Rotrex powered R32

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Discussion

Altrezia

8,517 posts

210 months

Wednesday 7th April 2010
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I live 2 minutes from Storm Developments - good guys. They helped me rebuild my old Rallye.

Nice R32!

Anakin

7 posts

170 months

Wednesday 24th November 2010
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JB! said:
Lefty Two Drams said:
I wish it were mine! It's from the storm developments website for the single rotrex charger on the mk V.

scratchchin
what horsepower are they claiming for the kit now?

I'll see if I can find the full reg of my mates old one.

Edit- it's KX06CFP anyone know if it's still alive an running a charger???

Edited by JB! on Tuesday 6th April 22:22
Yes its still alive and well, still on the orgional stock clutch and has about 33k miles on it now. The reports of it breaking valves etc are not true, when my friend bought it the first owner had melted the Cats which cause him some problems. Storm fixed the Car for him.
It's currently running about 475 bhp.



its had lots done to it since, lots of carbon fiber Recaro seats etc smile

pad58

12,543 posts

180 months

Wednesday 24th November 2010
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Loving the mk4 r32,i saw a youtube clip of a mk4 take off on a motorway in europe somewhere.i think
it had twin turbos against a z4 ,boy could that shift,got me all of a dither.

Blue32

Original Poster:

438 posts

168 months

Saturday 11th February 2012
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Thought I’d bring this back form the dead and update it, as quite a lot has happened

May 2010
Toureg calipers were fitted
Standard callipers

New calliper fitted

Wheel back on

Had to fit 16mm spacers to allow the wheels to clear the callipers

Decided not to paint them, as I am trying to keep the car looking as close to stock as possible. The stopping power with the new callipers is a lot better than before with the standard brakes. The only down side is the pedal travel is a bit longer and has lost some feel.

When the kit was fitted, the water & methanol injection was fed from the windscreen wash tank. I have a bit of an OCD about having a clean windscreen, water and methanol isn’t very good as screen wash.

To resolve this I made a new tank from a aluminium drinks bottle. I went to a breakers yard and got hold of a water level pickup from a MKIV golf, I modified the lid from the drinks bottle to include the water level pickup.


When the level in the bottle drops to just under ¼ it triggers the low screen wash warning. As it is wired in parallel with the screen wash level sensor
Now I can have proper screen wash in the main screen wash tank


May/June 2010

I was never really happy with the software on the car as it had a few issues. So after approaching United Motorsports I got the car booked in to The Phirm (vw specialist in Hook) to get Larger injectors, new 4” MAF and United motorsports software installed. During the installation it was found that a check valve between the manifold and carbon canister was missing, so the boost pressure was getting back to the fuel tank (now fixed).
Once everything was fitted the car was taken out for a test, during the test drive the clutch started slipping, not surprising really, as it was still the stock clutch at the time.
After 72000 miles and coping with twice the power it was ever meant to, it was inevitable that it would fail at some point.

The power was backed off to protect the clutch, but it was sooooo much better

July 2010

Took the car back to The Phirm to get a SPEC stage 3+ clutch and solid flywheel fitted. When the original clutch was removed, it looked like there was still plenty of life in it, the slipping was probably due to a lack of clamping pressure. While the clutch was fitted, another minor problem was resolved.

When the new software was installed in June 2011, it was found that the original air filter was restricting the airflow to the MAF and causing some running issues.

One of these was fitted in its place (recent photo as I didn’t take one at the time)

I wasn’t convinced the filter would fit inside the bumper, but it did.
The software was also tweaked again, when the original clutch started slipping the power was backed off to protect it. Once the clutch was replaced the power was turned back up to it’s full potential.

September 2010

Once all the little issues were ironed out, I took the car to Surrey Rolling Road where it made 468hp @ flywheel.

or 362hp at the wheels



November 2010

I finally got to see what all the work on the car has achieved by attending VMax200. I completed 7/8 runs with my last run being the best where I saw 171 on the timing beam

When we arrived, it was nice and foggy



My favourite pictures from the day


(ok so the speedo is a bit optimistic)

I really enjoyed the day, although it was a bit disconcerting at first, as I have never driven into fog at 170mph.
Managed to get through over a litre of water and methanol and loads of Vpower, used ½ tank over 38 miles (5.6mpg average).

Video of my last and best run from the day
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BbswhpwrPOo
Sorry the speedo is not in sync

The new brakes worked really well (managed to turn them a nice shade of blue)

May 2011

Attended my second VMax (overboost), I enjoyed the first one so much I had to go back as it’s addictive.
I tried (and failed) taking on a Carrera GTcloud9

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uG8oCSf1osg&lis...

Another video from the same event.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M5KR1pNKa5A&lis...
Excuse the huffing and puffing from the cameraman, he had just run across the airfield and was a bit out of breath (he is over 60hehe)

During the runs I did some data logging to see how the car was running under full load, got a peak airflow of 323.5g/s. I added 30% to account for the larger MAF (30% bigger than stock) which gave 420.55g/s (hope that's right).
To calculate the hp I divided 420.55 by 0.83, which gave 506.6hpnuts. Without adding the 30% it came out at 389.7hp. I have used the same calculation when running on a RR and compared the results. The calculated power was within 6hp of the RR reading.
Data from the run


August 2011

I drove 1,500 miles (round trip) through France to meet up with my parents for a few days. Manage to average 81mph (including crawling through Paris) had to refuel a total 7 times (4 times in one day!) and averaged 22-24mpg. Couldn’t wait for the credit card bill after that!!

We were staying in a small village called La Roque-Gageac in the Dordogne valley. The campsite had a nice view of the local Chateau Castelnaud.



While I was there one of the local towns held a classic car show
Unsurprisingly it was mostly French cars, however there was this MG

Some old Citroen’s

Renault 5 turbo

Bugatti type 35 (I think)

Amilcar

Obligatory 2CV


Also there was a stationary engine running on a mixture of alcohol and petrol. Only took this to get the French man with the big floppy beret


Nearly didn’t make it as 3 days before I was due to leave I found the belt which drives the AC, power steering etc…. was starting to disintegrate.



No problem I thought, ordered a new belt and went to get it replaced.
The supercharger belt had to be removed to allow access, when the sc belt was removed we noticed the bottom idler pulley was loose. On further inspection it was found that the pulley body was moving on the bearing and had worn a groove on the inside of the pulley.

A temporary fix was made, using some 1200 emery paper to pack out the inside of the pulley, as there wasn’t enough time to get a new pulley.

The fix lasted over 3000 miles!
The pulley has since been replaced.

September 2011

Whilst having the supercharger belt idler pulley replaced I noticed some cracks in the pipe’s on the Milltek sports cats and on the back box.
I took the car back to AMD who fitted it all a few years ago, they had a look and agreed that the cracks would be covered by the lifetime warranty woohoo I was worried as the warranty only valid it up to a 20% power increase, I’m running a bit more than that. I am surprised they have lasted this long considering the abuse they get from dealing with the gasses from a near 500hp engine.
This happened at just the right time as when the old cats were removed it was found that one of the cats was starting to break up and clog with soot.
Nice new shiny exhaust



The build quality looks to have improved as well.

Shortly after the exhaust was replaced I had the twin fuel pump setup replaced with a single pump. As the twin pump setup was staring to annoy me due to the wining. The new pump is sooooo much quieter, all I can hear is a very faint hum.

New pump (top) OEM R32 pump (bottom)
Even though the new pump is smaller than the R32 pump, it flows more fuel and at a higher pressure than the std R32 pump.

I have did a before and after video clips to show the difference
Dual pumps
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aFAy20zW9aE

Single pump
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=orlB9NSC0BA&fea...
Far better

November 2011

I came very close to wrecking the engine. On my way home from work I got caught out in some very heavy rain, the roads were flooded from curb to curb. Just after I pulled away from some traffic lights the car was a bit hesitant, seconds later there were clouds of steam from the exhaust and it started misfiring so I stopped.

My dad towed me home, managed to get the car started, but it misfired every so often and was still steaming from the exhaust. I decided to take the boost pipe to the manifold off and disconnected the MAF and start it Glad I did, my dad got soaked so went and got the video camera for the second start this was the result:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rgRnTJwjs9g
eek

The rattling sound is the gearbox (no DM flywheel), I put my ear against the intake manifold to listen for any nasty sounding noises, there weren’t any so I ran it for a few minuets. I used a bit of flexi ducting to direct the pipe from the intercooler to the floor to stop any more water from getting into the engine and took it for a drive round the block.
[IMG] http://i252.photobucket.com/albums/hh28/kieranp_ph...

It ran ok, but was a bit unhappy due to the MAF being disconnected.

I was very lucky not to nuke the engine, however it has cost me a new throttle body £400+ MAF & air filter so lesson learnt. I have now added one of these: http://www.knfilters.com/search/product.aspx?Prod=... which will hopefully repel some of the water in the future.

At about the same time as the water incident the clutch started to slip under hard acceleration. I use the car every day to commute to and from work, I guess sports clutches aren’t meant for sitting in stop start traffic every day.

February 2012

The car is booked in to The Phirm on the 18th for a new clutch. Sticking with the Spec, just replacing the friction plate. Currently the car is resting at the top of the drive as the clutch slippage has got worse.

In the meantime I’m using this:

It’s a 1.2 12v 3cyl with a massive 63hpevil
Just for a laugh, I took this photo a couple of weeks ago. 3.2 v6 throttle body vs 1.2 3cyl throttle body

If anyone is interested I have thread on the Skoda running here:
http://www.detailingworld.co.uk/forum/showthread.p... it was in a bit of a state when I got it

Future plans are to still to get a front end re spray. I also fancy going back to another VMax, even though it’s not going to go any quicker, its still good fun

That’s about it for now. Sorry the update is a bit long, I’ll try and keep it updated more often.
wavey

Edited by Blue32 on Saturday 11th February 21:28


Edited by Blue32 on Saturday 11th February 21:29

Wills2

22,612 posts

174 months

Saturday 11th February 2012
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Excellent thread, and a good write up.



PaulG40

2,381 posts

224 months

Sunday 12th February 2012
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Holy moly! That's some good power you've got in that! Great thread! Loving the stock look of it!

grenpayne

1,972 posts

161 months

Sunday 12th February 2012
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Excellent thread, really interesting and 500bhp hehe

Sat in Phoenix Airport in the US waiting to fly home so that was just the ticket!

Reindeer

308 posts

168 months

Sunday 12th February 2012
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Good and interesting update. Thank you.

JPearson

1,269 posts

161 months

Sunday 12th February 2012
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eek that video of the boost pipe, how much water!!!

Good read up though nice spec smile

aka_kerrly

12,415 posts

209 months

Monday 13th February 2012
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Reindeer said:
Good and interesting update. Thank you.
My exact thoughts.

Blue32

Original Poster:

438 posts

168 months

Thursday 22nd March 2012
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I got the car back today after having the clutch replaced. When it was stripped down, they found that the clutch wasn’t worn. After 16,000 miles the clutch had lost 0.2mm and was still within factory specification.
Clutch disk

Cover plate


After discussions with the manufacturer of the clutch (SPEC) it turns out there was variation in how the engine crankshaft is shimmed during manufacture which can alter the position of the clutch. This variation on mine resulted in the clutch not releasing fully which caused the slipping.
To get the clutch position correct a spacer for the clutch needed to be machined. This resulted in the gear box being removed and refitted 4 timeseek so they could get a spacer machined to the correct size to set the clutch position to allow it to release fully.
On the plus side SPEC picked up the bill for the new clutch disk due to the issue with the shimming.

While the car was in the work hop, it was found that one of the rear springs had cracked (common MKIV fault), so they were replaced at the same time.



I have spoken to a body shop today, and was quoted £700 to remove all the stone chips and re spray the bonnet, wings and bumpersmile.
Hopefully should be able to show off some pics of a nicely re sprayed front end in a couple of weeks.

pit5top

101 posts

155 months

Friday 23rd March 2012
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Great write up. Also really liking the stock look of the car, sounds fantastic and 500 bhp. Obviously not a garage queen either. Comforting to see such
a modified car being used souch and being pretty reliable. Well done!

Blue32

Original Poster:

438 posts

168 months

Friday 23rd March 2012
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pit5top said:
Great write up. Also really liking the stock look of the car, sounds fantastic and 500 bhp. Obviously not a garage queen either. Comforting to see such
a modified car being used souch and being pretty reliable. Well done!
Thanks, if I had the time space and money it would be a garage queen and detailed to within an inch of it’s lifeboxedin. But that would be a bit of a waste.

The plan has always been to try keep it looking as stock as possible and reliable enough to use every day. So far it has worked, apart from some minor hiccupslaugh.

Terminator X

14,886 posts

203 months

Friday 23rd March 2012
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Sounds bonkers! Are they 4wd?

TX.

Blue32

Original Poster:

438 posts

168 months

Friday 23rd March 2012
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Sort of, it has a Haldex system so is only 4wd when needed, works quite well in the snow.

Blue32

Original Poster:

438 posts

168 months

Saturday 14th April 2012
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Had an expensive couple of weeks,
It was MOT& service time just before the Easter weekend, just before the MOT the passenger door lock decided to give up (non working locks = fail). Fortunately I had a replacement as it had been playing up for a while. Unfortunately I didn’t have time to fit is so had to pay the VW dealer to fit it.

On to the MOT, it failed on emissionsfrown, which was odd as it had passed previously and had new cats fitted back in October.

Failed quite badlyyikes
Had to drive to the Phirm on Good Friday so the guy that mapped the car could update the software and adjust the fuelling to get the emissions down as it was running a bit rich.
Had the retest on Thursday and it passedwoohoo


As part of the software update the car now has no lift shift, so when 100% throttle is used I can change gear with out lifting off. It works by detecting the clutch has been pressed and cuts the ignition for 0.6seconds while changing gear. It takes a bit of getting used to, as I have to remember not to lift off the throttle.
Also have launch control, http://unitedmotorsport.co.uk/downloads/launch.pdf which I haven’t used yet as I’m supposed to be running the new clutch in. I have set it up, it makes the car sound like a rally car when it’s holding the launch RPM.
I’m hoping to try both the launch and no lift shift at the next Vmax.

Got my PH smiley fittedsmile

The Skoda got one toobiggrin


mat777

10,347 posts

159 months

Saturday 14th April 2012
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Great thread! 470bhp and 170mph in a Golf, you are a proper nutter! biggrin
I do love it when people manage to seriously increase the poke of a car but keep it looking stock on the outside.

As an aside.. thats a very odd looking engine layout. I'd thought it was a regular 2-banked V6. Is it a parallel 3-cylinder with 2 crankshafts a la Veyron?

Blue32

Original Poster:

438 posts

168 months

Saturday 14th April 2012
quotequote all
mat777 said:
Great thread! 470bhp and 170mph in a Golf, you are a proper nutter! biggrin
I do love it when people manage to seriously increase the poke of a car but keep it looking stock on the outside.

As an aside.. thats a very odd looking engine layout. I'd thought it was a regular 2-banked V6. Is it a parallel 3-cylinder with 2 crankshafts a la Veyron?
Thankssmile
I’d like to turn it up to 500hp, but it need forged rods for that. It’s still running the stock rods, it could probably run 500 on the stock rods, just not for very long.

It’s a single crank, narrow angle V6 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VR6_engine

Edited by Blue32 on Saturday 14th April 15:33

vit4

3,507 posts

169 months

Saturday 14th April 2012
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Great write up, not usually into these but I love how you've kept it looking pretty much standard thumbup

payner2008

269 posts

184 months

Saturday 14th April 2012
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mat777 said:
Great thread! 470bhp and 170mph in a Golf, you are a proper nutter! biggrin
I do love it when people manage to seriously increase the poke of a car but keep it looking stock on the outside.

As an aside.. thats a very odd looking engine layout. I'd thought it was a regular 2-banked V6. Is it a parallel 3-cylinder with 2 crankshafts a la Veyron?
Just like the original VR6. 15 degree bank angle iirc.

lol, just spotted to wikipedia link