents the cooler from mixing oil and coolant under racing conditions, causing your rods to fuse to your crankshaft.

That being said, there was a mk2 Jetta running a 16v on CIS-E this last weekend in Denver, and it was quite quick and ran consistently. It appeared to be mechanically stock.

Polished Turd Racing - 1974 VW 412 variant
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