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| SAC VolksWagen Citi Golf 2.0 CTi MK1 Turbo Power Conversion |
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- Issue 33 - | | | Speed & Sound - "Gutter Mobile" | | A Freak accident in a radioactive gutter searching for an open-toed sandal resulted in some strange super powers… | | Defending gutters the world around! Yes, readers we have uncovered yet another Gauteng Superhero who got his powers after a night of drudging trough radioactive human waste in pursuit of his beloved brown leather open-toed sandal. | | Luckily for us we knew the man before he got his powers and as it turns out, he even races one of the fastest normally aspirated MkI Golfs that we've come across to date. | | | |
| Jose Carvalho is the real identity of our super hero and when he's not wearing his tight Portuguese flag inspired costume, he's actually a normal businessman who concentrates his efforts in the IT world. | | As a sideline hobby, he's also the official South African agent for Jenvey Throttle Bodies and Quaife Diffs so it really goes without saying that these specific products are fitted to his crime-fighting car, the Guttermobile. | | Jose's car started out life on the tarmac as a '91 model Cti. | | The 1.8 8v lump soon got tiring though and in 1996 Jose decided to replace the engine with a 2.0 | | 16v lump fuelled via a set of throaty side draughts. In that form the car got 15.3 seconds on the quarter mile but even that got old so more mods were planned. | |  | |
| The car was taken through to Marinus at Steve's Auto Clinic in Kyalami. |
| It was here that the cylinder head was gas flowed and ported and then fitted with larger valves. |
| To help get the revs higher, it was changed from a hydraulic lifter setup to a solid lifter setup. |
| A set of two 288-degree Schrick cams were added to the equation, a further help with the revving. |
| These relatively small mods dropped the quarter mile time to 14.4 seconds. | | It was after this that his interest in modifying the car grew even more and that's about the time he became the agent for the aforementioned products. | | When the Jenvey & Quaife stock arrived, he fitted a set of 45mm direct-to-head throttles and the gearbox was given a Quaife LS Diff. | | The clutch assembly is a copper type with a Sachs 3 strap pressure plate. | | While he was working on the car he decided that a 2.1 Oettinger crank would be a good addition to the subassembly. | |  | |
| The throttles allow the use of a fuel management system and Jose chose Haltech, which was programmed by Ross at Wildcat Developments. |
| Motor Sorted! |
| Jose also paid attention to the suspension setup too so traction could be helped a smidgen. |
| CRS West Rand's Johan sorted the car with a custom height-adjustable coilover suspension kit. |
| An Eibach upper strut brace made the grade too as did the custom made SAC lower brace. |
| This time the end result was really impressive as the golf achieved a time of 13.7 seconds on the quarter mile. |
| If you know anything about the track racing, in particular a Zwartkops Racetrack in Pretoria, you'll be mightily chuffed with his 1 minute 16 seconds lap time. |
| A four-wheel drive twin turbo R34 Nissan Skyline with all sorts of handling aids runs a lap time of 1 minute 17 seconds. |
| Then in October 2003 Jose just finished a burnout at SA's fastest and when the car pulled forward he didn't pulled in the clutch again and rode on the gear. |
| The 'box and the Quaife diff held up strong, but the R10k plus Oettinger crank gave way. |
| This setback prompted Jose to try a different route for power and got hold of a 1.8 20v Audi motor. |
| The bottom-end was treated to Sac's well-known 2.0 conversion (with an 11.0:1 compression ratio) and the cylinder head was given the same mods as the 16v head but this time the camshafts weren't matched, one of them had a smaller duration of 276 degrees (exhaust) and the valves were left stock. |
| Back at Wildcat Developments, Ross designed a special branch and exhaust system for the motor. |
| To compensate for an extra 4 valves, he also upgraded the injectors to 350cc Golf 4 bits and once again programmed the Haltech. |
| There were two results to the modifications. |
| The First being a brilliant power output on the wheels for a normally aspirated car. |
| On Sac's dyna the Golf produced 127kW @ 8500rpm with 200nm! |
| The second result was unwanted though. |
| As you can see, the peak power is at a rather high 8500rpm, which is nice, but the gearbox can no longer keep up with the motor. |
| At top revs Jose can't snap change into the next gear, he has to let the revs come down around 7300rpm. |
| As you can imagine it affects the quarter mile times in a bad way. |
| VW Gearbox guru Jaco Liebenberg of JC Maintenance has been commissioned to sort out the 'box and at the same time some shorter gear ratio's will be going in. |
| As for the end result on the 400m Jose says: "Watch this space!" With the Jenvey and SAC signage on, the Golf looks the business. |
| Externally there are only a few subtle changes. |
| A Zender 3-piece spoiler was fitted to the rear (left black) along with some smoked taillights and up front there's a badgeless grille and a Mk2 Jetta lower lip. |
| There are for road use and have Bridgestone Potenza SO3's in 205/40/17. |
| For track use Jose uses a set of 15' Racing Hart Concepts with 195/05/15 Bridgestone intermediates. |
| The visible braking system is by Zabka Motorsport and is a 298mm slotted disc conversion. |
| Interior still has some stock CTi fixtures, but a 350mm Momo Corse steering wheel has been fitted and the front seats were replaced with a set of genuine VW Motorsport Rally seats that were recently expertly re-upholstered (along with the wheel) by our chinas Justin and Bobby at Bellanova Upholsterers. |
| Rear seats are gone but the harness take up the space where they attach to the rear strut brace from Zabka Motorsport. |
| OMP lightweight racing pedals were fitted and the gearknob was sourced from a Citi Life. |
| That's it for the Guttermobile! |
| As soon as the 'box is sorted we'll let you in on its new time on the tracks. |
| After reading all the specs, you know you can all rest assured that Gutterboy can make it to the scene of a crime in a blink of an eye. |
| Remember, be careful what you dump in the gutter or you'll have to answer to… Gutterboy! |
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