With over 500bhp and all-wheel drive, it’s no wonder Ernest Staciwa’s modified VW Mk2 Golf sleeper boasts supercar acceleration times, even if he doesn’t like to shout about it…
Feature from Performance VW magazine. Words & photos: Robb Pritchard
From a distance you might be forgiven for thinking that this modified VW Mk2 Golf looks like a boy racer; he’s nabbed his grandmother’s old supermarket run-around and souped it up. Close up though, this stunning Polish sleeper has more in common with a Group B rally car and to say we were impressed with Ernest Staciwa’s creation would be an understatement.
Tinkering with machines and looking for ways to improve things was a childhood trait of Ernest’s and he fondly remembers pulling an old Soviet era motorbike apart before building it back better. Progressing to four wheels in in teens, he did the same with the Polish version of the Fiat 126 and almost twenty years ago his hobby evolved into his first Golf project. Sadly, that car came to a sad end after a road accident. Ernest wasn’t at fault, but the car was written off. Fifteen years later, with slightly deeper pockets and a decade and a half more experience working on cars he wanted to revisit that sadly long-gone Golf and began thinking about a project that would stretch the limit of what is possible on a VW build. What he has created is rather special.
Group B influence
As we waited in the shelter of the garage for the heavy drizzle to abate, the first thing to look at was under the bonnet. In the glare of the strip lights we gazed in quiet awe wondering how he managed to shoe-horn the 3.2 Audi R32 BDB engine into a space designed for a block almost half its size. With the Garret 37 turbo providing a massive boost of forced induction several internals had to be upgraded, including forged cranks and pistons, reinforced clutch (the need for which would soon be suitably demonstrated) and bored out air channels in the cylinder head.
This set up puts out a fine 550bhp which Ernest thinks is close to the golden number between insane levels of performance while still having a fairly usable and reliable car that doesn’t angrily snap pieces of metal as soon as you put your foot down. “It’s possible to go up to 1000bhp, but then you’d need to upgrade every single component from the fuel pump to the tyres,” he says. As it is, the original ECU can cope with controlling the electrics, which makes it much simpler to look after. The Audi 02Q gearbox was designed to be mated to an engine that would only give it 240bhp and 320 lb/ft to deal with, but despite the significant power boost, it’s a standard one. “It is at the limit, though,” Ernest shrugs.
Mk2 Golf donor cars
To begin with, the project needed three donor cars. A Mk2 Golf for the shell, an Audi A3 for its engine and transmission and a Golf Rallye R for its four wheel drive system and body kit. The front drive system is from a Mk 3 Golf VR6, apart from the differentials which are both from a Golf Rallye. Despite having to deal with such power, they are standard.
Surprisingly, despite fitting a 4×4 system to a car designed as front wheel drive, it wasn’t such a big job to get everything to fit. The transmission tunnel from the G60 was fitted into the Golf floor to accommodate the propshaft and at the rear only the spare wheel recess needed to go. At the front the Mk2 chassis rails needed to be slightly modified and Ernest obviously had to fabricate custom engine mounts and the inner wheel arches had to be expanded so bigger wheels could be fitted. More robust drive shaft flanges on the diffs needed to be made so a set of tougher Audi A3 drive shafts could be installed. The matter of fact way Ernest talks about all the work makes it sound easy but his humility masks just how well thought out and put together this car is.
Modified VW Mk2 Golf: all-wheel drive goodness
For a performance car a 50/50 split in the 4×4 drive system isn’t perfect which is why rally cars have such sophisticated active diffs. So Ernest could have more control over the handling he fitted a second generation Haldex coupling. This automatically distributes power between the front and rear wheels depending on slippage as well as disconnecting drive when he pulls on the handbrake.
Most of the heavy work was done by a couple of good friends but while they charged unbeatable ‘mates rates’ they spent time on the Golf when they could, so the build took quite a while to come to completion. It was four years from first purchase to finished article but it was well worth the wait.
While the engine and transmission are of course the most obviously modified elements, Ernest put a lot of time and effort into the interior as well. Momo steering wheel, of course, but the dash is covered in beautifully stitched leather. The seats are special as well. A set of limited edition Audi TT RS. These are not cheap and as his lovely wife was hovering with a tray of warm refreshments, (Thanks for the tea) I wondered if he didn’t want to mention how much they cost. “5000 euros,” she quipped happily. (£4200) “And they’re worth a lot more now. And are harder to find!”
All go no show? Not with this Mk2 Golf…
The classic style BBS wheels have a stretched set of tyres on them. Ernest isn’t sure what they are, but he likes the look, although when he gets around to it he’ll buy a slightly wider set so there isn’t so much of a gap between the inside of the rim and the tyre bead. They’re also not the best for performance, but he’s not too bothered about that and points out again that is not what he built it for. He didn’t build it for show either. His sole criteria for the car was that it was exactly how he liked it.
While driving down the rough, wet track near his house, it doesn’t feel like there is too much in the way of suspension, but underneath are a set of bespoke KW springs. The fronts are set to compensate for the much heavier Audi engine up front. They are assisted by Koni shock absorbers.
In my job I’ve been in more than my fair share of daftly powerful cars, but while I expect a Porsche GT2, for example, to be blindingly fast, there’s just something so unassuming about a Mk2 Golf, even when you know it’s capable of such BHP figures. I was unprepared for the brutal violence of what happened when an evil grin spread over Ernest’s face and he put his foot down. The rate of acceleration was so unexpected that I actually punched myself in the face. That wouldn’t normally be such an issue, but I happened to be holding a rather hefty Cannon 1DX.
1200kgs, AWD and 500bhp
With the handling properties under load of a ferret in a snare trap, we sawed and slewed one way then the other as one particular wheel found a little more grip to put the power down than another. A cushhh from the wastegate, to second gear and then third, substantial concrete posts at the side of the track quickly becoming more and more of a blur. Sit down, hold tight and shut up…
But Ernest knows exactly what his car can do. As he let it wind down he gave a cheeky chuckle as I checked if I still had all of my front teeth. If we’d have needed to slow down quickly, the 312mm front and 280mm rear brakes would have brought the 1200 kg car to a stop pretty quickly. “At 200 km/h, it’s a bit hard to handle,” he says.
From my short experience, that isn’t too hard to imagine. “But there’s not too much you can do about that as it’s a 35 year old car that was designed to have 75bhp.”
The Golf’s 0-60mph time is not something Ernest has put too much effort into finding out. On the damp road we were on, with stretched tyres, it’s possible to get to it in around 3 seconds… but this is what the speedometer says, while all the wheels flail around helplessly in search of a little traction. Shod with competition spec tyres and on a proper rubbered in drag strip and Ernest wouldn’t be surprised to see it into the sub 3 seconds. The boosted VR6 engine fully wound up is wonderfully evocative of a car from Audi’s rallying heyday. But despite conjuring up memories of an angry E1 S2, Ernest is a bit too young to be inspired by the legendary Group B beasts and assures me that any similarity is just coincidence.
Modified VW Mk2 Golf drag racing
He also isn’t the type of person to show off his build at every opportunity so in the two years he’s had to enjoy his unique creation, he’s only taken it to a handful of local shows. And just out of curiosity to see what his friends have, and how it compared to what they’ve built, he took it to a couple of unofficial drag races. “Everyone was surprised,” he beams. A family hot hatch that goes and sounds like a Group B rally car, should certainly raise a few eyebrows wherever it goes.
