dr_mat

Wow. That is truly extortionate.

Bummer. It's impossible to say whether this was a pre-existing fault or not, now. You admitted that you *have* allowed it to discharge so the damage could have been caused at those times. Get a Bosch Silver from costco for £50 and keep it on the trickle charger when you're not using it. You'll never have to replace it again!

The £126 price is probably for *rear* sensors. Don't ask me why it's so steep. Even from VW the front ones shouldn't be more than about £35.

Yes! It *might* get the point eventually, but it'll adapt a whole lot more quickly if you reset the ECU.

Read above!

00537 O2S Probe Heater 00561 Fuel Pressure Improper 00553 Air Volume Meter So you have a bad MAF, bad fuel pressure and a bad lambda. Those would certainly explain rough running.. I'd be surprised if you notice 35 psi compression difference compared to heinously bad fuelling.

Ownership woes aren't hidden! They're just expensive to run. You think running a Corrado is expensive? It's nothing!

Ok, fair enough. I'd expect you to know your VRs then. One thing I would say though, is if it's not been run much (69k means it's been standing unused a lot!) it will benefit from a good thrash. Mine gets rough with lots of short journeys but totally comes alive after a good hundred miles on a motorway. What's the fault codes you're seeing? This *can* be caused by gasket problems, I'm led to believe - as it only opens up when the temperature increases. But you'd know about this cos you'd be losing oil/water..

Well .. maybe .. but does the car run badly? Why do you think you have a problem worth considering engine work for?

IIRC all your results were within spec anyway, so I wouldn't worry about it either way.

Lead/Calcium batteries have a longer shelf life before needing recharge, and suffer from less gassing in use so should, in theory, have a longer working life before requiring top-up. And since you can't top up any batteries these days this could be a benefit.. TBH these specialist batteries seem to be geared towards people who *rarely* use them, i.e. the battery remains disconnected for long periods of time. I can't see any particular benefit (other than them being slightly better built) when used on a car if it a) gets used weekly or so and b) drains batteries anyway - unless you make *sure* you disconnect it every time you leave the car standing (and who's going to do that when it resets the ECU, the stereo and the alarm?) Personally, I think a £50 lead/acid battery plus a permanently connected maintenance charger, if you can do it, will last you a hell of a lot longer than relying on smart battery tech to prevent a Corrado from draining its battery. *That* is a war you've already lost! :(

If nothing else, you can at least hook it up to the car permanently when you're not driving it. There's a supplied stub lead that you can wire to the battery terminals permanently and leave tucked behind the grille. Personally, I wouldn't worry about that right now, that seems reasonable to me.

This is a fact, but the boot light is 5 watts which is ~ 0.4 amps and the electric water pump is easily an amp or two. I seriously doubt that's the issue here, unless the meter is out by several hundred percent at those readings. I'd also completely agree that the battery should withstand being left on the shelf for 18 months - if it was fully charged when it was stored. If it wasn't charged then it would sulphate really badly over that time. Also, though it is entirely possible that the alternator's regulator can be screwy, a DC voltmeter isn't going to read 14.3 volts if the alternator is putting out AC, even damped by the current reserves of the battery. And this certainly wouldn't explain why a fully charged battery goes flat when the car hasn't been run at all for a week. So I'm definitely of the opinion that it's a faulty battery (now). It's worth checking out some of the things Kev mentioned, but I doubt they'll have any impact on the situation. And I still think the battery may be recoverable with a desulphation cycle or two.

I dont' know - I will check and let you know :) 0.08 amps is in line with most people's comments in all the previous threads on the subject, so I don't think that's unusual.

All a battery tester can do is watch the discharge behaviour under load - i.e. how many volts it will hold under different loads, and how much charge it will hold can only really be tested by putting it under a load (i.e. stick a bulb on it) and time how long it'll drive it at a reasonable voltage. Yeah, but only cos it's a small unit. It is geared towards bikes etc, which typically have small batteries. If you put a totally flat 75Ah battery on it, it will charge it for 48 hours then stop (it does this automatically on a timer). Just unplug it, let it cool and plug it back in and it'll finish the job. Point is it's completely adequate as a battery maintainer even for much larger batteries once the battery is mostly charged, so the idea is to leave it on the car all the time when you're not using it. You'll never replace another battery again. Or at least, that's the plan ..

I think the battery is probably just badly sulphated. It was probably left to discharge while in storage (for eighteen months!! that's pretty crappy), and then you put it on your car and it got drained by the normal Corrado 80mA and got worse. You can probably recover it using something like: http://www.accumate.co.uk/it010003.html One year warranty on an expensive battery like that? You'd have been better off getting *two* Bosch Silvers from costco! I don't think there's likely to be much more wrong with it than that. The optimate will test it for you too, and if it turns out to have truly chemically bad cells then you'll have no choice but to fork out for a new one. :(

Like I said, 80mA won't kill a battery in one week, unless it's a ~10Ah battery, and I'll bet it doesn't say that on the side ... meaning it's probably screwed or wasn't right to begin with.. :) It *is* possible that the car is generating another heavier current drain periodically (interior light comes on from time to time?), and that might be killing it off. You'd have to monitor the battery state over time (check it every few hours?) to see that, or leave an ammeter on it all the time. I can't see why a deep cycle battery claims it shouldn't be totally discharged though, that's kinda the *point* of deep cycle batteries.. Ok you shouldn't *leave* it down there, but it should cope with being discharged, at least. If it's just sulphated (which is what happens when you deep cycle lead-acid batteries for long periods of time) then a smart battery conditioner should be able to recover it to some extent.

This is about normal for a Corrado. Mine shows the same sort of magnitude - 70-80mA. I never tried to figure out which circuits are pulling it all though. One issue to bear in mind is how accurate is the meter on its 10A setting when you're measuring such low currents? Probably not very. The maths says: an 80mA drain will totally empty a 64Ah battery in 800 hours, which is 33 days. Bear in mind the battery will need about 20% charge to actually *start* the car and you cut that down to about 26 days. If your battery goes flat in 26 days that's a good battery. How dead is the dead battery? I'd take it back if it's a deep cycle optima and it's down a couple of cells already. On the other hand a good battery conditioner might be able to recover it.

It's an oldie, but a goodie: http://www.ihi.co.jp/ihi/ihitopics/kinnenm_e/senpaku2004.html#3 http://www.polov8.co.uk/images/worldsbiggestturbocharger.jpg 55 cubic metres per second anyone?

The point about lightened flywheels is they make the engine feel subjectively more responsive. They also free up a fraction of a horse power you can apply to the wheels instead of using it to turn the flywheel. This will be more noticeable in lower gears. They also make pulling away at the lights more difficult (you'll need more revs), and general low speed driving becomes more jerky and less smooth. Idle will probably be less smooth too.

Steering racks from VW are in the region of £380+VAT, last time I looked into it.

You could also just be following knackered old transit vans around ...

And it was him who told me it couldn't be done, last Monday..

You can recalibrate the MFA to injector size. Perhaps you can let Vince know how to do that then, since he says you can't do it on OBD1 engine management.

When I was up talking to the guys last week I was told some details .. 11psi ish, 300-350bhp ish (on paper), custom made exhaust, lambda probe mounted high up in the exhaust manifold for a fast response, heat exchanger down the front of the car, air box over in the standard VR6 location (so it always gets cool air), and the only engine modification is a head spacer. They'll be using the standard ECU with larger injectors - the MFA mpg readout will be screwed up, of course, but it should start, idle and run from cold like a standard car. Stage two would require pistons/rods and probably gearbox/driveshaft work too. The same turbo should be able to be used for either application. Expected power output 400+ I don't think any of these details are secret, so I thought it would be ok to share them here (having spent an hour talking to the guys!). It certainly looks like a thoroughly thought-out project, and if it all works to spec it's a pretty astounding prospect and hopefully the recession won't prevent there being a clutch of newly-turbod VR6s kicking around ..