jkrate buildup thread: Roxy

teaser like whoa

2008-03-10T15:50:00.000-07:00

varrroom psshht

2008-03-07T12:45:00.001-08:00

pics and text, courtesy of Brad Beardow at 1552v2.com

With all the parts finally here and the cylinder head refresh complete, it's finally time to bolt on the Kinetic Stage 2 turbo system.

This is truly a straightforward install, as Kinetic is as well it should be considering they are as well versed in the forced induction VR6 as anyone. As a matter of fact, Kinetic's lead R&D person, Shawn Van Neer, is something of an icon in the water-cooled VW world. We're not suggesting Shawn is old (he is), but whenever you begin to think you've done something first in the world of modified VWs, check with Shawn as there's an excellent chance he's already done it. And 15 years ago, too.

Everything fits nicely and there's not much tweaking involved. The intercooler requires a bit of clearance trimming to the radiator core support and the inner part of the front bumper, but it's pretty standard stuff.

With the install complete, all we need to do is solder in the C2 Motorsport chip that comes with the kit and we're ready to crank.

more peeeeces

2008-02-29T12:28:00.001-08:00

pics and text, courtesy of Brad Beardow at 1552v2.com

The C2 Motorsports 9.0:1 head gasket arrived today, so it's time to reassemble the head and re-install it on the block.

We took some time to clean up a bit of wayward oil soak as well as removing some grime here and there. Of course the old gasket material was removed and the block surface prepared for the C2 gasket. We're using OE "stretch" head bolts vs. higher-strength items such as ARP due to the fact that they're less expensive, require no re-torquing after installation and have proven themselves over the years in the relatively low boost environment this engine will be seeing.

Perfect timing is as beautiful as it is rare, and our FedEx guy has just walked in the door with the Kinetic turbo kit we've been waiting for. As you might imagine, tomorrow is turbo time!

Pretty Tial wastegate.

Rotomaster T3/T4 turbo.

awwww <3

2008-02-28T05:51:00.001-08:00

dude: while i think the money you spend on your cars would be better spent to help the homeless and aids victims, i will admit that they are pretty cool
dude: however, i will never publically admit this
jkrew: haha thanks doode =)
jkrew: HAHAHA
dude: you're welcome
dude: this conversation never happened
jkrew: haha *right click save as

Cylinder Head Tear Down Part 2

2008-02-26T13:08:00.000-08:00

pics and text, courtesy of Brad Beardow at 1552v2.com

More pics from the timing chain maintenance portion of this project. We're waiting on a new rear main seal, and then we'll update this section with the final pics for this job.

Oh it's on now

2008-02-26T13:06:00.000-08:00

pics and text, courtesy of Brad Beardow at 1552v2.com

We've got enough parts to get started.

As mentioned, this engine has some 160,000 miles under its belt, but we're about to double the power as if it had only 60,000 miles. Crazy? Not really, since a compression test revealed a healthy 160-psi across all 6 cylinders and the VR6 pistons and rods are known to be incredibly stout. In all our years of adding forced induction to VR6 engines, we've rarely seen a rod or piston let go without some sort of major tuning issue as the culprit. Still, 160k is a lot of miles and a bit of basic maintenance is certainly in order.

We plan to replace the timing chains, guides and tensioners as well as the headgasket and head bolts. Rather than simply replacing the headgasket with an OE 10.0:1 version, we're going with C2 Motorsport's custom 9.0:1 gasket. The way we see it, dropping the compression ratio down a point is something these particular pistons will welcome.

There's a pretty new Sachs OE clutch already in place, so even though timing chain maintenance presents an ideal opportunity to install something with a bit more clamping force, we'll forego that extra expense since Jason and Kate are not drag-racers by any means and a new stock clutch should last a good long time (at least until it's time to install an LSD).

The first few pics offer up a few details on the car itself and then it's pretty much a play-by-play on the cylinder head tear-down. More pics in Part 2 from the same date.

Side-exit exhaust.

Old school Recaros.

Check out this custom blinker/fog set-up! It's pretty rare these days to see something new on a Mk3 Golf, but this mod certainly qualifies.

No comment.

Now it's Roxy's Turn

2008-02-26T12:13:00.000-08:00

pics and text, courtesy of Brad Beardow at 1552v2.com

Kind of a special project we have going here.

This 1995 VW GTI VR6 is a labor of love between our web-designer, Jason, and his fiancé, Kate. They've been building the car from the ground up for many months, and it's just been delivered to Sarasota by way of northern Virginia. Jason and Kate have a running blog that chronicles the build so far and for those of you looking for some serious background on "Roxy" (as she's known), visit http://www.kratemotors.com/roxy

As an intro, here's some info in Jason's own words:

"Roxy started off as a $700 car and turned into the biggest project Kate and I have ever undertaken; full respray, two engine swaps, reupholstering seats, custom fabrication, dash swap, heater core swap (biggest mechanical accomplishment to date on my own), custom body work and it was all done by Kate, some friends, and me.

Though I'm currently working with fifteen52 on their website, the truth is I've been a friend and customer of theirs since '97 - back when they were called VW Sport USA. It's pretty cool that after all these years we're finally working together on a pretty major vehicle build."

Our part in this project consists of adding some much needed forward motivation to the old Golf, and we'll achieve this using a bit of old-fashioned forced induction, á la a Kinetic Motorsport Stage 2 turbo system. This added power won't just be used to terrorize drivers on the Capitol Beltway - no, Jason and Kate plan to drive the car to Utah's Bonneville Salt Flats and take a shot at the 130-mph club.

Before effectively doubling the horsepower for this 160k-mile engine, we'll also be performing some much needed maintenance as well as adding additional mods along the way. We've ordered all the necessary parts and once they come in we'll get to work.

Oh, and by the way - check out those custom license tags. If those don't merit a discount, then nothing will...

Roxy is in good hands

2008-02-26T08:17:00.000-08:00

brad: Yer car is in pieces right now
jkrew: haha oh god
brad: BTW, now would be a good time to do a clutch, since we have the trans coming apart
jkrew: I just put in a sachs replacement about a 1000 miles ago but if I need to go stg2 or 3 then just lemme know what I need
brad: Ah, I forgot you had a new clutch in there. If you don't drag race, you'll be fine for a long time, so let's keep what u got
jkrew: never dropped a clutch in my life
brad: pussy

hahaha wheeeee!

Ok, so the race is pretty much over

2008-02-25T08:00:00.000-08:00

and Roxy is still in the gate haha

After 19 calls Saturday night, Dank is now up and running albeit a bit shaky (*winks). A few boost leaks here and there and some smoking and what not but the Jetta is now officially boosting.

All buttoned up

Hopefully we'll get some photos of Roxy this week to show him up a little ;)

Dank's making good time yo!

2008-02-22T06:41:00.000-08:00

Man, I am WAY behind haha

No more downpipe

And off with the goofy stock manifold

Oil line that his girly fingers couldn't tighten all the way.

New kinetic manifold bolted up.

Annnnd, famous last words...

"should have the car running tonight i hope. If not it will definitely be running tomorrow..."

Listen to your friend Billy Zane... he's a cool dude

2008-02-20T10:58:00.000-08:00

OMG! It's a TURBO OFF!

It's on like viet kong folks. In the coming weeks, we'll chronicle both buildups of dankvwguy's Jetta and our little Roxy. Why? Because it's winter and there's shit else to post about other than Kate and mine increased amount of snuggling. At the end, there will be a race for pinks. Or dinner. Whichever has a greater value at the time.

So dear readers, I proudly announce...

The contestants:

dankvwguy:
- stage 1 kinetics kit
- snow performance stage 2 water/meth injection with controller
- innovative DB series gauge with LC-1 wideband controller
- vdo boost gauge and a few other small things
- spec stage 2 clutch and a peloquin LSD

jkrew and kate:
- stage 2 kinetics kit with front mount
- c2 headspacer
- engine rebuild including chain job, rods, rings blah blah blah
- some sort of new clutch and flywheel
- 2.5" exhaust from zee turbo on back
- some sort of glowy gauges
- high flow cat

And the first photos arrive from the dank camp!

Here's his piece... looks like a nice jetta. Obviously dank is too good to give the poor thing any water and soap.

dank's mom is gonna be hella pissed about her carpet. Oh look, someone just haaaad to copy jkrew with the black couplings...

Rotomaster T3/T4 Oil Cooled Turbocharger, kinetic mani and TiAL 38mm wastegate

the business end

New stuff going on

2008-02-20T09:13:00.001-08:00

Well, it looks like dankvwguy and I are going turbo at the same time. He is obviously trying to shove it into my face that he is more mechanically inclined than myself by doing it on his own but whatever... I could if I had a garage! (not really)

So in the coming weeks I'll be posting some update pics from his build as well as mine and then hopefully when both setups are done, we may have a lil race down in the dirty dirty when I go to pick up Roxy from 1552 *winks*

You'll also notice some new changes to the site. We've picked up a few more sponsors that have their pretty logos at the top of the page so check them out if you have the time.

Archives are now available on the right rail of the page just FYI.

Stay tuned!

It's so hard to let your babies go

2008-02-13T10:38:00.000-08:00

God speed little Roxy.

Things are heating up

2008-02-10T13:13:00.000-08:00

It's been a slooow winter. It's cold out, I have no garage and work has really been demanding within the past few months. No time for cars except on the weekends but even then, wedding planning, work or other things have taken our time away from us.

But lately, I've been noticing that we have finally turned the corner with winter. The sun stays up past 5pm FINALLY. It was 70º just the other day and the bug has hit me moding HARD early this year. What started with plans to finally finish Roxy has now snowballed into a mixture of wedding, Roxy and now Dara getting a little bit of attention for the warmer months.

I may have to call this blog the Roxy and Dara show for a few months, or at least until I get Dara finished with a few surprises that are coming down the road. I guess it all started when we took her down south and she took a shit on us in the middle of the highway. Ever since I started working on project cars, Dara has taken a backseat to all of them. Sure she had decent wheels but when I popped her hood open two months ago to do some plugs and wires, I was surprised at how dirty it was. I literally hadn't cleaned or detailed her in years.

So there ya go. Now she's getting some surprises soon, has a set of killer wheels just waiting for her and I also decided to upgrade her stereo a bit to match her upcoming look a bit better.

I had a craving for a new tool so I could make a sub box. It's hard living in a condo sometimes...

Due to the cold, we don't work on cars anymore. Now we just go out drinking with weird asian girls.

With awesome tattoos on their feet. (The right foot had "woohoo!".

A few days later, while kate was out shopping, I went to sears and snuck a table saw home and made a box.

Then I cut a hole for a lil' JL 8".

A lil' sealer here and there...

Oh snap! Like ya didn't see that coming.

Sneaky sneaky.

Jacks in the back.

Viola. Hit's harder than an angry stepfather.

Stay tuned for more!

So I have these things called visions

2008-02-08T08:07:00.001-08:00

And who knows how long this thread is going to stay up but here ya go:

http://forums.vwvortex.com/zerothread?id=3674850

Essentially, I want to paint a mural on roxy... so I made an ad.

http://washingtondc.craigslist.org/nva/crg/567403295.html

Kate obviously wants to crush my dreams but I'm pressing on as she just needs time to see my vision.

I'll keep you all updated.

hahaha idiots

2008-01-30T12:52:00.001-08:00

hahahaha

2008-01-23T13:38:00.001-08:00

Not much of a teaser if you actually show the wheels

2008-01-14T17:38:00.000-08:00

Looks like we may be combining Roxy's blog with Dara's blog this year ;)

this blog post has entirely no logic and reason

2008-01-08T07:42:00.000-08:00

Been awhile since I've gone off on an emo rant post so why not get a good one out for the new year.

This scene is weird. I would say that it's worse than others but I'd be lying. I've heard stories that people in so-cal will talk shit about you if you don't have more than 2" of cuff in your Levi's at rod shows. I've known people with Honda's that have had people follow them home from shows just to have their cars stolen as soon as the lights went out.

I think the longer you stay in a scene, the more you notice how much shit talking there is in it. And if you are saying to yourself that you have never practiced what I'm preaching then you are lying. Now I'm not saying a little bit of shit talking isn't fun here and there but sometimes it just gets plain out of hand.

I'm assuming if you're reading this, you either are friends with me or hate me but you at least are in the scene a little bit to have heard of this site. I'll also assume that you know what EIP, Eastside and the like stand for. These places of business started out strong but after a little bit, corners were cut and they started to get a rep. With that rep, people started talking and comments turned into shit talk and then shit talk turned into legend and then out of no where, people who were just getting into the scene who had no idea who these people were, were talking shit about them because they had heard a lot of stories and just wanted to be part of the conversation.

Now, seeing how this blog is mine, I have every right to turn this post into something about me. I'm a fame whore. Always have been, always will. It started out when I went to art school in a sleepy boring town. I had shit else to do, I didn't drink, so for shits and giggles along with my friends, we went out to see just how big we could build a name up. We made signs, we pulled stunts, we threw parties. Pretty much wherever you went, you knew about that name. Of course the name was jkrew. It wasn't just a person, it was a group of bored college kids who all had names that started with "j".

Anyways, years progressed, I graduated and I kept the name. As I had jobs involved with the internet and design, I brought over the name to online communities. The name brought some weird cult following and of course I bathed in the notoriety and attention. My friends and I joked at my ability to get into events with the name alone. "Oh yeah, jkrew will be there. They/He will need 4 press passes." "jkrew wants access to the VIP room. They'll be arriving at midnight and don't want to stand in line." Blah blah blah. It was all a big joke. Pit passes to Le Mans races, free lunches at car shows, it wasn't so much of a cocky thing but more of a challenge just to see how far we could take it. We called it Ferris Buellering. I once got to test drive a brand new Ferrari of my choice because the online car magazine called jkrew wanted to do a review.

But now that I'm older, it seems to be sort of blowing up in my face. The reason why is probably because of the lack of enthusiasm I put towards the "name" as I used to a few years back. And what once was something that was so noticably over the top and tongue in cheek now looks like a half-assed attempt at famewhoring to a cocky and extremely fake level. That and the fact that Kate and I rarely even talk to new people anymore to reasons unbeknownst to me. Is it possible to become less social as you grow older and not know it? It's a shame too because most of the people we meet in person after having online interactions usually are surprised at how quiet and timid we are in person.

Anyway, the point being, it all goes back to shit talking. People are ALWAYS going to talk shit. It's a way of life. The thing that chafes my ass the most is that when people aim their shit talk my way, it's usually the ones who either are new or just don't get it. Kate and I still get shit TO THIS DAY over our fake wedding. It was a big joke folks. It made another one of our trips to Ocean City memorable to us. It wasn't serious, it wasn't an attempt to grab fame. We did it because people said we wouldn't or couldn't so we did.

So that's that. I just spent a good 30 minutes penning a blog entirely about myself and how I get pissed that people get pissed when they see me talking about myself. My only question is why are you reading this in the first place?

Well, I'm crossing over... cover me

2008-01-06T15:23:00.000-08:00

So, I found this car the other day...

And trust me, the more I stare at the glossy pages that house it's photos in one of my roder magazines, (warning, PDF popup) the more I get excited about it. It took me a good week of googling just to find the names of the guys who built it... THEN I just happened to go back to a rodder messageboard I found a few years back and found both of them on there. Weird small world indeed. Anyways, I sent over a few PM's to them both and it turns out that the guys who designed the car were old roomates in college. One guy paints, the other guy ages.

So after emailing back and forth with the both of them, I think we may be somewhat close to doing something together with Roxy. I don't want to give too many secrets away yet (or even jinx myself here) but if budget allows, I think this is going to be the fooking bees knees.

The reason why I wrote this entry was just to kind of comment on how rad it was that these guys were so willing and open to talk to a *shudders* foreign car driver. I mean, on paper, wouldn't you think if one of us dirty dub drivers tried to contact an american muscle guy or hot rodder for advice, we would be laughed out of the building right? Totally the opposite and I'm really kind of jazzed at how cool it is to be able to talk shop with enthusiasts of other car cultures. I won't get into the fact that Foose blew me off but I have a feeling he's a dork anyways.

I mean, how many times have you seen someone at a VW show attempt the "rat" look and wanted to punch them in the face for such a travesty. And don't get me started on the trend we all know and love as "rat stylez" on the vortex. God I would really love to sit these kids down and inform them that having a piece of shit car and calling it rat is disgraceful.

Anyways, going off on a rant here. All in all, I really look forward to seeing what can be done in the coming months. I have so many ideas that I think will finally finish Roxy off to be a respectable as well as ground-breaking car.

Stay tuned folks.

I know it's not MK3 related but hey, it's been a slow winter

2008-01-05T14:06:00.000-08:00

Dara was feeling left out because Roxy was getting all of the attention this past summer so Kate and I found someone who wanted to do a front end swap with their Jetta. We headed out to Poolesville, MD and got busy. Took a lil' over two hours which is pretty damn quick if I do say so myself.

Yeah, we're an odd bunch...

(editors note: yes, I am fully aware that my daily driver is now two different colors, has horribly horrible headlights and looks raised to the sky with a stock front lip... I'm working on it folks ;) First things first.)

Poor Dara will never be the same.

Yeah, no turning back now.

Body parts all over the lawn.

Pups.

Dude, this was so much easier with Roxy. Ugh.

A lil last minute help with the other doner.

Thumbs...

Up =)

Awwww, matching babies with Jetta front end swaps. Wheee =)

Just wanted to say thanks

2008-01-04T07:09:00.001-08:00

30,000 hits happened sometime yesterday. That's freaking crazy.

Thanks to all of ya out there checking in from time to time =)

Updates?

2008-01-01T14:43:00.000-08:00

Well, I've been forcing myself to catch the bug early this winter so I can get a jump start to working on Roxy so I can try to enjoy this summer instead of working on her like last summer.

Anyhoo, big things are in store (hopefully), we have a nice budget to work with (thanks AOL) and hopefully she will be taking a trip down south very soon.

Oh and I picked up some nice wheels finally. I've never had a teaser thread before so this may be as good as any...

Stay tuned ;)

xoxo,
krew

SO after a week of being dry docked

2007-10-31T11:14:00.000-07:00

I drove Roxy to work today. She is slow. And loud. And really fucking slow.

I think I hate her.

But then I had lunch with Jason and talked to him about rebuilding her engine and going turbo.

I have 10% more hope for her but 10% is still 10%.

It sure is nice to relax

2007-10-20T16:32:00.000-07:00

It's like night and day compared to a month ago vs. this past week in terms of stress.

How my week went:
Monday: talk of mass layoffs at work. Not really worried.
Tuesday: Get laid off. Worry level flys to defcon 1. Get 4 months severence. Worry level moved down to defcon 3.

So that night we went out to get some pho. Fuck an AOL fo realz.

I go home in a bad mood and even ice cream can't cure teh grumpness™.

But kate loved on me and I was good again.

Wednesday: Get new job at same pay which means double paychecks for four months. What worry level?

Thursday through now: Drink, sleep and work on car. Nice.
So yeah, fun times. I painted some rain rails.

And made some ecode brackets from a door kick plate:

Trimmed out the radiator:

Swank:

Gonna dump her a few more inches and take some proper pics. Then it's time to bring the busted engine to rayveedub to get rebuilt, turbo'd and slapped back in.

2008 goals: 130 club at the flats.

p.s. Went to bubbas baby shower today... awww, lookit the lil guy. So gentle looking!

And kate had her first A&W root beer float.

The end.