NickRStorm

Picked this 996 Carrera 4 up on Monday & even a stinking cold can't wipe the smile off my face. Spent this afternoon cleaning the C & the C :)

Looks like she's attended the Russ Swift School for Parking :)

A word of warning here - I have a genuine Rosstech USB OBDII dongle and 2x2 converter for earlier cars. It works just fine on my Storm, but has flatly refused to talk to any of the early VR's ECU's I've tried it on (although it talks to the ABS just fine?). I don't know if it's a fault of the dongle itself or the USB on my laptop, but as it works on my VR I'm not too bothered.

Just been reading about BP Ultimate 102 (102 octane) in EVO (p29). It's handmade in small batches & will be available in 8 petrol stations. Now for the price: £2.40 / litre! It's very advanced stuff by the sound of it & is the only petrol not classed as carcinogenic. The formula changes between summer & winter. Apparently it's aimed at trackday pilots & on a Porsche GT3 they remapped the ECU to produce an additional 48bhp (up by 12.5 percent), so it does seem to work. Without the remap it only put the power up by 25bhp

Just a suggestion before you go changing mechanical stuff - as an experiment, rotate you tyres front to rear. You may find that the noise disappears. I've had this same symptom twice in 8 years on VW VR6's & it was the tyre going out of round both times. They wear so little on the rear that they tend to get old before they wear out. Rear bearings aren't expensive anyway, if it does turn out to be them.

You never actually see any water inside - it seems to stay in the cluster until it evaporates, but of course it rusts everything it can in the process :(

If you've had problems with water ingress into the rear light clusters, this can corrode the connectors really badly over time. I had similar wierd problems on my Golf caused by water. You might have some luck & be able to clean them up - open the rear hatch & undo the clips that hold all the bulbs to the back of the cluster & unclip the electrical plug. You will then be able to remove the entire backplane off the car & have a good look. Clean off any rust on connecting surfaces with emery paper & test for a good connection between any bad rust points on the metal tracks back to the connector block. If it's beyond help, I seem to remember that they are around £35 / side to replace. Good luck!

I'd be more inclined to go for the late Golf MK3 VR6 288mm brakes than dual piston 280's as the friction area is probably 40% greater on the 288's due to the larger pad. Mine cost me £45 of eBay for disks, calipers, carriers & pads - bargain! 16" RX's will defo fit 'cos I've got this exact setup on mine. The stopping power is more than adequate for a standard VR6 IMHO & it has the added benefit of allowing the fitment of standard wheels without taking the mod off. Sorry, don't know anything about the 312's

You need flexible cable trunking then. Any decent trade electrics wholesaler (or maybe even a good builders merchant) would have that. Like this stuff - although 100 metres might be a bit more than you'll need...

Homebase do item #1 on your list - made by JML so look for gaudily coloured plastic packaging :)

Heat exchanger is the big silvery thing to the right of the oil filter. They're a well-known weak point - they rust through from the inside. Oil sender won't have anything to do with this failure. Changing the headgasket on a VR is never going to be cheap as there's a lot of labour involved. The gasket set alone is nearly £100 IIRC & you also need new head bolts too. Depending on age, you might want to look at doing the valve guides / seals, timing chains etc. Budget a grand for that lot. Basically, just pray that it's only the heat exchanger!

Totally agree with Andi - the discs last for ages. I changed the front ones on my VR Golf a few months ago after 6 years & 75K miles. They still worked great but had developed slight ridges where the holes are drilled. Probably would have gone on to 100K miles without any trouble tho'. If you want to keep them looking black, you're going to have to paint the non-friction areas with high temp paint.

Only ever been there in person - it's an absolute tip of a place, and stock control seems primitive to non-existant. Long trips into the stock room to find out if they have bits seems all part of the "experience"... All that said, the guys I've dealt with have all been quite friendly & helpful.

Maybe you could use something like this?

They all seem to charge on the amount of work & on a car "peppered" like you describe, it would rapidly become far more expensive than a proper front-end respray. As others have said, the quality of the work is entirely down to the guy doing it, but I'd go for a proper respray if you intend to keep the car.

Here's an idea - I still have the original shift off my Golf. I'd be happy to donate it to H8RRA so that he's got an exchange unit for those that can't do without their car. I'm sure I've missed a reason why this won't work, but I can't think of it :)

Just to throw my 2p in, I have a B&M on my Golf VR6 and it was an absolute pig to get it to work right - it had a habit of popping out of 1st & 3rd (normally at 4000rpm+). Changes to 2nd didn't always engage either. I lost count of the hours I spent with a Dremmel "adjusting" the thing. Worked great in the end, but never again. H8RRA seems to have the right attitude to this mod, keep it OEM+ :)

Isn't that a coilpack engine in there? I was sure they didn't appear until '94 or am I wrong? Using oil isn't a good sign, so best of luck sorting it.

I've got one, but it doesn't seem to like the early 2X2 plug ECU's. If you've got the later OBDII type then no problem. I'm near High Wycombe.

Yep, agree that Trigger's dent isn't the sort of thing that a dent company is likely to want to tackle. For small yet annoying dents like mine the dent places can do a good job, you just have to be lucky with your local one .

For those interested in how ChipsAway did with my dents, here are the pics. I'm very happy with what they've done. DingBefore1 is a pic along the door with the main 3 dings circled - the worst is the nearest. DingBefore2 is a closeup of the bad ding, but seems to mainly show me :roll: Look at how the lens is distorted in the pic tho'. The 2 "after" pics speak for themselves & short of having the whole door stripped, beaten & re-sparayed this is as good as it can get, I reckon. That last pic is actually a reflection off the door and shows it looking like a mirror! PS It's only after trying to take these pics that I realise how bl**dy difficult it is to get a proper pic of small dings.

They're in High Wycombe 01494 769 079. Nice guys but very busy (usually a good sign, I find!). Both times I took the car to them first, got a quote & it was booked in for a week later. Mine's going in on Tuesday so you'll be able to judge from the pics.

ChipsAway and their ilk are just franshise operations. It all depends on how good the guys are at the particular one you go to. I just put my Dad's Honda Accord in to have a really nasty bumper scrape & a couple of wheel arch scrapes done. They did such a good job I'm entrusting the Storm to them next week to get a small dent on the door swage line and a couple of carpark door dings taken out - I'll post before & after pics.

I'm sure it's not technically legal for them to exceed the speed limit unless they are in a persuit or on a call, but how do you police the police? I really hate they way they use underhand tricks like this - it didn't happen in the old days when I started driving 30 years ago.

Except on the M4 between Reading & Newbury where the prefered method seems to be to belt past everyone at a ton+ and then dawdle along a few miles down the road & see who comes blasting past. Seen them do it several times now in a dark blue 3 litre Vauxhall with just one ariel on the rear nearside wing.