Arosa 1.4 16v Sport - My Trackday Project

[darth vader]

love the A2

[M1 Lupo]

love the A2

Me too! its very well done. OEM plus!

[driveforward]

Its Nice I Suppose....

I Just Don't Like The Shape.. :s

Not Of MY Taste,

But Others Seem To Like It...

No probs Daz, each to their own. To begin with I wasn't sure myself tbh.. but the more I looked into them, the more they grew on me. The design is very much along the lines of the original TT (look at the front wing/wheel shot). I like how my A2 has turned out, the chunky RS6 wheels really suit the large wheel arches and sleek side profile - this is then enhanced by the chunky s-line-esq genuine body kit. The rear is true Audi and the front looks as good as I can make it (for the moment!)

The A2 was truly ahead of its time with the aluminium construction, spacious interior, safety features and design touches. It has all the toys and is a real sleeper.. It handles like it's on rails with little evidence of understeer and the 3-pot TDI as in the Loops and Arosa's is great.. Add 60MPG and £35 road tax and I can't complain.

I Doubt It...

Fair enough, can't please everyone; but I know from experience, turn up to a show like Audi Driver International, and all the TT, RS-2-4-6 and Quattro boys are always checking out the modded A2's..!

love the A2

Cheers

[driveforward]

Me too! its very well done. OEM plus!

You know me mate, OEM+ is the way to go!

[M1 Lupo]

Totally! anyone who knows the VAG car scene will spot the work you have put in. Tidy job.

[driveforward]

Day of the Heat Gun

Armed with my new heatgun, today I set about removing (minimal) weight and gaining style

First to go were the side rubbing strips as door-dings will be the least of my worries with this car!

Next up, a de-badged rear (lots of weight saving there......)

And finally, I started to tackle the stupid glue on the underside of the roof left from removing the cardboard. I'm about 2/3 done - gave up when my arms were hurting and my fingers burnt!

I've got some more work planned for tomorrow, but as you can tell, I'm running out of steam on things that can be done without ordering any parts - that's the Christmas shutdown for you!

Edited December 22, 2008 by driveforward

[payna]

cool project!

...rear wiper!!!

[one litre wonder ;)]

the rear wiper motor weighs about 1kg

you could always get the glass taken out and replaced by plastic

[cardaft]

Its coming along nicely, although i think its a shame to confine one so good to track day duties, especially a later one with the 'in demand' wheels on! I want those wheels Where have the centre caps gone?, you will be getting all kinds of crap in the hubs now, they dont weigh much surely! and better earodynamics with them fitted!

Like the A2, very nice, is that the 90 1.4TDI? Been quite fancying one of those for a while for my next car actually.

I bet it will really shift now, have you tried it yet? will be like a little buzz box mind! take your earplugs along, especially if the roads are wet

Have you decided what your doing with the suspension yet?

Oh and your bump stop is knackered

[driveforward]

cool project!

...rear wiper!!!

Thanks! The rear wiper is staying as I remember from when I owned my previous Arosa Sport, and from having a MK4 SEAT Ibiza PD130 that the rear visibility soon deteriorates as the rear window attracts muck like flies around ____!

the rear wiper motor weighs about 1kg

you could always get the glass taken out and replaced by plastic

Plastic glass.. that's a plan for later

[driveforward]

Its coming along nicely, although i think its a shame to confine one so good to track day duties, especially a later one with the 'in demand' wheels on! I want those wheels Where have the centre caps gone?, you will be getting all kinds of crap in the hubs now, they dont weigh much surely! and better earodynamics with them fitted!

Like the A2, very nice, is that the 90 1.4TDI? Been quite fancying one of those for a while for my next car actually.

I bet it will really shift now, have you tried it yet? will be like a little buzz box mind! take your earplugs along, especially if the roads are wet

Have you decided what your doing with the suspension yet?

Oh and your bump stop is knackered

It is a bit of a shame, especially how much it cost, but I'd never buy a car that's got 'too much history' as I'd only end up spending the money on renewing parts and expensive mechanical work - this needs to be reliable for getting to and from Germany whilst being ragged to hell in between!

It came with the wrong centre caps (I have 4 centre caps for the normal S and Sport spec alloy wheels is anyone's interested!), down to a dealer cock up methinks. There's not much scope for collecting crap in the hubs as the car's not going anywhere yet!

My A2 is a Revo'd TDI 75, a car well ahead of its time.. 90's are rare stuff and when you do find them, the spec levels are inconsistant.

Suspension: I think I'm going to go for KW Variant 1's.. I don't need the ability to tweak settings, I'd rather the handling be consistent - which it wouldn't be if I had to set it up! I think I'm going to take the hit in the wallet for these as I've had FK's before which were great but rusted and were quite heavy. The KW's seem better designed. There's also the cheap options like those for sale on here, but I'm not interested in slamming the car but do care about the handling, hence why I'm leaning towards the V1's. Anyone care to launch a counter argument!?!

Edited December 30, 2007 by driveforward

[driveforward]

More Heatgun Action

Today I was determined to remove the last of that damned glue on the roof, but quickly found I'd left 'the best 'til last'! However, my heatgun and newly discovered tool for the job (plastic ice-scraper) got the job done. I do think that once the car has been caged, I'm going to end up re-spraying the roof along with painting the cage as all the marks still look quite messy:

The eagle eyed among you will have noticed from early in this thread that my Arosa is suffering from the usual VW group problem of misty headlight syndrome on the passenger side. The cause of this was a poorly fitted clip, however, I simply couldn't get my hand in to sort the problem out; so off came the entire front bumper to allow me to remove the light cluster:

I now hope to have sorted the problem and fitted some nice LED sidelight bulbs whilst I was at it. Removing the bumper unveiled yet more mud and crud on this car, so once again I put the Karcher to work.

Now that the bumper is off (it will be staying off for a while) I have also removed the front fog lights from the front bumper. These won't be going back so have been added to my parts collection, now rapidly filling the garage! I have a plan for the lower area of the grille that they used to occupy.. details to follow ..plus I've saved a good 0.5Kg

I also took the opportunity today to draw up a list of bits that I need to order from my local stealer, and whilst doing so I discovered that the boot doesn't actually lock After a bit of investigation it's just a bit of broken plastic so hopefully their parts dept will be open tomorrow.. 'Hmm' ..but in the meantime I've disconnected the locking mechanism and now the boot can only be opened from inside.

That's all for now, hopefully the next few weeks will involve fitting nice, new, shiny bits

Edited December 22, 2008 by driveforward

[cardaft]

It is a bit of a shame, especially how much it cost, but I'd never buy a car that's got 'too much history' as I'd only end up spending the money on renewing parts and expensive mechanical work - this needs to be reliable for getting to and from Germany whilst being ragged to hell in between!

It came with the wrong centre caps (I have 4 centre caps for the normal S and Sport spec alloy wheels is anyone's interested!), down to a dealer cock up methinks. There's not much scope for collecting crap in the hubs as the car's not going anywhere yet!

My A2 is a Revo'd TDI 75, a car well ahead of its time.. 90's are rare stuff and when you do find them, the spec levels are inconsistant.

Suspension: I think I'm going to go for KW Variant 1's.. I don't need the ability to tweak settings, I'd rather the handling be consistent - which it wouldn't be if I had to set it up! I think I'm going to take the hit in the wallet for these as I've had FK's before which were great but rusted and were quite heavy. The KW's seem better designed. There's also the cheap options like those for sale on here, but I'm not interested in slamming the car but do care about the handling, hence why I'm leaning towards the V1's. Anyone care to launch a counter argument!?!

Ah i noticed something funny about the wheels in the first pics but never really thought, so they are for the 14" wheels then, interesting, some of mine are a little tatty, how are yours and how much?

So by the sounds of it the 90bhp 1.4 is quite rare then? ive seen them in all kinds of specs, big wheels, small wheels, leather, colth, so its a bit odd.

You should try changing a bulb in a TDi arosa if you think your sport is hard! took me an hour of lots of shouting and swearing to change my bulb, although i didnt take off any parts, just sliced my hand up getting the bulb in and out

Foglights: im possibly interested in those, although wireing them up might need a bit of thinking out, but i think ill probably have those if they are in your for sale items What about the grills in the bumper with the holes for the fogs? will you be keeping those?

Edited December 30, 2007 by cardaft

[driveforward]

Ah i noticed something funny about the wheels in the first pics but never really thought, so they are for the 14" wheels then, interesting, some of mine are a little tatty, how are yours and how much?

From what I can recall they're in good condition. Next time I'm in the garage (prob New Years day) I'll grab a pic of them. I'm going to put together a list of all the bits I have and then forward this to those who have expressed interest in my threads on here and SCN before I list all the bits up for general sale.

So by the sounds of it the 90bhp 1.4 is quite rare then? ive seen them in all kinds of specs, big wheels, small wheels, leather, colth, so its a bit odd.

Yes, especially if you want a decent spec one. Alot of the sports and SE 90's didn't actually have things like climate control, I think Audi went stingy on the standard spec and due to the high price and short market availability of the 90 TDI, not many were specc'd up with the usual options. I chose a 75 because I knew the spec would be consistent and there are alot more of them around.

You should try changing a bulb in a TDi arosa if you think your sport is hard! took me an hour of lots of shouting and swearing to change my bulb, although i didnt take off any parts, just sliced my hand up getting the bulb in and out

Changing a bulb on my A2 on the passenger side means removing the headlamp cluster! Luckily it's only 2 screws and there's no need to remove the bumper like on the Arosa (which is bloody stupid).

Foglights: im possibly interested in those, although wireing them up might need a bit of thinking out, but i think ill probably have those if they are in your for sale items What about the grills in the bumper with the holes for the fogs? will you be keeping those?

The grilles will be for sale too

[ArosaMike]

I have to say...I'm not entirely sure why everyone loves the 2nd phase Sport wheels. I've always thought they were a bit plain and stupidly heavy!

[cardaft]

I shall wait for your list and see what there is i want then

I have to say...I'm not entirely sure why everyone loves the 2nd phase Sport wheels. I've always thought they were a bit plain and stupidly heavy!

Want to sell yours?

Ill do you a swap for some much more curvacious 14" Arosa alloys

[one litre wonder ;)]

the standard 14s weigh more than the 15" sport rims

[driveforward]

the standard 14s weigh more than the 15" sport rims

Do you know how much the 15" alloys actually weigh without tyres? I'd love to know, but can't justify getting a tyre taken off, the thing weighed and then the tyre put back on (as that would be plain stupid!)!!

[M1 Lupo]

I picked one of my Bathursts up when I was having the tyres changed. I would guess between 8 and 14 kg.

[mik3y]

Good thread this keep up the good work!

[ArosaMike]

the standard 14s weigh more than the 15" sport rims

I guess I'm just used to working with the spun ally/magnesium rims we have on our Formula Student car....13x8in and 3kg each I seem to remember I weighed my 15s at something like 15kg each with tyres.

[MattyA]

I still think you should buy my BBS since they are forged track wheels and weight sweet FA, id take the sport wheels in px

hahum:

I seem to remember them weighing 8kgs with tyres, lighter than most Oz, and about 28kgs saving all around over the standards

Edited December 31, 2007 by matt a

[driveforward]

I still think you should buy my BBS since they are forged track wheels and weight sweet FA, id take the sport wheels in px

hahum:

I seem to remember them weighing 8kgs with tyres, lighter than most Oz, and about 28kgs saving all around over the standards

I love the weight and on a non-track-bitch car they'd be great. Problem is, I need to buy 5 wheels and I want black/anthracite so as to save me loads of cleaning. I love nice wheels, but hate cleaning them!

[driveforward]

New Stuff Arrives!

The first of many deliveries arrived on Friday, one by Mr TNT as I was leaving for work and another by means of collection from the local stealer at lunchtime..

Here's all the stuff:

The obvious bit is the BMC CDA kit for the 1.4 16v from KAM Motorsport, the rest may or may not be so obvious

Today I have removed the standard airbox and all associated pipework and fitted the CDA. Although a straighforward job, it was more tricky than I had expected due to the lack of clearance for the bonnet and getting the hose fitted securely onto the inlet using one of the two supplied reducers. Here's a shot with the hard work done:

Where's the intake pipe going I hear you ask.. or maybe not. I wasn't happy with the feed coming from the top of the wheel arch, so decided to route to the front to get a nice supply of cold air:

As you can see, I cut a hole in the plastic in order to run the intake pipe down to there. This should provide a nice supply of air through the left grille next to the headlight:

All that was left to do was to tighten everything back up and put the engine cover back on, leaving me with the finished product:

As you can just see in the two pics below, I pushed the remaining reducer from the CDA kit into the hole that I had made, then fitted the offcut from the 90-degree silicon hose (once cut to a suitable angle) onto the back of the reducer. I then simply duck-taped the end of the BMC hose onto the silicon hose and it was job done:

Should the pipework ever need moving out of the way (manifold fitting etc), all I'll need to do is push the plastic reducer out of the hole, and then pull it back through when the other job is finished. You may also notice how I'm missing a jubilee clip from the right side of the CDA - I had to use this to secure the other end of the silicon hose onto the inlet. I'll get a clip and some padding for the tube to protect it from the vibrating engine shortly..

Another job I got done today was re-fitting the front wheel arch linings. I removed these to jet wash great wads of mud out from behind them, but discovered the right one was quite mangled when doing so. I now have a new lining for the passenger side and have re-fitted the drivers side lining (they don't weigh much!):

Tomorrow I'll attack some of the other new bits that I have collected from SEAT, many are boring, a few are interesting

Edited December 22, 2008 by driveforward

[mills787]

nice progress mate - bet its good seeing it come together in such a short time, you must be spending a fortune on new bits!