Working on Stance: 88 Jetta

First time ever, I want to do a progressive coverage on a used car. Not the original owner, but the second or third or whatever.

I was browsing through the WFC forums like usual and came acros this thread by Sean Curry, aka The Skipper.
He bought a used 88 jetta. 18. 8v engine, 5 speed manual for... guess how much... $700. Yes, you read it right, $700. If I was looking for a car, I would definitely buy it as long as it works.
Sean thought of it as the same way as I did. The cosmetic condition really didn't matter. As long as it runs, you can't complain for $700.

Here's a pic when Sean bought the car,



Pretty darn good for the price eh?

Here's what the car came with and some modifications done by Sean:

it came with a 276 cam, ported and polished head using sbc chevy valves(thats how much its ported) portmatched intake and exhaust, bosal header, super rare polished tt adj cam gear, a 7lb flywheel and some uprated clutch, and a k&n drop in filter with a drilled out airbox. it came with no cat, and no bung for the o2 sensor, which was disconnected and the wires hanging. after replacing alot of little things, having a exhaust made up from the newly installed Bosal hi flow cat back, to a bosal muffler with twin dtm style tips, we hooked up the o2 sensor and got the idle to drop from 1500, down to about 900, nice and lumpy styles thanks to that cam.

This is after a 16v lip and smoked ecode headlights was added. Also, a H&R cup kit which gave a 2 1/2" drop total.

The next story, which happend during Feburary:

so in february, i found the wheels i really wanted, they were borbet type a reps in a 16x9 et 20 rear and 16x7.5 et 15 front, the reason i wanted the reps is beacause they came with the centers pc'd black instead of the very bland looking silver from borbet, which also really makes the machined lip pop. so i found a kid whos dad bougth him the staggered set for his mkI, but the rears wouldnt fit, so i soon had rears, and was in search of the fronts. thats when they stopped making them in that color scheme, so i resigned my self to finding another used set, after about 2 weeks of no luck. i was just gonna buy the silver ones and have all 4 pc'd bronze with a polished lip, but then they shut down shipping, and no one had any in stock

You could see the stance is happening :)



Some huge a$$ lip going on in the back.

After:

so i finally got the fronts from the same kid i got the rears from cause he couldnt find any either. none of them had been mounted before, so i had a new set of wheels for 100 less than form the factory. no pics of that, but then came coil time!!! i ordered a set of fk streetlines, and when we went to put them on, we found that the rear pass strut from the cup kit had been put in with the bushing upside down (i used to work at les schwab so they hooked it up for cheap, fuck hookups..). so after about 3 hours, we got em out and the coils in. so i rode em like this while they settled. runnin 1.7 deg of neg camber in the front, rear isnt adjustable without shims, so thats about .5 deg neg of natural camber.

I'm starting to like this even more!!!

Finally, here is how Sean's car sits today. The final update by Sean:

and heres how it sits now, over 5 inches lower that when i got it, about 1.25" of the ground in the front, i wanna bring it down.25" in the front and .25 in the back to really give it perfect fitment, and maybe som camber bolts for the front and plates for the rear. the sub frame is about 1.5 off the ground, the tie rods are hitting the frame, and my cv is trying to notch the frame for me(a notch is next on the list).

Amazing fitment and progress. This is how it's suppose to come out when someone works on being stanced. Gotta give massive props to Sean to start out with a used classic car and making it totally sexy.

Engine
Ported and polished head
SBC chevy valves
Port matched intake manifold and header
276 webb cam
Rare polished TT(techtonics tuning) adjustable cam gear
7lb flywheel
Drilled out air box with k&n filter
Bosal header, Highflow Cat and DTM style muffler

Wheels/Suspension
16x7.5 et 15 front and 16x9 et 20 rear borbet type a reps, black center/machined lip
Falkin 512's 205/40/16 all around
Fenders rolled
24mm front sway bar by suspenison technique
Partial wire tuck(full to come)
Washer bottle delete

Exterior/Interior
Full OEM recaro interior swap
Rare hella smoked dome light
Black/White plaid wrapped package tray and shift boot
Rare original Hella Heckeblende
custom stickers designed and cut by david at vynlworx.com

What's next? New paint, new wheels, and my favorite, a lower drop :)
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