96 vr6 1st ever project build thread,

[bennyk 1,238]

Any chance of someone removing all of the extra posts on here? Thanks in advance!

[VR6Pete 1,455]

No idea what has happened there

Anyway - I've cleaned up the thread! hopefully ive not missed any!

[bennyk 1,238]

Finally had some time recently to get a start on fitting the air ride onto the car, I managed to get a hardly used Airlift V2 digital set up with twin compressors at reasonable price,

Started with swapping the shocks over,

I made an executive decision to run all of the airline's out to the shocks under the rear seat, not sure if that's the best idea but I suppose I'll soon find out if it's not! Then got it all plumbed in to make sure it all works;

It did!

That was it for last weekend, got the tank painted in the week;

Decided to hide as much of it as possible in the spare wheel well.

At the same time I got a new Rockford Fosgate 8" sub and compact amp to go in there as well. Old vs new;Then with the help of Bealieboy started measuring up and mounting bits ready for a false floor to cover everything apart from the top of the tank. Hopefully another weekend's worth of work and I'll be able to drive her again!

[c00k 435]

So long as the air lines don't pinch or get squashed by the rear axel they should be fine, 

 

i'd also use swivel fittings on the front bags to help with the movement from the steering. If you already haven't. 

If I was my car I'd have a small braided hoses with swivel fitting on both front bag, abit like the hoses on the compressors. 

It's comming along thou buddy!  

 

Edited February 23, 2016 by c00k

[bennyk 1,238]

Yes that seems to be the only thing missing from the kit was the braided lines for the front shocks, so I'm waiting on a pair I've ordered, will secure the rears out of the way, once I'm happy with everything else. Realised this stuff takes a fair bit of tweaking and perfecting, probably be playing with it for months!

[c00k 435]

Yeah definitely, lots of tweaking, upgrading, detecting air leaks and weak points, hopefully not to many..... Let the fun times roll haha. 

 

I'd also recommend SMC check valves, ditch the vi-air ones,  you should be running two of them, one on each compressor. 

I went through 4 of the vi-air ones before buying the SMC versions. 

They kept either getting stuck open or closed. Either way they wouldn't work. 

Vi-air braided lines, compressors, guages are all really good, but for some reason I found there check valves to be completely shit! 

Edited February 23, 2016 by c00k

[bennyk 1,238]

Yeah definitely, lots of tweaking, upgrading, detecting air leaks and weak points, hopefully not to many..... Let the fun times roll haha. 

 

I'd also recommend SMC check valves, ditch the vi-air ones,  you should be running two of them, one on each compressor. 

I went through 4 of the vi-air ones before buying the SMC versions. 

They kept either getting stuck open or closed. Either way they wouldn't work. 

Vi-air braided lines, compressors, guages are all really good, but for some reason I found there check valves to be completely shit! 

Got the braided front lines fitted today and secured the front lines to the bottom of the car, I'll look into the SMC valves, they're not by any chance smaller than the viair ones are they?

Ive also just ordered a filter for it, which seems like a good idea.

[dom.joy 87]

Looks awesome on air, every time I see a mk3 on air I want it but I should probably just buy some decent coilovers and save a few £ as I'd want an airlift kit

[c00k 435]

22 hours ago, bennyk said:

Got the braided front lines fitted today and secured the front lines to the bottom of the car, I'll look into the SMC valves, they're not by any chance smaller than the viair ones are they?

Also do you run a filter/drier? Can't decide if I need one or not.

 

No there slightly bigger, but neither are huge. 

This is one of mine, 

It's 1/4" NPT version, so smallest they make.  

you can also get bigger 3/8". 

 

yes I run a water trap, plus I have an electric drain valve on the tanks, so I just press a button on the dash, and it dumps any water from the tanks out under the rear floor. 

I'd recommend a manual drain vale on the tank as a minimum, or make an electric one your self isn't to hard, I made mine easily. There's no off the shelf kits for an electric one. 

Reason I went for an electric one, was to save lifting up the false floor everytime I wanted to drain the tanks, plus save mess and water in the boot, or getting a cloth for it to drain in to etc.... Press a button dumps water underneath car, job done lol 

 

If you running a water trap or dryer I'd say draining the tanks every 4-6 months. Maybe slight more offten at first on a new system, so you know it's not sucking in lots of vapour. 

If not running a water trap or dryer I'd say every 3-4 weeks. 

Last thing you want is water and lots of vapour in the system. It can mess up the inside manifold and management. It can sit inside your air bag, and make them perish quicker, it can rust the tanks from the inside out, if running steel tanks, there are alloy tank on the market. It can also freeze in very cold weather, causing any number of problems. 

In hotter warmer climate it not that important, but with our shitty UK weather, I'd always say there worth running.

some air ride setups in Canada and few other places are running 4-5 of them, plus they also add the same stuff Lorry drivers use in there air brakes to stop there air ride from freezing up in there winters. 

Edited February 25, 2016 by c00k

[yinnyvr6 20]

On 13/01/2016 at 10:07 PM, mattvr6 said:

Love this car gives me inspiration for my 4mo

Lovely car mate well done .looks amazing loving this vr6

[bennyk 1,238]

Looks awesome on air, every time I see a mk3 on air I want it but I should probably just buy some decent coilovers and save a few £ as I'd want an airlift kit

I waited until a 2nd hand airlift kit came up, still wasn't that cheap but it's hardly been used and was as new. Bought it from Robert Friend who's building a supercharged mk3 R32! Good old Ukmk3's!

[yinnyvr6 20]

As I said mate I'm loving this vr6  it's lovely. That's all I can say  love all work and detail you have put in to this . Love the colour looks so nice in the sun.  looking at this makes me think.were do is start with mine to get it to this standard . R32 mk3 bring it on you brave man 

[bennyk 1,238]

I waited until a 2nd hand airlift kit came up, still wasn't that cheap but it's hardly been used and was as new. Bought it from Robert Friend who's building a supercharged mk3 R32! On good old Ukmk3 classifieds!

[bennyk 1,238]

Managed to get some more time on the VR last weekend, with more help from Bealieboy on the woodwork side of things because I fucking hate it! At the moment it looks like this awaiting some acoustic carpet that I'll get on over the weekend;

Cheers Bealieboy! It looks

Also got the braided front lines fitted;

Changed this while I was there as the one I put on there a year or so ago must've been cheap crap as the gaiter had fell to bits!

Hopefully over the weekend I'll get a final few tweaks done and actually drive the thing for the first time in about 6 weeks!

I've also done a deal with Bealieboy involving swapping my coilovers for the interior out of the poor old Nothelle VR6 he's breaking which we think could have been a demo car for Scotts VW that commissioned the nothelle 3.2's (hence the Scotts logo on the front seats ) , I've ummed and ahh'd over it since he decided to break it about 6 months ago and after looking at how much time and workmanship must have gone into making it, I thought that it's got to be worth saving and restoring. It may not be to everyone's taste (the ruffled door cards and straps across the alcantara still scare me a bit!) but I'm going for it!

How it looked in the Nothelle

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[bennyk 1,238]

After Bealieboy kindly dumped, sorry dropped the interior off at mine I had a good look around it and realised that as well as the general wear and tear (the previous owner and children have not been kind!)and the broken front seat tilt handles, that the alcantara had faded quite a lot from black to grey.

After much googling and every know it all on the Internet saying that alcantara is the most delicate fabric in the world and you can't do a thing with it....., I ordered some Autobrite black fabric dye, a leather repair and restore kit and some tilt handles and surrounds and had a go at ruining the seats.....

So after a couple of test spots with the fabric dye all seemed to be good and the Internet is full of over exaggerating bellendsI got brave tried it

on a door card after masking the edges I went for it; Here's a before and after; here's a close up of the door cards where the original plastic now has a lovely coat of leather (well after I cleaned all of the scum off of it!) Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Bealieboy 1,625]

It's a pleasure to have helped you Ben, I look forward to the mk2 version of the bootbuild using grown ups pipe and fittings!

Also a pleasure to have deposited (got shot of ) the interior at yours. At least you can do the interior justice, I'm liking the transformation already. Well done for your research and having the cahones to dye the alcantara!

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[rsweeney 40]

that interior looks great very jealous mate !

[bennyk 1,238]

that interior looks great very jealous mate !

Thanks mate, couldn't say no to it, though it has taken me about 6 months to make my mind up about it, can't wait to get it all in now!

I've been busy cleaning it all up, I tried some stupidly expensive Swisswax alcantara cleaner which by the way was crap! I think it was £30 for a small bottle of slightly soapy water, I sent it back! Anyway I had a go at the drivers seat bolster could do with a bit more of the paint on it but I'm pleased so far;

Also died the Alcantara on the front seats, here's one done spot the difference;

Then got back on the boot install; frame work knocked up by Bealieboy; And carpeted the false floor; Got the V2 controller in the centre console;

Drove the thing for the first time since January! Seems to drive well, I will get the tracking and camber checked though;

Then got bored of playing with air ride so started fitting bits of the new interior, door card with Highline pocket and mk3.5 handle;

And that's about it for now, maybe sometime soon I'll get fed up with playing with it and actually take it to a couple of shows!

[Bealieboy 1,625]

I'm looking forward to seeing the seats Ben, it's starting to take shape nicely.

For those of you thinking wtf about that boot build, I actually threw that together. I aimed the wood at Bens car from his back garden, I didn't once go near the boot! Took quite a few cups of tea too!!!! Eh Ben!

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[bennyk 1,238]

I'm looking forward to seeing the seats Ben, it's starting to take shape nicely.

For those of you thinking wtf about that boot build, I actually threw that together. I aimed the wood at Bens car from his back garden, I didn't once go near the boot! Took quite a few cups of tea too!!!! Eh Ben!

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Yeah threw it together with a load of old off cuts of wood I found in the back of my shed as well! It does the job perfectly, maybe next year we'll pull it apart and make a bit of a fuss of it

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[bennyk 1,238]

Been spending every spare minute working on this over the last couple of weeks ( which is not many minutes when you have a 6 month old!) but I'm pretty much there now and ready for a show or 2. Got the rest of the interior cleaned, died and repaired,got a new set of seat runner guides; then swapped around some of the seat plastics for ones I had laying about, knew they'd come in handy one day!

Old vs new;

Then swapped all of the red anniversary belts back to black as they just didn't go and fitted the rest of the interior;

Then after a couple of test drives, one up to Bealieboy's to pick up a couple more bits from the Nothelle Golf;

I took it into work to get the tracking checked which was 4 degrees out even though it seemed to drive fine!

I then gave it around 1.0-1.5 degrees of negative camber on the front and had a good poke around under neath on the 4 post ramp to make sure that all of the air ride install was good. Also gave it a good squirt inside anywhere I could get with some cavity wax whilst it was in the air.

Also put the sunroof wind deflector that I've had in the shed for ages on, I think I like it!

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[bennyk 1,238]

A little update to this after nearly 3 years of taking it easy on the slightly iffy clutch, one of the reasons I got it so cheap but changing the bushes on the pedal made it a lot better and 2 years of having a gearbox fitted with a Quaife diff lying around in my shed I finally gave in and got a new clutch and the other box into the car. I cleaned painted and changed all of the seals on it a while ago, Then decided to just get it done on the drive as I'd be waiting forever to get a spare ramp at work and I hate being there when I don't have to beSome shiny new parts, Got this one to try to help me but he was as much use as an ashtray on a motorbike when it came to lifting the gearbox back in!! Then after finally getting the box back in for the 2nd time don't ask! On the Saturday afternoon before the VR6oc rolling road day on the Sunday it all worked!! She drove perfectly on the way to Stealth on the Sunday morning, a nice clear A14 on a nice bright morning ; She ran a slightly disappointing 279bhp due to some belt slip, but good to know there's a bit more in her! Was really stoked to pick up Mod's car of the day! So nice to get some recognition for the car after all the hours I've put into it. Especially after originally buying it as a spares or repairs slightly rough old thing from eBay! Thanks guys!!

Then today over 2 years of driving the VR and with missus only ever being in the car once since being back on the road after the repaint and me getting it stuck on a slight raised row of cobbles backing out of the inlaws driveway when she did finally come in it! I persuaded her to come with me to the Autofinesse Show & Shine which was conveniently only 10 mins from where we live and in a lovely old pub in a pretty village, I turned up a bit late and because we'd brought the little one with us had to leave early, but as I went to make a move I was asked to wait for 10 minutes and to my and the other halfs surprise (she just doesn't get it!) I'd won something! Which happened to be 1st place!!

Won't need to buy any cleaning gear for a while now!!

[Dave_ciw 507]

A class act as always fella. Looking awesome?

[bennyk 1,238]

A class act as always fella. Looking awesome?

Cheers mate, you reckon you'll be getting to any shows this year?

[Dave_ciw 507]

Yeah all the ones I have put my name down for I will be there. The only thing I missed was RR day but the car was not playing ball until last week.