Lufbramatt

only other thing i can think of on mine is the little light strip between the heater controls and the ashtray, which i assume corrados have too . . . but that wouldnt make sense with it being ignition live.

is it the connector for the handbrake switch for the light on the cluster?

So the Passat plus axle car's came with an ET35 wheel? That's interesting because everything I've seen/read suggested that they only used ET38/ET43 on plus axle yep they did- my ABF powered passat is 5x100 plus axle and came with the "G60" style steel wheels which are ET35 (part # 3A0601027). The golf VR6/16v version of the same wheels are ET43 (part # 1H0601025N). This gives an overall front track of 1485mm on the passat.

some interesting info in this thread. ive just found teh service manual for the B3 passat, and it has all the suspension geometry in it. notably on the base suspension (4 stud) the scrub radius is 0.5mm with an ET35 wheel, but on plus axle cars (5 stud) the scrub radius is 12mm with an ET35 wheel. So the effect of moving the lower ball joint right out can clearly be seen. However, the downside to the ball joint being deeper inside the wheel is less steering lock due to the inside rim of the wheel moving in a different arc, so the turning circle is increased from 10.7m (base suspension) to 11.3m (plus suspension). Its also quite interesting that the B3 passat has the wide spaced suspension turrets the same as the mk3 golf, but 5 years earlier ;) so the plus axle in its "purest" form was originally developed back in 1988 for the passat VR6, and then grafted on to the A2 based corrado shell for the rado VR6.

fair enough, thats what i did mine with, maybe your engine bay is more cramped than mine :shrug:

water pump pliers FTW as well as teflon plumbers tape round the threads of the sender :)

nice conversion this, did the same on my passat. on mine i got all the ECU, immobiliser+ reader coil+key and ignition barrel housing and just swapped the lot over, so i can still use the chipped key to start the car and the immobiliser works as it should. when you come to putting the loom in, go over everything with a fine tooth comb and make sure tehres no cracked or broken wires, particularly the wiring to the throttle body and AIT sensor as they run close to the exhaust manifold. look forward to seeing more progress tho! although almost seems a shame to put a 16v lump in an 8v rado as they were so rare!

i just got a Blaupunkt Hamburg MP57 for mine, its dark grey and black and matches the interior styling of the b3 passat/corrado well. After fiddling with them all in halfords i decided the blaupunkt ones felt the best made. has bluetooth hands free, usb, 4xpre outs, 2x aux ins (one on front panel), wma, mp3 etc, cost me £140 including all the breakout leads, direct from Blue Spot (Blaupunkt uk). http://www.bluespot.co.uk/stock/hamburg.asp

can also recommend redline MT90- my o2A is smooth as silk now :D make sure you loosen the filler hole cap first thou, dont wanna drain all your box oil out then not be able to put it back in again ;)

also check all the brake caliper and carrier bolts, i had a knocking noise from the rear for a while turned out one of the carrier 8mm allen bolts had started to come loose :shock: threadlock FTW

got mine from dealers when i did mine, seals were £11 a side and the springs were pennies.

the big nut on the CV is a self-locking nut (theyre slightly ovalised/have a deformed thread at the end or something) and are single use only, have to be replaced each time theyre off. Torque is 265NM i think.

brilliant cheers for that pic, makes a lot more sence now. whats weird is i bought the whole donor car for the engine conversion (1995 passat 2.0 16v ABF) and used the whole 5 stud setup including subframe, wishbones, hubs, brakes etc all off the same car and they have banjo connectors on the front brakes (288mm). Unless the calipers have been changed at some point in the donor cars life. im not sure if the thread on the bits of hard line you have would be the same as the banjo bolt where they screw into the caliper? I think im gonna get the hoses changed for some golf mk3 abf items as they defo have the same calipers as ive got.

magnesium is one of the most reactive metals- left bare it will corrode away as you watch. Ive had suspension forks with bits made of magnesium alloy that have just turned into powder. If theyre worth anything id get them finished in a chrome silver to give them a bit of protection.

right well ive got my goodridge hoses, suprize suprize theyre completely wrong, the long front hoses have two female threaded hoses on them? that makes no sense to me, surely it should either have a banjo or a male fitting to screw into the caliper? unless theres meant to be an extra bit with a banjo on that screws into the female threaded end? confused, think theyre gonna be going back tbh, annoying as I was gonna sort my brakes this weekend and no chance of getting the right bits in time now.

thanks, sounds good :)

if it goes a different colour are you gonna do the engine bay, under the arches, boot floor etc etc? hate seeing where the outside of the shell is a different colour to the inside, looks so wrong and bodged.

yes it is fed from the sme resevior as the brakes, if you look at your brake res it will have a braided pipe coming out the side and going down to the clutch master cylinder. easy to swap the slave on teh gaerbox, but you might have to take some of the selector mechanism to bits to get clearance to actually remove it from the box.

what effects did you notice from the addition of the strut brace? more stable? sharper turn in etc?

not to worry, turns out i can get a proper kit especially for the mk4 passat :) so wont have to do any guess work

hmmmm etka time methinks, want to get some braided hoses sorted out next week.

your comment about the brakes- i dont really think its a case of new cars having more powerful brakes- as my dads octavia "feels" like its got better brakes as you only have to sneeze at them and theres a snatchy drop in speed- but it only has 256mm discs on the front and drums on the back. Ive 288's on my passat and discs on the back and the brakes are much heavier but once you give them a heave they stop the car better- the octy brakes are kinda either on or off. I think this is down to the newer cars being massively over servo'd compared to our older cars, but this means you get more progressive brakes. to my mind this makes it easier to drive smoothly and feather the brakes so as not to upset the cars balance entering corners etc.

done this conversion on my passat. loom plugs straight in, although depending on what you do with the imobiliser you might have to solder one or two wires to power the immobiliser box, and put a number 30 relay in the right place in the fusebox to power the ECU. Also you might have to use the rear engine mount bracket off your 9a lump as the ABF uses a VR6 style subframe with the "swiss roll" rear engine mount. Im using the Digi 3.2 management and it runs great with my P+P'ed cylinder head. 42+ mpg on the motoway too. I got a whole car and used the entire ignition housing and barrel from the donor car so I could keep the chipped key and transponder coil for the immobiliser working as VW intended- at some point ill re-tumble the door locks to match the ignition key but no rush. If you use the digi loom and ecu, make sure you check all the loom over and repair any dogy wiring- especially where the loom goes behind the intake mani as the wiring for the TPS gets a bit flakey over time. Also the wiring for the crank position sensor gets crusty and may need renewing.

i bought 3corsameals old one i think ;) i think the trick is to trim the old plastic trim just enough so it will go inside the leather cover and support it from inside, that way the leather sits in the hole better and it looks less saggy. took all of about 15mins of fiddling hehe dab of superglue to hold it at the front by the button and it looks spot on imo

cool get one with black stiching though they look much more oem might need to trim the bottom slightly so it doesnt get caught in the cables. nice little mod tho.