Volkswagen Citi Golf / VW Polo
Performance Engine Upgrades | Power Cylinder Heads | Unichip Conversions

Now days the buzz word in hot hatch circles is ‘turbo’, most manufacturers have them as flagship models and all the big boys are running with force fed cars that cost well over R250 000, and in some cases a whole lot more.

Steves Auto Clinic, like usual, are right at the forefront of this technology and already have tuning options for these cars in the form of a Power Plug. But what if you don’t own an expensive turbocharged monster but still want to have a hot VW hatch?

Well then you must have a naturally aspirated car and the good news is that although SAC are the masters at extracting useable and reliable horsepower from all makes of cars, they are the outright specialists with the Volkswagen range of product, and have been so for the past 25 years.

All one has to do is think back to the days when the SAC specially built 6-speed Volkswagen Polo Tecs were as sought after as they were feared by many on the roads and not to mention their customer driven 16v street car Golfs that never lost a performance event at the highly competitive car club days.

The heart and ultimate success of these performance upgrades started in the cylinder heads of these vehicles. And this today still remains the only area that a serious tuner can extract meaningful aspirated horsepower from an engine and as such these heads were given a complete work over in SAC’s own state of the art engineering and cylinder head shop to ensure that they not only left the shop in better than new condition, they also flowed to absolute perfection.

Big valves, matched cams, cut and flowed intake manifolds, flowed throttle bodies were all bolted to a performance branch and free flow exhaust system and tuned to perfection with a Unichip re-programmable commuter module.

It was not unheard of for a 1.4 litre VW Polo or VW Citi Golf to come into one of their branches countrywide making a meek 60 odd kW of engine power and leave a few days later with around 100 kW pumping out of its crisp and new 2.0 litre reworked powerplant.

Back then there was no need to waste money and buy a new car at each new model unveiling, but has the technology crazed charge of today forced those days into motoring history?

Not at all, in fact now, more than ever, holding onto your older car has become a necessity and SAC have a host of options for you to consider when looking to refresh or hunt for real horsepower out of your older generation Polo or Citi Golf.

Regardless of whether you just want some relatively mild improvement to your existing car, or whether you want to go the whole hog and transform your 1.4 to a fire breathing 2.0 litre, they have an option to suit your requirements and your pocket. And in the process they will also save you thousands of Rands over going out and getting into debt and buying a new car.

And for absolute convenience and a quick workshop turnaround time they have the complete package of VW performance parts in stock on the shelf, from new heads, to big valve, gasflowed heads, to the air filters, Unichips and everything else in between.