Cooper_GTI

I sold it to a local guy, but he's trying to flip it at profit i think. Doesn't bother me - i'm happy with the price I got. Mr Tacho, yes I can do a 1.8T Lupo conversion, but it'll cost you £4000 in labour based on my charge-out rate of £35/hr. It's barely even worth my time for that money to be honest, as it's such a huge job. Around 120-150 hours to properly build one. If you want a quick car, buy a Mk5 Edition 30 DSG and map it.

You are 100% correct in what you're saying - there are a lot of charlatans out there! 'Diesel Pump UK' being the biggest one. His conversions are extremely shoddy, he offers no kind of warranty and doesn't care when his engines blow up due to his own poorly built fuel pumps. That said, his marketing is top notch and he has a lot of work on... Makes me feel sorry for his customers. My conversions are (if i do say so myself) among the tidiest out there, but certainly not the cheapest. I completely remake the loom, use correct merc mounts, all fully welded boost pipes, deep large capacity sump, new props, 4.4 or 4.1 diffs, 6 speed C270 gearbox and fuel pumps built in Finland by the best in the game, all coupled with loads of cooling so you can happily tow 3.5T at speed without overheating issues and with 2 bar of boost from 2000rpm to 6500rpm they fly! 0 to 60 time is sub 9 seconds and 35mpg is possible on a run. They make such useable, retro trucks when built correctly.

Now sold. And i'm in the market for a GTI... Having dirty ideas about building a highly strung 1600!

Absolutely they can Wes! By day I convert classic Mercedes G-Wagens... Removing the old useless, thirsty powerplant in favour of a newer mechanically pumped 5cyl, 20v turbo diesel with 320bhp and a huge spread of torque. A G-wagen that would cost circa £5k to buy is then worth over £20k with the torquey diesel lump. Here's my latest conversion that i've just sold...

Which factory 1.8T engine do you know with forged internals proofed to 500bhp? It states in the ebay advert that it has Mahle pistons, DM forged rifle drilled rods and the BAM steel crank. Ref the price - a decent base GTI is at least £3-4k. Anyone who's in the real tuning game knows that to have an engine built to that spec costs upwards of £3000. Let alone brakes, suspension, wheels and hundreds of hours in labour, testing and mapping. What else would you buy for £6500 that would be as fast, reliable and capable as this?

My Little Lupo is now up for sale - owned her for over 8 years! I don't frequent the forum very often any more as Facebook seems to have taken over, but it would seem rude not to offer it to you lot. This is arguably one of the best 1.8T GTI's on the road today... The engine mounts are designed to keep driveshaft angles correct and high enough so that the sump doesn't hit the floor like a lot of others and it's built with all factory parts. She drives just like a stock GTI - very tractable and still manages 230 miles to a tank. All the info you need is on my Ebay advert - Lupo GTI 1.8T Ebay Link Open to offers around £6500. Call Matt on 07944 640 484

How much for the Binnacle over the clocks? I also need the mounting plate and screws attached to that. All posted too, as I'm in Coventry.

I think you'll find that Apex are a lot better than the sh*t Chinese brands (Jom, FK, TA etc). Almost in the same league as koni or spax, but they're a far cry from Bilstein, AVO, H&R etc which are all German/UK manufactured and tested/developed on the car with stringent testing and quality control with great parts and warranty backup. It all depends how much you can get them for and what you want to use them for I guess.

You can use a resistor across the 2 airbag terminals to make the light go out. but yes, all original Lupo leathers came with airbags. With regards to loom, you can always wire them up to an on/off switch to save the hassle of installing the whole loom. But if you do want to do it 'properly', check Kufatec for the loom. I don't think it's cheap though.

I agree with Silver!' on this - whilst they look nice from the outside, the interior looks awful on the garish coloured ones (red and blue).

Give him a call on +44 7973 540145 or +44 1922 615671 Make sure you ask for John - he's very friendly and I'm sure he'll send a manifold straight out to you. Ask him to weld a lambda boss in before he sends it, as they were designed for race cars which don't run lambda sensors in the manifold.

Friedrich make quality gear, so I'm surprised at the above review. You could get John Ashley Exhausts to package one up and send it out to you and it'd probably work out cheaper than the Friedrich one.

Saw this on Tuesday evening on the Longford road. Looked pretty standard - I was in a blue Ibiza, following my Lupo GTI which was on a trailer, being towed with an old Disco. I saw you do a double take when you noticed the GTI!

No, unfortunately not. Surprising really, as all other GTI's have. dating back to the late 80's. I think that the European models came with trip computers...

SOLD!!