wcrado

ok if the ABF inlet uses a single- butterfly TB and the inlet manifold also has longer runners etc. wouldn't it be a good upgrade to change to this from the standard KR inlet/TB? never heard of it being done before, but it sounds like you could gain from this. Also, what you say about the head flowing..... i bought another 16v a while back, and as part of the deal a polished ported head was thrown in, this was all the guys own work, but when i asked him about it he seemed pretty clued up. haven't yet fitted it, but when i inspected it the other day i noticed the exhaust ports had been opened out quite significantly, but not really polished or finished, just grinded out a few mil all round. you say this is a bad move as it results in loss of torque, and i also read its a bad idea to do this as it allows more air to flow back into the combustion chamber. should i bin this head and start again with my own, or do you think it's salvagable? i think the rest of the head is flowed quite well. cheers

yeah i'm interested. will send p.m. still fancy having this done though, i drive my girlfriends gti-6 quite a bit, and that thing just feels so much lighter and nippier than my 'rado, but when i checked the weights of the cars, hers weighs in at about 150kg more! i know she has better gearing, but unless i wind the 'rado engine up to about 4.5k RPM, the thing does not move, i'm guessing the lightened flywheel will help this. i hope it will anyway. i'm also borrowing a horrible, plastic, son-of-satan citroen saxo VTR at the moment, and although i'd rather get kicked in the nuts than drive that thing anymore, the way it darts around in low gears is impressive. on an open stretch of uphill dual carriage way near me, a sort of overtaking 'drag-strip' i can top out at about 84mph in the saxo, but about 91-92mph in the corrado, so mine is quicker once it gets going, but it just 'feels' so heavy and sluggish until it does. do you reckon lightening the flywheel will help this?

what about the inlet though? i know that its said the 42mm is better for torque, but considering i'm gonna be using a rev happy 1.8 with the flowed head and exhaust cam shouldn't i whack on a 50mm?

I'd quite like to lighten the flywheel on my 1.8 16v, but i don't know where to start looking. i've found a website which sells lightened ones for the Mk2 16v, a 210mm flywheel, but if i remember from my recent engine swap the flywheels are smaller and have different fittings to the Corrado ones. Does anyone lighten them on here? Does anyone have one for sale? Where do i look to get this done? i've also been trying to track down a lightweight crank pulley, as i saw one on ebay a while back for a mk3 8v, but as yet i can't find a company that sells them, but i'm guessing lightening the flywheel will be enough to improve the driveability without too many downsides, i don't want to go too far.

yeah i thought that too. But it doesn't change the fact that on my previous 16v, the upgrade to a 50mm inlet produced the most increase in low-down power. on the 42mm, the power increased nicely from 3k-ish upwards, and let fly at 4k-ish. once the 50mm was on, it had a small 'power band' from 2.5k to 3.5k, then it went flat, and picked up again at 4.5k. a bit irritating to drive, it meant dropping gears all the time, but it was nice to have some pull down there in the low revs. when on the redline however, it was hard to notice any real difference. i might just try it for now, and see how it goes, although first i have a ported/polished head to go on, which will mean i can fit the new cam chain and set the timing properly, so i'll wait til i've done all that and if i'm still not happy i'll throw on the 50mm and see if it improves or not. whats your theories behind the exhaust cam mod? could this be causing the car to run flat at low revs? i thought so initially, and was tempted to put the standard cams back in, but other people on here that have carried out this mod seemed to think the car pulled nicely right through. considering i'm going to be using a ported/ polished head, with a 4 branch and system, WUR mod, etc, what do you think the best set up is in terms of cams and inlet manifold?

cheers. i do have to take the head apart anyway, so i think i will ring gsf and get them to send one out, just incase. the car has been fiddled with, it has the exhaust cam mod, so it's entirely possible things aren't 100% on the timing side of things. once i've replaced the head and fitted the new chain, then i'll sort the ignition timing and the fuelling. car does seem flat until 4.5k rpm, very unresponsive and uneager. once it winds up it's ok, but nothing until then. exhaust cam mod could be responsible, but i'm not sure. currently have a fully flowed and matched 42mm inlet on the car, on my previous 16v i switched from 42mm to 50mm and noticed an improvement in power most noticibly between 2.5 and 3.5 rpm, which goes against what i've read on here, that 50mm's are only good for top-end power. whats your theories on this? have heard conflicting arguments. have a 50mm manifold sitting in the garage, so if thats going to improve the 'usable' power of the car then i'll bolt it on even if it only gives top-end bhp, i'm still considering it seeing as car won't pick up til 4500rpm anyway

my previous 16v (KR) never ran right, and always felt like it was out of time.(rolling roaded at 130bhp after flowed head, manifolds and 4-branch) after i replaced the engine due to a slight lack of oil hitch, i discovered the reason for this was that the chain that keeps the cams in time with each other was very slack, so hence it was running slightly out of time. is this a common occurance? it's just that i have a different 1.8 16v now, after a slight collision in my old one, and i'd hate to think that my new one mite be suffering the same thing, as this one too seems to be flat at low revs just like the old one. The replacement engine that went in the old car pulled much, much better at low rpm, and that engine had only covered 80k. Both my new valver and the old engine from the previous valver had covered around 140k Is this worth checking out, and if i discover it is slack, what do i do then? replace it with a genuine-only part, or can i tighten it somehow?

will do

brand new=re-built. you know what i mean

like davidwort says have it set-up properly first. may also pay to check the cam timing, the keyway in the top cam wheel can shear off, making the car run out of time. belive me, this is a common problem. had a replacement engine put in my 1.8 a while back, and when we got around to fitting the new cam belt we couldn't get it to line up, once we took the rocker cover off and saw the cams were out of line, we just replaced the top cam wheel and it went like stink. if you are new to 16valvers and are not aware of this, then they can feel like a bag of crap. if it's gone it should feel gutless and won't pull for all the revving in the world. it may also take a while to start up and splutter a few times when it does. i'd check it, i've just bought a new 16v and although it feels fine, i'm still gonna check, could lose mega-BHP rom this. once thats checked, get yourself a high flow panel filter, don't drill the airbox, instead ,make a direct feed from behind the grille into a hole in the airbox as i reckon this works better and doesn't sound as bad. then, a flowed head! £255 brand new on ebay, by some company,but i don't know how good they are.

yeah i've picked up a couple of porsche inlets, one from a 924, which turned up today, but it looks as though it's a golf 8v throttle body. it's got the vag stamp but the butterflies are smaller. the other is on it's way, and is the single 944 one you were going on about, so once that arrives i'll be hasseling you for some advice! guessing it's gonna involve welding.... nice re-spray btw, suits the car better oh also, i just bought my new 16v(smacked up the other one)and it has the exhaust cam mod. pulls well at 5k, but nothing, and i mean nothing, until then. it was aide(on here)'s car, but at the moment it's running a 50mm top half inlet and 42mm bottom half, so i was wondering if the lack of torque was down to this, as surely all the extra air from the 50mm is just bouncing off the inside of the 42mm bottom half and restricting airflow speed. what do you reckon? i've got the spare 50mm bottom half and 42mm top half so i'll get around to putting it right and see if it helps. if it doesn't i'm seriously gonna consider putting an original inlet cam back in

yeah i'm gonna try and get hold of one off a porsche and then i guess it's a custom-fit job. Maybe flusted, you could have the WUR mod re-set up in accordance to the firebreather. i think they normally reduce the pressure on the wur from 48 to 35 ? (is that right?) maybe if it was reduced even more this would solve the pinking with the firebreather. how are the state of your injectors anyway? BTW, tips on flowing an inlet?? i'm thinking wet & dry by hand, but how the hell am i supposed to get my shovel hands into those tiny ports? and how fine to go? 1200 grade?

yeah but to be honest i'm more after an improvement in throttle response, etc. i've always felt the valver is a little slow to pick up. apparently the firebreather helps this. not looking to get mega-horsepower from this, just an improvement in driveability would be nice.

good idea. i'm unsure of which manifold to go for. put a 50mm on my old 16v and i thought i gained power over the 42mm. people say you gain top-end but lose low down, but if anything i felt i gained low-down power. gonna try them both on the new one. well-up for trying this firebreather idea though, heard someone say you get alot better throttle response, and i've always felt the 16v has crap throttle response so got to give it a go.did you have the WUR mod done when the last firebreather was on? just wonderin if that might help the running lean top-end. so you picked this up from a 944 yeah? how are you planning to fit the thing? custom d.i.y adaptor plate? 1 other thing, can you give me some advice as far as flowing an inlet manifold goes

What did the firebreather do to your performance?

Ok, so i know to get a few extra horsies you can port and flow the throttle body on a 1.8 16v, and if you're brave you can machine down the butterfly spindles. But what i want to know is, is there a superior throttle body out there that will fit the KR? i.e an audi item? I know that you can fit a 5-cylinder audi throttle body to a mk1 8v, and apparently this is a good upgrade. is there anything similar to this that works on the KR? Also, i may be stupid but from day 1 i've heard people say that the later facelift corrado's (i.e j-plate on) have different style headlights. I can see the bonnet is different, and the grille, obviously, and i'll take everyones word for it that the arches are slightly wider, but i just cannot for the life of me see any difference in the headlights! can someone please explain the difference

i meant with a standard g60 chip, if you have one. don't know if it's worth noting or not, but in my handbook it recommends 95 RON petrol for a g60. 16v's are recommended at 98 RON. maybe give the optimax a miss? i dunno, clutching at straws! with the ecu, i meant that if, as you suspect, the performance chips could be to blame for your problem, is there any way you can just try it on a standard g60 ecu? i know you've modded it to work with a chip, but if u think this is your problem isn't it worth finding out? can u get the ecu tested? i had mine tested a while back to try and find a performance problem, it had to be removed from the car to be tested but came back ok. i'd def go for a session on the rollers, not a shoot-out, book one in.

nah your polishing of the throttle body won't be causing it, thats just gonna cause the air to flow real quick, but as gibber said, the problem is intermittent, so it's going to be something thats changing all the time. is there no way of testing the ecu (minus the chip) to see if it's faulty? have you tried running it without a chip to see what happens? a rolling road session mite be a good idea yeah, they may not be able to tell you exactly what the problem is, but they can certainly tell you what it isn't, which will help eliminate various things and narrow your search down. my girlfriend has a similar problem with her gti-6, it drives fine 80% of the time, but now and again it bucks and is hesitant, exactly like it feels when it's running out of fuel. sometimes it actually grinds to a hault and stalls, and then fires straight back up again and is as good as new. i don't know if this is anything like what you are experiencing, but with my limited knowledge i would almost certainly say hers is an engine management problem. i would get that ecu tested if it is at all possible losing traction in second sounds pretty good to me though!

definitely. problems can snowball when you attempt them yourself.

hi mate, have followed your thread with interest and have tried to keep up(it is quite long)but i think i know what the score is so i'm gonna give my 2p's worth and hope it helps. i'm not suggesting you do any of this, or even read this,i'm simply saying if i was in your shoes this is what i would do. as i'm sure you're aware pinking usually indictes a weak mixture or too far advanced timing, so if the timing is in any way advanced put it back to standard. the last i read you did the timing with a digital timing light, so i'm guessing you could have tried to advance it on that, but personally i would leave the advancing for now, to eliminate it, and maybe have the distributor swung in the future on rollers to give you a bit extra. ok, so providing all of that is either done already or doesn't solve the problem then my next step would be to suspect engine management. i think i'm right in saying you still have a chip fitted? well i'd whip that straight out and have it put through VAG-COM. if it comes back clear and the car drives ok then throw away the stinking chips! its common knowledge that chips work best when set up properly to each individual car, swapping them around like you have, especially when you suspect them to be faulty, is leaving yourself open for problems. if none of that solves your problem, i.e if vag-com doesn't pick up anything and it still drives like a piece of poo without the superchip then my next step would be to book it in with my nearest lucas and have the injectors pulse-cleaned(bout £25) and the fuel pressure tested(bout £20), to eliminate any blockages or a dying fuel pump. from there, i guess i'd start whacking my head against a wall! it sounds like you've already done that though. i'm presuming all the ignition components have been recently changed/can be eliminated, including the coil. they usually either work or they don't, but i replaced a coil on a sluggish mark 1 golf a while back and it made it alot more responsive and felt much better. i'd change those plugs as well mate, they look filthy! sorry i can't be of more help, my knowledge of G60's is very limited, all i can say is when you attempt to do things yourself things do go wrong. i know you've tried to cut corners to save cash, but this can be your downfall. believe me, i've been there, and the one thing i will state, which you should pay attention to, is do not attack that head with the dremmel! you can ignore everything else. hope you get it all sorted anyway if not, i've got a clean 16v i'll part/ex you for it!!

just bought a manifold off a guy on ebay to run carbs, the bloke said he got 188bhp out of his 16v golf after setting up on rollers with no other mods evcept lightening and balancing

yeah deepest darkest cornwall!

CHILL! Old boy with the yellow G60 was right, it was just fuse 14 blown! i replaced it and everything is cool. It would have been easy to figure out if the fuses were correctly listed in the handbook! according to that, the fuse for the electric window was in a seperate holder above the relay's, god knows what it said fuse 14 was for, but electric windows weren't listed as being in the fuse box.

maybe it was, i don't know. but the ABF lump was a 2.0 16v which was fitted to mk3 valvers and produced 150bhp, as opposed to the 2.0 16v 9a engine which was only 136 (ish) bhp. think it was different cams or something i don't know. if anyone wants it though i'm happy to give you the number of the scrappy

sweet cheers flusted. it's definitely something to bear in mind if my carbs idea falls on it's face! which if i listen to you lot it will! if it does i think i'll go for the exhaust cam, wur mod and maybe send my head away to be ported and polished.