dr_mat

Those MPGs sound about normal tbh, nothing wrong with that.

That's an awesome price for a crank sensor, if it's genuine. Even if it's not, it's a good deal. Think they're £140+VAT at the dealer..! The car won't put in fuel *or* spark, however, if the crank sensor is gone. Temperature sensors? MAF? You can unplug the MAF and it'll start and run, assuming all else is good. Got a friendly local with VAGCOM?

Hmm, could be the gear linkages. Synchromesh will tend to "pull" into gear if it's under pressure (i.e. you're forcing it in without disengaging the clutch) - maybe you just can't push the gear linkage far enough in the right direction due to a loose linkage on the gearbox end. The gear knob is linked to the box via cables, it's also possible these might need adjusting.

Crank position sensor isn't a low cost replacement, if it's the right one! I'm assuming you don't have VAGCOM available, which is a pity cos my bet is you'll find pretty quickly what the problem is. FWIW the "factory immobiliser" is based off a chip in the ignition key - similar to most modern cars. Any late VR6 with a coil pack uses this system and it's baked into the ECU, it's not the remote you might lock or unlock the car with. If the reader coil in the steering column has gone (usually just the contacts to its control box get corroded from what I understand) then the ECU will generally start the car initially but then it'll die within a couple of seconds. I doubt you have that problem, in other words!

If you have access to a VAGCOM diags system, your first step would be to do a thorough check out using that. Look for solid faults (while the engine is running), check the measuring blocks outputs from the various temperature sensors, MAF and lambda to make sure they look sensible. If you don't, pull a spark plug, check if it's sparking during that startup cycle, see if the car stinks excessively of fuel, check your MPG to see if it's burning masses or not. How does it run once it's going? Ultra-smooth but a bit down on power might imply it's over fuelling a lot. You can also try an ECU reset, but that's will only help as a last resort if you *know* you had a faulty sensor that the ECU has adapted to. Otherwise it'll just make things worse for a while ...

Interesting, never heard of the fifth gear synchro going (it's usually 2nd or 3rd!), but I guess it's entirely possible this one was a manufacturing fault..?

Any history? Got a chip or some other mods on it? I don't know how smart the 2.0 16v engine is - can you read off the error codes? Major kangarooing might be caused by a sensor failure (i.e. total loss of power).

If you lower it far enough the track rod ends will no longer be level and the car will toe out slightly, so you'd have to re-adjust both camber and tracking after a ride height adjustment. Bear in mind that if you lower it that far then the drive shafts will be out of alignment too .. now they're designed to cope with this for a time, but you've got to ask if it's the right thing to do in the long term. If you're doing it right you'd have to adjust the engine/gearbox height to match..

Yes. ---------- Post added at 6:33 PM ---------- Previous post was at 6:32 PM ---------- Well. Yes, and no. It needs to pass the "catalyst" MOT test, so in practice it needs a cat fitted.

Pretty sure the earth is flat...

Don't think stage 3 can come on that way, it's run off a different circuit. However, it's really stinking hot the last few days, mine was running the stupid fast fans the other day when stuck in traffic on and off.. I thought the car was going to fall in half, you can actually feel the fans torque spinning up against the weight of the car ..

Did they change the part number or something? "Wrong part in box"?

Old VW in a VW garage? Are you having a larf? No chance. :)

Just not too much real ale, eh? ;)

Not enough sex in real ale.

TBH keeping a posh car when you live in a flat is a non-starter no matter what it is. You need something bullet proof reliable and secure and low insurance group. I'd buy a house AND keep the Corrado! ;)

You'd only have a leg to stand on if you could prove that the car park maintainers had been made aware of the potholes at least a month before you rolled into it. But even then I think it'd be a push, since you *rolled* into them. Use a phrase like that and it sounds like you weren't in control of the vehicle.. ;) I think in the circumstances your best outcome would be to inform the site of the car park condition and give them an opportunity to offer you reparations, but I wouldn't push it if they just said "thanks" and "sod off".. :)

Hmm, looks a lot like an aborted turtle fetus to me. What an awesome thread. I think I clearly don't drink enough beer to believe this **** is anything other than a) genuine people who hear/see something they don't understand or b) charlatans/guerilla marketing. As for aliens. Yeah, maybe. Why not? It's incredibly arrogant of the human race to think we're the only thing that ever evolved in this (really quite large) universe. But do they come whizzing around buzzing us in their incredibly technologically advanced space ships? Um, no. I would imagine they have a great deal more exciting things to do with their technology (such as having sex, and making ever smaller touch screen gadgets that allow them to communicate with other members of their race so they can have more sex).

**** me the Corrado forum turned in to the X Files.. Send for Mulder and Scully!

Yeah, this is the basic problem with lowering the car .. with a single wishbone and strut set up you'll never quite get the same geometry as for the standard ride height. That said, 45mm isn't that big a change, so setting it up to match factory spec is undoubtedly your best bet.

And, yeah Jim, quite a lot of money for a 10% performance improvement, versus two hundred quid to change the boost number and get 50% more performance .. Not fair, really.. :)

TBH the power graph isn't that interesting, it doesn't tell you much about how the car feels on the road. It's really all about that headline number. The torque graph on the other hand reflects *exactly* how the car feels on the road, and that's why I spent the money on the Schrick those years ago, and that's why I went for the 263s not the 268s.. The important thing is the nice smooth torque graph, it used to be quite jerky before. Something to do with pinking I think.. It feels really nice to drive now, very responsive and spritely, and sooo smooth. That turbine whistle is the best bit of the VR6.. It's why I hit the rev limiter two days after I got the car.. it sounded so unstressed and smooth I just didn't realise I ought to change up! :)

These are the graphs .. FWIW the car with just the schrick and a remap was developing 199bhp and 199lbft. The standard car, we have to assume, was around 199bhp and 185lbft. The two curves on these graphs are Schrick + 263s with and without a custom remap. The car was already mapped for the Schrick, but didn't cope well with the extra airflow from the cams so needed tweakage which liberated another 7-10lbft across the range (in fact nearly 15-20 lbft across the 4k-6k range, but my guess is the map was just a bit too lean in that range).

Yes, Vince remapped when they were fitted. Looks like the remap liberated the remaining potential 8-10 lbft and resulted in a much smoother power delivery. Think he's also increased the idle speed slightly too (750 instead of about 650) .. don't know if this was deliberate or not, will have a chat at some point.. ! Yes, I agree that this changes the tone of the VR slightly - unfortunately the evil, gutteral, off-beat growl at 2-3k rpm is somewhat reduced.. The top end I'm not so sure on. The standard cams have a bit of a turbine-like whistle when it starts to sing, but I've not noticed if that's changed or not. ---------- Post added at 10:29 AM ---------- Previous post was at 10:22 AM ---------- I'll post up some rolling road graphs at some point, if people are interested.

I think you'd feel it .. with good bushes I know (now) that the Corrado feels immensely planted and stable under power and braking - you almost can't tell it's a front wheel drive car. If you find yourself fighting the steering to keep it straight instead then you have problems somewhere. TBH I doubt you have anything fundamentally wrong with those bushes .. the OBD1 engine management system isn't totally smooth and isn't really capable of keeping the power on/power off/idle/overrun transitions very clean under all circumstances. It's quite hard to do, tbh. Particularly when you're sat in traffic and the engine is bathing in its own 90 degree air ..