Hello, I have completed a 1.8T conversion on my Fabia vRS earlier this year, I wanted to share some photos on here.

Any questions about the swap, I'm happy to answer.

There are definitely different ways I could have done the swap, but at the time of carrying it out, the way I did it made sense to me.

This is the first time I've done a project of this size. Before that, the most I had done was remove the old PD lump and replace it with another equally as rubbish Facebook marketplace engine.

At that point, I decided I need to 1.8T swap my Fabia or I'm never going to do it.

The donor was an Ibiza FR 1.8T, it had covered only 66k miles, but was a Cat S.

I'm limited on photos, I recorded more videos.

I managed to keep the front mount intercooler which I had fitted when the car was diesel. I did have to source some boost pipes, luckily Darkside Developments sell pipes for the 1.8T Polo and Ibiza of this generation.

I had to make some custom clocks, a very fiddly job, I think they look cool.

I was very fortunate with the workspace, I cleared out that shed which was full to the brim, in exchange I could carry out the conversion in the space.

Edited 24 November, 202524 Nov by benny_vrs
Missed out a bit of information

6 minutes ago, benny_vrs said:

I'm limited on photos

If you pay a little money for a Freedom membership, you'll have a lot more if not unlimited capacity.

https://www.briskoda.net/forums/subscriptions/

I decided that basically re-shelling the Ibiza into the Fabia would be the way to do it.

At this point I had removed the ASR ABS system and retrofitted ESP from the Ibiza, as well as the climatronic HVAC system. So making the Ibiza loom fit was easier than stripping both looms to make a custom one. It took a lot of brain power for me to link the Ibiza harness to the rear section of the Fabia harness. I got it all done and wrapped it up to look tidy for no one to see.

Skipping forward a bit as this is the next photo along in my gallery. I had the car up and running, then the Ibiza radiator I had decided to use, started leaking. I replaced it with an alloy "upgrade".

6 minutes ago, Breezy_Pete said:

If you pay a little money for a Freedom membership, you'll have a lot more if not unlimited capacity.

https://www.briskoda.net/forums/subscriptions/

Ok, good to know. I annoyingly didn't take many photos of and during the swap, so have a limited amount of photos I can share on here.

You should be able to see the climatronic unit fitted where the original heater controls were. I was able to use the original screws and mounting holes with smallest amount of modification.

Also the Ibiza steering wheel might look a bit out of place, but all of the steering wheel control functions work with my touchscreen radio which is nice.

I had the interior out multiple times as when I fitted the climatronic heater box I forgot to fit the rubber gasket properly on the bulkhead. When I came around to regassing the air conditioning system, it all worked but stupidly the drain for the condensation was able to drip into the car, instead of down the bulkhead panel and completely soaked the carpet and underlay.