Not sure how retro this is now but as its knocking on 17 years old Ill go with it being semi-retro.
Ive always wanted to do an engine swap in a metro being a rover fan, and after looking for months for a half decent starter project without rust - this popped up round the corner. A young lad had it and as such its covered in stickers and bad paint touchups but one thing it has over the metro is no rust.
Rust was always going to take up a significant amount of my time with the metro, and with the 1.8vvc engines becoming more and more rare they are commanding a high price. So I picked this up for a pricely sum with a boot full of spares, for what the boot is worth.
The target is 250bhp/tonne, which should be achieveable and driveable as a weekend motor and maybe some swings round knockhill. The swap is well documented however many people do it many ways - some using mounts on the subframe such as a mk3 golf, and some using the rails in the bay to weld on new mounts available from VW for £8. This is where ill be going. The base weight of the model is 940kg, I'm aiming for about 725 - 750kg.
First intentions is to get it into the garage and strip out everything from the bulkhead back. From previous projects this should net me about 170+kg, and once all the peripheral curse word is bagged up i should be able to save more space than that. The tiny, but well running 1.0 is coming out and ill strip the bay all the way down to suspension arms.
New brake lines and gti brakes, along with GTI doors (which were alloy to save weight) and maybe poly rear windows.
Fabrication required will be the mounts (onto the rails) and the stabiliser (onto the rear subframe). I was careful to get a power steering model. I plan on getting the 180bhp 1.8t with a k03s or k04, welding the exhaust myself and using stock management mated to the original lupo interior loom and a tdi edal box - thus giving me a hydraulic clutch for the new 5 speed gearbox. Ill also have to cut and weld/sleeve driveshafts which I'm a bit wary of but shouldnt be difficult.
lowered on new shocks and the alloys will be replaced with wider steels and semi slicks on the front. Hopefully can start the strip down next week. Would love to hear from any guys who have done this conversion to discuss the wiring and welding up new driveshafts.
Ive always wanted to do an engine swap in a metro being a rover fan, and after looking for months for a half decent starter project without rust - this popped up round the corner. A young lad had it and as such its covered in stickers and bad paint touchups but one thing it has over the metro is no rust.
Rust was always going to take up a significant amount of my time with the metro, and with the 1.8vvc engines becoming more and more rare they are commanding a high price. So I picked this up for a pricely sum with a boot full of spares, for what the boot is worth.
The target is 250bhp/tonne, which should be achieveable and driveable as a weekend motor and maybe some swings round knockhill. The swap is well documented however many people do it many ways - some using mounts on the subframe such as a mk3 golf, and some using the rails in the bay to weld on new mounts available from VW for £8. This is where ill be going. The base weight of the model is 940kg, I'm aiming for about 725 - 750kg.
First intentions is to get it into the garage and strip out everything from the bulkhead back. From previous projects this should net me about 170+kg, and once all the peripheral curse word is bagged up i should be able to save more space than that. The tiny, but well running 1.0 is coming out and ill strip the bay all the way down to suspension arms.
New brake lines and gti brakes, along with GTI doors (which were alloy to save weight) and maybe poly rear windows.
Fabrication required will be the mounts (onto the rails) and the stabiliser (onto the rear subframe). I was careful to get a power steering model. I plan on getting the 180bhp 1.8t with a k03s or k04, welding the exhaust myself and using stock management mated to the original lupo interior loom and a tdi edal box - thus giving me a hydraulic clutch for the new 5 speed gearbox. Ill also have to cut and weld/sleeve driveshafts which I'm a bit wary of but shouldnt be difficult.
lowered on new shocks and the alloys will be replaced with wider steels and semi slicks on the front. Hopefully can start the strip down next week. Would love to hear from any guys who have done this conversion to discuss the wiring and welding up new driveshafts.