I thought I’d share the progress of my sunlight silver MK2.5 Sport since buying it back in June 2013. A tale of a project derailed and almost lost!
I bought the car back in 2013 as a low mileage, standard VVT Sport. 36k on the clocks and well cared for by previous owners with signs of Waxoyl dripping from drain holes! I knew nothing of chassis rails back then and luckily, those were cavity sprayed as were the sills.
What looked like rust at a glance was in fact Waxoyl!
All clean and untouched
… and the interior I picked the Mk2.5 for. Heated leather abound.
It wasn’t long before I gave in to the massive tuning market and bought a Racing Beat rear exhaust to add a little noise to the car. This back box is VERY nicely fabricated and adds just a bit of depth to the exhaust note. No droning, no antisocial volumes, just “right” for my tastes. I also fitted a set of style bars (unwittingly… before seeing “mousetrap” images on Google!!!)
Next… time to powder coat some engine bay bits. My local powder coater had a new chrome finish, so I tried it out on the strut brace and mounting brackets. I also coated the washer bottle mount.
Add K&N Typhoon and some Magnecor leads… a bit of spit and polish and this is how it ended up:
Now… at this point, I realised that the underneath of the car, while solid, was pretty “brown” especially on the rear end suspension arms and subframe. Can’t be that difficult to properly remedy can it?.. I was loving the car but wanted to sharpen up the handling further. I decided to pull the rear end apart and restore it - upgrading as I go with uprated bushes and good quality coil overs. A new set of wheels would have to come too… so… this happened!
Just one day off work and a borrowed corner of my local friendly garage… I stripped the rear down. Its not pretty is it? A garage queen 41k mileage car at this point… brown with failed paint.
As all “projects” seem to go with me, it snowballed. Microsoft Excel got involved… parts lists… birthday and Christmas present lists involved nuts and bolts… the parts started to accumulate:
The most expensive small package I’ve ever had delivered! Every rear end fixing, new.
IL Motorsport uprated bushing kit for the rear:
Aren’t these adjustable drop links just gorgeous… the build quality is superb:
Oh… and lets stiffen the car up properly and ditch that “mousetrap” style bar. GCFabrications to the rescue!
Last but not least, MeisterR Zeta CRD coil overs. These are beautifully made.
I almost forgot… wheel choice. My aim with this car is to build a fast B road car so I decided to try and go with the lightweight/track proven side of the choices. 6UL’s were high on my radar but I just couldn’t get on with them. Many digital attempts later, via Photoshop, I ordered a custom set of 16" Team Dynamics Pro Race 1.2 in “glossy anthracite”. I had them made with the proper 54.1mm bore (ie no plastic spigot rings) and an offset of ET25 to give just a subtle poke towards the arches.
I’ll save the thread at this point and add the rest in a new post…