dr_mat

...has already been given. Mat noticed a big difference in the car despite it being unmapped and pinking, a difference that I also noticed when I went out for a passenger ride with him. Yep, I had already said that. I wasn't ignoring the question, just got distracted... I'm with the Wire on this. Flap not closing properly == standard manifold. Open the bonnet, push the flap actuator DOWN, then go for a drive. It'll pink it's arse off but you should get a single blast of torque before the flap sticks open again. If it does this, your flap is fucked. As it were .. :) Schrick + pinking == some "schrick effect" but not all that lovely torque. If the pinking is very bad, this too can feel like the Schrick is not working at all. I've had both problems.

I would say that you know quite a lot more about the weather than dr_mat! :) I agree too. I doubt there's anything we can do to prevent the changes that are coming, and I'm not rushing out to sell my VR and buy a Prious (Pious?) soon. TBH my primary concern is about oil/energy consumption more than actual climate change. If people understood just how much energy is consumed by using a car to do some short journey, in terms they can understand (like leaving a light bulb on), then more people would think twice about it and understand that maybe we should all sacrifice a little bit of our current enjoyment so that we can *all* benefit from a reliable electricity supply for a little longer. I'm expecting to live another 30-50 years, and in that time I expect to see the climate change drastically (but we'll adapt easily). What's more of concern is the whole "running out of oil" thing ... We are nowhere near being able to adapt to that now, and it will take solid work for the next 30 years to get us to the point where we can. Ignoring that one isn't possible. I do think we should pay more for petrol though. Lots more. And aviation fuel (why is there no VAT on airline tickets?). And not just the UK, every country in the world should tax oil consumption for personal transport hard and pour the money into public transport (centrally administered public transport - i.e. owned by the public as well as for the public). People would still have the choice to buy and run expensive cars. They'd just be more expensive...

Both are possible .. it's impossible for us to say from our armchairs..! The point is, the engine is more freely breathing in that rev range, but your ECU isn't capable of putting enough fuel in. Therefore it pinks, therefore the ignition retards, therefore you get sucky performance - you're running below stoichiometric, so that's that. It's not JUST that you have a thinner HG, it's just a combination of things.. Of course, it's also possible the valve is sticking open (mine does this sometimes - it's due to get this fixed up at Vince's at some point when I get around to it). But we don't know .. !

What can I say? You have a higher compression ratio than the rest of us, so it makes sense you'd have MORE problems than me. Yeah, your torque is even higher, but if I can get 199 lbft on my standard engine (bear in mind that's HIGHER than the peak at 4700 rpm), you should be able to hit about 220lbft...

.. pure speculation till you put your money where your mouth is. We're getting frustrated with you because you're basically saying we're mad, that we're not seeing the effects we're seeing (wanna see my torque plots??) and you're refusing to listen to our reasoning. My COMPLETELY standard VR6 pinked to death in the schrick zone till it was remapped. This is not unusual. Some engines just have more tolerance than others. After remapping I have 199 lbft torque at 3500 rpm.

Like I said.. pragmatism is the key. You're right, but the competitiveness of researchers these days is a direct result of the government's attitude to funding. If you don't have the media profile they aren't interested in funding you, and you don't get the media profile without doing those "contentious" subjects. There is a requirement, imho, in a so-called sophisticated society for pure, abstract, "blue sky" research. So many technology developments we have benefitted from have only happened because of non-applied research done years ago. We need pure science to exist so that we can carry on developing cool things..

.. but you don't KNOW what the gain is, because you haven't experienced it! Based on *your* experience I wouldn't want it either, and you're right - you are completely wasting your cash till you get it remapped. The reality is that when the original VSR was shipped from the factory, it came with a chip. VW knew the standard ECU was not capable of running it in all circumstances, and therefore that's just how it is. ** - edit - just saw Jon's post. Yes, the car just had the schrick, no other mods at that time, and it was pinking it's nuts off. It's MUCH MUCH more noticeably powerful now it's been remapped.

If it's pinking all the time you need to get it mapped, full stop.

The evidence is all around us. Go do some research, figure it out for yourself. You and I are both people who won't take anyone's word for it. (Some people call us stubborn bastards.) You should know that people don't generally set out to prove something when they're doing research (though obviously this is not always the case - oil company funded research tends to be either positive or supressed..). You define a hypothesis (e.g. "the average earth temperature has increased in the last 50 years"), then you define some tests that will conclusively prove or disprove your hypothesis (remembering that only a single counter-example will render it entirely null and void), and then you follow through. IF you discover that your hypothesis is NOT true, then that is a valid result. If you discover that it is true, then that is your result. Either way you publish it in the scientific journals, and you move on to your next project. Pragmatism is the key to good research. But let's be honest here. Most people who are complaining about the so-called swindle wouldn't have even broke a sweat about it if it wasn't hitting them in the pocket. (And we're talking peanuts here, too. So a Golf R32 will cost you £400 road tax. Big fat hairy deal!) My personal opinion? Road tax and road charging should be abolished/dropped and every penny of road taxation should be taken from fuel duty. But then I also think that all other forms of personal taxation should be abolished and replaced with an increase income tax rate. Perhaps I'm old fashioned but reality is these are the only fair ways to collect taxation.

This is another of those "depends on the tester" moments I think. Technically, you don't *have* to have a catalyst fitted to pass the emissions test, but many testers will simply refuse to test you if you don't.

Maybe you're right. I was pissed. Que sera... I retract the offensive remark. Anyway, fact remains I *have* researched this, and it *is* real (based on my evidence). You have a right to tell me you don't believe me, but you don't have a right to tell me I'm wrong until you've done the same..

Which is another joke. How long have we known that income tax cuts are the least fair way of redistributing wealth among the population? Though at least he's made the first little baby step towards simplifying the tax system by getting rid of one of the bands. (Why do we need bands at all??!)

Every bugger has a spare ABS controller. Ring your nearest scrapyard. The ABS controller is the same as a similar aged Golf VR6 one.

What a load of arse. (Commenting about a page back or more, who knows?) It's interesting how some people seem to associate "the politic approach" with "the corrupt approach". Reality is that I don't particularly care for the government's approach to road use/taxation but I can see that we have a problem. It is not possible for us to build enough roads to make the ones we have move cleanly even in the rush hour. Certainly it's not possible while the public transport policy is a hands-off one. Meanwhile we have an environmental problem and everyone seems to be in a bit of a tizz about how to deal with it. And then we appear to have a bunch of holocaust-deniers saying that global warming does not exist. Fine, believe what you want, but until you spent three years working full time researching your statements please don't claim they're anything more than conjecture.. That moon rocket begins to look more appealing ...

Apparently the official method of refilling the VR6 is via the top rad hose, with the expansion tank cap off. This is the best way to avoid airlocks.

Yep, I'm going up with the Stark project. Screw you lot, I'm off to pollute the moon.

That's the one. The global warming swindle. You're not bothered at all that they had to fabricate data to support their astounding hypothesis? Meanwhile you're quite happy to ignore the actual science that's being done? Some people have their heads in the sand, I fear. Anyway, bypassing that altogether, the fact is that our lifestyles are all going to change drastically as the climate warms, and it does not matter one jot what the cause is, it simply matters that it would be better if it didn't happen... And if we have ways to reduce it, then we should be taking those options, rather than blowing the silicon dioxide out of our ears.

You probably watched the same channel 4 global warming "documentary" as a lot of other people. Interestingly that documentary was itself based on plenty of completely fabricated data, which they neglected to mention. In fact when they printed their "damning" global temperature graph showing the change in temp up to "the year 2000", they were lying. The graph is correct, but the data in the graph only goes up to 1988. They just extended the scale and pretended it was for 2000 instead. The rate of increase has been much higher than they indicated. The reality is that for sure the temperatures seemed to be rising anyway. But since the industrial revolution and particular since we got to be a "sophisticated" society (with dole cheats and sky dishes being the epitome of sophistication in my mind) the rate of temperature increase has rocketed. And then there's the issue of mutual responsibility. I drive an expensive car to run, for sure, but I only do ~5k miles/year, so I probably use less actual fuel (this is a globally shared resource, remember?) than the girlfriend's nice and efficient Peugeot. Those who claim they have a "right" to do what they want with their cars are missing the point - we all have equal right to that shared resource, and in a fair world those that use the most would run out first, leaving those of us who are more reasonable in our approach to luxuriate in our fossil fuel burning a while longer. Of course that's not going to happen, so the BMW X5 drivers will continue to hog far more than their fair share of *my* lifetime fossil fuel ration just because we live in an unfair world. Que sera. Anyway, the only way that anyone would possibly reduce congestion in this god forsaken little country is to make public transport feasible. It should be euro-style pricing (i.e. fixed price for a journey of up to one hour), you should be able to buy the tickets in advance, from anywhere, with discounts for buying in bulk. The buses should be quick, frequent, cheap. The trains should be the same. But the problem with this country is that no-one is prepared to pay for all this. Reality is that the countries with good public transport are the ones where it's (more) heavily subsidised. The UK seemed to think that it can be made to make a profit. Well duh, it's a public service fer christ' sake. In fact right now we're in the worst possible scenario: we have private industry running our public transport infrastructure, and they are making PROFITS and taking dividends. And they are also receiving GOVERNMENT funding to achieve that. WTF? Well I wrote more than I expected to there, and I ought to point out that this is not particularly ranting about your comments, scarlet_vr6, just general comments about the "state of the nation" .. !! :)

You can't check 'em any way other than putting them on a car and trying it out. Well .. that's not strictly true, but you're unlikely to have a test rig and an oscilloscope to hand are ya! You got a late VR6? If so I think GSF sell the "obd2-style" MAF for about £65 exchange.

That is good torque, but bad power (by comparison) .. I would go as far as to say that you are probably suffering from pinking at the top end too ..

The idle speed on the VR is controlled by the ECU - you can't adjust it. You probably still have a dodgy MAF. Get another one to try ..

Is it pinking between 2800 and 3800 rpm? If so, that's why you don't notice the difference. Or maybe your engine is running a completely fixed map (duff sensor)? I am highly sceptical that a correctly-running VR6, no matter what the modifications, would fail to notice the impact of a VSR/VGI. I personally gained 40 lbft at 3500 rpm! Even the guys with superchargers reckon the VGI pads out the midrange quite nicely. I'm also a bit worried about you having to move the fans to accomodate it!! Shouldn't be any need for that. Yes it's tight, but it should fit fine. As for "is it a good investment"? Of course not, it's an expensive heavy metal casting that you're bolting onto an already old car. If you want more power buy a turbo and turn up the boost knob. But if you want to get "more of the same" VR6 creamy goodness and fill in that gaping flat spot on the standard car's output, without going forced induction (and all the potentially for engine destruction) the Schrick is the one for you.

NOTHING goes with Orange ...

Or the cam position sensor (aka hall sender).

The car should run without the MAF, but it will take some time before it finally switches to the backup map, so it will run rough. It will still run a bit rough when it gets there, but chances are it'll just run seriously rich ..