My long-term project mk3.5 Cabrio is finally getting a VR6. I've known I wanted to do this swap for ages and have been researching/planning how to do it for at least 4 or 5 years. I had the absolutely perfect donor car come along, a very lightly crashed 2 owner 1997 Jetta GLX 5 speed in astoundingly good mechanical condition with just 78k miles. So I decided to make the leap.
I figured this thread would be a good place to kinda narrate the build and show what I'm doing to anyone who's interested. I have the build pretty well roadmapped but definitely would welcome any insight you guys have about what I'm doing. And I know I'm gonna have some questions on technicals and best practices. This will be the biggest wrenching endeavor I've ever taken on.
Let's start at the VR6 roadmap. It's staying naturally aspirated. For now
. While the engine's out of the bay I'll do some regular maintenance items. I'll most likely do mkiv head gasket, replace valve cover gasket, new oil pan, timing chains, engine mounts. Previous owner clearly did very recent sparkplugs, rear main seal, and a new clutch so that's a win. I'll probably do replacement coolant lines too. In terms of performance upgrade stuff on engine- looking at doing 268 cams, techtonics/magnaflow catback and leaning towards techtonics on chip since they seem to have a bunch of tunes that seem to mirror my build plan. But I'm still researching.
Possibly the most striking part of this build is that I'm going very minimalist. On the Cabrio 2.0 ABA I had previously done an AC and power steering delete, those items will stay deleted with the VR6. The plan is also to nuke all of the EVAP/SAI/PCV stuff. A) The simpler this build is the better, from both a mechanical and electrical perspective. And I love a clean bay. B) This is legal in my state and C) from an ethical perspective- the Cabrio is not a daily driver, it'll see MAYBE a couple hundred miles per year tops and so I'm not amazingly worried about my carbon footprint.
Next post will be days 1 and 2 of wrenching but in the meantime- let's take a look at the donor and patient ready for action:
I figured this thread would be a good place to kinda narrate the build and show what I'm doing to anyone who's interested. I have the build pretty well roadmapped but definitely would welcome any insight you guys have about what I'm doing. And I know I'm gonna have some questions on technicals and best practices. This will be the biggest wrenching endeavor I've ever taken on.
Let's start at the VR6 roadmap. It's staying naturally aspirated. For now
Possibly the most striking part of this build is that I'm going very minimalist. On the Cabrio 2.0 ABA I had previously done an AC and power steering delete, those items will stay deleted with the VR6. The plan is also to nuke all of the EVAP/SAI/PCV stuff. A) The simpler this build is the better, from both a mechanical and electrical perspective. And I love a clean bay. B) This is legal in my state and C) from an ethical perspective- the Cabrio is not a daily driver, it'll see MAYBE a couple hundred miles per year tops and so I'm not amazingly worried about my carbon footprint.
Next post will be days 1 and 2 of wrenching but in the meantime- let's take a look at the donor and patient ready for action: