dr_mat

Man your questions are hard to read...! Get some capital letters and some paragraphs! ;) My only experience of stuff like this was caused by a faulty signal to the ECU from the crank position sensor. (Though my sensor was fine, and it was caused by the Dastek chip.) You can diagnose this, but only if it happens like you say: you get a sudden loss of power, followed by the power coming back as if nothing happened .. If you can then get the car on VAGCOM *before* turning the ignition off (this is important), then you will find out for sure whether there's a crank sensor fault reported. If there's no errors, chances are it's the ignition switch or the ECU relay or something electric like that.

Sounds a lot like the ECU loses power momentarily. Could be the ECU relay, could be the ignition switch (do the LEDs come on on the dashboard?? do the speedo/rev needles suddenly drop?), could be the lovely crank position sensor. If it was the immobiliser coil it would just stop and stay off, it wouldn't restart.

I've heard of blocked injectors causing overheat in single cylinders before ...

From what I've read, just switching the ignition off and re-starting the engine will cause the ECU to go back to "0 degree ignition timing retard" and it will then continually adapt the ignition timing back from there as the engine runs and it detects knock. The full ECU reset has other effects which may or may not benefit you.

VGI == Schrick.. :) And RRP is nearer £2000 with the full vacuum kit and control unit. VSRs come up from time to time and tend to sell for anything up to £1000 even as a bare manifold. The "original" package came with a ECU chip for the early VR6 ecu, and all the right vacuum gubbins. Expect to pay more for one of these .. On an otherwise completely standard 2.9 OBDi VR6 you can expect peak torque to shift from ~182lbft@4400rpm to ~195lbft@3700rpm and much more oomph right from about 2800rpm than a standard engine. There's no other options, afaik, than the Schrick VGI or the VSR. It's a pretty complex piece of kit, and the design is under copyright (Schrick bought it off VWM). Is it worth it? Well that's up to you. IMHO if your car is a daily drive, it's a worthwhile addition.

Well yeah, so do we all. That's why they're seriously hard to come by, and seriously expensive. You have the choice - walk into a tuning place and buy a Schrick VGI (or buy one of the 2nd hand ones kicking around), or wait and wait and wait till a VSR comes along for sensible money. Oh and then you'll probably have to buy all the bits for it too ..! By the way, the "technical bit" in the above link is rubbish. At low revs the VSR/VGI use both inlet tracts *separately*, at high revs they effectively allow them to work *together*. I have a VGI, and I love it. I would prefer a VSR (for "originality"), but my VGI is new, warrantied, shiny, and reliable... :) (Really like the powder finish black VGI in those pics though .. :) )

Yes, I think the C VR typically runs quite "hot", but VW reckon that's normal so it's entirely your decision if you want to go for an oil cooler or not.

Hmm. Knocking in the cabin whilst driving... Sounds dangerous!

The M6 toll gets hit by the police every so often, you definitely can't assume it's immune. The road is not a private road, so don't even think about trying to get off a speeding ticket..!

Good call!

The automatic spoiler action can be detached from the motor by using the manual wind. If you could lift and lower the spoiler from outside the car BY HAND it wasn't engaged to the motors - no way you'd be able to do that otherwise.

Are you sure it's play in the universal joints? It's more likely to be play in the steering column, or the rack itself. The UJs rarely wear out. The adjustable steering column was the culprit on mine, and I think many higher mileage Cs are showing the same problem.

Did you park your VR in your kitchen to take that pic, kev?

Well all I can say is I had pretty much ALL of the steering components replaced on my '95 115k mile VR6, and the only one that actually changed the feel of the steering in ANY WAY was the steering column. [ Apart from the knackered track rods I had on it for six months, but they were replaced under warranty with real VW ones and the car was back to feeling like it did when I got it. They clunked like barstewards due to seized inner ball joints... ]

Clunking: can also be caused by the UJ catching the trim under the dash .. can also be caused by the steering column .. can also be caused by the track rod ends ..

Hmmm. Starting with £1k to modify a VR6... Hmmm. I think I'd pop to a casino and see if I can get together enough money to do things properly!! ;)

It's in the ABS valve block, which is the thing with all the brake lines coming out of it under the bonnet. Most likely means a replacement valve block is required .. ABS failure is an MOT failure.

Ramps are pretty cheap Jim. Even halfords have 'em for £34.

You should be able to see it on a scope, too, if you've got one..

Sounds like the fans aren't working to me! "Fan has been coming on ... today it didn't come on at all just before it spat its dummy out."

"Corrected the fuelling" - how did they do this? The VR6 has a fully managed ECU...

8 OHMS?! That's almost open circuit ... Should all be a lot higher than that. Does sound like the OS front is radically different from the others, so that may be your problem. Get the error codes before you buy an ABS pump... The pump only runs when the brake fluid pressure is lower than it needs to be, so it will prime when you start the ignition cold, and it will come on to top up the pressure if the ABS gets activated while driving along. It won't stay on 24x7.

You can get them for £75 from GSF, same as the VR6 Golf, iirc.

The "agreed value" thing is simply another insurance policy. Another insurer agrees to pay up the difference between what your insurer pays up and what their own valuation is. These policies come in 12 month form, so must run concurrently with your existing policy... Hence you can't add it in the middle..

Could just be getting monumentally hot, sitting in a 96n polo engine bay, and pinking to death..