Project #7 from Jason: 12 valve VR6 Half Build.

[Jason]

Well it came time to do my timing chain guides and my throw out bearing as they were both making some noise. I also have some chatter from cam to followers and just wanted a little more power now. The car is built to equal ones that have proven low 12s 1/4 miles and some in the high 11's as an all motor NA car. I have not been to any tracks yet but it definitely is faster than before. I would say 12's but my friend drove it and thinks high 11's. The list of mods includes.

Autotech 262 cams
Autotech HD valve springs
TT Titanium Retainers
MK4 HG (bumps compression to 10.5:1)
3" CAI
2.5" Testpipe and custom exhaust
BFI PEM chip for 262's and high compression (MK4 gasket), Also removes SAI and 2nd O2.
Port and Polished head, Intake manifolds, exhaust manifolds, downpipe
42MM Intake valves (+3 MM)
36MM Exhaust valves (+1.8 MM)
Resurfaced Head
New Valve guides
New cam Followers
ARP Headstuds
2.9 Clone Upper Intake manifold
1.8T IAT sensor
New clutch/pp/throw out bearing
Autotech 10lb FW (stock was 25lbs)
New timing chains/guides/tensioners
Re-grease accessory belt tensioner bearing
Newish front O2 sensor(15K on it)
BFI Stage .5 Poly Motor Mounts
ARP SS Exhaust studs
New Rear Main seal
New input shaft Seal
New Trans Fluid
Oil/Filter Change
New Oil cooler seals
New Thermostat/housing/pipe
New Oil Filter housing seal
New Oil pressure sensors
New water pump with metal impeller
Metal Valve Cover (stock was plastic, did it for looks as I will polish it later)
All New gaskets in the top end and exhaust
New exhaust hangers
Custom SS studs from ex manifolds to downpipe

The port and polishing and all building/disassembling was done myself. The seats and guides were changed by a machine shop. The machine shop also surfaced the head.

First was disassemble the head.


Next was starting to port.
First I traced the gasket to the head to match it but that's not all you need to do for effective porting. There is casting marks that need removed and also you can smooth a lot of transitions in the runners. I did make the ports a little bigger but the main focus is on the casting marks from factory.


I decided the markings was not good enough and bolted the old gasket to the head. Then begin to port all the intake runners.
Removing gasket!

Porting is almost done!


That is what I have for actual pictures of the porting at this point. Polishing will be done after all porting is completed. Next was to get the exhaust ports up to the valve guides and then taken to the machine shop to remove the guides and the seats.

oh and tools..


Next I got some work on the exhaust side done.

Start of first 2 ports being ported.


Ports not touched but I traced the gasket to show the difference in size on the exhaust side.


Almost ported vs not touched.


Four runners down and two more to go.


You can see I only went to the valve guides in those pics.

After porting the runners, the machine shop heated the head and pressed the guides out. I then got a good start to the bowls.


....

[Jason]

Finished the bowls and started to polish..







So as I expected, the bowls for the valves did not match up to the new seats but the machine shop did not want to cut out the old seats before I ported. The day I picked it up they called and asked if I wanted to take it and finish the port work or just have them do it real fast. They said it should only take about an hour so I told them that is fine and to just get it done. The work is not bad by any means but just not as good as mine in my eyes. You can see for yourselves and I would refer people to use this shop if you have a little bit of time to wait for the work to be done. Anyways pics

Here you can see the difference in their polish vs mine. Theirs is not bad but you can see the difference between the bowls and the bottom where they go into the runners. Forgot to take a pic before putting in 2 valves.


Close up


Autotech HD springs and TT titanium retainer with larger supertech exhaust valve and stock keepers.


All of them are in and done.



....

[Jason]

Started to port and polish a lower intake manifold that I had sitting. I don't have pictures of it all but 4 of the 6 ports are ported. All three of the somewhat round ports are done and 1 of the round to oval ports is done. Here are some pics.

First was to mark the manifolds to the size of the gaskets. Bad idea to go larger on these cars and this is why I only went to gasket size on the head..

[Jason]

So not too many pictures for the amount of work done this time but I did snap some..

First. Swap the chip into the ecu.

BFI PEM stg2 High compression


Next I drained all the life out of it.


Off came the front clip


Off with the upper intake manifold


Tear down the stuff connecting to the motor.


Get it ready to pull


And pull.



Now tear down the motor.
Here is the upper chain guide that usually wears out


Head off and started cleaning surface

....

[Jason]

ARP studs and gasket ready for its new top half


And reassemble



Now what good is a ported head if the manifolds are not done….. exhaust mani quick port job





Put ARP stainless steel exhaust studs in. Also made stainless stud for manifolds.


And finish assembling



Now everything is done except for the upper intake manifold and exhaust.

I didn't track of porting on anything except the exhaust manifolds which I spent about 2 hours on. The car had 220K miles on it so I had a hard time with a few things but I spent time over 4 days working on this and getting it all done. The head porting and such was done before these 4 days. I have a little over 1000 miles on this now and it is running great.

[morgaj1]

You may have mentioned it, but how did the crank/bearings look after you tore it down? Also, I am assuming that you put new pistons/rings in as well?

[Jason]

I did not touch the bottom end at this time. That was partly why I went with headstuds as I can reuse them unlike stretch bolts. This bottom end will be built later for turbo but for now I was not doing the bottom end. VW's bearings have a lot tighter clearences than other makes and they usually do not have problems. In most cases when a bearing goes it is caused by the stretch bolts. When the head was off, I did feel for play by trying to wiggle the pistons in the cylinders but they felt fine. The motor ran strong before doing the work to it.

[morgaj1]

Did you re-use the stock pistons/rings or did you go aftermarket?

[jakeru]

I see an old VR6 "crackpipe". I used to have a Passat VR6, and remembered some sort of problems with that on mine, source of a coolant leak. I think a previous mechanic got lazy and didn't clean the bore where the crack pipe o-ring seated. I think I just cleaned it all up, put in a new crackpipe and o-ring and problem was solved.

Question - how do you like the air hose rotator I see you have attached to a couple of your air tools? I've been thinking of getting something like it for my die grinders. And maybe a light, flexible air hose "whip" on the end to make it even less cumbersome.

[Jason]

@morgaj: I didn't take them out at all. I didn't even drop the pan as the plan was top end now and then I will do the bottom later. Bump in compression is from a thinner HG. This car is a MK3 which had a different material gasket than the newer model MK4. Using the MK4 HG bumps the compression and with chip has shown ~8WHP.

@jakeru: I found that there are quite a few people on here that know VW's You are correct that the coolant pipe in that pic is old. I replaced it with both o-rings but did not take a picture with the new one on. As to the swivel ends, I gotta say I do like them. I didn't use one on the silver grinder and did on the black one. I do like having them better as the hose hangs and is less of a pain.

[Jason]

I have not mentioned the new plans for this car yet so here we go.. The N/A build was only temp as I mentioned before and the end goal is to build the bottom end and go turbo. Well that process is now in the works.. Parts collection time...

GTX3582R with Tial .82a/r
3.0L 9:1 JE Forged Pistons
Integrated Engineering Forged H Beam rods
Coated rob bearings (already coated mains)
Tial 38mm MVS wastegate
Tial 50mm QR BOV


Integrated Engineering Surge Tank
Bosch 044 Fuel Pump
630cc Injectors
Oil Feed/Return Lines/Fittings


CM FX400 6 Puck Clutch


Going to run this on Megasquirt 3/3x Standalone. Still need the MS3/3x, Innovate MTX-L wideband, silicon coolant hoses, Metal coolant pipe, gaskets, and intercooler. Thinking about going air/water..

Should make for a nice ~500whp daily driver.

And a more recent pic other than it has the plug wires off.. I finished the upper manifold and such..


Fitted AN fittings for my catch can

[sportbike]

Nice. Especially the turbo part :-)

That is pretty much teh same turbo I have on my bike (just a gt3582R, not a gtx).
Did you go with the gtx for any particular reason? Seems they don't outperform a regular GT35 until very high boost.

[Jason]

I read someplace that they have better spool charactorists and are something like 10% more efficient. I thought about the GT3582R but decided to just spend the extra for the GTX for no real reason really.. I plan to run ~20-25 PSI and have the ability for more.

[sportbike]

A few guys put them on bikes. They only seem to make much difference about 30psi. I believe one said it made about 12hp more at high boost. Might be a bit different at the higher flow, lower boost for your larger displacement application, I haven't really looked into them too much.

[Jason]

Yea I wonder if the larger displacement would make any difference. Either way if I don't make the power that I want I can throw more boost at it later. I want to build the trans before I put too much power down and I should be ok to throw more than 30PSI with some different injectors and a second bosch 044 pump.. Running standalone would save me from having the cost of software again plus the internals will hold.. 9:1CR might be something to look at a little but I am pretty sure others are running like 36PSI on 9:1. One of the build I know of was running 36PSI and made well over 800WHP.. In a 2900LB FWD car, that is too much power so 500-600WHP is more than enough for me. My other build I have posted here that is going twin turbo and AWD will be my toy to make the 800-1000WHP if I decide I want to push limits.. The stock trans on that car will only take 550AWHP though so I would have to build that trans up also.. Then again 550AWHP in a ~3300LB car seems like it would be more than enough to.

[Mr120]

Great project and you are smart not to go too crazy with horsepower on a light front wheel drive car. Now, going "twin turbo and AWD will be my toy to make the 800-1000WHP" sounds like a really fun ride too ....

[youngnstudly]

What a monster! The porting looks nice. Do you have professional experience with porting heads, or are you a hobbyist like the rest of us? Looks like you've done porting before.

I couldn't help but laugh when I saw the ashtray of cigarette butts next to all the grinding tools. Reminded me of the guy I used to work with in the HVAC shop that smoked. When we installed the fiberglass insulation to the HVAC ducting, the company provided dust masks for us to use (to save our lungs from the fiberglass). His always had a hole cut out of the center so he could smoke when he was out there cutting insulation by himself. I always joked with him that if the smoking didn't kill his lungs, the fiberglass would sneak in right behind it and finish the job...Unless OSHA walked in and saw him smoking in the workplace first and terminated his job!

[jakeru]

Nice, with the turbo pics and all, I bet we'll see some welding going on for this project soon (with boost tubes, exhaust parts, etc). Should be fun. I'm curious which air-water type setup you're considering?

I do hope you are planning to run a limited slip differential of some sort to put the FWD power down. I am pretty happy with the Peloquin 020 in my Rabbit autocrosser.

Peloquin's Planetary Torque-Sensing Differentials:
http://www.peloquins.com/products.html

[Jason]

This was actually my first time porting a head but I had some knowledge about it before jumping into it. In regards to the ashtray, I had 0 participation with filling it (asthma) but it was my friends shop although he did have help filling it. All my "car" knowledge and experience has come from hobbiest interest. I know people who work in the industry and some who have gone to school for it but my main career is in computers (Networking and Software/Systems engineering).

The 020 trans bolts to a 4 cyl and is very weak actually. The MK3 VR6 had a O2A 5 speed which can swap internals and other parts with the MK4 O2J.. I have not decided on what my trans setup will be in the end but for now it will be factory. I expect that the trans will destroy some gears before it comes out but regardless, a LSD is in the plans. I am just trying to decide if I want to buy SQS gears and stay with the O2A 5 speed or if I want to swap to the O2M 6 speed from a MK4 24v VR6 car. It is more work to swap as I would need to make a custom mount, custom length axles and some other bits but that trans should be good to hold ~550hp in stock form.

The current plans do involve some welding which I need my new 255 EXT for. Current plans include a custom short run intake manifold, a tubular exhaust manifold, down pipe, and boost pipes. Eventually the custom build 2.5 inch exhaust will come offand a 3 inch will be built to go on.

Intercooler wise, I was thinking about getting a setup from FrozenBoost but have not decided. I might just stay simple and go with a good air/air front mount since its a daily driver and I don't plan to run an ice box anyways.

[youngnstudly]

This was actually my first time porting a head but I had some knowledge about it before jumping into it. In regards to the ashtray, I had 0 participation with filling it (asthma) but it was my friends shop although he did have help filling it. All my "car" knowledge and experience has come from hobbiest interest. I know people who work in the industry and some who have gone to school for it but my main career is in computers (Networking and Software/Systems engineering).

The 020 trans bolts to a 4 cyl and is very weak actually. The MK3 VR6 had a O2A 5 speed which can swap internals and other parts with the MK4 O2J.. I have not decided on what my trans setup will be in the end but for now it will be factory. I expect that the trans will destroy some gears before it comes out but regardless, a LSD is in the plans. I am just trying to decide if I want to buy SQS gears and stay with the O2A 5 speed or if I want to swap to the O2M 6 speed from a MK4 24v VR6 car. It is more work to swap as I would need to make a custom mount, custom length axles and some other bits but that trans should be good to hold ~550hp in stock form.

The current plans do involve some welding which I need my new 255 EXT for. Current plans include a custom short run intake manifold, a tubular exhaust manifold, down pipe, and boost pipes. Eventually the custom build 2.5 inch exhaust will come offand a 3 inch will be built to go on.

Intercooler wise, I was thinking about getting a setup from FrozenBoost but have not decided. I might just stay simple and go with a good air/air front mount since its a daily driver and I don't plan to run an ice box anyways.

I have asthma too, plus I'm allergic to cigarette smoke. I have to laugh at the people I know who smoke continually, as I can see what their future holds...Pain, suffering, and lung cancer. If I didn't laugh, I'd probably get angry or start sobbing uncontrollably (haha, well not really). I watched my grandfather battle chronic Emphysema after smoking and drinking for 45 years straight (daily) and the last few years of his life were spent next to an oxygen cylinder. Getting a glass of water or a napkin from the kitchen at dinner time became a 15 ordeal most of the time, and it was only 20 feet away! You can't tell others that though, they have to learn on their own.

It really looks like you knew what you were doing with those chambers and ports. I am like you in the sense that I know just enough about porting to get myself into a little trouble, but nowhere near the amount that the professionals (who do this all day long) know. I ported a few pairs of air-cooled VW heads and manifolds over the years, and I learned a lot. It's a fun way to keep your hobby interesting, with a minimal cost of parts. I went to college and got welding, machining, and automotive certificates, but now I wish I had gotten into computers and a few other areas I'm clueless about! My neighbor and my Aunt both help me out with computer problems that arise, but it would be nice to not have to count on them!

Your intake and exhaust projects sound fun! I have a few of those as well that I need a bigger (AC capable) tig welder to complete. That 255EXT sounds like a sweet machine! I'd love to own one one day!