CDL Swap on MK5 GTI

[A_A02]

I have bought a MK5 GTI BWA with DSG, I want to CDL Swap the car and perhaps in the process stage 2 it aswell. I was wondering what would be required to do the swap and what would need to stay from the BWA engine?

[ZoliWorks]

Complete CDL engine with turbo, intake, dv etc, CDL ECU, and if you want to save yourself the hassle of re-coding your instrument cluster, get the cluster from the cdl donor as well. Wiring should be the same between both engines so no need to swap anything there.

Your overall best bet is to get a cdl engine donor car and swap everything necessary, rather than swapping them piece by piece. If you only want to go stage 2, keep your bwa or fit 2nd hand injectors and k04 on it. A set of brand new injectors and a 2nd hand k04 will cost almost the same as an entire cdl engine

[Kano2021]

I have bought a MK5 GTI BWA with DSG, I want to CDL Swap the car and perhaps in the process stage 2 it aswell. I was wondering what would be required to do the swap and what would need to stay from the BWA engine?

How much you getting the CDL for, and is it bare block only or with full auxiliary’s??
Might have a K04 kit available if you need, including injectors. However will have to confirm if still available

[Kano2021]

Complete CDL engine with turbo, intake, dv etc, CDL ECU, and if you want to save yourself the hassle of re-coding your instrument cluster, get the cluster from the cdl donor as well. Wiring should be the same between both engines so no need to swap anything there.

Your overall best bet is to get a cdl engine donor car and swap everything necessary, rather than swapping them piece by piece. If you only want to go stage 2, keep your bwa or fit 2nd hand injectors and k04 on it. A set of brand new injectors and a 2nd hand k04 will cost almost the same as an entire cdl engine

You need just the engine, including k04 kit and injectors. No need for ecu or clusters regarding immo.
Technically, minimum parts you could just get block (bottom half) of engine CDL/BHZ with k04 and injectors.
However you will need to flash the ECU with a stage 2(+) map to get it all running smoothly

[A_A02]

Hi, sorry for the late reply, I am still trying to find a CDL engine for a good price. just curious how much roughly do you think it will cost me to get the swap done? Also would there be other things i need to change such as fuel system ac and rad

[ZoliWorks]

Prices will depend very much on where you are from or where you are getting the job done. Here I've seen stock CDL's go as low as 1800 euros or as high as 2400. Complete swaps are about 1500 to 2000 with today's prices. It's also a fun DIY project but I highly recommend a complete donor car for that lol

[A_A02]

I live in the UK, just trying to plan out if it is worth doing the swap or buying a Edition 30 or even a Sirocco R and tuning those isntead

[ZoliWorks]

In my honest opinion, it's almost never worth doing a swap, if the car came with that engine at any given point from the manufacturer. The only reason I'd do a CDL swap is if I blew my BWA because a cdl base is only twice as much as a bwa base.

For the amount it'd cost you to swap a CDL, you'd be able to forge your bwa, and then you have a fresh engine basically. A stock, good condition K04 can push 350-360hp on a BWA as long as you keep the torque under 500nm. It wont blow up right away if you go over, but it's a pretty good safety net tbh. If you're going to stick to a K04, it's not worth forging nor CDL swapping for that extra 30-40hp and 50nm. If you wanna go big turbo, it's better to forge than swap imo.


If you have a k03, it's a different story. A k04 swap with used parts will cost you about 1k so in that case it's much better to CDL swap than upgrade your BWA. If you're going with some fresh oem K04 injectors, they are about 250 each so just the 4 injectors will cost you 1k, then there's the turbo, the hoses, the intercooler, because a K03 intercooler is basically useless for a K04. Outside temps were 12c, 50-200kph rolling sprint, intake temps over 54c at 180kph...


I had a 1.4 tsi, the 122hp version and kept wanting to do a 2.0 swap. Everyone told me it would be a huge waste of money, and it's true. For the amount of money it would have cost me to buy the engine and swap it in, I bought this Jetta with engine problems from some dealer in Germany for just under 2800 euros with 128k km on it. It had a few split vacuum hoses and a bad pcv, but they dint really know that. Had to tow it home which cost me another 600 but after selling the 1.4 I actually ended up turning a profit.