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Re: Easy mods for MkII 8v?



>what can I do to my stock 1.8 8v to get a bit of horse power. the cat is
>already gutted, but that is it. any help is greatly appreciated.

Starting with the exhaust is a good step.  There are two basic options here
- either dump the exhaust manifold that's on your car (assuming it's the 4
into 1 manifold that plagues so many of these cars) and get the dual spout
manifold from an earlier water cooled VW, or get a header and be done with
it.  For a header, I wouldn't recommend anything other than SuperSprint or
TechTonics.  Both are big bucks, and the gains over a good manifold and
downpipe are minimal.

After that, cam is next.  Again, the cam on the JH engines sucked.  For the
budget conscious, go for a cam from an earlier 1.6 engine.  For the budget
non-conscious, have fun and get yourself somethign wild.  I went for the
barely-idleable 290/448 Crane cam, and I love it.  It sucks back gas like
mad, but the engine just loves to rev now.

Next up is the intake.  Two more options present themselves.  For the tame
at heart, an Audi 5000 throttle body with some minor porting to the intake
manifold works wonders.  And for the insane, try to find a single throat
weber throttle body.  It is very on-off, but when it's on, it's pretty wild.

After this, you can do any number of things.  Increased compression,
porting and polishing, forced induction, nitrous, etc ... the three thigns
above are the easiest "bolt-on" performance improvements you can make.

By the way, just a personal opinion ... if you are going ot buy a cam,
don't skimp out because you are afraid of losing your nice idle.  I've
driven a lot of milder cams, and I'm really not convinced that the
compramise is worth it.  My car idles at about 1200 RPM just fine, and it
is still tractable in the city ... the low end torque (especially with an
adjustable cam gear) is more than suitable.  And on the highway, you will
definitely notice the difference.

As a sidenote.  I raced an RX-7 last night (fairly recent car ... one of
those new swoopy styles?), and took him down like a Kennedy airplane.  :-)

-- Mike



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