May be gettin my hands on a 86 VW Golf!
 

Anybody know anything about these lil fuckers?

Its and 86 5-speed, the only problems with it is the AC pump is chattering really bad (i think thats whats chattering) something is loose up in the engine bay and rattels really bad when you hit a bump and it somtimes has trouble starting (fuel or spark) it will only run on like 2 cylinders till you give it a lil gas for a few seconds.

Whats the best forum for Vdubs? so i can do some searching while i consult with yall! :giggle:

Its my sisters car and her boyfriend knocked her up a few months back so she needs a better/reliable/safer car so i may be taking it off her hands to help her out.

Gay.

dont hate! lol that car has done me good so far, its made several parts trips accross GA and get pretty damn good gas mileage. it runs like a champ minus the few things i posted in the OP.

VWVortex is OK if you can tolerate a million assholes comparing blow off valve sounds on 1.8T GTIs.

:laugh: i looked through VWvortex for a few min and that site seems like a PITA to navigate through! ill probly spend somemore time on there and see where it goes. i just really dont want to signup on another forum (im trying to resist)

There's literally more parts than you can possibly navigate to find on the 'tex so that makes modding/restoring these cars VERY nice but VERY tedious. It's not like miata turbo where you can keep a line on major parts and wait for what you want. Any given VW part will pop up once a week and be buried in the forum within an hour. Site is huge.

My recommendation: do a VR6 swap, then go to: mk2vr6.com
^What I did. That site has a ton of good tech but most caters to the 6 cylinder. Vortex has great tech too but you have to know where to look. Go to both your engine specific, and the mk2 sections. the mk2 section is actually pretty good as far as info goes, compared to some of the newer sections that are not technical at all.

One thing you'll notice that doesn't exist here: all the "german engineering" leg humpers. Guys there will buy from a shop or from a dealer solely because they are an in-vogue shop, or OEM. The guys that are willing to do some real car building have some sweet rides. I personally hate keeping something stock for stock's sake. If the stock part works well, by all means, but a lot of them don't, and then they go waving that "german engineering" flag and it's kind of annoying.

Stuff is very easy to work on and cheap though. I say go for it.

yeah, i kinda noticed it was pretty cheep to work on. i think the break job on that car maybe cost shy of 100 bucks. that is including the rotors, pads and claipers. how much will the VR6 swap set somone back? :giggle:

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Www.parts4vws.com is a good shop. Those transmissions are very weak. Plan to replace all coolant/water sensors because the factory used crummy rubber gaskets. Th electrical systems are pretty simple, and the digifant MAF probably needs a good rubbing alcohol cleaning. It's cheap and easy to convert to rear disc and I have free rear rotors for you if you do. Bilstein HD's are a great ride on RPI springs. You probably need to replace the shifter rubbers asap and Diesel geek makes good delrin replacement parts.

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Although I don't like the logic of a nodded street car, an mk2 VR6 is one of the sweetest cars I've ever known.

There's a slick 3.8l turbo awd mk2 build somewhere on vwvortex.

thanks hustler! Ill deffinatly be looking at that build and be browsing that site for parts! My biggest concern right now is trying to delete the AC, i need to figure out if any none AC MKIIs had a dummy pully there in place of the AC pump. The alternator belt runs off the AC pump.

$$ Depends on how scrappy and resourceful you are. If you go to mk2vr6.com they damn near have the step by step, though the more research you do you'll see there are 4-5 ways of doing it. As far as differing cylinder arrangement (ie: 4cyl to v6) engine swaps go, it's about the easiest on the planet though.

Not counting any go fast parts or enhancements (suspension, etc) I bet you could get the engine and plug it in for $1K with out much difficulty. Engines are cheap, that figure is just trying to account for the 10-12 random hardware store trips and nickel and dime stuff. Then sell your stock stuff.

Biggest problem and expense you'll have being an earlier mk2 is switching to ce2 (you are ce1 now), trust me, you want to (unless you want to fab your own harness and ECU). wiring is plug and play if you get ce2 pieces from a newer mk2.

ill start browsing over there and see what i dig up! this sounds like it can turn into a fun DD!