Yandards

Boost return deletion only really gives gains in a corrado when its hot due to heat soak and the size of the charge cooler. Personally I wouldn't do it as it provides a useful function to the charger through oil mist lubrication and you won't really get any great performance gains from it - the ISV opens up to dump boost back to return or atmosphere at 5800rpm as in introduction to the rev limit. This also means its pointless reving a G60 past 5800rpm unless you get this limit raised during remapping - which DG Auto can do..

Nice find, its a genuine original motor that has been refurbished (you can tell by the black paint overspray) so for £50 a complete bargain. As for a radiator, you can get brand new original G60 radiators from VW classic parts (not sure if you can order through the dealer or not) but its going to set you back a lot of money, nearly £400 inc VAT...

Mmmnn bolt grippers, brilliant tool.

Nice one Kip. Get some self adhesive black felt and replace all the knackered stuff on the interior boot trim while you have it off.

Good to hear you are keeping the sliding controls, they are way more reliable than the rotary ones in the long term as well. BVF is always a good show (long weekend camping next to car) and tends to be more relaxed than the day shows as you get plenty of time to look around. Be good to have a campaign on the stand although a few folks wont know what it is!

Shocking and bloody annoying but ultimately I can't say I am suprised. As Jim said, this tool is clearly a regular offender coupled with a landlord and a bunch of mates that know what he does and let him get away with it. Coppers should be charging the landlord with serving a drunk too. Hopefully it will mean a custodial sentence this time, idiots like this should be on the end of a lifetime ban as well. It's cases like this that make me think that DNA scanners in cars to enable driving would be a good thing!

Looks like most of the damage is the result of running it up to the petrol station to pump it up, although the initial failure point is pretty serious. Just lucky it took a while to manifest and as Dukest said it wasn't on the motorway! Was there much wear left in the tyre? It looks towards the end of its life judging by the photos and what I can see of the tred blocks.

In a fit of madness (was sunny out so I thought it was warmer) I ventured into the garage to check my bores. After setting my bore gauge to 81.01mm using my digital vernier calipers and allowing for the bore gauge to travel in both directions (high and low) it was onto the cylinders. All 4 have come back as being within .01mm of design tolerance (81.01mm) you are allowed up to 0.08mm max until you need to go oversize on the block so that's all good so far. I then started honing no. 4 (the bore with least compression), until my bore honer broke, cheapo clark rubbish, a quick trip to Halfords revealed they don't have them on the shelf anymore so I have ordered a replacement. No. 4 was coming up very nicely prior to the tool failure, a quick check with the bore gauge shows around 0.03mm of material removed from design specification (that 81.01mm figure) with a few scores still in the middle of the bore. I expect that all 4 cylinders will come up ok and without me having to consider going oversize on the block (which I wouldn't have done as I have a spare KR engine). Subject to a sucessful compression test it will be strip down and replace all the bearings, I need to change the gearbox for my new ASD box with G60 3rd and 4th anyway so dropping the crank is easy enough. It's then going to be a re-assemble and compression test to see if it's fixed, should be getting around the 12 bar mark instead of the 9 bar it was doing.

Box is usually ok, what tends to wear out is 2nd gear syncro making it harder to select 2nd when cold. As Mr charged said the boxes are strong, if you take Mr Haywire's rebuilt box as an example even with the shorter diff in it generating higher running speeds its still been faultless.

The lambda once the car is warmed up will keep the fueling roughly where it needs to be and prevent major engine damage, however the lambda does not provide infomation to the ECU when you are on the WOT (wide open throttle) microswitch. So basically take it easy on the way down and keep it off full throttle and you will be fine. I know my G60 was much improved post mapping session with DG, the series of mods on the boost side of the charger had really messed up the full throttle look up table in the ECU so it just bogged down at WOT. As for journey time it take me around around 3 hours to get to the Glasgow area, an hour to the border and then another 3 hours should see you arriving at DG. The mapping session will take a few hours to do but you are best off speaking directly to DG to arrange that.

DG are in the middle of England around the Kidderminster area of the Midlands. I don't know of any mapping companies in Scotland, the problem you will find with most companies is that they won't have the kit to do mapping for a car as old as the G60 or the knowledge of the MAP code to enable them to adjust it.

I will add that considering the age and mileage of most G60 blocks there is too much variation in output from each engine to enable a 'off the shelf' map to work effectively. You really need a custom MAP for your car and as BB mentioned above I would recommend DG autotech for this purpose. You can always consider a charger cooling solution instead of an FMIC, less prone to heatsoak, easier to have shorter boost tubing runs and less restriction on the boost system. The standard injectors are also good for some much higher numbers than most folks run, although once again getting the current injectors cleaned and balanced will improve overall running and performance. Another vote for don't go down the toothed belt route, there is some circumstantial evidence that when they spit teeth or come off the shock loading can wipe out your charger. If you do go for a smaller pulley then a new set of idler wheels and a damper is a good idea.

It's just mental, £88 to fill the wife's diesel Passat up prior to both the duty and VAT rise, getting far too close to the £100 mark for a tank of fuel.

Merry Chrimbo all, have a good one.

G reg valver in Westbury this morning, dark blue in colour. Was in a red Passat estate (the wifes) just parking up. Nice to see on after 600 miles of travelling in 24 hours and as usual not a single one on the motorway network..

Got mine on Wednesday, which was nice! See you in 2011 for a 'charged valver mapping session, hopefully on your new rolling road.

Hallo, If there is a lot of oil in your charger it could probably use a refurb as it sounds like the oil seals are failing. When was the last time you got it rebuilt or stripped down to check the seals etc? Do not spray any cleaning fluid etc in the charger as it will damage the seals and potentially brick your charger.

It's just another example of the transistion of the motor vehicle to a utility as opposed to an aspiration. Rewind 40 years and the owners handbooks used to contain all the info to carry out a service yourself as a home mechanic, the Triumph GT6 manual even states that you can take it to the main dealer to get your self service stamped! Driving is a skill but most road users don't look at it that way, driving on snow and ice requires a different set of skills and an understanding for how the car behaves (wet grass is similar and good to practice on). The amount of folks that don't seem to understand that on an empty, straight, snow covered road with good visibility means you can happily drive along at 50mph instead of 10mph is beyond belief. Couple that with an inability to use engine braking to slow down, excessive corner entry speeds and a lack of understanding about general car control in skid conditions and you have a disaster.

PMSL, brilliant.

I don't know where he got it done but it was a local machine shop IIRC.

Hard numbers, hard to come by and hard to trust (as all rolling roads are not equal), as Kev has said, is the only way to do this. Whilst my recent G60 mapping by DG has seen a huge gain in driveability, my AFR is now very steady at WOT as opposed to the pre-map spikes, I do not honestly know if I have more bhp and torque than before. I would say more than before because the tweaked map is now giving me the most from my set-up but without a before and after rolling road plot is difficult to say by how much and where it sits in the rev range. In the longer term I do know that DG have a rolling road in kit form to be fitted in the workshop so I suspect it will only be a matter of time before they start providing owners with before and after maps for individual cars. As has already been mentioned age and condition effect the results of a modification and will vary between vehicles; although given the VRs ability to make book figures within a couple of bhp/lb ft a cam swap should be fairly predictable. Couple the cam fitment with a custom mapping session to ensure the engine package is producing its best and that will ensure you get the most from what you have. As for bhp/tonne, a real number and very useful indeed, but there is another huge element to that equation - gearing. With 6 speeds to play with it's easier to keep the R32s on peak output than it is the VR, as you know only too well Kev a tweak of final drive makes a huge difference to acceleration and engine response.

It's all true Wendy, that's why a car port is the best spot for a car that is in daily use over the wet/winter months rather than a garage. It's also worth noting that the other reason to use a garage is to keep the sun off the car, UV makes a mess of rubber and trims and ages the interior plastics. As for more VW lubricants; the sticking door seals are catered for by using VW's silicon lubricant, D 007 000 A2 around £10 for 200ml, this is also to be used for seat rails, window lifters, head restraint rods and as an aid to fitting hoses. On top of that is can be applied to door and flap seals to prevent freezing and is a highly suitable anti-squeak agent for application to plastic parts. I guess any generic silicon lubricant will do the job though.

Mentalist. I keep wandering in my garage, thermometer by the garage door is showing just above 0 as a lowest but the forecast for later this week is a high of -6 degrees...

Nice one Kip! Good prices, I'll remember them next year :D Just had a pair of new Continental Premium contact 2s fitted to the nugget before the weather arrived, 185/55/15s, for £155 all in. Better than all the online offers and £50 cheaper than the rest of the tyre monkeys, booked online, picked my day to get it done and that was that. They even phoned me the day before to say my tyres were in and that I could come in anytime to get them fitted. I think Kwik Fit are also offering to hold onto your summer tyres and refit them when you want, some sort of tyre hotel! Not gone for a set of winter tyres yet but as we have about 2ft in the village sat on the roads etc it's going to be a struggle getting into Elgin to get some fitted! Don't want to try to move the C off the drive either as I can see it sliding into the wall on the way down and making a mess! :(

It is water in the handbrake cable that freezes at this time of the year causing the problem. If you think about the way the cable is attached to the caliper, even with the rubber boot in good condition, you will get water track down the inside of the handbrake cable via the joys of capillary action. Squirting some oil down the cable will help a little as it will displace the water but as the cable twisted steel with a nylon outer it is designed to be self lubricating; over time the addition of oil will create a lovely grinding paste from bits of nylon and the oil. As for the handbrake mech on the caliper, the reason they go Pete Tong is mechanism is they are external and do not get enough range of movement or use to ensure that it doesn't seize. Sticking some lithium grease over the mechanical lever on the caliper does help to keep the water out but it will need cleaning off and reapplying ever six months to get the best from it.