Update!

Well, after months of distractions, I finally pulled the Rabbit into the new-and-improved garage. (read as, CLEAN garage!)
It appears as though my griping about Bosch starter overhaul quality might have been a tad on the hair-triggered side. Turns out I'm the monkey this time, and forgot that I hadn't yet installed a decent engine-to-chassis ground. It started instantly when I used jumper cables to ground the engine.  MMMMMMmmmmmhhhhh... foot...... *drool*  yummy!

So with that problem troubleshot, though not yet permanently remedied, I moved on to sorting out transmission oil leaks. It leaks out of the pan despite the new gasket installed pages before, and also from the dipstick tube O-ring. I pulled the pan, cleaned it and the mating surface on the trans and prepared to silicone the gasket. In the meantime, I rerouted the trans oil cooler return line to the trans case, rather than the dipstick tube. I'm going to replace  the dipstick tube with a straight one. The current curved version is difficult to access under intercooler tubes. I drilled and tapped the case for a nice AN aluminum fitting, and attached the hose. Works nice! Metal shavings removed, oil pan with siliconed gasket installed.

Next I adjusted the 2nd gear brake band according to the manual. The only thing was there was no mention of what gear the tranny needed to be in. I did it in Park, hopefully the tendancy for the trans to flare up between 1st and 2nd will go away. I am still really looking forward to playing with the guts of this trans, quickening up the shifts etc.

UPDATE!

I decided to roll with the momentum and continue working on the old honey today. I have many other things I really should be doing instead, but I do really want to see this car on the road.

I replaced the old dipstick tube with version 2. The original one angled low over the trans and was very difficult to reach under the boost pipes. The cooler oil return idea wasn't very successful, so between those two things, this tube had to go.

The replacement is a straightened OE pipe.

Yes, I know. It's white. An ancient can of VW Alpine white, donated by Krazy Kris before he went back to Poland, was the only paint I had on hand. Other than Suzuki metal flake blue. The choice was obvious. In my defense, white will easily indicate any dipstick... tube... leaks. Ok, that's weak. Onward! I bolstered the sealing O-ring with silicone, and jammed it in. Now it's easily accessible, and if it ever leaks, I'll be able to see it. hehe.

Next I tackled the engine ground problem. I took about an hour to build this:

It's one piece of braided strapping, and I made the connectors from some annealed copper pipe. It centers on a valve cover stud, ties in with the block, the alternator, the head next to #1 spark plug, and up the the chassis on the driver side strut tower. All the connectors are crimped and soldered. An hour is a long time for a simple deal like this, but it paid off. There is a pleasingly negligible 0.8 Ohms resistance from end to end, from any one point to another. With all the mounting surfaces cleaned to a shine, I consider this engine properly grounded. Needless to say, it now cranks like never before.

I spent a little more time tidying up odds and ends under the hood, filled the trans, and took it for a test drive.
I puttered it slowly out to the service road (it's VERY noisy, unfinished exhaust and all) then lined up on the straightaway.
I mashed the accelerator, and the boost instantly spiked to over 30psi. Coughing, farting, bucking, rough idle. Once the ECU recovered from that sucker punch to the testicles, I puttered back home, tail between legs.

Damn wastegate's seized again.

Please refer to previous rant about quality issues these days.

I'm going to see if the rebuild shop will trade me for a decent waste gate. Probably not. The fact that their product has seen use 3 times won't likely be enough of a reason, the important part (lucky for them) is that it's been more than a year since the turbo was purchased. I wonder if the turbos that sit on their shelves for a year before being sold are instantly out of warranty?

Anyway, either way I'll have to pull it back out and see what happens. Worst case scenario, i'll cut it open and fix it for good. Bugger of a job pulling that wastegate off though...

 Update!

And a bugger it was. Fixing this wastegate problem was very time consuming. I had to make a couple special tools to get it off. Compounding the issue, one of the turbo's exhaust studs (that the downpipe mounts to) snapped off.
The overhauler washed his filthy, low-quality hands of any of this.
Anyway I did manage to remove it eventually.

This time, I cracked it open entirely. No cutting corners. I found as expected, a seized valve but also, a torn wastegate diaphragm. 

So this useless jerk overhauler never even tested this wastegate. This turbo was set to 'engine destruct' directly from overhaul, even without the seized valve. I'd love to make him eat this diaphragm!!

Here's the wastegate completely apart.

Now came the task of finding a replacement wastegate, seeing as the diaphragm isn't available seperately.
I did find a donor car in the wreckers. Naturally, the three allen bolts holding the wastegate on the turbo were rusted in place, and in grave danger of rounding off. I managed to loosen one. The second didn't have enough swinging room for the allen key, and the third was in a location that I just couldn't apply enough force to do any good. I decided to remove the compressor housing. I could access 3 of the four bolts, and was able to wiggle off the snail. Still not enough clearance. I said a prayer for what was probably a perfectly good turbo, and smashed the compressor housing backing plate off with a hammer. (poor thing!) Now I could see all four bolts that held the bearing cartridge in the hot section. I could only access three of them. Out came the hammer, and I smashed the center section until it fell out of sight, dangling by the oil return line. I now was able to remove the second allen bolt, but the third remained a fortress of unwaivering jerkness. I ended up removing the exhaust manifold, hot section and downpipe (which luckily was cut ahead of the missing cat) up and out. Finally, I could reach and remove the third bolt. Great!!! A good looking wastegate is mine for the taking!! Except the heat shields were seized into the turbo housing. (they're the steel cups next to the valve above)
Try as I did, I wasn't able to loosen them. Out came the hammer and I smashed that little bugger out of the housing. I wrecked it in the process, so it was left to chance as to whether the diaphragm was good enough to justify the 3.5 hours required to get the little bastard out and into my toolbox.

Fortunately, and I thank everyone and everything resposible, the diaphragm was good!

I honed out the valve guide, lubed it with graphite and reassembled everything. I reinstalled the wastegate using stainless allen bolts and high temp anti-seize. I replaced the crappy, exhaust studs with homemade stainless, lovingly installed into carefully cleaned threads (like I'd expect a half-decent overhaul shop to do.. Ok, wait. I need to get this out. The filthy maggot who "overhauled" this turbo should be cleaning greasetraps in restaurants. He deserves to have every appliance in his life continuously break down due to crappy craftsmanship, and never get any satisfaction in their repair or replacement. I flip my rage-quivering middle finger in his general direction forever. --k, i'm done. Mostly.)

Where was I? Oh yeah. Blah blah blah, put it back together using good stuff and due care the end.

Stainless studs installed:

Or is it?

Nope! We missed a few things.
While I had the exhaust off (thank goodness I'd decided to use a three bolt flange to join the downpipe and resonator!) I cut open the resonator and modified it. I cut many more openings in the center pipe and restuffed it with stainless steel wool. I don't know why I thought so few openings would be adequate. There's a pic of it somewhere in the earlier pages.

The next obvious step, was a test drive!! (um, 3 of them actually!)
Like normal, I puttered out as quietly as possible to the service road. By that time, the engine was at operating temps. With no other cars around and no further ado, I mashed it!
From a standstill, there's a very brief period of turbo lag (roughly 1.5 seconds) before both tires light up to redline and the trans shifts into 2nd. Acceleration in second is exhilarating! I've had some pretty quick cars before, but nothing that swings the speedo needle around quite as quickly as this one! At one point, I glanced down and witnessed the needle litterally leaping from 80 to 100.
There's still a problem with the 2nd-3rd shift. It flares up between gears. I found that briefly letting off as it's about to shift allows it to do so without any problems. Transmission mods are definitely in this vehicle's future. One of my test runs, the tires scrabbled for traction in 2nd! The VW 010 3 speed auto definitely shows promise. I love turbo automatics!! This baby's going to rock!!
The truly alarming thing is, this is at stock 8psi boost, roughly 160 hp! 230hp is +7psi, a cam, and more fuel pressure away! Astounding!!
I was happy to notice that since resonator mods, using either earplugs or ear defenders was adequate rather than both. The mods really made a difference. But it's still rediculously loud.

That brings us to the next step: finishing the exhaust. I begun in earnest. I suppose at this point, I'll let the cat outta the bag and admit to a certain degree of insanity. The exhaust I dreamt up while going crazy with boredom in Hong Kong, is coming to fruition. The basic idea is to split the single 3 inch pipe into four 1.5" pipes. Muffle and side-dump. Voila, a system with the same area as a single 3" pipe, but with the ground clearance (think sidepipes over speed bumps) of a 1.5" pipe. The mufflers won't be any thicker than 1/3/4" either. Perfection, in this maniac's perspective.

To start off with I made up a jig for cutting the mandrel bends. If you've ever tried it, you'll know that a mandrel bend has to be cut along a radial from the bend centerpoint, otherwise the pipe's cross section won't be circular. This little device does the trick, be it a whole bend,

or just a small secion:
The jig clamps in the chop saw nicely, and the cuts are excellent.

 UPDATE

Okay, I made some changes to the exhaust plan. Still the same general idea, but somewhat different in the delivery. I'm working with 1/32" stainless sheet, and man, does it ever like to warp. Progress was slow, and hampered further by running out of TIG gas. Anyway, it is coming along, slowly. I hope to have it ready for installation within a few days.

UPDATE

I've been working steadily on this exhaust system. It's VERY time consuming. The first muffler proved a challenge, and the learning curve was steep. The lessons learned are evident in the construction of the second muffler. Thin gauge stainless is very tempermental and needs to be treated just right. Part of the problem I had with the first muffler was my filler rod was too large. This required much more heat to melt and resulted in warpage of the base metal. I started making my own filler rod out of very thin trimmings of the 1/32" stainless sheet i'm using. It works well. Anyway, The mufflers are complete, and now I just have to join the top and bottom halves. It'll all make sense when I get some more pictures up. Well, that is to say you'll understand what I'm saying, though the whole concept might seem senseless. Hahaaa! In any case, I certainly didn't learn my lesson from the front resonator, and I'm paying for it with the consumption of vast amounts of time. Just to satisfy the need to create. I suppose I can weakly justify it all by claiming the end result will be a low-profile, quieter, lighter system, with no suspension clearance issues as compared to a standard 3" full-car exhaust system.
I'll be back at it in earnest in three days.

UPDATE

Just finishing off a short stretch of work at my actual job. I have most of the next three days off to play with the exhaust. I did do a little on it last night, so now it's ready for final assembly. I anticipate having this finished (FINALLY!) in the next couple days. More soon.

 UPDATE

Well, the exhaust is done. It's very functional and i'm pleased! I'll have pics of it soon, but here's one of it during mid-construction:

The inlet was later expanded to merge with, and provide a smooth transition from the center resonator's 3" round outlet. Here's another pic, looking into the interior from the muffler inlet.  The exhaust transitions smoohtly from 3" round pipe to the flat section of the center before splitting and traveling through one of two mufflers. Each muffler's exhaust passage is 12"x5/16". The cross sectional area of both muffler exhaust passages added together is the same as a 3" round pipe. No loss of area at all. Total muffler height is 1" which doesn't pose any significant ground clearance issues whatsoever. The butt dyno doesn't measure any difference in power between this and an open downpipe, and it's not loud at all. Try making a regular 3" exhaust this quiet on a rabbit! Impossible! There's simply not enough room to put a decent 3" muffler back there.

I spent half a day fixing minor wiring snags, hanging the fuse box, mounting the defrost manifold, instrument cluster and auxilliary gauges. Here's a pic of the manifold:

I've taken the car for several test drives. It works great! The issue, of course, is the sluggish gear shifts, and the rpm flare-up between 2nd and 3rd. I'm planning on going to the drag strip in three days, so before then i'm going to increase the line pressure and try disabling the accumulator and see what that does. If this car had a muscle car-like shift to it, she'd be truly wild!
I spent 17 hours straight on it fixing up some of the remaining small items like wiring etc. I'll have it ready for the track in time. Expect some video of that coming soon.