Jason Moyle Racing

After much nagging from Jason I thought I would start a mini build thread for my 1983 Diamond Silver Mk1 Campaign.

I've owned the car since 2000, having stumbled across it for sale down in Bristol in the local rag.....it was advertised as an accident damaged Mk1 GTI for £600 so I thought it was worth taking the short drive from the Forest of Dean down to take a look.  Story was his girlfriend had been driving it and had hit a curb and he thought the chassis was bent, he clearly didn't know much about Mk1s as the chassis wasn't damaged at all....the wishbone had taken full impact and buckled pushing the front wheel back against rear of front wing......after a bit of bartering I secured the car for £440 and said I would pick it up the next day!

Got back and dug out a spare wishbone and wheel I had knocking about.  I made the journey back down the next morning with a friend armed with the replacement parts, a trolley jack, some spanners and borrowed trade plates.  20mins later I was driving it home    Oh and did I mention the chassis number identified it as a Campaign model and it came with all the standard Campaign goodies 

Anyway I had the damaged wing replaced and painted by a friend and drove about in it like this for while....I even did a couple of track days in it at Donington and Cadwell 





When I did Donington the car was completely standard in every way, with the exception of the front spoiler.  While it went OK and was a fun day it made me want more power.....so for Cadwell I procurred a St3 bg valve head and Kent GS3 cam (the same one now fitted to the red car on my other thread)....I decided the car looked a little more purposeful with the bumpers removed....the car went even better than before and had some fun chasing down some VR6 engined cars    Oh yeah and I also fitted an uprated servo and master cylinder as car was only running the standard setup and provided me with a few brown trouser moments at Donny LOL





It was clear following Cadwell that I needed to do something about the suspension and also by this time the bodywork was starting to look a little tired, so the decision was made to send the car off for a bit of a freshen up back in 2009 and as the tired old 1800 was breathing quite heavily I decided an engine re-build wouldn't go amiss while the shell was off being down.....it was then that I stumbled across a RE1900 for sale on ebay, the only problem was that some muppet had started to strip it down with a view to re-building it and had lost one of the cam caps    The good bit is that this meant nobody was really bidding on it.....I ended up winning the auction for the princely sum of £60 







After stripping and cleaning everything I found that the pistons were in perfect condition as was the crank, due in the main to the car having been run on Mobil 1 since new!

I proceeded to fit new rings, hone the bores and fit new gasket and bearings all round along with a new oil pump and water pump, I also took the opportunity of fitting a baffled sump and windage tray.  As for the head I sent that down to my friend Mart down in Bridgend and he found a spare cap and re-worked it until a good fit was acheived, it was then given a quick cleanup skim, fitted with new guides and had the seats re-cut to match.  The engine was then built back up with the original Schrick cam and given a coat of blue paint 



















While Mart was sorting the head I thought it'd be rude not to get a gearbox re-built by him as well as the one I removed had a dodgy synchro on 2nd & 3rd.  Once I got the car back I decided I would fit a set of OE type side transfers, I got these from Daniel at www.volkswagenstickers.co.uk and have got to say they are great quality and have since fitted a set to the red track car as well 

Since then the car has sat on my drive collecting dirt and grime, the only work completed being fitting of the engine and gearbox and treating it to a set of Pro-Sport uprated shocks and springs (used to be Jamex) complete with new Febi top mounts as well.





Time and space have played a part in not getting it all back together and finished, not to mention that I was made redundant in 2010 so funds have been a bit tight, especially considering I decided to by the red track car and all my money and time got sunk in to that for the past 18mths or so....with that now complete though my attention has now turned back to the Siver one 

As you can see she's looking a little sorry for herself and was covered with grime and green grunge 







So I spent a few hours yesterday and all morning this morning giving the car a thorough wash and then hit it with the machine polisher and some Farecla G3 followed by some G10......I started to give it a coat of polish after this but then the rain came 











A hint to what lies under the bonnet......



Next up is get all the plastic trim cleaned, treated and back on and then move on to the interior........as you can see I've got a fair bit of work to do there.....spent quite a few hours on Saturday sorting some electrical gremlins that were causing the dash to throw a wobbly, god I hate auto electrics  LOL



Those eagle eyed of you will see that as well as the GTI Engineering RE1900 engine I have also got a GTI Engineering steering wheel 

The plan at the moment is get the car all back together, get it MOTd and then make some use of it for a while    Ultimately this one may well be going up for sale along with the red Track car to frre up some cash to finish the 'proper' track car 

Hope you enjoyed the read, if anyone has any comments or questions let me know.

Tim