dr_mat

Could be. I'm more inclined to think oil pressure though, since it seems more pronounced with fresh oil..

VW engines do tend to make a whine sort of noise when very cold - I think it must be to do with oil pressure, but I'm not sure.

The only drawback with doing the bearing swap is that the bearing fits *inside* the pulley, effectively, so you have to partially cut away the pulley to get the old bearing out and replace it. It's possible, and I'm sure many people have done fine with it, but you may feel more comfortable with a new one.. As stated above, VW dropped the price recently to "only" £60+VAT, but that's a lot better than the previous £100++ !! Of course, it would be best if VW would sell just the pulley itself, complete with bearing... But hey.. :)

VAG-COM is the engine diags reader. VW have an equivalent tool. It interrogates the engine computer to find out what errors have been recorded. If you have a VR6 the ECU remembers the errors, but the other cars you'll need to get the errors scanned *when it happens* - i.e. don't turn the ignition off or the error codes are lost. The most likely scenario is that some of the work/damage to the front end has caused damage to a wheel sensor, or it's cabling. No idea why, other than that.

As everyone always says when this question comes up: - most likely it's a wheel sensor. Not too much cash. - ..but it COULD be the ABS control unit or it's ECU. lots of cash, but plenty avail 2nd hand.. - but there's NO WAY TO KNOW without plugging it into VAG-COM.

When I got a battery for my VR6, GSF supplied the 64Ah bosch silver. It fits fine, so assuming they're still the same size/shape, get the biggest capacity you can..

Exactly. 500lbft would toast the gearbox and drivetrain pretty much straight away. Even the mighty Lotus Carlton with huge uprated driveshafts etc was snapping them till they turned the torque knob down below 500 lbft...

Rev it to 10k rpm and you only need to generate 500lbft to hit 1k bhp... Ok, so that's not very easy in itself, but hey! :)

Robbie Williams only earned 2mil last year because the housewife's favourite has finally been sussed as the talentless annoyance that he really is... :-P And it's not home piracy that's killing the music industry, it's overpricing and RUBBISH MUSIC that's killing it... Meanwhile, back on-topic, when you say it won't play it, does it simply fail to scan the disk altogether, or does it scan it and then bomb out when you try to play tracks, or what?

ISV and engine speed sensor are implicated. Could also be relays, immobiliser, ignition switch, coil pack, plugs, leads, etc etc.. Use the search for more ideas, but it's a common problem and there's many possible causes.

Thing is, you could easily and cheaply tart up the exterior (just a good machine polish will bring the colour back) and it's instantly worth a whole packet more. I'd say, if you have the cash to hand, definitely do it. Even if you don't have the cash, it's still a really tempting proposition..

Bags-ie the steering UJs... ;)

Hey, it's like asking george dubyah if he wants milk or sugar in his tea..

Mazda 323F. If you can put up with the 80s looks (and you find one with pop-up headlights that still work), the 1.8 16v is a fire breathing sports car and the 1.6 8v will happily embarrass most stuff up to about 50 mph. Very nippy and great engines!!

The only way to answer this question is to read the SEARCH results for all the previous VR6 vs G60 arguments.

Why not just use the VR6 engine as it stands? Build the turbo onto that and run some slightly less aggressive management. Should last a lot longer, theoretically...

Mine's in the car.. Can't see the number right now (though it's listed in ETKA). It's a very snug fit indeed, very close to ripping the opening due to it being to snug..

Do wot john? ;)

You mean you're over the moon about paying 25 notes for a coil of fine wire and a small plastic housing? ;)

Heh, my tensioner was MUCH worse than that when it came off.. :) But then, that was at a leggy 117k miles.. I am led to believe that the absolute position of the intermediate sprocket doesn't matter. Or at least that it can be set 180 degrees out without trouble. The only thing that matters is lining the cams to the crank.

It's pretty widely suspected that the secret is "tweakage" by the rolling road operator in order to impress the people who just forked out 400 notes for a rechip... It's that controversial "rolling resistance" calculation - they add 15 to this figure, and the whole chart moves up by 15bhp. Bingo, happy customer with impressive plot to show the missus when she finds the credit card slips.. ;) My own (Schrick-equipped) VR6 was chipped at stealth to help control the pinking problems in the Schrick zone, and it made no difference to the power graphs. Of course, they should exactly overlay at very low revs (or very closely). And yes, there is natural variance in different engines too, but with the same engine on the same RR it should produce roughly the same figures time and time again unless you've made MAJOR changes to the air flow characteristics, or something is broken or fixed!

Heh, know where you're comin from.. ;)

No.. The fixing for it is behind the bottom casing...

Do you have VAGCOM plugged into the diags port? Can you scan for codes? Most likely candidates for "no spark" are: - engine position sensor on block - immobiliser (built-in or aftermarket) - ecu relays (109) - coil pack feeds It's unlikely that the coil pack will lose all SIX outputs at once, so I'd say it's likely to be one of the former. Check that relay first.

When I have one spare I'll do that... Anyway, I don't do spanners. Screwdrivers is my thing.. :)