corozin

I have a Fidanza item on order right now, although I'm not going to be running anything like the power that you are. You may find the Fidanza one lasts longer, but frankly with the level of power you are apparently running you should expect quite a number of the engines' internal organs become consumables compared with a 190bhp engine. If you kill the Fidanza item then I guess you need to consider having something built to order from a much tougher material altogether? John

This bloke's sentence will make interesting reading. One would hope a custodial sentence will be avoided considering the pressure on the prison system, but on the other hand this bloke has become a poster-boy for evil speeding motorists so there will be a lot of "pressure" for a punitiative custodial sentence. If justice was anything I'd expect a 2-3 year ban, retake test & ma-hoo-sive fine. It will be interestingto contrast this bloke's treatment with that of that Trafpol caught doing 158mph near Telford a year or so ago ("I was testing the car, m'lud...")

The M3 E30 must have had some SERIOUS chassis mods to make it so good! It's probably worth mentioning that the E30 M3 was designed completely as a racing car. The road versions were proper homologation specials. In particular the suspension was specifically designed so that all the suspension geometry would be spot on when the car was set up (lowered) for racing, as changing wishbones etc wasn't allowed under the competition rules of the time (unlike today where Touring cars have bespoke suspensions allowed) And looking back it's hard to really make a case that the E30 M3 was a poor handling car given that, as it's competition record in Touring Cars was both long and successful, often against far more powerful opposition.

He should count himself lucky you didn't march him straight to the Police station. Hopefully that'll be the last you hear of it. I had so much trouble with caps being nicked at one point I just gave up and put shitty black plastic ones on instead.

Mais il fait seulement des pi

Well you're correct about that. The whole point of a producer nowadays is just to piss about and waste your time.

Frankly I don't really care what EVO's ratings for cars are anymore. Over the years they've become total badge-snobs, and in the current issue they manage to sing the dynamic praises of the both Porsche 997 GT2 & Ferrari 430 Stradale even though they havn't driven either, whilst at the same time slagging off the APR Golf conversion (400+ HP) just for being "too expensive" at £6k. It's also a sure-done thing that any group test will be won by a BMW unless there is also a Porsche present. The Corrado at the last group hatchback test was just brought along to make the numbers up, and (to me) John Simister's comments about driving the car seemed more based on just knowing about the layout of the car than from actually driving one Although my car is pretty heavily modified these days, it's only 18 months since I ran a completely standard one. I know my Corrado kicks arse, better built, has more class and is more comfortable than any Mini or Clio 197. End of.

Yeah without sounding sarcastic I had a similar incident at the end of July, when I was pulled for "speeding" at 48mph in a 50mph limit at 12:30 at night by two of Dorset's finest. What started out as a sensible conversation almost ended up in a row when the young officer proffered that my car "smelled like it had been ragged" causing me to question what exactly that smelled like. The useless sod only backed off when I asked him to have a look at my trip computer with me so I could show him how "hard I'd been ragging it". And you'd think with all the pissheads out in Bournemouth late on a Saturday night they'd have better things to do than try a false stop on a piece of empty dual carrageway. Years ago something like this would never have happened. A lot of newly qualified officers today would never have gotton into cop-school even ten years ago.

Met Colin both at the Goodwood Festival of Speed and at the Castle Combe rally days. Really nice bloke, incredible talent. Seems all our world champion rally drivers (Clarke, Pond, Burns, McCrae) have all been taken from us earlier than they should have been. What a tragedy. John

Pah... don't listen to him. A Quaife ATB is probably one of the impressive upgrades you can do to a Corrado IMHO. Obviously it helps most if you've got the handling of the car buttoned down first, but I'm still amazed at the traction it provides when you push into it. Of course it takes some learning to make the best of it, and frankly if you try and exploit it on public roads youll be going so fast it actually becomes risky to other road users, but hell... The downside to the Quaife ATB is what happens in the wet. If you go fast enough (ahem) the ATB will work fine until both front wheels light up and at that point you are guaranteed the kind of tank slapper that Kev described above. But you learn to drive within it's limits. Kev - I think you must have your Quaife in back to front from what you've written! Sort it out!

:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: PMSL! Doesn't take much to get you pissing your pants does it?

It's not really fair to include the first one of those, as it's a silhouette race car raced in the National Hot Rod Championships. In fact if you see one in the metal they're quite decent looking (for a plastic hotrod) John

By building so many SUV models BMW are definately in danger of going down the same plughole as Ford, GM & Chrysler are currently doing in the USA. It's not going to be long before the European Governments start to really punish these types of cars with eco-takes in my opinion. Still... it's not all bad news... fewer BMW's on the road etc etc ;)

:D :D :D :D

Oh well at least G60Renshaw has some "interesting" doner front headlight units for his next project :D

That's an interesting idea. I'd take a guess that "expansion tank" has only about half the capacity of a regular tank, but since he managed to drive it to E38 from Belgium presumably it didn't give him any problems. Whether you'd want to sit in London commuter traffic is possibly a different question ! Aside from the smarty-points and the way it helps clean up the engine bay, one other good aspect of running the coolant it into the strut brace would be the heat dissapation of the stainless steel. John

You'll always get bigger friction losses with 4WD, all you can do is to try and minimise it, but that isn't a particularly cheap thing to do. The 4WD conversion has been done a number of times in the UK. Normally the route is to basically use the Golf Rallye running gear, mated to a Golf Rally rear floorpan (to replace the Corrado one), but the kit itself is old now, and Golf Rallye rear 'pans are no longer available new as far as I know. Once you've got that done, you also have to resolve the issue of the rear suspension setup, as the rear beam will foul the 4WD kit if you try and run the car at a sensible ride height. Nowadays using the Haldex kit probably makes more sense as it's newer kit. Although it's not full time 4WD, it will take more power than the Rallye systems do, and it can be rechipped to be more responsive than standard. If you havn't seen it you should go and look for BiggerBigBen's thread in the gallery section, as he's done this conversion. Word of warning before you get your angle grinder out though - Ben's car is the result of almost 5 years of pain, hard graft, cold garage nights and head scratching. If you're desperate to run 4WD reliably and in a sensible timeframe, you'd probably be better off saving for an Evo-6. Doing the conversion to a Corrado is very much the mission of a lifetime, and it won't necessarily make the car a lot quicker in most situations. HTH, John

Oh dear... What a damn shame. I do hope this isn't some wiring design flaw....

Interesting to see your post, as I also purchased a 6 branch from that same company on eBay last Wednesday night and havn't heard anything from them about delivery yet, even though I asked for a confirm email. At least I have thier phone number now. I'll PM you if my current situation changes - would you agree to drop me a PM if your part arrives before mine does? I'm starting to get the feeling that he's not keeping the parts in stock... John

So you're going Emerald as well are you? At least we'll be able to compare notes next year p.s. the car isn't mine

Caption : 'Better get out of here before they notice my Westside stickers are fakes...' p.s. Congratulations Goldie. You car deserves recognition

I've seen 152deg on the race track and the engine didn't blow up so I wouldn't get too worried if you even see as much as 120deg on the road provided you're using synthetic oil. I've had three VR6s now and they all ran at different temperatures (104deg-108deg-113deg in normal use) so the accuracy of the VW oil temp gauge is probably variable at best but I wouldn't get concerned at the numbers the OP has posted.

I saw this exact car at Stoner Park in 2006. It's simply stunning. The quality of the fabwork has to be seen to be believed. I think it would be "interesting" to drive though, as there's a fair bit of weight hung over the back with that big 3.3 motor. Still if you want to drop jaws, this would be a good car to do it with. The quality of the conversion kicks the arse of most UK watercooled VWs.

My Magnex registers at 82db when it's measured at track days, fitted to a VR6. Maybe that's some help to you?

I think it's probably fair to say that if you keep a Corrado long enough you actually start to regress back towards your childhood, as proven by (a) my impending "performance" rebuild (b) CrazyDave turbocharging his Corrado at an age when a Passat estate would be the family choice © rumours reaching me that A1VR6 has been spotted exceeding the speed limit occasionally this year - something he'd never have done even 5 years ago