dr_mat

Don't think so - the ABS ecu doesn't (afaik) have any clue what the engine revs are, so it's only going on the wheel speeds reported by it's own sensors.

Not quite sure why you say that.. nothing is impossible. I've spun both wheels at the same time on numerous occasions. Can't be sure they're spinning at *exactly* the same speed of course, but the differential between the speeds of the wheels will be low enough that the EDL won't bother doing anything. But either way the EDL is rubbish. I've never noticed it do anything useful in five years of driving.

The traction control system on the VR is very low-tech, it only works by applying a small amount of braking force to the wheel that's spinning (yes "wheel" singular), it won't cut engine power like a modern system would. It'll only make any difference at all if you're slipping a single wheel and if you're reading less than 30mph. If you spin both wheels, or the speedo is reading over 30mph it won't even activate.

Well, given the breadth of faults being thrown up and having had all those bits replaced recently I'd take a stab at getting another ECU if I were you.

If you're not a "power user" then the meters for a fiver from maplins will do the job.

You're sure it's not the ABS self-test that happens from ignition-on when you reach 10kph...? (But won't happen again till you stop the engine and restart it.)

Not to mention the fact that just occasionally a totally unmodified 2.9 VR6 has been known to hit 215bhp on the rollers while the engine was barely warm.. (The same engine produced 202bhp once it was fully warm.) Inter-car variability, not to mention weather condition related variability, is so great that there is little point in worrying about this stuff. By all means make modifications, then compare to how it was before .. but don't aim for a number and then when you get there wonder why you can't tell on the road..

G68 is the engine speed sensor I thought.. i.e. the crank position sensor. If that is marginal the car will happily stall. In fact if G68 isn't working right, the car won't run at all. Sounds like yours is on the way out.. The cam sensor is cheap - you may aswell replace it too if it's got an intermittent short, it'll cost you most of the car's performance if that's not working right.. If the lambda regulation warning keeps coming back chances are you have a dodgy lambda too ... Either all that or ..... the ECU is faulty! "Control memory error"? Never seen that before.. but doesn't sound good for the reliability of the ECU! Not good news, but hey, at least you now know what you have to save up for! :)

Didn't we already talk about this? And isn't your VR overfuelling at high revs?

Erm .. about now?

Biggest problem with overfilling is MAF contamination.. Drain it off ASAP.

Yes, that's what they tell you to do, iirc. Only risk is that it'll slip a tooth before the pressure builds sufficiently. You could turn the crank by hand a few times to build pressure tho? If you do it with the top cover off you will see if it takes up the slack or not. I imagine it's tricky to pre-set the right extension on the bolt before you fit it, and no doubt that's why they recommend you don't.

"white smoke, stinks of fuel" .. is normal during cold start cycle, but should go away when the engine is warm. If it's massively overfuelling then it could be MAF / lambda / stuck injector or even an ECU fault. What colour are the plugs? If one is noticeably different from the others you might have a problem with that injector. Have to say tho, £65 for a set of cleaned injectors is pretty cheap!

Same as everything else isn't it? The first one costs tens or hundreds of hours design and testing work, but the second one will cost you ten minutes of your time and a blank EEPROM chip..

Cool, just keep your head screwed on and observe what the engine's doing and you should be ok. Pinking - pre-ignition. It sounds like a hard metallic CRACK noise (essentially it's the flame front hitting the piston moving UP, instead of on it's way down). Usually by the time you can hear it it's too late, because the engine should have backed off the ignition timing to compensate. (It's also worthy of commenting that most "off the shelf" VR6 chips will be for the 2.8 engine .. minor difference, tbh, but worthy of note.)

And surely they WERE screwed down! Petty crap though. At least in this case you were intending to replace 'em anyway, but still .. !

Also yes, both fan blades should turn together - there should be a belt linking the two.

Kinda difficult to fit chips to late VRs.. the ECU has a soldered-in EEPROM.. And before you decide it's wonderful, check your fuel consumption with a microscope, get it MOTd and look at the emissions, and make damn sure it never, under any circumstances, pinks...!

You didn't say in what way your recon rack died..? Fluid leak? Power assist stopped working? It seized?

Actually my VR6 does less than 3500 miles per annum, so though I'm only filling up with 99 octane once per month, I have thought many times of selling up .. Hardly sensible to claim the internal combustion engine is so great "because it's better than what we had before".. well yeah, otherwise it wouldn't have replaced what we had before! ;) But it has had it's time, we should be moving on. It's pretty clear that improvements in efficiency are just not happening; car manufacturers are increasing specific output rather than improving overall efficiency. The few that are trying to improve efficiency are the little-loved lean burn engines (VW FSi, Ford SCi and others), and (at least in the Ford case) they make the cars unpleasant to drive, so they're not really gaining any traction with the public. I don't know what the answer is, but I think we should be looking harder ...

The small engines were good ideas, but unfortunately the buying public likes big numbers. They want a 2GHz computer, with a 20inch screen, and they like to drive around in a 2 litre car with 200 horsepower that weighs ~2 tons.. (The power of 2?) The Bugatti Veyron production run *will* consume less fuel in their collective lifetimes than the 1.8 Golf Mk 5 will (by sheer numbers). But the Bugatti Veyron's mere existance will fuel (sic) the public's perpetual desire for "more, bigger, faster". I think the future is a completely different beast from the internal combustion engine altogether though. It's time has been and gone. It's a crap design, let's face it. It turns only about 30-40% of the energy it burns into forward motion. If power stations were that inefficient we'd have run out of coal 20 years ago. The diesel is better, but even that's pretty poor. At the moment the only viable alternative motor seems to be the electric traction motor, but we will see what the future brings. All that reciprocating motion crap has to stop though, it's rubbish.

Yep, crop-based fuels are the new bad guy. - The grain mountain has already gone because governments stopped investing in research that would increase crop yields (since we had a glut). Now it will take another 10 years research to get any useful increases.. - Deforestation caused by the need for more land to grow crops on has caused massive CO2 emissions (or rather, a loss of CO2 absorption) already. - Demand for crops has increased to the point where bread in developed countries has actually gone UP in price for the first time in many of our lifetimes. (And in the UK, the big supermarkets drive the profit margins so low that we'd be the last place that would be expected to happen.) Research shows that in order to satisfy the growing population AND the growing use of "bio-fuels" we need to grow 2-3% more crops annually, year on year. Currently yields are only growing at about 1.5%, so that gap is causing price inflation. So yes, burn dino-oil till we get fuel cells right, or dilithium crystals, or.. It's true that private motorists aren't the biggest contributor to CO2 levels in the atmosphere, at least, not directly. But private consumers have the power to choose which companies they support - and that's the only way that industry will be persuaded to change it's methods for the better.

Right, so E85 is based on food produce, so you'd have a choice: eat, or drive.

The above post makes perfect sense, but for some reason I've been told the opposite - you must get the alignment of the middle sprocket right too.. I have no idea why, can't explain it.

Have to say, I don't recall seeing a knock retard in the measuring blocks on my VR either. Ignition timing yes, but no knock retard.