So 2 years since my crashed G40 was parked in my garage and everything going down with the economy, things got harder but the bug in me grew stronger. I had the need for speed or rather the need for acceleration. The search for a G40 or a chassis was still fruitless and I couldn't bare it anymore so I started looking for alternatives. Finally I came across a slightly damaged Arosa for next to nothing. The driver side was hit and the fender and door where replaced, it was slightly bent and the interior was more like a barn than a car but the price was so low that it made it a bargain. So I traveled 400km by train, bough it and drove it back another 400km. Took me 4 days to clean it and do some minor repairs and then I drove it to a friend, who is a mechanic, along with my G40 and convinced him that it was a straight swap. He is still mad at me.
My G40 engine already had 200.000km on it so we decided to rebuilt before fitting it to the arosa. The intention is for the car to be driven daily and occasionally some track-days so no heavy mods are intented for the engine, I ll be more than pleased with the maximum power I can get for my eaton setup so we didn't go crazy here. We disassembled the engine, cleaned it and sent the block to be honed and the head for a valve job . In the meantime my friend got busy with the wiring and me with cleaning and buying parts for the car. We got everything back in a couple of days and the engine got reassembled with new piston rings and new bearings, VW head gasket along with some other bits here and there but generally kept stock. I was looking for a GT inlet at the time but couldn't find one (Alexiskayak_7 here will help me with one, I hope) so we went for just a dewedged throttle body for now. We used a 49mm throttle plate out of an Opel (I could be wrong here) that was laying around and machined it down to fit the 48mm throttle of the g40. The only other mods I ll do in the future are G60 injectors, a GT manifold and an oil cooler. Alexiskayak_7 will make me a custom map and I hope we can get around the 170hp mark. I already have fitted a fmic out of a Ford Focus ST and a custom 51 exhaust starting just before the catalytic converter, with 2 boxes and made to have the same diameter even around bends.
Fitting the engine to the Arosa was a fairly easy job. We had to make a custom plate for the engine mount to be bolted on, match the wiring looms, a custom throttle cable, some fiddling around with water hoses, the Arosa original radiator and the custom intercooler piping and intercooler. The gearbox fitted right in with the Arosa mounts, cables, speedometer box and the Arosa Driveshafts (for now) and it was drivable. The only thing I am worried about is the fuel pump as its the original Arosa unit and I am not sure it can cope with the engine but hasn't given me any bad signs till now. Some hacking of plastic parts was necessary in the process but other than looks its fully functional. I ll worry about the looks later.
For Brakes I fitted 256 diskbrakes front, out of a Polo 6N2 GTi along with the hubs (maybe I ll go for G60 ones in the future) and GolfII Gti diskbrakes at the back. I got 15" BBS out of a 6n1 polo to be able to clear the brakes (the Arosa had 13" originally) . Last but not least I have to fit a better suspension and some new tires and it will be ready.
Various pictures to follow.