davidwort

Standard 1.8 16v corrado, no need to disconnect anything, simply get up to temp, make sure the rad fan isn't running and set the advance at idle to 6-7 deg. flywheel marks are more accurate, but putting a dab of white paint on the crank pulley and arrow on cam belt cover works pretty much as well. Depending on the state of the engine, age, how coked up it is, whether it's had headwork etc. you may find you can advance as far as 8 degrees before you over advance and lose power and get pinking under heavy load, also worse in hot weather. Super unleaded will help here although some engines may pink on 95 at 6deg. Once the timing is right, set the CO (friendly MOT tester?) and finally adjust the air bleed on the throttle body to set idle if needed. It will idle sweetly when the CO is set best, anywhere from 0.5 to 2 is fine, again some engines prefer it on the richer side rather than set at 0.5 Best thing for sweet idle is new injectors though, worth pulling yours and checking the spray pattern at low air flap opening, otherwise you are trying to make up for poor spray pattern by tweaking the metering head, which will then never work at all ambient starting temps very well.

the flap in the air distribution unit that deflects air to the screen or to your feet is probably bust, or more specifically the bowden cable that operates this may have come off at either end or the heater control connector to this cable is broken, it's also possible that the connector on the flap itself has sheared off, I had to replace a whole distribution unit because of this. take the drivers side undertray out and look at the side of the air distribution unit, there is a small lever about half way up that operates the flap in question, see if the bowden cable is still attached, and you can remove the heater controls to follow that cable to there and check out the connection to the back of the dials. If any of this is broken the flap in question will tend to drop down, shutting off airflow to your feet.

you can just put the ABF cams straight in there, they were designed for a fully electronic injection system though, not K-jet, so they may not be ideal but in theory they should push the power band up the rev range a little compared to the KR cams. I personally like the KR cams on K-jet, a very good compromise for a K-jet engine. ABF cams may get you a little more peak power but shifting the torque might make the car a little slower accelerating right though the rev range.

cut and shut on the relay plate at the bottom of the gearlever is a good option, it moves the pivot point for the throw, just takes a bit of careful measuring and a little bit of welding the 10cm long plate and you can get a nice 30% reduction, any more and the shift becomes really notchy and unpleasant to drive.

this might help, mk2 gti but basically the same layout: www.clubgti.com/downloads/ISV_clean.doc

definitely check the temp sender on the front plastic water flange on the head, cheap enough to just replace anyway do all the usual plug/leads/dizzy cap and rotor arm checks/replacement - again cheap enough to just replace if they are in any way suspect or old there is an ISV, it's at the back of the head above the inlet manifold you can check the throttle potentiometer with a multimeter, it's easy to remove and fairly simple in operation, quite cheap new too.

I really wouldn't bother, I've just removed a 16 yr old one and there was just very minor corrosion on it, I'm still running the original 21 year old one on the 16v. As long as the car has had no major overheating problems, coolant has been changed every few years and particularly if it's run on the more modern pink/purple G12 antifreeze there's no reason why it shouldn't last at least as long as a main radiator, 10 yrs+ easily, and they're not in the same exposed location as the rad either. I've had a lot of different high mileage old VW's over the years and never had a matrix go, I'm pretty convinced that problems with them are down to poor maintenance of the car, having said that I think the 21yr old one will be swapped out soon :)

If the 3rd light uses LED's then they may not operate if you get the +ve and -ve the wrong way round, as diodes are directional.

just follow the metal tracks from the main brake light bulb to rear extra spade terminals on the back of the light unit, that'll give you the +ve and earth you need

if only the matrix was as easy to get at as on a 92 polo :)

it's really not that bad doing the dash-in method, just hope the bolts from the engine bay into the air distrbution unit are not siezed, check them out before starting anything!

been ages since I saw one on the road, I guess a fair few are summer/second/weekend cars now, they were never exactly common but I see more mk2 sciroccos about now

you need to check if the lock/unlock circuits to the pump/control board are working, so you need to remove the carpet in the rhs of the boot, un-clamp the foam cover and remove the pump/CL unit, disconnect the wiring block from it and check the pins on the cable with a multimeter to earth on the car (use boot striker etc) there will be two wires that go +12v one on lock, one on unlock, if none of the pins behave like this then the alarm wiring or the wiring in the car door may have broken. I think there is also a permanent 12V feed, don't confuse the switching feeds with that, the switching feeds on go +12v when the key or alarm operates the circuit. If you do get feeds then the pump control board is shot, fairly common. Went through this diagnosis last year, note, early cars have a different CL control unit to the later ones and the connectors are different, so if you need a new one make sure the part no. is the same and it cmes from a pre-facelift car

glove box is a diddy 30mm 3W bulb, boot is 5W 36mm push edge/end of light unit and it will pop out of roof lining at that end

I don't think it is a big restriction really, after all VW designed it for much more flow than the 8v heads, and the standard 1.8's red line at 7,200. The angle of the inlet and exhaust ports and the restricted valve sizes might have been limiting as far as race engine development went, but it's pretty good at breathing as a standard road car. Expect about 10% improvement in top end revs/power from good head work, not a huge amount but it will make the engine a little smoother and more fuel efficient too. It's not about the amount of metal cut out of the intake opening! all that does is kill the bottom end and probably lower your power! it's much more subtle than that on the 16v head. you want a nice rough polish finish to all the inlet, most attention to detail on the valve throat and small things like the lumps in the casting around the valve guide end reduced (but not cutting the guide end back on a road car) get the standard cast iron exhasut manifold internally smoothed out too. Obviously to do a proper job it's a full head stripdown and guides out, so expect to pay for a lot of hours of work, 300 quid sounds way too low unless it's a cash in hand job and even then I'd expect it to be closer to 500, there's a lot to do in that head :)

pmsl!

Well, in the end I discovered the previous owner had fitted a 5W festoon bulb in the main interior light instead of the 10W that should be there (10W is even printed on the light fitting :roll: ) so I popped in a spare good 10W and the interior light is much better, strangely the main light unit in the non-sunroof car has no reflector in the fitting, only the passenger reading light has this, probably to focus the light as much as anything, so I used some sticky backed foil tape that came from a model shop I think originally, to line the light unit too, seems to improve it a bit more.I also ordered a 48 LED panel that should just fit inside the light unit, not arrived yet but it was only a couple of quid so thought I'd try one. http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/300638394274?ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1497.l2649 [ATTACH=CONFIG]51054[/ATTACH] as well as this I ordered a twin 1W LED festoon bulb, which should really have been a 42mm one, but going by the old 5W bulb I measured 36mm instead: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/290627067116?ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1497.l2649 [ATTACH=CONFIG]51055[/ATTACH] this is very similar to the one in the post above but much cheaper so thought I'd give it a go .this one has arrived and like most cheap LED bulbs I don't think the light output is great, it's a nice white light but a bit too focussed and probably lights up more like the (wrong) 5W bulb I had before (but whiter). o Not all was lost though as I thought I could use it for the boot light, which is another story as it turns out the old one hadn't blown but the tailgate catch microswitch was knackered so had to replace the catch :roll: In the end I have found this little festoon LED bulb pretty good for the boot, somehow the colour of light and more focus improves the boot light a fair bit.Once I get the 48 LED panel I'll take pictures of both. Oh, and the reason the glovebox is so bad is it uses a very small 3W festoon bulb which I think I'll look at replacing with an LED or small LED panel array too, as you really could do with a whiter light in there, a 3W orangey glow is worse than useless as Yan said :) For comparison, GSF do standard festoon bulbs at around 60-70p each, Halfrauds want £2 e-bay special (link above) is £3 delivered for the 5W equivalent twin LED (2W) - suitable for the boot, will fit interior main which can take 36-42mm bulbs, but not bright enough IMO I still have a bunch of tiny 12V red leds I was planning on fitting into the interior door handle recesses etc, still not got around to it, I did put a bigger one in the centre cubby hole though and that works well, just sanded the end a bit to diffuse the light and I get a nice glow in there so you can just see stuff.

it's pretty simple, with just you and a bit of fuel in the tank the valve lever should be fully at rest, as you add weight to the car the lowering of the rear (raising of rear axle) should then start to open the valve, it's just a bolt in a sliding bracket to adjust the opening position IIRC I'd imagine you have it set partially open at the moment when the car is empty

fairly straightforward although like the mk2 the block height is a little higher so you may have minor issues with the downpipe clearance, only real difference over the mk2 would be the cables for the cable change box which can touch custom downpipes. Plenty have been done though as the ABF is a nice engine, what about turbo? There's a few very quick mk2 ABF turbos around and I'd imagine the revvy nature of this engine is pretty suited to a turbo.

don't know what you mean, there is a relief valve inside the pump body and a rack will self bleed after being drained down, lock to lock and a bit of driving and all the air works it's way out of the rack. but total failure of PAS in both directions suggests the pump is the problem

Usually they are separate and just connect up with spade terminals, should be easy enough, can you show us some close up pics of the loom parts?

standard switching relay is about an inch square, sometimes a bit longer, 4 wires to it, live feed, earth, switching feed and output (to your bulb), if you have 4 then it's likely each side has a separate relay and one for dip and one for main beam, best way to do it as you don't loose all lighting if one relay sticks.

Casio F-91 anyone? :)

get a cheap relay and replace it in the loom, sounds lke the relay has water in it too, they really aren't designed to go in the engine bay and need protecting well

cheapest is toolstation, seems pretty similar to the very expensive VW stuff I had too. http://www.toolstation.com/shop/Automotive/Lubricants & Sprays/Protection Wax/d60/sd2795/p41925