Sams Polo 3.0

[Water Boy]

Sh*t mate didn't realise you're into a new shell.

Was hoping to see you at the VW nats sprint on Saturday

[sambb]

what the hell! this saturday! or last week? Didnt even realise anything was on. Definitely would have gotten myself entered if I had.
I'm going to Wakefield on Friday though so its not all bad if I miss it this year.

[sambb]

Wakefield, coming onto the straight with a bit of air time!

[sambb]

Got to get my car off the road. Driving home from work on Saturday arvo, still on a high from fridays track day and a CX-7 decides to change lane squeezing me towards the car next to me in the gutter lane. Despite hanging on the horn the dope just kept coming and coming. I dont know how there was no contact. Then tonight I'm sitting at the lights and watch in terror as a red P plater in a Corolla is just sailing towards me at about 80kph, no doubt on facebook or something. I was literally watching it unfold for that long that I started frantically waving my arm in the air hoping they'd see me and at the last second they must have looked up and veered past, just missing me. I'd literally dropped my chin and was moving my arms onto my chest waiting to get destroyed. What the **** is wrong with these people and why are they all trying to kill me! Are Polo's cursed? I am absolutely not building a 4th one.
One day you can be on the track doing mental speeds, everyone driving respectfully and I couldnt have felt safer. My life was in my hands. Then in the apparent safety of 60 zones, patrol cars and speed cameras, within the next 48 hours I nearly get the car smashed twice and was certifiably going to be maimed today. The next ****tard on their phone who nearly kills me is going to be citizen arrested.

[Sydneykid]

I'm with you Sam, I have had 2 cars written of in the last 3 years whilst I was sitting stationary at traffic lights. Almost lost the Polo too when a clown turned right in front of me, just managed to avoid a head on and limit it to repairable damage. Race tracks are absolutely much safer places.

Cheers
Gary

[JTop]

Sam the Polo looks amazing
If you have templates for a sump those would be awesome, I'd be after doing one up for the hopefully inexpensive big build

As for close calls. It's becoming ridiculous. I'm always trying to avoid peak hour wherever I go since the last Polo. Can't win getting anywhere quickly when people are unnecessarily braking, changing lanes slowly and running red lights... And as you mentioned. MOBILE PHONES. like leave that alone until you get to where you want, pull over or have a headunit capable of doing voice to text...

[sambb]

Thanks mate. First time I've actually washed it was to head down to Wakefield. I'd just gotten the spare bonnet sprayed which ended up being the best panel on the car so then of course I had to give it a wash to even it all up plus both my mates who were going to the track are known car polishers.
Quite a few things to get on top of (for reliablility) before the next track outing. I need to get a new coolant hose kit onto it (preferably samco or the like), fit up the baffled sump, wire up the oil pressure 'idiot light', get the oil temp gauge into this car, get the 20% E85 blend tune done just to get the engine temps down a bit (ok for more power too) and also move the oil filter somewhere better. The car had a remote fuel filter on it but it sits way too low actually protruding from the underbody tray and is likely to clout something, so I'll have to relocate that at some point. All the filter, remote filter take off and oil cooler gear is weeping oil from the fittings so I'm going to piss off all that stuff and start again with -AN pushlock hose.
The rims I have are super good quality but are waaay too heavy for my kind of circuit work. They are tarmac rally rims and so are built too tough for what I need. They are worth some coin so I'm in two minds if I should stay with 16's or just make the jump to 17's.
And when I was reshimming the rear end, low and behold the TT brakes use the exact same brake pad as the Polo. So I'm suspending heavier vented rears, bigger calipers and bigger carriers and so despite being big and heavy, the only advantage they give is that they MAY run a bit cooler than Polo solid discs. But I seriously doubt it. So I'm thinking in the interest of getting rear unspprung weight down, I will just put my complete old beam back in.
Jan I have a scale photocopy of the templates. I'll post them down to you. Like I said they are literally where someone has traced out their actual plates so they arent spot on especially once you jigsaw them etc. they do need file fitting and lots of fiddling. You'll need an off the car sump to get it all correct before fitting it.

[JTop]

I haven't seen any solid silicone coolant kits around for a while
I've sold most of my spares, massive demand suddenly arrived haha

Those wheels are mint though, but totally understand the weight troubles. I've got the BBS LM's and the Team Dynamics. I want to see which is better on the track before I say anything

Ah mint, so they're actual paper templates. I'll throw some $ your way if you could, would be perfect!
Already have an entire engine in pieces. just waiting for the pistons to arrive so can start getting the bottom end sorted
Have an AGU head which I idealised to completely rebuild. BUT after talking to Nash, who's also running bigturbski he's straight convincing me to grab another bjx head. Lucky one popped up at the local wrecker. need to go ASAP! Got my gravituned vband tubular exhaust mani too from the UK the other day. I'll do a budget run because there are lots of small things to spend on soooooo yeah. Then maybe go all out when I'm working full time.

Just changing the oil fittings? I need to get a thermostatic sandwich plate too. What are those fitting and hose specs?

[sambb]

The samco kits are available out of the UK but are like 140 pounds excl delivery which is total BS. If I cant find someone sitting on one locally then i'll just take a box of pipes with me from one of my spare engines to the track because for sure something will split 3 hours from home at some point.
yeah the oil cooler setup on this car retains the heat exchanger but then the sandwich plate isnt thermostated. You'd think they'd cancel one another out because one heats the oil and the other then is constantly cooling it again from the moment the car is started. So at the least I'd like to swap in my 'stated plate so that I at least get the benefits of the quicker warm up from the exchanger. If you run heat exchanger + sandwich plate then there's not enough room really for a full size oil filter. There are shorter stubbier oil filters that could fit on the end of the exchanger/sandwich stack but not sure I'd trust something so small to do the job. So this car uses a remote filter take off. Nothing wrong with that except for the million dollars in overpriced AN fittings needed if you are doing it from scratch and its way harder than you'd think to package all that around alternators, the AC compressor, radiator/radiator hoses etc and getting it to and from your cooler. A total headf%$k actually and then once its all in, unless you do/undo it in a certain order, there's no way of checking/servicing it easily and I dont really want to get stuck with that at the track. Thinking about it, for simplicities sake I might even ditch the whole lot and just run the 'stated sandwich plate and a non remote filter like the old car had and just have two AN lines running to/from the sandwich plate. Just way less to go wrong and helps with access in the engine bay. On the last car, provided the oil cooler is blanked off when you are not on the track, the oil temps stay high enough for oil health in public driving. The system is 5/8th ID = 10/16 therefore AN10 (dash 10) hoses and fittings. I now just use dash 10 pushlock hose and pushlock -AN fittings. For me that way you know that if there's any weeping it cant be coming from the hose -> fitting join. It can only be coming from the actual threaded fitting, and you know that a pushlock hose can never come off due to assembly error - if your threaded fitting is tight then you're good. Just be aware that some of those british Mocal plates use BSPP (parrallel threaded british pipe threads that need special washers to seal). If you put NPT fittings in those they will leak. Also its the right time to think about drilling and taping a plate for an oil pressure sender or switch before you install it because there's limited space down there to locate that kind of stuff after installlation.

ill try to remember tomorrow to post the templates to you.

[Sydneykid]

When using a remote filter I use a fitting that has provision for temperature and pressure sensors. Choose the applicable "IN" and then use the other for the oil pressure sensor, the temp sensor goes in the small hole. Saves having fittings in the sump etc.



Cheers
Gary