Yandards' 16vG60

Time to start me a thread and stop stealing Robs..

Right then, it runs, it's had the CO and timing set to stock G60 numbers and is idleing nicely around 800 rpm. Compression is good at .2 bar variation max accross the cylinders and despite my inability to open the throttle during the comp testing it's a minimum of 8 bar.

Problems, still smells rich at the exhaust end, alt does not appear to be charging the battery, coolant temp gauge is not working (I seem to remember it was a little picky before), radiator end tanks are leaking fluid (2nd hand unit), coolant leak around the coolant flange for the BTS and guage sender, no 4 plug was quite fuelly (2nd hand injectors for the moment; new ones are higher flow rate so would throw the generic chip off), the oil filler cap seal is shot and keeps leaking oil and the gearbox sounds nasty under load.

Apart from that it's all good, runs up and down the revs really nicely and sounds good, so chuffed with that. No idea what it's going to be like on the road hopefully fast

Aim now is to get it all finished ready for MOT, tax etc on the 1st of April so I have just ordered a VR radiator, will need DG Autotechs other fan mount bracket and another Spal to aid the cooling of the wider radiator.

Few pics of current state of the engine, the charger bracket repaint and tidy up I felt I needed to do and a one off T-shirt I made and had printed up..

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that looks immaculate. Not allowed.

alt does not appear to be charging the battery, coolant temp gauge is not working (I seem to remember it was a little picky before), radiator end tanks are leaking fluid (2nd hand unit), coolant leak around the coolant flange for the BTS and guage sender, no 4 plug was quite fuelly (2nd hand injectors for the moment; new ones are higher flow rate so would throw the generic chip off), the oil filler cap seal is shot and keeps leaking oil and the gearbox sounds nasty under load.

Great stuff,you have to expect teething issues on such a bespoke project.
leaky stuff is easy enough I guess just annoying.
Alternator is a bit weird though.Any ideas?
Are you sure the car isn't just going through its warmup cycle in terms of the smell of fuel?
Is it still prevalent once it has warmed up?

I want a t-shirt.

Heh, wish it was cleaner, I do intend to replace the rocker cover with one that has been blasted to a much better standard, that one is a bit minging in places and has some marks on it - easy enough job with the short intake runners

No ideas on the alternator, I am using the voltage gauge built into my sat nav vehicle dynamics info but it is pretty accurate, it was around 10.4v which is way too low. There are some tests I can do tomorrow to see if it's working ok.

I have abused the battery today with stop start stuff and then doing the comp testing so that may well have made it drop that low but I would still expect to see it charge on the display and it was dropping.

Not massively worried about the leaks as I was planning on dumping the coolant anyway as I am treating this 1st set as a flushing coolant to clear the build debris from the block.

Ordered the VR radiator, annoying as I now have to get the side panels for it too (plastic sealing things) as I was going to refit my valver ones, VR ones are not cheap either but as I am chasing the holy grail of OEM+ it just has to be right.

In 2 minds as to bother with the dip galvanising right now, it's money I don't have and it will be easy enough to do once the car is up and running properly.

Need to get bracket fabricating and see if I can use the original charger bracket to mount the oil cooler on. That and tidy the wiring loom down the side of the engine up.

Finally sit down and phone around for some insurance!!

the oil filler cap seal is shot and keeps leaking oil

I have noticed that if I have been really revving it under load oil residue is left around the filler cap on the rocker.
I'm wondering if It is pressure build up and if the head needs breathing?!??

dirtytorque wrote:

the oil filler cap seal is shot and keeps leaking oil

I have noticed that if I have been really revving it under load oil residue is left around the filler cap on the rocker.
I'm wondering if It is pressure build up and if the head needs breathing?!??

I suspect it is, I know when I spoke to John Mitchell years ago about this set-up he ended up with a threaded oil cap as it keep blowing off under boost - although he was running a G60 bottom end and could not use the 16v block breather.

I suspect the extra oil is due to the fact that normally the crankcase emissions as sucked back into the induction system, as we are both running passive breathers it probably builds pressure a little more.

If all else fails I will just run another slight smaller air line into the boost return setup to drop the pressure; I am using the standard hose that comes off the 16v breather and have blanked the outlet side of the one way restrictor, it will only be a case of tapping into the ISV metal t piece I have on the boost return run.

Well no signs of an oil leak with a new cap fitted, have to see how that holds up when it gets driven in anger.

Been ringing around for insurance quotes, hitting around the £400 mark so not too bad, just got HIC to try and see where we go from there.

Good news is the alternator is fine, I suspect I need to improve the quality of the earthing in some place (like fit the earth strap that runs from the orginal 16v dizzy to the coil) and that will sort it all out. Battery drain was just due to all the cranking for comp testing and it had not been on charge for a week or so.

Good stuff Yan! She runs

Loving the stock look of your engine bay. I do like to see the stock air box used in Forced induction corrados

Keep us posted, should be a beast when it's completed!

kevhaywire wrote:Good stuff Yan! She runs

Loving the stock look of your engine bay. I do like to see the stock air box used in Forced induction corrados

Keep us posted, should be a beast when it's completed!

Cheers Kev, might even get to drive it this week if the radiator arrives, it has been a long time in the making..

Update time.

Radiator arrived yesterday so spent time running some serious coolant flush goop through the system prior to stripping it all down.

Today has been one of those why does nothing fit days, radiator is too big so I have decided to stay factory tastic and fit the new spare G60 radiator I had in the roof. The alternator just sits too far out and the plug will catch stoping the radiator sitting in the correct location. I bought some ally strip in B&Q so I can fabricate some new mounting for the intercooler, I want it to sit closer to the radiator, just need to cut the strips down and then chuck a bend into it.

Then it was try to fit the water/oil cooler back in with the shaft made by DG autotech. Suffice to say the oil bracket I have fitted won't let me screw the shaft in far enough so none of it does up. I also suspect that even with the extra couple of mms that trying to do a filter change using a genuine G60 filter is going to be more trouble that it's worth.

So it will be refit the oil filter etc tomorrow then I might as well take the time to tidy the wiring loom whilst the radiator is out as it is a lot easy to get at. I intend to use the 7" Spal I picked up to cool the oil cooler but only on the second stage of the thermostat. This will mean that even in heavy traffic I should not suffer from overheating.

Overall it has been one of those really frustrating days but I have at least tried and tested some other things now that I would have looked at in the furture and I can finally fit a bigger radiator to the G60 as the VR one is now a spare.

well,it is always good to try these things and not be satisfied with something just because it fits.
I guess the rad not fitting makes sense with your alternator arrangement.
Spal for your oil cooler?
Ok.Any pics?Just curious how your going to fit it all.

Quick update,

As I was way for over 3 weeks and had some time to think I have decided to fit the gearbox I bought from Chris whilst the radiator is out etc. So subject to delivery services I should have the new box installed by early next week as I have some leave to take before the end of the financial year.

New box is one Chris built and is an ASD one from a diesel with valver 3rd and 4th ratios to get it, that gives me a slighter shorter 3rd and 4th as opposed to the usual box of choice, the CTN. Numbers into the ratio calculator make for interesting reading, especially with my 8k redline, the legal speed limit comes up at around 6.5k rpm in 2nd and I should be sitting at around 2750 rpm doing 80 on the motorway.

So assuming that I can get the box fitted over the weekend and the car rebuilt then I will hopefully be looking at an MOT (and some insurance) early next month..

Still plugging away and thinking I see.
That gearing sounds spot on.Chris will probably shoot me for heresy but I could never bring myself to go to the stock CTN gearing.
Will be interesting to read how it "feels".
Looking forward to reading your impressions after the first proper run.

Well some 300 miles now done on the running in.

Bad news is that the bum dyno is currently telling me the G60 is a lot quicker for roughly the same throttle settings.

There is no way my G is ever going to put out more power/torque than this engine so the map must be way off. I know it is as the exhaust now keeps popping during the warm up phase and then goes onto a reasonably steady idle bang on 60 degrees when the lambda takes over fueling control.

Fuel economy looks good though and I would rather it runs a little rich than lean at this stage.

Ordering the Adaptronic ECU (1280s) as I type this, no idea on lead time from Australia but I will be getting this fitted as a priority given the current running. Need to source some sensors etc but I can run the ECU using the Hall sender on the dizzy to get it all going.

I will also be tweaking the engine breathing as in car was a little stinky thanks to the rich mixture, should be ok once the ECU etc is sorted but a line into the boost return will help with fumes.

My theory.

16v head is almost too good/effecient for a g-larder.
Hence the mods I made.Tb closing earlier.Higher compression,milder cam and a fair bit of ignition advance mid to top end.
I am closing in towards the end now,i.e dyno time so we shall see..

dirtytorque wrote:My theory.

16v head is almost too good/effecient for a g-larder.
Hence the mods I made.Tb closing earlier.Higher compression,milder cam and a fair bit of ignition advance mid to top end.
I am closing in towards the end now,i.e dyno time so we shall see..

There is an element of that true, however the 16vG60 has always made more power/torque than an 8v. It's got more to do with CFM and cylinder filling than it has boost pressure and a 16v head does flow so much better than an 8v. The limited makes VR levels of torque at 5k and I would expect a similar torque curve to a stock G60 given the way the charger was designed to produce boost. So whilst my engine set-up will have lost boost due to various reasons (pipe bore size, intercooler etc) it will have gained CFM so that will balance out. My other snag is that I have no guarantee that my knock sensor is working correctly, I suspect it might be a little over-sensitive right now.

The kicker for me is the way the engine gains revs off load, it doesn't frankly. Given the lighter flywheel and balanced internals it should pick up quicker than my G60 and it just doesn't - classic over fuelling indication. So I have a bad map and an ECU that really doesn't deal with the transition from a steady cruise (ignition advanced until knock and fueling pulled back) to full aceleration given that it is dependant for that information on the WOT microswitch (that only works above 2250rpm) which tends to get kicked out of touch by the laggy MAP sensor.

It's crazy when you think about it, there is a thread on Club GTi right now (here)showing a stock 2 litre ABF engine running squirt putting out 174bhp and 163lb ft of torque just from a competent mapper using a dyno and running on Megasquirt. 250bhp and a good solid torque curve should be fairly easy to achieve on a 16vG60 without trying too hard; Henny had those numbers on his old G60 with a CNC big valve head - that head gives you stock 16v head figures on the inlet and the 16v head has an extra 12 CFM on the exhaust side (which should be better!)

Ok so the comp ratio is lower (than the ABF) but the stock charger is designed to flow 1360 cm cubed of air per engine revolution on a standard pulley, given a four stroke cycle that means there is around twice as much air coming from the stock charger as the cylinder has space for in an 1800 and the charger can provide up to 0.7 bar of boost above atmospheric. It still fills an 1800cc engine it's just that filling is easier on a valver due to the more efficient valvetrain and a cross-flow design. On the downside, boost pressure is lost in the intercooling process (colder air flows slower after making it do work to cool it), valve lift is a bugger and you can't account for turbulence to the airflow through the plumbing.

Regardless it just goes to show what a good map will give you on what is fundamentally a 2l 16v block, it's not unusual KRs are known for putting out 150bhp figures with relative ease and if you assume a charger efficiency of 50% (which is on the low side if you study the attached efficiency plot for a stock G-lader) then 225bhp should be available. I am confident better management or even a good ECU map on Digi would see some serious gains on a dyno over my current output, I have been in a well tuned 16vG60, it really was brutal through the rev range and that's running on Digi. I don't expect mine to be as quick but I do expect it to be a fair bit quicker than my G60.

Of course in theory they should be faster,I just think that after all the effort of a 16vg60 build if people were finding them slow out the box they probably wouldn't say.Not many pople would do what you did above and say that it felt slow on your bumb diner.:0


When I first ran mine I too had another 8v g60,which had the customary 68mm pulley on it.
And I too was disappointed with the comparison.This with the first engine.I felt like it wasn't very responsive to tuning.I remember flusted saying his car felt slower in comparison to his 8v setup.I'm sure that is what contributed to the breaking off said car.He had a generic chip on there.I always thought he should of got a live map done,but anyway..


I have always struggled to to understand why people would try and run standard mngt on such a non standard engine after introducing such different breathing apparatus to the engine.
I agree that your fueling will be off and so you will not be able to make a good assesment of the car until that is fixed.I spent a good couple of days just driving mine around so the software could learn how the engine breaths(Via a VE table) before I attempted to really start tuning.This gave me a really good base to start working from as I was sure i was hitting senesible afr targets under different engine loads.

Are you going to buy a wideband?
Surely you will need it for the self calibration phase,and also for your own piece of mind??

As for the potential false triggering ,would it put the car into limp home mode if you disconnected the knock sensor?
You could then drive the car to see if it felt the same.


Anyway..
Our situations are directly comparable as our cars have a few differences,this is just oddunit talk and I'm just sharing my experiences.I'm sure you'll have fun getting the best out of it.You don't build a 16vg60 unless you like to tinker.
I'll have to do some reading on your new ecu.Don't know much about them.

Heh, all true. Wideband is going on although I dont need a separate controller for it as there is one integrated into the ecu. I was expecting a slightly closer mapas it is a 16vg60 chip. Yes I am running some extras like 4 bar fpr etc but given a stock pulley size I had hoped it would be closer. Also after being in a car running digi that drove well I was expecting more I guess. Going to be interesting doing the mapping though.. Keep you posted!

Just had a poke around the Adaptronic website. Looks like a good bit of kit, although it really isn't cheap Has some excellent features, and is actually very similar to what the ECU I'm using is capable of. Adaptive mapping is the way forward

A poor map will clearly make all the difference. So I'd expect it to be poor on the bum dyno. Some 'adapting' time will make all the difference

mrbeige wrote:Just had a poke around the Adaptronic website. Looks like a good bit of kit, although it really isn't cheap Has some excellent features, and is actually very similar to what the ECU I'm using is capable of. Adaptive mapping is the way forward

A poor map will clearly make all the difference. So I'd expect it to be poor on the bum dyno. Some 'adapting' time will make all the difference

I bloody hope so!

Yeah it's not cheap (although the price I have been quoted is better than their webpage via the UK importer).

The E420 looks like a solid little ECU for the money I just figure I have spent this much I might as well get a good aftermarket ECU to go with it.

I think it is likely to be a case of you get what you pay for, Yan.

Right update away from the bright and (some) retarded elements of the CF.

ECU arrived just over a week ago so I have been fiddling with various bits and pieces on the settings and managed to tweak the air/coolant temp sensors to give a nice VAG like curve. Sat down with the electrical manual and the wiring diagram for the ECU and adjusted the ECU diagram to give me what I need to wire up (see pic). The plan is to unpin the digi ECU plug as required and then crimp new terminals onto the loom from the new ECU as required. This means in the even of it all going Pete Tong if I carry an injector wiring harness and plug insert/extract tool I can revert back to digi managment to get me home.

LC-1 is all set to go, I have an auto throttle body from the USA to go on (TPS) a 3 bar map sensor and a few modified wiring diagrams for what to shove where. Just ordered some plugs from VW this morning along with extra terminal crimps but had to get some crimps from Vehicle Wiring products; ironically these are nearly twice the price of the VW provided items but VAG don't stock that size anymore.

ECU will live above the passenger dash lower shelf (using the LHD fuse box wiring hole complete with boot). Easy enough to tuck a USB cable out of the way in there for logging and adjustment. The aim is get it all wired up on Friday when I get the bits (easy part) then onto initial unloaded mapping over the weekend.

Still waiting on my colourgalv bits back from the blasters/galvanisers/powdercoaters so the car is on axle stands until they come back.

how's the wiring going?
so your going to get it started using standard ignition components or are you going to use a VW ignitor?

dirtytorque wrote:how's the wiring going?
so your going to get it started using standard ignition components or are you going to use a VW ignitor?

Yeah but no but...

Had some issues over the weekend.

What sort of numbers are you getting from a compression test Rob? Interested in a warm engine cranked over but the throttle closed.

i'll do it tonight,as I can't remember.

ok if you look at page 16 on my build you'll see I did a compression check while i was trouble shooting another problem.
175 psi was the lowest value,but they were all pretty even.About 12 bar.
That was on my first engine which had a cr close to 8.0:1.