ShopTalk Forums | Aircooled VW Tech & Restoration Help

Well guys, after a slightly disappointing year last year with the bug, I am ready to make a few changes. Over all the car felt good and was a blast to drive. But it had a few issues that I couldn't get past. The car suffered from pretty high intake temps, constantly pushed oil out of the Rajay B40 turbo, and had a super annoying harmonic sound that came on at a certain RPM, pretty sure it had to do with the funky header that I have, and I didn't like how I did the initial wire up for the EFI. I also was in the mood to try something new for the ignition as well. The car came off the road in January, and is still being worked on right now. I have spent the last few months getting parts together and have finally gotten things to the point that it is actually worth posting up some photos of the progress.
Was this:

Now this:

Looks great

How will you mount the pipe to the TB?

Wow that looks pretty cool. Good idea.

I say, yeah buddy!

Where'd you get the firewall multi-plug?

Looks great.. can't wait to see the progress

Hope that pipe doesn't block too much air to the 3/4 side...


BTW, I can fix your turbo. Shoot me a PM.

Thanks for the comments guys! My old intake bolts down onto the TB which has an O-ring on it. It sealed great, I'll go with the same setup this time around. I also hope that the 3/4 side does okay. If it doesn't, I'll go around the shroud like the 1-2 side. Plug came from DIYautotune its the 22 pin Weatherpack.

That's going to be a really clean install, I like it. I couldn't figure out how your intake mounted up at the T-body in the first pic, but the o-ring seal you described sounds like a great way to make it work. I hope the pipe throught the shroud doesn't cause any head temp issues. Maybe put a restriction of some kind inside the shroud on the 1-2 side to even out the flow and head temps...if it is even a problem.

Best of luck to ya this race season!

damn that thing is sweet, at a good price too! do you need any other special tools to assemble it? currently I have a fistful of different 3-4 pin weatherpacks connecting everything (no confusion since they only go one way, but not as clean as that). But I'm redoing a few things this summer too... it says it has positions for big 12 ga wiring, what size is the alternator wire again?

I have that same intercooler mounted in mine. Not as done as nice yours though.

turbobaja wrote:That's going to be a really clean install, I like it. I couldn't figure out how your intake mounted up at the T-body in the first pic, but the o-ring seal you described sounds like a great way to make it work. I hope the pipe throught the shroud doesn't cause any head temp issues. Maybe put a restriction of some kind inside the shroud on the 1-2 side to even out the flow and head temps...if it is even a problem.

Best of luck to ya this race season!

I am running E-85 pretty much exclusively for now, so I'm thinking head temps won't be high no matter what I do, though the evening things out idea might be a good one.

There is a tab that is welded to the pipe that mounts up to a hole on the back side of the TB, the hole is where the idle valve holder used to go. I never saw any signs of leakage at the tb, like I did at the unclamped stock rubber boots. Never ran a whole lot of boost though either. I don't think I'll be afraid to turn it up this year though.
The new header will put the turbo in the exact same spot as the CB hideaway, just no piping around the back of the car at all, I don't have it yet, that's why the pipe work isn't quite done to the turbo. It will have one piece of silicone visible, that'll be the one at the turbo. Then the whole system will be tigged up, and coated/chromed/painted, I'm not sure yet which. I'm hoping to run a cold air intake of some sort, possibly into the fender well, I'm tired of high intake temps due to pulling air from a warm (closed decklid) engine compartment.

Sorry to ask again, but was it difficult assembling that firewall plug Chip?

Looks awesome, Chip. Great work!

The firewall plug was just like any other weatherpack connector, tedious, but not difficult. It comes with multiple gauge inserts, so that was nice. Mine will be completely populated when I'm done, 22 pins barely covered it. But it worked out well enough.

Nice work Chip! Way to be different!