1998 SEAT Ibiza mk2 GTi 1.8T Track Project

Warning! This post is all about wheels, and lots of them :-)

When I had my previous mk2 Ibiza 1.8T running, I had a set of 17" Oz F-1 wheels refurbed for track use. They looked the business with Oz Racing and SEAT Sport decals in yellow and with carbon centre caps. Since I took that Ibiza off the road, these wheels had been stored in my rented lock-up. When I went to collect them to go on this Ibiza, I was horrified to find that something had leaked onto them and damaged the paint. The wheels had been stacked on top of each other, so the one at the top was the worst, but none had survived unscathed.


I was able to effect a repair on three of the wheels with some wire wool then brush painting of primer and colour coat. Replacement decals were applied after this picture was taken. They are by no means perfect, but plenty good enough for track wheels.


The worst one of the damaged wheels had to be professionally refurbished, so as I was going to Wheel Works I thought I may as well make it worthwhile, so I took in four other 17" Oz F-1s which I had acquired in various states to be done at the same time.


The AP brakes I now have on the front of the Ibiza mean that I can no longer fit the 16" wheels that I used to fit on my previous track Ibiza. I did consider running 16"s on the back and 17"s on the front, but I then found a few more 17" wheels so that is no longer necessary. Consequently I had some 16" wheels which I no longer have a use for. Nine Oz wheels (in two batches) plus two 13" Scirocco wheels I listed at the same time fetched just £5 short of what the refurbishment cost, which made it feel like it had been done for nothing. Hopefully I can sell the remaining four 16"s to help pay for tyres!


My love of Oz F-1s started with some offered as an option on SEAT mk1 Leons. Several years back I asked Wheel Works to match the gunmetal colour of these SEAT Sport wheels, and they (not unreasonably) sent me away with hundreds of colour swatches and instructed me to find a match for myself. The shade I settled on was VW LA7Y, and I have lost count of how many wheels I have had painted in that colour since


Freshly refurbished wheels are things of beauty, in my opinion at least, and Wheel Works did their usual high quality work. The blue around the rims without tyres is just tape used to protect them for transit.


The decals for the refurbished 'track' wheel (on the right) are not an exact match for those on the other three wheels in that 'set', but they are close enough that I will probably be the only one who ever notices.


On the 'other' wheels I have just put Oz Racing decals but not SEAT Sport, at least for now.

The OMP steering wheel I had fitted to this Ibiza had been in my previous Ibiza track car. The wheel is dished by around 65mm, and in combination with a steering boss that is about 100mm long the driving position was not ideal. In the other Ibiza I modified the seat sub-frame so I could get the seat lower and further back, and that worked OK, although it was a fairly drastic solution, and it still left the control stalks an uncomfortable reach from the steering wheel.

For some time I had been looking for a similar wheel but with a lesser dish. I wanted a decent quality one, but I was not keen to pay ~£170 for a new wheel. Eventually I found another OMP wheel which appeared to fit the bill. This one has just a 25mm dish, and along with a shorter boss I succeeded in getting the wheel rim significantly closer to the indicator and wiper stalks.


When I subsequently tried-out the driving position, expecting to be basking in my success, I quickly realised I had been too successful, and had created a new problem. The wheel was now too close to the stalks, so that I would probably be forever inadvertently operating the indicators and wipers. This was easily resolved with a 20mm spacer.


The replacement steering wheel boss has another advantage over the old one, in that its slip-ring engages with the contact for the horn push, so that is now working too.

The diameter of the new wheel is 300mm, rather than the 350mm of the one it has replaced. This may yet prove to be too small, but that will be an issue for another day.

The front mount intercooler makes it impossible to fit a standard front bumper. On my other 1.8T mk2 Ibiza I had solved this problem by getting rid of virtually everything behind the outer skin of the bumper, and by replacing the grille slats with aluminium mesh. I liked the look of it, but the bumper became very flimsy and was not attached particularly securely.


Starting with the green Ibiza's standard bumper, and with the previously modified bumper as a pattern, I set to work with the Dremel.


I did much Dremeling, followed by trial fittings, followed by yet more Dremeling. By the time I had finished it looked like this:


In the photo above, the aluminium mesh to cover the enlarged apertures has been cut to size but is held in place with a couple of cable ties. This was then permanently fixed with screws which will be concealed when the bumper is fitted, and with rivets which will be visible. As can be seen in the next photo, I have ended-up with only the skin of the bumper again, no more rigid than what I had on the black Ibiza. I did however have an idea how to make it more secure on the car.


Fitted on the car, I am really chuffed with how it looks.


On the black Ibiza, the bumper was held in place just by two screws at the top, and by a couple of cable ties at the inner wing edge. Then as now the mountings for the bottom two mounting screws had been removed. On this Ibiza, I have re-fitted the wheel arch liners and undertrays, and replaced the multiple screws which attach the bumper to them. It feels much more solid, without having to resort to cable ties this time.

Sorting the fuel pump has been somewhat of a saga. Even in the context of the rebuild of this Ibiza stretching over more than ten years, the fuel pump still qualifies for that description. Over the early years of my ownership of this car, I acquired loads of tuning parts, taking advantage of the fact that I was years off trend and was only starting to build my 1.8T mk2 Ibiza when everyone else was breaking theirs. One of the parts I bought was a mk2 Ibiza fuel pump and fuel tank sender assembly, with the pump itself replaced with a mk1 Leon Cupra R unit. This had been patiently waiting for its turn to be fitted, until I got a phone call from an old friend. His VW Lupo GTi had broken down as a result of its fuel pump failing. Knowing I had a stash of VAG parts, he asked if I had a pump to get him going again. We looked through the four or five pumps I had, but the only one which visually resembled the Lupo part was the one earmarked for my Ibiza project. I did not yet need it myself, so I let him borrow it. I assumed it was only needed to get him home and he would replace it with a new one as soon as he could, but that was not how it turned-out.

It was a couple of years before I was ready to pay any attention to the Ibiza's fuel pump, and in the meantime it behaved faultlessly in the Lupo. When I asked him for it back, it did not even inconvenience my mate particularly as his Lupo was off the road due to engine issues. He posted it back to me, and I fitted it where it was always supposed to go. Sadly, within a very short time, it was clear that all was not well with the pump.

With the ECU and engine loom having been made by myself, I have not yet come to accept that I may have done a decent job of it, so I always look to discount a problem with the wiring before I assume any fault with a component. In this case, I wanted to check that the fuel pump control may have gone awry. I decided to investigate this by making a test lead to go between the fuel pump and its electrical connector on the loom, and including an LED to indicate when there is power to the pump.

The test lead quickly confirmed that there was power to the pump, but it was clearly not running. Time for a new fuel pump.

A few years back I had a Mitsubishi Evo VIII. It was mapped to 350bhp, and the fuel pump was uprated to a Walbro unit to support that. Having had that good experience previously, I decided that a Walbro was the right way to go for this Ibiza. I found and ordered a Walbro kit specific for a VAG 1.8T, which arrived within a couple of days. When I unpacked it I was surprised to see that the new pump was significantly smaller than the original, but the kit included a rubber sleeve and spacer to enable the smaller pump to fit correctly into the Ibiza cassette.


At this point I did not fully understand the full function of the pump cassette, and I found details online of builds using the Walbro in the same way as I was, so although it did not look quite right I was reassured it was OK. With the new pump installed, the problem that had caused it to be bought was resolved. Despite the engine running fine, I could not set my concerns about what had to be done to make the Walbro fit aside. A bit more online digging uncovered other folk with similar concerns, and explained that the standard VAG fuel pump cassette provides swirl tank functionality, but that this is lost when the Walbro is used. As my Ibiza is intended for track use, having the fuel pump taking big gulps of air in corners is a very bad idea. The Walbro was going to have to go :-(

I recently had problems with the fuel pump in my 1.8T Caddy, and JKM recommended a Deatschwerks DW65v. I had not previously heard of Deatschwerks, but I trust Jim at JKM, so I ordered another DW65v for the Ibiza. Before it arrived, I dismantled a couple of pump assemblies to select the best parts for the new pump. Both of the fuel senders looked the same, but I used my instrument panel test rig to check that they were compatible with the Ibiza's fuel gauge. It was a good job that I did, because one of them had the opposite polarity to what I need. I would have been so annoyed if I had only found that out after I had assembled the pump and fitted it into the car.


Having selected all the components I intended to use, I gave them a good clean, and arranged them all neatly to await the new pump. The pump in this picture is the original, with O-rings left in-situ so I can see how they need to be located for reassembly.


When the new pump arrived, it was physically a good match for the original. It came complete with a convoluted fuel hose, hose clips, and new O-rings.


Being of the same dimensions as the original, the Deatschwerks pump was a doddle to fit inside the swirl tank.


Convoluted hose and fuel level sender in place.


Top cover fitted, and hose connected to it. I disconnected and rearranged the wiring a few times after this photo, for no good reason apart from the fact that I cannot help myself with wiring.


Return hose in place. The returned fuel goes back into the swirl pot, and the pump is able to scavenge fuel from there through a hole in the side, as well as drawing 'fresh' fuel in through the strainer at the base. The return hose is specified to be good for in-tank applications, but I have now also found a decent source for convoluted hose so I will check on the pump in a few months and if I do not like the look of this hose I will replace it.


One (the only?) advantage of my fuel pump woes having become a saga is that I am now quite well practised at removing and fitting the assembly from and to the fuel tank. It was a task I used to dread, and which would sometimes take a while. Now it is a five minute job. Once completed, the engine came to life as it should.