dr_mat

Old worn shocks can clunk, particularly when cold. They go a bit dry, and it never goes away unless you swap 'em. That said, they're not expensive, and frankly if the car's done more than 50,000 miles on 'em you will significantly notice the difference when you replace them! In fact, GSF sell SACHS/BOGE gas rears (OE for the VR6) for about £30 each.

Yes, reset the ECU. Definitely do that if you're replaced the TPS.. Resetting basic settings is just the same as resetting the ECU, it's just that you're supposed to copy over the original adaptation values for some of the sensors to the new, refreshed ECU. The full procedure requires you to note down and re-instate things like lambda and MAF adaptation values. Of course, because you've changed the TPS, you wouldn't want to copy over the adaptation values for that...

Yikes... 3 litres of oil!! I'd be checking it a LOT more often if it was burning that much.. Sounds to me like they've fecked up the cams installation more than anything else.

Trouble is you're onto the idle program as soon as you lift off the throttle.. I've never heard of anyone chipping the idle program, and therefore I'm not sure it's possible (other than altering the actual idle speed itself). But you're right, there's *something* wrong no question, but so many people have had so many different approaches to fixing this that there's simply no single answer. I agree that the ECU will run the engine totally lean during the overrun cycle (for economy and emissions reasons), and I agree it's probably failing to catch it as the revs fall, but the question is *why*? Perhaps the revs are falling too fast? i.e. faster than originally designed? Perhaps that's cos the dashpot is not working right, perhaps the engine just has more friction than it should internally? It's funny though, because I've heard of a number of the big V6 engines being prone to stalling, from various manufacturers. Perhaps they're simply more difficult to keep idling than smaller engines? I wasn't aware that yours was still stalling tho Kev, I thought your ISV and CPS had fixed that!

If only that were true, but unfortunately I replaced my ISV and it STILL does it, LOL! It's true to say that this stalling problem doesn't appear to be solely caused by an ISV problem, but it's still worth trying it out as the first port of call isn't it! :)

They are not required for cars built after 92ish - all the later heater matrices have this feature built-in.

VR6 has the pot they were talking about above, Henny.. No position switch, just an angle-measuring sensor - hence the 13 degrees and 90 degrees idle and full positions. The ECU knows precisely what the pedal's doing.. :) Going back to the original problem - using VAGCOM have you tried reading out the temperature sensor values? Alternatively do you have another ISV you can try? It's still classic ISV symptoms, and cleaning them out doesn't always do the trick, sometimes the actuator motor is simply worn out and needs replacing.

They modified the cam change-over, apparently, in an effort to make it less of a night/day thing. Some people claim it's taken away the engine's "edge", but frankly the figures indicate that the new engine is no less powerful than the old, so it's one of those perception things most likely. It's part of the "NVH" noise vibration and harshness work they did on the car. The old one was noisy as buggery at high revs/high speed.

All that what? I didn't stop the guy and ask him, so I couldn't tell ya whether he had the smooth cam or the wild cam model...

Yes I noticed this on a track day once. The poor VR didn't know what had hit it.. :) But hey, my VR was *cooler* than his Civic was ever going to be, so I wasn't fussed. :) It was comedy classic though, I'd be gaining through the revs in third at the start of the straight on him, absolutely reeling him in, overtake at the top of third and change up, and then he'd suddenly get into his power band (he should have changed down, muppet), and he'd reel me back in and wander off gently into the distance..

I've heard the same said of the Golfs too. They aren't as dead as the Audis, but they aren't in the same league as the Corrados though...

Could be the wiring loom for the ABS, but it could also be the ABS relays being a bit iffy. I believe they're hidden behind the glove box somehow, but I don't know for sure.

You can do either, sure. Silly power is possible from either, but it's expensive and the engine will wear out much quicker, obviously.

I think the "bigger" engine planned is probably the same one as the S2000 and the Exige gets. The 2.2, 240bhp engine is a screamer. Same power as the previous 2.0 engine, but obviously with more displacement, the rev limit comes down, and the torque curve fattens up a bit. The 2002 Civic Type R was 200bhp/145lbft as standard, and weighed around the same as the C VR6, so would have had a slight advantage in a straight line, but probably not enough to make it "night and day"..

When you say you weren't sitting in traffic, how fast were you moving? I find that unless it's below 5 degrees outside the car needs to be travelling at 35mph or more to keep the engine cool. These things run damn hot, and need a lot of air flow. As a general principle, seeing 100 degrees on the water temp is not a problem, since it's a pressurised sealed system it will survive. It's not good in the long term though, obviously.

Most effective way is probably a super charger.. Dunno if you can fit the G60 to the 2.0 16v, but I know it's possible on the 1.8 16v (even if it's tricky!).

Was the engine stone cold? Odd that the gauges read so high yet the bay is cold. I'd suspect the thermostat being stuck closed if you get hot air from the blower though (for example), but the radiator is cold. But the odd thing is your fans came on - usually they're hooked to the temp sensor in the rad..

More details? Did you lose coolant? Did you hear an enormous bang? Did the engine stop dead or just lose power? Was there oil on the spark plug that was removed to do the compression check? What colour is the oil in the sump? (Is there oil in the sump at all??) So many questions....

And why would it run out of performance? It's got 220 bhp compared to the VR's 190. Power is everything at very high speeds where you're fighting all that wind resistance. Unless the aerodynamics of it were rubbish...

I knew what you meant.

Little or no power change from the schrick manifold. cams are reputed to give +10-20 bhp, I'm not certain though. The manifold is all about mid-range torque, not power.

Depends how much tweakage under your bonnet. A standard G60 wouldn't stay with a Civic Type R (notwithstanding the drag effect of trailing a car that punches a hole about the size of an elephant in the air stream, like the CTR does..). Even standard VR6s don't stay with CTRs in a straight line, all things being equal. It simply has more power..

Most VRs that I've come across are like that. Mine is particularly so when the car has just come off the warm-up cycle in the morning. It gets smoother with a few miles under it's belt so everything's nice and warm, but it never goes away completely. Idle speed on the VR seems to be pretty much as low as they can run it to try and save petrol (and emissions!), it's pretty close to stalling..

There's often mayo under the oil filler cap on cars that never warm the oil properly. It needs a good thrash with oil temps > 100 degrees C to boil all the dissolved water out of it. This doesn't necessarily mean the head gasket has failed, just that you have to keep the car outside in the cold and you get a lot of condensation form inside the head overnight..

Using my psychic powers I think you have a VR6 (two knock sensors, see). The ECU is pretty stoopid, that's the best explanation. Try shorting the wires and see if an error code gets thrown. Don't think you can get a measuring block that reads values from the knock sensors, cos after all they're not linear measuring tools, they're simply microphones.