This thread is an continuation of documentation for my hillclimb/Time attack NA Miata, sometimes dubbed "Blue", but most often known as "that raggedy looking miata that just blew my doors off"



After it began life as a humble 1.8L automatic car, it has had a mildly built N/A 1.8L(150whp), a N/A K24(220whp), and a turbo K24(400-600whp) installed in it, making this the 4th engine configuration to power this thing.

The latest swap in question is a Volkswagon/Aldi/Lamborghini(hell its all just VAG) 2.5L, 5 cylinder engine, or "07K" as its more commonly known. In its stock form, this motor was found in early 2000's Rabbets, Jettas, and Golfs. The head design and architecture found its way into the V10 installed both in Audi R8's and Lamborghini's with a few minor changes(as well as the Audi RS3 DAZA engine family).


The O7K is an iron block, aluminum head, DOHC engine known for its reliability, earning the moniker "VW's most reliable motor". It's also a thoroughly a VAG design, with a rear timing chain, triple square/torx fasteners everywhere, and lots of little things that just makes you sigh and go "yeah... that's VW alright".
N/A these motors make around 190whp... in a fwd car... with a tune(man VW guys LOVE their "tunes"). Obviously that's not nearly enough for my use case, so I'll be strapping a block windower to the side of it. The EFR 7670 treated me well with the K, and I'll be using it again with this motor. The O7K makes a little bit better torque then the K does due to the longer stroke and lower redline, which should honestly work out better for hillclimbing.

Previously the transmission in this car had been a CD009 out of a Nissian 350/370. This will not carry over to the new build. I had already been planning out a new transmission choice for the K, and will carry that over to this design iteration.
Instead, the manual, Nissan transmission will be replaced with a BMW/Dodge automatic transmission, the 8HP. While ditching a manual transmission in favor of an auto will be a controversial choice to some, for this use case its benefits well outweigh the downsides. The consistency and speed of flappy paddles, as well as the ability to always be able to left foot brake cannot be overstated for track use.
The BMW 8HP is a stout transmission found in a handful of full body BMW "luxury" cars. While I never dug into the details, the transmission found its way into the Dodge Ram and Charger/Challenger(as well as some Jag/Audi chassis), making the USDM versions of this transmission extremely easy to source stateside. That Charger you saw on tictok doing donuts during a takeover? Yup, that probably had an 8HP in it(as long as it was actually a V8, and not a wannabe V6...).


I will retain the Maxx Race ECU that has run the car for the last few years. Maxx now has native 8HP support(well, it both does, and it doesn't, but that's its own deep dive for later...) meaning both engine and transmission will be able to work together in perfect(hopefully) harmony.

That's the brief overview. And yes, that was the brief version. There was a LOT of complexity to this choice of powertrain. I wanted an engineering challenge and man... I got that in spades.

Now for the details...

 

The first thing I should get out of the way is that this engine doesn't really "fit" in an NA chassis. Like, at all. Its not that much longer or taller then a K series, but as any Kswapper knows, a K only "kinda" fits. During my research I found some screenshotted CAD files on the internet where someone just roughly dropped the two into each other...



Obviously from that rendering, a custom oil pan would be required, that extremely tall oil fill neck at the rear would need changing, and the motor would stick out the hood even worse than the K series did. All manageable things, but it's far from a drop in, and I would not expect to see anyone come out with a "07K Miata swap kit" anytime soon. Or really ever. The V8R subframe would be a requirement to gain valuable bay space, the hood would need chopped or V* "shaker" vent added, and mouning it to a Miata transmission would be a whole can of worms as well...

I craned the motor into the bay to confirm those random CAD models were correct and yup... things were tight, even with the 07K's rear water neck removed and engine shoved all the way up against the firewall.


Things got even worse when I sourced a transmission and ratchet strapped the two together for a mockup. The thickness of the bell housing displaced the motor even farther forward, and the relatively high crank centerline meant by the time the transmission "fit" the tunnel, the motor was entirely clear of the hood. Completely removing the upper and lower oil pan gained some room, but fitment was still extremely poor.


So things... escalated. I initially just tried hammering the pinch points, then trimming. And then full on cutting. I didn't start out with the intent on building a "mid-engine" Miata, but by the time I happy with the engine and transmission placement... Its basically a mid-engine car now. The rear timing cover is only 2-3" forward of the windshield base, and the #1 cylinder is even with the shock towers, completely aft of the steering rack.




I ended up cutting the firewall out almost completely, and rebuilding it 4-5" farther aft.
The majority of the transmission tunnel forward of the OE shifter hole had to be cut and moved upwards to clear the bell housing. I spent countless hours cutting and welding inside the cabin, first removing everything that hit, then welding in replacement metal. I reused the original transmission sheet metal top to help give the illusion of a stock tunnel to those that don't look too closely. In reality it was a substantial amount of metal that had to be cut and grafted.




I did build a small rear access panel into the new tunnel. I'm hoping I never need to actually use it for anything, but its there to afford access to the rear water neck and bellhousing bolts, items you really can't get to once the engine is in the car.

 

With the engine sitting more or less where I wanted it in the car(note this is APPROX, at this point in time I didn't have an engine to transmission adapter... so the two were ratchet strapped together for rough fitment. More on that saga later), I did still have to make some modifications to the OE oil pan. But the good news for me is that this does used an OE pan, at least as the basis. I didn't want the hassle of having to build a completely custom oil pan from scratch, as that's fairly time consuming and expensive. Utilizing a modified stock oil pan, if I send a few rods through the pan(this will 100% happen at some point) it's a much, much easier process to build a new one then patch a fully custom pan.
Basically I just cut the front of the pan off. Not to difficult a process, but this is only made possible by the fact the 07K has a rear mounted oil pump and timing chain, which turns out is a huge help when swapping it into something with tight steering rack clearances. You can't do similar with a K because that's where the oil pump lives.



In a small bit of irony, I saved some fabrication time by chopping this bit of aluminum angle out of my old beat to hell Kpower pan. I was initially going to sell this pan, but it's had 3 rods go though it at various points(in all forms, solid, powdered, and extra glittery) , been hammered and welded back into shape, and needs a faaat amount of RTV to seal... Didn't feel comfortable passing this headache on to someone else.


Aside from this trim job in the front and adding a turbo drain to the side, this is a completely stock upper/lower oil pan. I probably should add baffling to it at some point, but the focus for the time being is "make it all work and run". The lower oil pan can be dropped fairly easily with the engine still in the car, so pulling it out for modifications at a later point isn't much of an issue.





Since I had just chopped out 5-6" of firewall and transmission tunnel, I had completely removed the ABS location. So for what is the third time in as many years... I found myself relocating the ABS module. Which necessitated putting in completely new lines, again.
This time though, I got smart and listened to Curley



Everywhere that a line needed to go through a bulkhead or firewall, I did a nice a neat AN connection. So much easier to build lines when I didn't have to contort an entire line through a tiny hole that would then need a grommet or silicone to seal. The ABS module moved to the passenger footwell, making that area decently tight for any passengers, but that's the sacrifice they must pay for me having good brakes.

 

Since this will no longer be a manual transmission car, I don't need that third pedal. Removal of the clutch pedal is easy, but then the OE setup is just... awkward. My left foot, now responsible for brake duty, would be constantly off center and fighting for room with my right pedal foot. Oh, and the OE Miata gas pedal would not suffice... to allow for torque reduction during shifts, I'd need to convert to DBW, meaning an entirely new pedal would have to be installed.


For gas pedal, I opted to go with the GM pedal found in the Camaro. Rondeb already has a fairly good guide for installing one of these into an NB pedalbox, and the process is mostly the same for fitting it to an NA. Chop off the old manual pedal sheetmetal, weld in a fresh plate with the appropriate studs for the GM pedal, and do lots of test fitting and laying on your back in the car getting placement *just* right. Tedious but not hard.




For the brake pedal, I chopped the OE pedal off just upwards of where it begins to bend inboard, then replicated a reverse image of it in 1/4"steel, but bending it outboard for proper placement. To add a little bit of extra safety factor, I bridged the two halves with an additional bit of metal.



With both the new gas pedal installed and the modified brake pedal functional, I could sit in the car and make engine noises to my heart's content.


Engine mounts
I didn't want a repeat of the K24 situation where I was solid mounting the engine to the chassis. While I don't expect to have anywhere near the same amount of vibration from the O7K as the K24, a straight 5 isn't a *perfectly* balanced engine so I wanted some amount of dampening.
I looked into building engine mounts from scratch, then realized the easier option would be to find an OE/Aftermarket mount and adapt them as needed. So that's how I ended up with AWR Fiat Spider mounts to my VW engine.
Of course these don't drop in, I did some hefty modifications to them, but the core is the AWR mounts with the stiffest inserts.



I have the mounting pads tac welded to the V8R subframe for now- enough they hold the motor in place for mockup, but not so much they will be a bear to remove. The engine and transmission have been basically ratchet strapped together this entire time for mockup, but I don't know *exactly* where they will land until they are mated together with an adapter. Which at the time of taking these photos... didn't exist.

 

good lord, what a build. i assume no floor mounted shifter only flappy padles? looksl ike no room under the metal of the transmission tunnel for anything? i got no idea how these 8hps actually change gears, i assume cables and electronics up to a unit in the car?

 

This is a combination that by no means bolts together or fits in a NA Miata chassis. The first hurdle that presents itself is that for some reason, this VAG engine produced for FWD cars doesn't bolt up to a RWD BMW/Dodge transmission. A custom bellhousing adapter and flexplate would need to be produced to mate the two. This is something that's *well* beyond my capabilities. I can maybe handle a project that requires accuracy down to 1/16th an inch or so. The tolerances for engine adapters can be down to the thousandths...
This was a job for an expert. Thankfully, the Miata community is fantastic, and I was referred to a "local" machinist/fabricator in North Carolina, Mike at Chatham CNC. If you've ever been to MATG you've probably seen his LS swapped NA with cantilever suspension sticking out the hood...


I sent Mike a message with the general outline of what I was doing and needed built. A few phonecall conversations later and he agreed to take on this project... I think it was just dumb and complex enough to tickle his fancy. Late November of last year I met up with him and gave him a transmission, engine block, crank, rear timing cover, starter, and other misc bits he would need to have to make fit together. I knew this would take a few months to produce(it was agreed between the two of us the adapter would not be a primary focus- Mike runs a full time CNC shop and would develop this on the side as his time allowed), so I did the mockup fitting I needed, then handed everything over for Mike to work his magic on.

While he had one engine, I installed another into the car to continue building up all the systems surrounding it. Sidenote, these engines are cheap, which was one of the reasons they appealed to me. I bought 3 running engines for less than I ever paid for a junkyard K24A($712 I think was the total for 3 of them, the most expensive one being $250). Having so many on hand made it easy to send one out with Mike, keep one in the car for mockup, and have yet another on hand to aid in fabrication.


Although I didn't have the final engine and transmission locations locked down in stone, I was able to continue to develop the rest of the systems at the front of the car. With the engine shoved so far back in the car, it opened up a ton of room to move the heat exchanger stack rearwards as well. Except the swaybar was in the way. All the Kswap guys know the struggle of having the K24 crank bolt rub on the sway bar... well for reference, I had something like 4-5" of clearance between the swaybar in its OE position and the 07K harmonic balancer. And the sway bar ran right through where I wanted to put the heat exchanger stack... so I moved it.


I gave myself plenty of room to still have access to the front of the motor to be able to spin it by hand, change accessory belts, ect, and also made an effort to keep the overall geometry and leverage arm of the swaybar on the suspension the same. Just farther aft. The lower control arm mounting points all got cut and moved from the mid/forward side of the arm to the very rear, pretty much as far back as I could reasonably move them. Instead of reusing the space hogging OE mounts, I ran a few steel bars from framerails to the appropriate mounting location. I spent a lot of time with a tape measure ensuring I kept the mounting locations square to the chassis and to each other. I also moved the swaybar lower in the chassis- this both lowers, ever so slightly, the COG of the car, but more of an impact was no long needing to unbolt and drop the swaybar for engine removals. Its low enough the entire driveline can simply go over it, saving a ton of time and effort during engine removals.


Instead of reusing the space hogging OE mounts, I ran a few steel bars from framerails to the appropriate mounting location. I spent a lot of time with a tape measure ensuring I kept the mounting locations square to the chassis and to each other.



I then moved cooler stackup as far aft as I could without it hitting the swaybar or steering rack. Until you look closely, one would think everything is in its "factory" location due to the spacing remaining the same.


The previous cooler stackup was held to the chassis with 3 10mm bolts threading horizontally though tabs welded to both radiator and frame rails. Each 10mm was both load bearing and installed in sheer, something I'm surprised never failed on me considering they even when stationary, they are holding ~20lbs of coolant and heat exchanger, and several times that when in movement. Install and removal was cumbersome and required two sets of hands(one to take the weight of the stackup, one to remove the bolts) or the aid of a carefully placed jack. It was a 10-15min process just to get everything to lined up and attached. I did away with this very poorly thought out mounting scheme in favor of two forward facing bars coming off the swaybar mounts that interfaced to tabs on the radiator, and then one single 10mm bolt in a non-load bearing orientation just to prevent everything from sliding. Installation AND removal of the entire stack can now be accomplished with ease by one person in under a minute.
-Editing note... I have zero photos of this setup, because sometimes I get in the zone and just... don't take photos. Yay!-


There's so much more to cover... I've been working on this as much as time allows since... I dunno... Octoberish? But I'm going to skip forward about 4 months because I got my hands on some VERY important bits today that took then project from "this feels like a pipe dream" to "holy **** this could be REAL"

 

Wow, very nice build and something new for sure. I can't wait to hear this thing. I love how the i5 sounds under load. Did you start this motor with the MaxEcu and Camaro throttle pedal yet? I know from my own experience that the Camaro pedal is super sensitive to voltage drops in the wiring and causes people some issues until the wiring is absolutely perfect. But I think I did see your IG post with the DBW throttle body working, so I hope it is all working well. Cant wait to see more posts about the build details. Keep it coming, please. :-)

 

I teased Mike's(Chatham CNC) involvement in this earlier. Building an engine/transmission adaptor was something I am not capable of pulling off. On a good day I can be accurate down to maybe a 1/16th of an inch... these are items were thousandths matter. And would be spinning at 8000rpm next to my feet. An expert was needed.
I had handed Mike everything he needed months ago. But early January Mike had worked though his primary backlog and was starting to tackle the adapter.

Sidenote, I could have opted to wait another month or two and buy an off the shelf BMW to 07K adapter. These(should, very very soon, allegedly, made by a scandinavian country) exist. But there a few snags to that.
Maxx ECU only supports "Gen 1" 8HP's. Basically Maxx is flashing the transmission TCU's with modified dodge demon software, and using that wizardry to gain control. There are other vender's that solder control boards directly to the mechatronics(CANTCU) and allow usage of Gen 1 and 2 transmissions, but this means adding another ~$2000 in electronics and additionally complexity.
Alright, fine, so I'm stuck finding a Gen1 8HP. Issue, these really only came on diesel BMW's, which... never made it to the US. So I'd be stuck importing transmission(s) from the UK or EU. And since that's becoming an increasingly popular option, these are now going for close to $4k to get one stateside... I don't even know if there's Tariffs on top of that. Oof.
Solution, use the Dodge 8HP transmissions, which are all Gen 1 and compatible with Maxx, as well as being everywhere here stateside. As the market for them is primarily only USDM, the adapter selection hasn't taken off yet, and these aren't getting snapped up by everyone wanting 8HP swaps. As a result its still easy to find one for under $1k, TC included, and with some patience they can be scored for closer to $600.
So while I'm paying a good bit to have an adapter built, I paid only a few hundred more for this adapter then what an off the shelf kit would be for the BMW 8HP(assuming its close in cost to what the LS/N57/K/Chevy to 8HP adapters are), a transmission which would then cost me at least 5 times as much as the Dodge 8HP does, while also being harder to get my hands on.
The downside to this is the Dodge 8HP has a massive bellhousing. But since I ended up shoving the entire assembly backwards, cutting would have been involved regardless. Sidenote over...

I had initially built a flex plate using a VW flex plate welded to a Dodge ring gear and handed that to Mike. I had really taken my time with it trying to get everything centered and even. Mike very politely told me the runout was atrocious on it and built a new flex plate using a VW flex plate welded to a dodge ring gear... but much more accurately and not with atrocious runout in every direction. This allows a dodge factory starter to engage everything, and the dodge factory TC to bolt up to the rear of the VW engine.



The torque converted did need to be modified slightly. It has a "mushroom" snout that sticks into the rear of the crank in the factory config. However, it's much to large to fit into the VW crank, so Mike turned it down to be a snug fit.


The adapter plate he machined down from a 1/2" sheet of aluminum. 6 bolts engage the VW timing plate, 6 engage the dodge transmission, and the starter bolts up to the plate on the forward side. The transmission did need a good bit of bellhousing trimming, as well as a section of the VW timing plate to allow for starter/TC bolt access.






This morning I picked everything up from him and assembled it along with a longblock in my garage. Man... it feels real now, having these to items together and joined.




And with a few accessories bolted to it. Like I said, there's a lot shown here thats not yet been covered. More to come. Excuse the mess, it is still a work in progress after all...

 

Its "just" an automatic transmission. All the shifting mechatronics(mechanical and electrical) are inside the gearbox with a torque converter in the bellhouseing. Only external bit is a single connector with power/ground and canbuss running though it. Shifting can be left up to the ECU(auto mode) or manually shifted with flappy paddles/sequential style lever(manual mode). I'll be using flappy paddles.
Still at least a few weeks, if not a month or more till first fireup. I have gotten the Camaro pedal and VW throttle assembly working together on the "bench" without issue after some trial and error. If this pedal gives me issues I think the Honda Fit pedal is another popular one to use, but I took my time with the DBW/Pedal wiring so it shouldn't have issues there.

 

Yay! I made it to the build thread. Just an FYI, and to anyone reading, you can use -3 tube nuts on both ends. Just need to buy some m10x1.0(?) and m12x1.0(?) adapters. I like this method because if you throw your helmet in the car or otherwise crush a line (especially with those weak copper lines), you can just grab a long *** pre-made -3 brake line from any hydraulic shop and throw it in. For our first iteration of mk60 ABS, the entire car was soft line. Had roughly a week to install ABS and prep for a race, so bending custom hardlines wasn't in the schedule. Worked great.

Project is nuts, for sure. Wouldn't expect anything less. Although I'm still a little bummed it's not an actual V10.

Fix your sig.

 

Holy ****!!! It's happening!

 

Glad Mike was able to hook you up!

Looking forward to following this and continuing to help where I can. Awesome work and good progress!

 

First episode of the new season of Wingman did not disappoint

 

Awesome, I knew you'd pull something crazy out here.

I love that you pushed the engine so far back, it's a race car, who cares if it's not in the OE location.

as for the ABS and passenger footroom, you could have put the pump in front of the downtube on the right, but then it's more a pain to work on, longer lines, and have to shield the lines from "brake mashing" passengers.

And i'm unsure of those 3, ~1/2" bars acting as sway mounts. I'd suggest putting dial indicators on them when static, and jacking up one side. see how far you flex.
Though to strengthen you could just box them all together and have something quite a bit more robust.


Good job dude, tons of real and brain sweat has gone into this in such a short time.

 

Can't wait to hear Audi Quattro Group B noises at Gridlife events!

 

Mike got me into this whole Miata mess! We were chatting a few months ago and he sent me some pictures of the adapter plate - I sort of put 2 and 2 together

I second the concern about the sway bar mounting, there shouldn't be a ton of fore\aft force on those mounts but there's always more than you think. Boxing them in would probably be cheap insurance

Insane build, can't wait to hear more about it. Somehow I don't think this setup is going to become more common like your K swap did

 

Wow.. Just wow!

My mind is still boggling ...

Nthing the sway mount, just sheet the outside pair, or add a diagonal.

 

I applaud the insanity that positively gallops through this project. It makes me feel positively normal!

Have you weighed the engine + trans combo? I'm guessing there is a lot of gravity in there.

 

I posted that V10 in jest, but part of me really did want to make that happen. Thankfully the insanity only goes so deep as that would have been development hell for... a long time.
-Fixed, man I forgot about that thing, it still said 400whp out of a Z3! Those were the days...
Mike's awesome and your insight continues to be invaluable,even if that entire night of CAD modeling how this would all fit in an NA ended up being pointless once I sawzalled the firewall. Hell, just putting Mike and I in contact saved me so much headache, because I was planning to start talks with a Polish company to make that adapter happen, and there's no telling how long and expensive that might have turned out to be.
Ohhh... closeish, but that was actually a R5T 20V. Doesn't really share any architecture with the 0K7 that I'm aware of. Ah hell, a 5 cylinder is a 5 cylinder though I guess.
I'll be sure to do that at some point. That would require the car to be in a rolling state though, which it... isn't in yet. If there's undue flex I can box the fore/aft direction without too much hassle. Honestly though I would expect the Miata frame rails to dent at the weld points before the ~3/8th inch stainless rod.
I have not weighed this combo. It is most certainly heavier then the K24/CD009 combo... The 8HP alone holds 8qt of transmission fluid, and the 07K is an iron block 5 cylinder compared to the K24 aluminum block 4 cylinder.
From a combination of @doward thread and the internet, Id say the K24(no turbo) and CD009 was a combo of ~400lb(250lb K24, 130lb CD009). Internet claims the 8HP is 190lb and the 07K, depending where you get your numbers from, is around 300lb. So I'd wager this swap is adding at *least* 100lbs. Granted, the K24 has two aluminum cylinders forward of the shock towers and a bell housing even with the pedals. This swap has 5 cylinders aft of the shock tower and a bell housing even with your calves. Not to mention a heat exchanger stackup moved aft 6" or more from an "OE" setup. I'll absolutely want to get this car on the scales at some point to see how it weighs out, but I do suspect the scales will tip towards nose heavy.



One major constraint to shoving this motor back another 3" is the 07k's rear water neck. Like a K24/rerouted BP, it exits in the very rear. Since the 07K has a rear timing chain, this means it passes through the rear timing cover. VW has a funky double seal setup.. one in the timing cover to keep oil in, a solid plastic spacer for rigidity, and then the coolant seal, all sandwiched together around the coolant pipe. I'm sure this stackup will NEVER cause me issues in the future... Oh, and the rear neck is plastic, so it wasn't anything I could modify for my uses.
Thankfully, Boost Brothers Garage makes a verrry nice, billet aluminum rear water neck(they also produce the cast intake manifold you will see showing up at some point). This thing is really a work of machining art, it was so pretty I almost didn't want to chop it up to suit my needs. Also has sooo many outlets and weird proprietary VW fittings on it! Ulgh VW things.


The OE neck/BB aluminum replica has the coolant neck exiting almost directly down... right to where the 8HP bellhousing would be. Einstein says two physical objects cannot occupy the same space at the same time, so this needs to change.


Since this BB neck was aluminum, I could modify it. So I chopped off the outlet, rotated it 90*, welded it back on, closed up all those outlets I didn't need, added two 1/8th NPT ports for temp and pressure sensors, and added a fill neck. This places the radiator cap at the very rear and highest coolant spot, very reminiscent of how I had the K24 neck orientated. And actually, it's a K24 temp sensor, because I already had the calibration tables stored in the ECU and a few spare sensors laying around. The VW sensor is a wack clip in style... threaded sensors just weren't good enough for zeee Geeermans engineeeerz I guess.



I also kept my CWA400 water pump solution- I do quite like the ability to bleed coolant without the engine running, and varying pump speed independent of engine RPM/load. It does introduce a lot of annoyances with warmup and maintaining temp in low load/very cold ambient temp situations(no Tstat), but the trade offs are worth it for the track and garage.
Placing the pump proved to be a bear. The space it previously occupied was now taken up by an oil filter. After lots, and I mean LOTS of deliberation, I ended up moving it down to the base of the radiator, mounted with a plate from swaybar mount to frame(that could have, in hindsight, been used to brace the sway bar...). Routing the coolant to it here requires some fancy piping work as the cold side charge piping also demands this same real estate, but it's a workable solution.

 

Enough of talking about coolant!
At some point during the V8R subframe install/swaybar mounting I had pulled apart all my front suspension. I realized, during this, my lower ball joint holes were very badly wallered out. I had this happen to one side before at Gridlife CMP last year, and thought it was due to the through bolt loosening up and being allowed to move. But both the repaired side, and the untouched side, which was NOT loose when removed, showed signs of the bolt migrating(again). Yeesh. Apparently OE arms can't handle the sustained loads this car was producing.



I grabbed a few washers and welded them to the control arms, effectively doubling the thickness of the steel in this area. Had to grab some longer bolts as well, but hopefully this takes car of these bolts wandering around and giving me dynamic toe. If this doesn't solve it I'll have to look into aftermarket arms, but I'd like to avoid giving V8R more money than absolutely required(and those arms are a good bit of money...)




Oddly enough, there's only a handful of turbo manifolds available off the shelf for the 07K. Most are built around a FWD chassis and wouldn't work for me at all, and some are... atrocious. I mean this cast manifold T3 to Vband adapter monstrosity is considered acceptable in VW circles! Gross and absolutely wouldn't fly for my uses. I mean just... Ulgh. There's other issues with this setup, like the turbo outlet would be less than a half inch from the starter with no room for a downpipe, the wastegate sits suuuper high and would probably poke out the hood, and that turbo is a reverse mount. No, no, and hell no.


The few RWD focused manifolds put the turbo in spaces occupied by my frame rails, starter, or hood. I realized pretty quickly that NOTHING off the shelf would fit my needs and a one off tubular manifold would be required(this will be farmed out to someone that actually welds for a living. More on this later). As unfortunate as that is, it did give me complete freedom to place the turbo anywhere I wanted.
So I stuck it down as low as I could while still getting a good drain angle to pan and allowing room for a 5 cylinder collector, while keeping it tight to the engine to minimize leverage on the manifold. To bear its load, I built an integrated turbo brace/drain. This takes 100% of the turbo's weight, hopefully giving the welded manifold its best shot at living a long, uncracked life.