Hello,

I'm currently driving a 2003 New Beetle Convertible with the smaller 4 cylinder engine. It has a 5 speed manual transmission. I love the car but it is very underpowered. I would be willing to invest some money into making it a more enjoyable ride. I was thinking that someone makes and aftermarket blower for it. I'd assume that volkswagen uses that engine for other cars as well. Anyone have any advice as to what I could do? Simple things like a bigger air box wouldn't be enough of a boost to be worth it.

-Josh

 

the 2.0 is under powerd
putting a turbo or blower on it will greatly reduse engine life

 

I've looked into it more. It seems the Neuspeed system isn't adding all that much boost and from what I gather the engine can handle it. It may be just the quantity of more power I'm looking for. Now to find a mechaninc to install it.

 

I was interested in the Neuspeed kit because it was a simple tried and true system that would give me about 50% more power. I'm not interested in some major modification. Anyway, it turns out that in 2003 VW made my car with two different 2.0 engines. One had a metal exhaust manifold and one had a plastic manifold. The guys at Neuspeed told me that if I have the plastic manifold the kit was not compatible. So I popped the hood and dammit, I have a black plastic exhaust manifold. So there goes the whole plan.

 

plastic exhaust??
or intake

 

Sorry, you are right - it's the intake manifold. Either way its plastic and therefore not compatible with the neuspeed kit. I'm very dissapointed. I'm bummed that VW threw in a weird other engine that year and Neuspeed didn't make a custom update given the rarity of it. So my car does not have the exact 2.0 engine that's in the golf and gti that you would have assumed it did.

 

Where would the engine number be - i'll post it later.

 

On the left hand side of the engine on the plastic cover it says "Caution, for testing and adjustment pay attention to the motor number BGD 008314*"

I'm assuming that's it.

 

So I had another conversation with the Neuspeed people. They said that for the beetle, VW manufactured that same engine with either the metal intale manifold or the plastic one. This was done during the entire year with no real reason, whether you get a metal or a plastic manifold is totally random. Their kit will not bolt on to the engine if it has the plastic manifold. The engine code was the same. It totally sucks that with no ability for the consumer to choose, VW just decides to use different engines with the same designation for the same car.

 

you would think if the codes where the same that you could swap manifolds like swedish posted