VW Lupo rally car

Document your project with images, pictures, etc., and share with others.
Post Reply
User avatar
mefmotorsport
Posts: 543
Joined: Mon Aug 01, 2011 6:45 am
ECU Model: S100 Pro
Distributor: Mefmotorsport
Firmware Version: 79
Location: Merseyside
Contact:

VW Lupo rally car

Post by mefmotorsport »

I started helping my niece's boyfiend Calvin,building his first rally car last year. Its a 1 litre Lupo which they owned as a road car.

I fitted a weld in Custom cages roll cage and we made all the basic safety requirments for complying with the MSA rally regs.

then in March this year he competed on his first stage rally at 3 Sisters circuit near Wigan. the car and driver performed faultlessly although rather underpowered with only 50 or less bhp!

Then he competed on his second event at the same venue in April, again finishing the event with no problems and driving it a bit more agressively!

Last month he did his 3rd event which was at Anglesey circuit, we always knew that the car would be completely outclassed at this venue but its all good experience and he finished the event.

So since earlier in the year we'd been building a replacement engine for the car, the decision was to go up to 1400cc since the 1600cc class is usually full of very expensive high powered cars. We looked at engine options and decided that tthe 1400cc Polo AFH engine circa 1999 was the best option for future tuning. It gives 100bhp in its standard form so there should be plenty of tuning potential.

A donor engine was sourced which we stripped. It had done 90,000 miles in the 1999 Polo but was found to be in excellent condition, looks like the previous owners had looked after it well!

The AFH engine is a 1390cc 16V engine, a cast iron block of 76.5mm bore and 76mm throw crank.It has an alloy 16V head with conventional twin cams with hydraulic bucket followers. Its a nice little unit, not unlike the VX 20XE engine in design.

Due to Calvins limited budget we decided to keep it fairly standard to start with, I did a small amount of porting to smooth out a few lumps and bumps in the inlet tracts and took 20 thou off the top of the block to bring the pistons level and try to get the compression ratio more towards 11:1.

We bought a set of Suzuki GSXR650 throttle bodies which have 38mm butterflys and had an inlet manifold fabricated by DANST Engineering.

The engine has a distributor but no crank sensor so we removed and blanked off the distributor and fitted a VX wasted spark coil, then I fitted a 36-1 trigger wheel to the front pulley along with a modified Zetec crank sensor (very restricted space between the trigger wheel and the chassis leg). We got a fairly decent but inexpensive 4:2:1 stainless 4 branch exhaust manifold from a German company on ebay and I built a 2" stainless single box exhaust system.

We installed the engine in the car and I made a wiring loom for a DTA S40. After setting up the trigger wheel for 90 degrees BTDC sensor position, using the standard Zetec map the engine fired up first time and runs as sweet as anything. I have since reduced the whole fuel map by 20% and balanced up the throttle bodies and it seems to be good.

Just a few things to finalise now and then its ready to be mapped.

His first event with the new engine will be at New Brighton promenade stages rally on 3rd September where I'm hoping it will be a massive improvement over the original 1 litre thing!

Pictures to follow soon!
User avatar
mefmotorsport
Posts: 543
Joined: Mon Aug 01, 2011 6:45 am
ECU Model: S100 Pro
Distributor: Mefmotorsport
Firmware Version: 79
Location: Merseyside
Contact:

Re: VW Lupo rally car

Post by mefmotorsport »

No pictures yet but plenty of time driving and making adjustments to the fuel map based on the AFR readings from an Innovate LM2 wideband unit.

We made massive improvement during a couple of hours mobile mapping, me driving and Calvin watching the AFR ratio and the relevant weak or rich areas of the map. The car drives superbly well now, feels very responsive and very willing to rev!

A mapping session is booked at EFi parts in Runcorn this afternoon where hopefully we will see more improvements and final power figures etc..

The standard engine is rated at 100bhp so were hoping it might produce maybe 120bhp in its slightly modified spec...
User avatar
mefmotorsport
Posts: 543
Joined: Mon Aug 01, 2011 6:45 am
ECU Model: S100 Pro
Distributor: Mefmotorsport
Firmware Version: 79
Location: Merseyside
Contact:

Re: VW Lupo rally car

Post by mefmotorsport »

Excellent result from Mondays rolling road mapping session at Efi parts in Runcorn!

The Lupo finally made 142.8bhp @ 7100rpm and 114ft/lb at 6100rpm

A very satisfying and surprising result for whats basically a standard engine.

It seems to go quite well!

Martin
Rob Stevens
Posts: 1247
Joined: Thu Jul 28, 2011 4:10 am
ECU Model: S100 Pro
Distributor: None-Coil On Plug :)

Re: VW Lupo rally car

Post by Rob Stevens »

Wow, that's exceptional. I'm doing the same engine with a friend but using the plenham to start with. I've just got that rear crank seal thing and need to fit, I'm loaning him an S60 so can use that hall trigger,
Nice design head with the oval inlet ports.
Any chance of the map, will save me a little time, injectors will be different but ballpark.
User avatar
mefmotorsport
Posts: 543
Joined: Mon Aug 01, 2011 6:45 am
ECU Model: S100 Pro
Distributor: Mefmotorsport
Firmware Version: 79
Location: Merseyside
Contact:

Re: VW Lupo rally car

Post by mefmotorsport »

Image
User avatar
mefmotorsport
Posts: 543
Joined: Mon Aug 01, 2011 6:45 am
ECU Model: S100 Pro
Distributor: Mefmotorsport
Firmware Version: 79
Location: Merseyside
Contact:

Re: VW Lupo rally car

Post by mefmotorsport »

Rob Stevens wrote:Any chance of the map, will save me a little time, injectors will be different but ballpark.

Quite possibly but I'll have to get it out of the ecu, not had a chance as yet and its not my car!
User avatar
mefmotorsport
Posts: 543
Joined: Mon Aug 01, 2011 6:45 am
ECU Model: S100 Pro
Distributor: Mefmotorsport
Firmware Version: 79
Location: Merseyside
Contact:

Re: VW Lupo rally car

Post by mefmotorsport »

Image

Image

Image

the fan is bigger than the Lupo!
Image
Post Reply