I’ve just come from the garage who fitted the 1.8T 6 speed gearbox conversion. We had the car on the ramp and tested if it the programming of the instrument cluster worked to get vehicle speed.
And it did work!
Only tested on the ramp so we don’t know if it’s accurate yet (I don’t see why it wouldn’t be) but the speedo gauge is moving and the numbers seem plausible. Result!
Bellhousing on the 02S is 4.5mm longer than the 02J but this didn’t cause any problems.
As per Diesel Dork (subscribe to his channel it’s a gold mine of info on VW gearboxes) I used the MK4 shifter with some adapter brackets. The hole in the gearbox, the furthest forward was used, brackets for the other two. You’ll understand when you do it. Keep the forward hole and rearmost hole on the MK4 bracket parallel to the car. Make mounts accordingly. Check Diesel Dork channel for in-depth info on this.
I tried the shifter and it seems perfect. Much better feel than the MK4 02J and a shorter throw. The weight/lever from the 02J gearbox was used on the 02S.
One other alteration was the dogbone mount. It needs a bit of fanangling. The garage turned the bar upside down to make it lower and made a hole in the gearbox case for the centre bush. See photo.
In the next update, we’ll see how it drives!
1.8T 6-Speed Swap – Links
Audi, VW, Seat & Skoda Gearbox Codes
Click the drawing on this page to download a spreadsheet which gives gearbox ratios by code for 02J, 02S, 02M and more. This is what I used to find a code. Hopefully I chose well (and that its accurate, it seems it is for the one I got)!