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In 1989, Volkswagen took the Synchro four-wheel-drive system and attached it to a heavily revised and supercharged 1.8, to create the Rallye. With an 80.6 mm bore and 86.4 mm stroke, the displacement was 1763cc. A compression ratio of 8:1 and maximum supercharged boost pressure of 0.65 bar, meant that the engine produced 160 bhp at 5600 rpm. It was controlled by a Digifant electronic injection and the transmission was the five-speed 'box previously used in the Passat. Suspension was similar to the 16-valve, except that the springs and shock absorbers had higher damping rates and stronger anti-roll bars. The Rallye sat on 6Jx15 in multi-spoke alloy wheels, wearing 205/50VR-15 tyres. It took just 7.6 seconds to reach 100Km/h, and top speed was 209Km/h. The bodywork was different, with front and rear bumpers remoulded to include aprons. There were extended steel wheelarches, rectangular headlamps and a three-bar grille. and most had half-leather, electric windows and sunroof 'Lux' specification -although many on the Continent were as basic as the GTI. The Rallye was a limited production model, with no more than 5071 being built, between 1989-1990 in the VW factory Worst, Belgium. So VW used the knowledge and technology gained in the Rallye project to come up

Essential info for all you Golf  fanatics out there dreaming of a Rallye

Engine: The Rallye does not have too much in the way of standard Gti mechanical. For a start, the engine is a heavily-revised 1.8 with supercharger.

A 80.6mm bore and 86.4mm stroke reduced the displacement to 1763cc. With a compression ratio of 8:1 and a maximum supercharged boost pressure of 0.65bar, the engine produce 160Bhp at 5600 rpm and was controlled by a Digifant electronic injection system.

The G-lader supercharger unit (it is actually shaped like a ¿G¿) is driven from the engine by a ribbed belt, boosting power output from a sedate 112Bhp to a whopping 160Bhp. This means a 0-100Km/h time of 8,6 secs and top speed of 130mph. The supercharger is perhaps the most single component in the whole car. Replacements cost around 1500Euro up till 3000Euro.

The active life of a well used G-lader is 60-80,000 miles, but it can last well into six figures. Bad news under the bonnet would be cheap foam air filters. They eventually dry out and let dirt into the chamber. Look at the exit side of the supercharger for black creamy stuff. If the supercharger is sick, send it for an recondition. It will cost about 450-650Euro for you..

Suspension: The suspension was pretty much 16-valve, except that the springs and shock absorbers had higher damping rates combined with stronger anti-roll bars. It all rested on 205/50VR-15 rubber tyres surrounding a set of very ordinary-looking but spokey 6J x 15 in alloys.

Transmission: The transmission is a 02A five-speed gearbox, first used in the Passat and later fitted to the Corrado. According to the experts, it is the best 4WD system ever built (before Haldex). However, be warned that the gearbox makes a lot of funny noises at idle, but  that´s OK.

And when you engage reverse and hear a clonk as the 4WD locks up for full control, thats´s perfectly normal too. It´s not that slick either because of the cable operator. Nevertheless, listen out of of grinding metallic sounds on th move.

Brakes: The uprated brakes do their job well, so if there are squeals, judders or any pulling to the side, get the brakes and suspension checked out. Also, the ABS light should go out pretty quickly.

Body: This is an all-metal VW Motorsport job with no pattern part equivalents, although you will see some copy plastic panels about. It is, of course, easy to check if it´s real. A tap on those wheelarchers will soon tell you whether it is metal or GRP, and when in doubt use a magnet.

If there´s damage to any non-standard bits, and that includes the doors (different to those on the Mk2), then this is a car to avoid. Check the rubber seal where the wheelarch joins the skirting as this often cracks with age, but it is also an item that someone rebuilding a Rallye often fails to refit. The big bills can come at the front end, because if the headlights are cracked it will cost 300Euro each to put right. A grill is as least 200Euro and the slam panel 210Euro, and specialists will quote over 2000Euro in parts alone to rebuild the front. Even bumper skins are 600Euro, although the latest parts newsflash is that the world supply of Rallye bumpers has just dried up.

Modifications: Seems that owners just can´t leave their Rallyes alone. When it comes to performance you can´t blame them, as the Rallye takes to tuning without all effect. Add a VW Motorsport titanium supercharger pulley plus a chip to gain an impressive 30Bhp and 70Nm extra torque. It´s all very fashionable to fill in the grill and go de-badge, but it may not look so clever in a few years time. If that´s your bag then fine, but buying someone else´s DIY work isn´t always smart. Long term it will be the standard cars which hold their value. Be very suspicious if the interior is not exactly Rallye. Gti trim and signs that ar all case has been plumbed in points to a long, hard competition life. Don´t buy retired racer by mistake.

Interior: There are several differences between the officialy-imported Rallyes and those that stayed in Europe. The UK cars will have mph speedos as opposed to Km/h calibrations. The majority of non German-sold rallyes where SE spec, were our German cousins liked something a little more spartan, so no central locking, sunroof, electric windows, half leather seats or electric door mirrors. If you have any of these items, though, look at the door trims. Are there plugs where winders used to be? If so , this particular car has probably been uprated. Most Euro cars seem to have red or black paint work. Most Rallyes have Recaros.

Wheels and Tyres: Look at the alloys, are they perfect? All it takes is a kerbing to seriously upset the geometry, so get the tracking checked if in doubt. Rear propshaft donuts can get destroyed with over-enthusiastic use, the same goes for the differentials.

The Golf rallye, has a fairly unsophisticated single-cam, eight-valve, four-cylinder engine. What makes it special is that it´s power and torque potential is boosted by means of a supercharger driven by a belt from the crankshaft pulley.

A supercharger is an air-pump or compressor which pumps air into the cylinders under pressure. With that extra air into the combustion chambers, you can add more fuel, which in turn has the capability to produce more power compared to a normally aspirated engine. The faster the supercharger spins, the more air it pumps into the combustion chambers, and the more power is ultimately produced. However, the temptation – and indeed the logical way forward – is simply, to go smaller and smaller with the supercharger pulley, to make it spin faster and faster, and thus produce more and more boost, hence more power. But it´s not quite that simple. For one thing, the unique VW-developed G-lader supercharger is inherently out of balance, and spinning it faster simply aggravates the balance problem. The faster it spins, the faster it fails. Also, by increasing the boost dramatically, the piston compression must first be lowered in order to accommodate, the vast increase in charge mixture volume. This in turn leads to a less than responsive engine. I reckon that for a supercharger engine to not only hold together reliably but feel quick to boot, you need to get the most power from the least boost. The sensible route to power also involves tweaking the electronic control unit, tinkering with the intake and exhaust system and, for serious increases, changing the cam and fitting bigger valves to the cylinder head.

Preparation: Because of the age of the car, the first thing is to have the supercharger re-built, unless you happen to know that it has been recently checked or reconditioned. There are some tight clearances within the supercharger and the faster you spin them, the closer and closer those tolerances become until they touch – and then the thing grenades, or least seizes up.

Step 1: The next thing to do with a standard car is a full set-up on a rolling road. This will get the best from the car and almost always produces an improvement. It´s very unlikely the car will spot on, and by tuning each car individually the very best figures can be achieved. Interestingly, a Golf Rallye is officially rated at 160bhp, but this is optimistic. 150bhp is a lot closer to the mark. Rolling roads are good for two things, Most people only view them as a means of proving that there is a power increase, but from my point of view it shows that the car is right. A car should to a specific spec be giving a particular power output. If it isn´t then there´s a problem. If a car is mysteriously down 10bhp, it´s worth investigation, so a dyno check is a good first step. And of course, it also provides a yardstick against which to compare any future tuning work. .

Step 2: Start with modifying the linkage system that operates the idle-speed boost bleed-off. In standard form this doesn´t shut until about three-quarter throttle, so you´re losing boost. Fix to shut off much earlier. The next step is changing the pulley to a slightly smaller 68mm type – small enough to provide a power boos but not so small as to severely compromise reliability. Hand in hand with this goes a reprogrammed management chip. I say, that with a ”chip and pulley” – plus the mods to the throttle body above, which improve low-down torque and response – this brings the power up to 170-175Bhp. The standard car runs very rich, and leaner, so fuel economy remains unaffected.

Crucial to the ”Step 2” conversion is the new management chip for the electronic control unit (ECU). The chip is simply a memory that contains tables of information that match fuelling and ignition settings to specific points on the the throttle position and engine speed.

In other word, if the throttle is two-thirds open and  the revs are, say, 3750rpm, the chip´s memory is programmed so that it knows that the engine at this specific load and rpm setting requires ”X” degrees of ignition and a quantity of fuel equivalent to ”Y”.

Trouble is, the chip on a Golf has no learning facility. Therefore, if new characteristics such as higher boost  pressure are to be introduced, many of the settings in the chip must be re-programmed to suit the fuelling and ignition requirements of the modified engine.

The development for this new chip is carried out by plugging the engine´s ECU into a laptop computer armed the relevant software, which reads the present settings for the standard chip. This is in the form of a chart or ”map”, and this map goes into the memory of the laptop. The car then uses the computer as its engine chip during the development process.

New settings for ignition and fuelling can now be input live, with the car running on the dyno, substituting new values where required into any part of the map.

For an example, the fueling at a specific point on the map might be increased by 10per cent, at another by 5per cent, and so on. Also, because emissions controls on new cars generally keep fuelling lean, it means that any flat (lean) spots in the power curve can be ironed out easily. The new chip can also raise the rev limit by substituting a new figure.

There are about 10,000 numbers on the entire map, most of which stay the same. Finding which numbers do wich functions is the time-consuming part, and thats why a re-chip is not cheap. It´s also why each chip has an integral protection board to prevent it from being copied for use in another car. Once satisfied with the results on the dyno and on the road, the PC is disconnected and the new map readings are programmed into a new chip, which is plugged into the ECU in place of the standard chip. Of course, any similar engine with identical modifications will require a similar chip with an identical map. So all that´s need in case s such as the ”Step 2” conversion, where the time-consuming groundwork has already been done, is to take the standards ECU from the car, remove the chip, then swap this with the new engine characteristics. The final part of the ”Step 2” conversion involves some modifications to the intake system, aimed at improving response and available boost . Supercharger boost is primarily controlled by the speed at which it turns – which is directly related to the engine speed – there is also a secondary and minor control valve, wich is there to limit overboosting. The idle speed control valve wastes some of the boost pressure up to about 3000rpm with the standard set-up. Add a special closed-loop dump valve in the bleed system, actuated by vacuum pressure. This vents back into the system, between the inlet blled valve and the supercharger to prevent the boost wastage.

Step 3: Having done the ”chip and pulley”, along with the inlet mods and dyno set-up. The next stage in the quest for more power is to change the camshaft. The different camshaft lobe profile allows deeper breathing and, with an appropriate ECU chip, finally provides the opportunity to get close 200bhp – assuming that he car is equipped with a good free-flow exhaust system. You may also put a vernier cam timing wheel to allow the best accuary in timing the cam.

Step 4: This next step is about as far as most people would ever want to go with a dedicated road-going rallye. Now we´re into all of the above modifications, with the addition of the wilder camshaft and a fully gas-flowed cylinder head fitted with larger stainless steel valves and special valves guides. In the cylinder head work, match the combustion chamber volumes and flow the inlet manifold. When it all goes back together again, a high pressure head gasket makes sure that all that boost doesn´t leak past the join. This is suitable for unleaded fuels, which is an important point. Although it is possible to fit the modified camshaft with a standard unmodified head, this brings it uncomfortably close to the emissions limit. For this reason, it is better suited to a car with a big-valve cylinder head. That said, the modified camshaft is the way to go for a guaranteed 200bhp, and in conjunction with all other modifications and a good exhaust, this set-p should be good for about 230bhp. And that makes for a really quick car, not just at the top end, but with a power and torque curve that produces big gains throughout the rev range – a point that is all-too often ignored by those who fail to look beyond the often misinterpreted peak pore figure.