Suby Club

Its funny seeing everyone welcome him even though he has 1.2k posts haha

Ha! yeah, better late than never.

@Ty - Good to meet you. I had to duck off to a dinner after the BBQ so i didn't go on the cruise. 
 
 
Well today, Christmas came early for the Liberty when the unthinkable happened. What's the quickest way for a TT owner to spend 7k?
 
 
 
Apologies it was taken with a potato, but you get the idea.

Sorry to hear, but I look forward to what it becomes!

Thanks Nick, it'll most likely get a new EJ207 short motor to replace the current block.

Shit!

No good mate. Hopefully it can be sorted quickly for you.

Interesting. You say it has VF17/18. Was it a Gen2 cut you put in or a Gen3? If it was Gen3 it should have had VF25/26 and a VF27.

Tim - The replacement new short motor will be just as costly as a single conversion (if you have someone do it for you). Think out that route. I did that the first motor I blew, and it lasted 23,000km before doing it again. Think seriously about the outlay to gain ratio.

@Jimbo - Actually it could've been VF26/VF27. It's out of a MY99 gen 3. I just remember it was different to the VF32/VF33 AUDM combo.

@Ben - hmm, even if I went with the 207 block? S&J seem to think they are more bulletproof and aren't likely to do a big end bearing. I would think about doing the single conversion but I don't think you would you get change from 10k?

Plus I do love the twins. The boost on primary is the perfect setup around town.

How'd you do the front air dam? Vinyl or plastidip. Looks mint mate

Plastidip Mosti. Once it starts to look ragged I think i'll paint it because I like the look.

Exactly what I did - New 207 short motor, new gaskets, head cleaning, etc - $8020. And lasted 6 months. That was untuned though (standard MY02 ECU tune). If you tune it, it will likely last longer.

 

I still recommend checking out the single turbo conversion options. I paid about 10k for a version 8 ('04) STi, but I got new clutch and alarm put in as well. And it was about 3 years ago. Chances are, pricing has come down in the past few years. That price also included transport from adelaide to AM Auto. The only reason I didnt get S&J's to do the work for me was he wouldn't do the loom work. AM Auto did the whole job.

 

Edit - I just re-read your first post - You already have the ecutek. If you get the single turbo conversion (engine replacement w/ ECU) you can just switch the Licence over to the new ECU - only costs you tuning rather than a new licence to go with it. 

 

Jump onto my build page, and check out the comparison dyno graphs. Chalk and cheese between the two engine types. But you make the decision. I tried to play with the twins, and it cost me 3 engines. I gave up.

Should try find yourself one of these Legacy front bar option aero kits

Thats an s401 front bar isnt it? Theyre pretty pricey

Thats an s401 front bar isnt it? Theyre pretty pricey

Nope. Just optional aero kit

@Jimbo - they do look good but i'm not a huge fan of stick on bits. They mess up the lines of the front bar and always have that tacked on look about them.

@Ben - I hear what you're saying and it makes sense however, i'm not sure I want to take the risk with an unknown second hand motor and shipping my car up to Qld to have the work done. I thought it was the AUDM tunes that was the culprit of the big end bearing failures but surely I should get some life out of a tuned 207...

I'm not sure I want to drop 10k into this car. Heck I didn't really want to spend 7k. It's a bad position to be in with your pride and joy - especially after doing the conversion successfully myself you get a bit attached to the thing.

Surely you could get a low km ej208 motor for less than 3k? Ichybum has them constantly.

Shit, there's a dude selling 3 TT engines for 3k on eBay.

Sorry to hear about your bad luck Tim.

 

 

Ichiban has a halfcut for $3300

Mmmm. True that. Pretty much the same reasons I went with a new short myself the first time. Fair call, I hear where you are coming from loud and clear. Best of luck with it Tim. It shouldnt require much of a fiddle tuning wise at least. Bit of a fine tune and she should be good to go. Keep us posted with the outcome. Sean does good work.

 

Something that might be nice to keep knowledge of - if you can keep her off boost and under 2000 rpm, you should be able to avoid making the big end knock any worse. I managed to drive mine for about 3 weeks like that until one day I was in a hurry, and got it to 4k. It really didnt like that, and it all of a sudden sounded like a piston was about to let go (sort of went from sounding like a half pound hammer to a sledge, in about 10 seconds flat). She got parked after that.

Definitely, it would be the cheapest option to get another second hand low km motor. But that's essentially what mine was. Just like anyone i'm sure, I don't want to be in this same position another year or two down the track. I'd rather do it properly and go with the new short motor/reco'd heads.

Thanks for your options Ben. Although it is very tempting to go down the single conversion path, I was very happy with how the car drove up until this point.

I babied the car down to S&J this morning so it's sitting there until they reopen and can start work in the new year.

Cheers guys for your support, I'll be keeping this updated with progress.

207 shorty will do the job well. I would convert it to single while you are doing this though. It could be such a good car!

The last time this happened to a friend of a friend, It started with a 207/vrs kit. That then evolved into a single turbo/convert everything to suit/link ecu/supporting 180-200kw mods and I got it done for just under 10k including a new clutch. (Epic mates rates)

Never again. That car does go good, Those 208 heads flow nice.


p.s: Your car looks awesome.