MCM turbo Up!

[sambb]

VW UP - Turbo GTI Conversion - YouTube

[The_Hawk]

I'll have to add that to my watch list. I always thought the Up! needed a Turbo, it is just a little underwhelming... although I suppose I'm not the target audience

[Lucas_R]

Yeah ive been watching the build so far on MCM's Youtube channel. Ive always liked the idea of an Up! GTI.

[kristianvanek]

Ive been wanting to do a turbo swap on mine since about day 3 of ownership but any direction i look its just way to much money to spend on doing it. So ive kinda just given up on the idea.

There is also a guy on the Gold Coast that has done a polo gti swap with the 1.8 motor and has done polo brakes and suspension swap to go with it. Frostybuilt on youtube is the guy that's done the work on it.

It's been in the works for a few months but still not complete i dont think. But it is in and running just not on the road I don't think.

He's been carrying on online that mcm are wrong in claiming that they have the first gti up in aus. But with the level of modifications involved in building his I don't think that it's truly going to be a gti up. At that level it's just a heavly modified up.

[Sharkie]

My turbo add project is still bubbling away, finally have the facilities to move to the next stage, but 3 other projects is ahead in the queue

I think the costs MCM is racking up in bringing in all the parts off an Up! GTI from the UK would be massive. Not sure an Australian delivered Up! is worth that kind of investment ..... This would be a $15-$20K build on top of the cost of the Up! (~$6500).

We love our Up! and want more power but the balance is such that too much power will ruin the car. About 100kw is more than enough for an Up! and you can do that without going the MCM extreme. Either go the turbo add to the existing engine or transplant engine and gearbox from a written-off AW Polo manual (costs of donor would be $3500+). The labour and coding will add up to an amount easily what the Up! is worth.

Those 1.8T conversions are just a waste of time IMO as the car can no longer be used on the street as it would be unroadworthy. Fitting that large an engine means all the crash protection goes out the door as you cannot physically fit the 1.8T without premanently removing the front crash bar entirely. Have a look at the race 1.8T Up! built a few years ago.