Project: Lemon, VW 1.8t Beetle I didn't want

Meet Project : Lemon

The car I didn't want and definitely didn't want to work on. Picked up for $100 with a knocking engine. My plan was to move it asap. I showed a pic of the car to my mother and she instantly fell in love.... despite me desperately trying to talk her out of this specific one. Ugh.

I started by replacing the goofy electronic cam chain tensioner in hopes that was the engine noise. Although there was evidence of the chain riding on and cutting into the cylinder head. That was not the noise... so, I knew it had to be rod knock.

Sourced a replacement 1.8t engine assembly from the same year beetle, pulled the cylinder head and had it rebuilt. Reassembled the replacement long block and after finally mustering up enough initiative (and a nagging mother) got to work on replacing the engine.

...someone has already been in here and had either the engine, the trans or both already out of the car at some point in time. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised.

Mind you I don't have previous VW 1.8T experience and still want absolutely nothing to do with the car. As a BMW guy some of the things on this platform feel rather familiar. As an engines guy, a turbo charged 5v chamber 4 cyl is actually kinda cool. Upon disassembly a few things were broke on the way out (shocker) including the secondary air injection pump and hoses as well as a few other plastic bits and water couplers. From my digging online apparently bypassing the SAI is a common mod, as well as the EVAP and the diverter valve solenoid. I don't see a need to bypass evap as that just makes things smell bad. But I will bypass diverter solenoid and secondary air pump on the way back in.

Me being me however, I do have this stupid idea to gut the soft top and mechanicals. Remove side windows and regulators, gut the interior of any and all excess weight. Chop the windshield in half.  Make a roll cage. Wire in a universal EFI controller and put together a cheesy little 24hrs of Lemons racer.

I anticipate my mom getting tired of the car shortly after it's back on the road and I may end up with my Lemons Racer soon enough.
 

I've watched lots of Lemons race recap videos. I remember lots of times when a Beetle of that vintage had some sort of complex yet oddball mechanical failure that took it off the track. I'm struggling to remember any Beetles commented on for actually finishing the race.

I absolutely believe that, over engineered junk.

Ok this is not turning out like I imagined, I thought you'd slam a LKQ engine in there and flip it for a profit to a guy who had a daughter named Muffy....

Agent98 said:

Ok this is not turning out like I imagined, I thought you'd slam a LKQ engine in there and flip it for a profit to a guy who had a daughter named Muffy....

Elderly Mother, daughter named Muffy... Same Same.

If I ever meet an automotive engineer, I am kicking him in his no-no's

After some intense information crunching. Learning the tools and procedures to get into the ecu's operating system that I otherwise have no prior experience with. I have ECM tuning experience just not with this platform. Eventually I was successful in reading the vehicles tune, locating a few control maps in the .bin.  I located ESKONF in the hex code and was able to disable the things I physically deleted on the engine. (N249 Diverter Valve Solenoid, N112 Secondary Air Solenoid, J299 Secondary Air Relay, Downstream O2, N80 Evap Solenoid)

I haven't made any fuel, ignition or boost modifications yet. Let's get the vehicle moving under it's own power first:

Amazingly all of the softwares involved (NefMoto ME7 Flasher Logger 1.9.4.3, TunerProRT Tuning Software, HxD Hex Editor, ME7Sum Checksum Updater) are all freeware. The only out of pocket expense to tune this vehicle was the $30 VAG-Com FTDI OBDii to USB cable.

...I've still got the idea of wiring in a Speeduino NO2C or UA4C. However, let's see what I can do with the native ME7.5 first.