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If you use the TT gearbox you need to find out what ratio final drive is in the gearbox.
You then need to find which rear diff will match to the front final drive.
One of the bigger questions you need to figure out is how you will control the 4WD. Do you want to keep the completely mechanical viscous coupling of the Syncro system, or do you want to install the Haldex system from the Golf/Skoda Octavia/A3/TT? There are standalone Haldex controllers available, but that’s going to make your install a lot more complex.
Given that the engine mounting in the Golf1 is completely different, how do you plan on mounting the engine and gearbox in your Golf1 platform?
14″ mud terrains are virtually impossible to find, although BF Goodrich did do some.
15″ off road tyres will generally be too high profile to make any sense on the Golf, even if it is a Country.
Do you really want to take your Golf off road?
put multimeter across the two pins in the plug that connect to the fuel rail and cranck engine if see permant 12v its duff
So you’ve built it, what are you going to do with it now?
Driving’s so much more interesting and fun than just building cars.
siffer shocks and negative camber work a treat, strut brace should help but dosen’t have anywheer near the same effect on a mk2 as a mk1, it’s very worth checking you wishbone bushes and wishbones or just replaceing them. poorly wishbones can make handeling awfull
erm i very much dought you’ll get anyone to custom make good a manifold. i did lots of reserch into this and rang quite a few companys who were very keen to do me a custom exhaust from the “cat” back but once manifold was mentioned they became a lot less intrested. there are off the self downpipes avalible for the rallye and lhd cars these were about £495 but wouldn’t fit RHD and no way of modifying them to do so. people have had manifolds custom made for 16v’s in syncros but all of them but one has had very short primaries leading into a 4-1 collector behingd the block and following the original exhaust route from there. i don’t see that as a very good soultion but it is the easyest the exhaust on TC’s and mine were both done with the engine going in and out. if i was to be invloved in makign another it would befantly be done the way mine is with 1 downpipe ether side of the prop in a 4-2-1 arrangement if possible but this isn’t an option with the rod change gearbox as gearlinkages are in the way, hence it’d have to be done like TC’s whitch is a bit of a bitch. as getting length on the primaries and secondaries is what ghelps torque. as for volkswaged desinging the system as a whole this ain’t so on the RHD syncro volkswagen manifolds and downpipes normaly flow very well. compare the flow from the exhaust of a PB enigned 8v gti to the syncros. the pg and gu are basicly the same engine there is a few diffrences in the head and cam but pb head fits straight on and sorts that.
as for bottom ends they are very strong enignes. they are ok for 8000 rpm and ok for quite prolened streches of high rpm running compared to most engines the first issue you get is valve float whitch pops it’s ugly littel head up if revving above 7.5 k for more than a few moments
I’d be massively surprised if a German company was offering a tubular manifold for the RHD Syncro.
LHD, yes that would be expected, but RHD I doubt very, very much. It may well be that they don’t appreciate that there is a steering column in the way.
Having personally resolved the manifold and downpipe issue twice on two separate RHD Syncros, in different ways I would be shocked if they had a sound solution that worked out of the box, without being swathed in heat-wrap and that didn’t rattle against something on the way down.
Have a look over Danny and my project threads to get a better understanding of the problem and the solutions.
drums are better for handbrake than disks ever were. takes a lot of effort getting a gtis handbrake to work right
I think trying to pull handbrake or J-turns on a Syncro will result in breakages – everything is tied together. You’re asking things to do two different things. Using the handbrake to encourage break-away is one thing, but trying to lock the rear wheels while keeping the fronts turning is going to place a big stress on the whole drivetrain.
The only circumstance in which you could overcome this problem is to have a switch in the car that activates the freewheel, but that’s a rather big effort unless you’re some sort of stunt driver who needs to pull this sort of stunt repeatedly. If you’re not then learn your car and get it set up a bit – as LD50 has said, using weight transfer will get the rear end of a Syncro out, although the naturally sticky nature of the car won’t allow you to do it too often – it’s designed to have very good grip, you’re relying on it having easily-breachable limits if you’re pulling J-turns and handbrake turns.
I bought a T25 Syncro pick-up when I was working on a farm. It was bloody useful. When I left the farm I couldn’t sell the T25, so I started doing 4WD trials. I then organised quite a number of Syncro-specific off-road events and did quite a lot of green-laning with various T25 Syncros.
When I needed a car for a new job I thought I’d see what a 4WD Golf was like. However, the Golf Syncros were all about £800, so I got a Jetta Syncro – only £340. This was OK for a while, but then a silver Golf Syncro with no MOT and a blown flexible front brake hose came up just up the road from me, so I picked that up for £155.
Shame I’ve spent probably ten times that on it since……. I wouldn’t be spending it on it if it weren’t such good fun though.
When the other half and I moved in together she decided she wanted a Golf Syncro, so we got another one. The less said about that the better. Then when we had kids we got a a couple of cars, including one that wasn’t 4WD, but none of them drove well enough for me, or the other half. We finally got a Passat 4Motion, which now tows the Golf to race tracks.
J turns trash transmitions, not just syncro ones. well more to the point it killes the reverse ideler so if you liek your car droppign the clutch in reverse is a bad idea. other than that drivetrain wont mind that much. as for the handbrake qusetion never actuly woked out the defanate answer, i don’t think the handbrake warngin light switch connects inthe the syncro loom so i dought there is anythgin engadgeing the freewheel so dont think it would be optimal to try handbrake it. it may try and work as a 4 wheel handbrake through the transmition that’ll give the frount diff a bit of what for, but don’t think the rear drums would provoide enuff brakeing force to actualy damage anything. it’s hump back bridges + full throttel in 3rd that really don’t mix
some years ago now i bought an accident damaged white 1.8 golf for spares as i needed an engine as the engine in my golf cl had just given up in true style, when i came to tear this golf apart i noticed it was 4wd so thought i’ve got to have play with this before takeing it apart. played with it then though i got to get me one of these and did a few months later, that one finaly died int he eraly part of this year and was promptly relapced by one with a straighter shell and less rust
