My '83 VW Callaway Turbo Scirocco.

     I've  been pretty stoked with this car since I bought it, from it's original owner. It has 145k miles on it, and it has had the turbo kit on it since it was almost new (1k). I just can't believe how well this car has done since I bought it. I was initially pretty afraid of this car. I had all sorts of worries about the car's reliability, and the cost of the inevitable turbo replacement.

    The car has had a lot of turbo repairs done in it's lifetime already, including having the original turbo rebuilt three times, then finally replacing the original unit with a newer-style water-cooled Garrett t04b. When I bought the car, the new turbo had recently been installed (about 1k miles on it!) and I think the owner was tired of spending money on it. Luckily for me, the new turbo is doing great, and since I change the Mobil One oil every thousand (I know, it's silly, but I really haven't been racking up the miles on this car, and I wanted to flush it out.) miles, I'm looking forward to not having any turbo worries for a long while.

     The thing is quite powerful, and  I can't even imagine how it'd be with more current technology... I would estimate it's horsepower at 180-200. My only measured performance stats were with a couple of friends in the car with me. 7.14to sixty, 14.x @ 102mph in the quarter. Probably in the low sixes all alone. (all G-tech stats.)

    The first thing I did to the car was to add a set of Tokico Illuminas, with Intrax springs. The springs seem to lower the car quite a bit, and they are really stiff.

    I recently did a wheel swap with a friend of mine to get these funky 15-inch turbines. I really have no friggin idea who made these, or what they where meant to go on. I did find a barely legible "SL25" marking on the lug cover. The VW emblem on the wheels is actually a laser-cut sticker. I really think they look good on the car, and I'm proud of myself for getting these cheapies, instead of the mad TSW Hocks or VX-1's that I wanted...

    My most current project has been to get the stereo sorted out. I put a Sony CDXC680 cd player in the car some time ago. If you are looking for a deck, do yourself a favor and get this one. It has gone waaaay down in price recently  and it is a super buy. It has Sony's patented digital shock protection, with a 3 second memory. Every VW owner should have this deck because it DOES NOT SKIP (really.never.). It also has a really nice fold down display, dual preamp outs, a sub out with an adjustable low pass crossover, and all that disc name identification and cd changer control, blah, blah, blah...

    Next came the front speakers. I'm a really big fan of separates, so I installed the Soundstream Exact 5.3 separates in the doors. I didn't take any pictures of the installation, but basically the magnets for the Exact 5.3's are too big for the normal procedure (outlined on several other Scirocco pages), so I decided to mount them sandwiched on top of the stock mounting grill. For this I used a huge hole-saw, making it possible for me to cut out the round hole larger than the original opening, and leave the two left over halves of the grill in place. I hate to have the speakers unconcealed, but I couldn't think of a better way to do it. One of my objectives was to be able to revert to stock later by replacing only the pocket and the little corner-pieces.

    Digging deep into the ten year collection of old stereo stuff, I came up with a set of Sony 6.5 mid-bass drivers that I mounted into the rear parcel shelf. I drove these and the separates with my main system amp, a Sony XM4055 (55x4). I already had the former owner's Polk Audio plates in the stock rear locations, so I hooked them up to the deck's rear speaker-level outputs for a bit of rear fill. I was really trying to set this system up without any type of subwoofer enclosure, so I drove around like this for a while, telling myself that I was ok without the big bass...

    Well, that lasted about one month, after which time I located a great deal on a homemade JL Audio 10W6-based box, used for only six months. This subwoofer is amazing. I cannot believe the amount of bass this thing pumps out. It is a dual voice coil unit that has a cone excursion capability (Xmax) of around 12mm. When It plays the low bass, it is a beautiful thing to look at, as well as to hear. I had to get a new amp to run this thing. It laughed at all the other amps I had lying around, so I bought a Soundstream "Lil' Wonder". I'm happy with the sound of this amp, and it is rated at about 70x2 at 4 Ohms. Since it is made for us bassheads, it gets really happy when you bridge it, and puts out 270x1 with a 2 Ohm load. The bass is tight and big, and it mostly stays in the car. I prefer this over larger subs, that send bass through the car and out into the neighborhood. I think this will conclude the stereo modifications, but one never knows...

Since the car is currently for sale, the following is a list of the imperfections and problems with the car: 

    The drivers side bolster is a little worn (not terminal),
The previous owner dinged up the roof a bit with a roof rack that he didn't remove before attempting to enter the garage. Fairly minor, and this keeps me from obsessing more than I already do about the cosmetic status of the car. Also, the wiper motor is a little tired. I always used rainx anyway so it wasn't a big deal for me.

    The car is currently priced at $4000 obo as described above. I will, however remove stereo components for a significant reduction in price. Additionally, I am still driving the car and steadily improving it, which may also affect the price.

UPDATE!

The headgasket has decided to take a dive! Since I wanna  solve this thing once and for all, I'm gonna put on this Corrado head that I have, and install the Corrado upgraded headgasket to go along with it. Who knows, but hopefully I'm gonna notice a difference with the new head, especially given the presence of a true forced induction cam. I'll keep you posted !

You can Email me if you are interested in buying my car, or just want to talk the crazy turbo talk!