pete_griff

i know that's whats really annoying me - they are a specialist gearbox place; thats what they do!!! the only reason i went there is because i was recommended by my friend. he's got an integra type-r; he's on his second now, both have been there and he had great service. i'm going to speak to them tomorrow, but i'm not holding out much hope. cheers pal - think that's all i can do really quality! - cheers pal - may well hold you to that! :lol: on the plus side this weekened - i've found out that the corrado is faster than a porsche carrera, but slower than a yamaha R1! looking forward to seeing what it will top out at now - with my longer 5th (provided it's survivied! :bad-words: ), i should be looking at circa 170mph wind resistance etc allowing! :bonk: :twisted:

nothing - it's broken... AGAIN!!!

i'm unbelievably pi$$ed off now - as i went to pull out of my dad's drive last night to go home, i noticed my car making an odd noise. the noise more or less immediately got louder and has done so ever since - guess what the f*cing arsehole w*nker to$$pots at the earbox place still haven't done their job properly! the gearbox is making a horrible racket (it's odd as well - it only makes the noise as you take your foot off the clutch pedal right at the top of the travel) it sounds nice at quiet like it should even when the gears are going round when the clutch is engaged - only starts to make the noise once your foot comes right off the pedal. it's far too noisy for it to be the thrust bearing or anything like that; it's making a right nasty graunchy rattle. it's hard to describe, i've got no idea hat it could be, but needless to say the garage will be getting a nasty phone call from me tomorrow and will certainly not be touching the car again NOT HAPPY :mad2: :bad-words:

those wheels look really smart pal - i would stick with those. i'm surprised you're getting rubbing issues there though... (just seems odd to me)

looking really smart James - lovely job, credit to you as always 8)

hey pal, hope all is well - what supercharged says about the rear line - make sure it's all sorted clearance wise. also - if you tightened up the join between the flexi hose that goes to the rear caliper and the solid line, you'll have to undo it again! - you need to tighted the flexi line into the caliper first, then bent it over into place and tighter it up onto the solid line... nice to see it's all coming together finally though :D

what???!!!???? :shock: come on then Karl - what have you got up your sleeve?!! :lol: :cuckoo: :D

thanks very much for the encouraging words pal - most appreciated. i am starting to feel a little more human now, but i've got a bit to go yet before i can start doing "normal" things again. glad you approve of the car - hope it inspires you to do your own. i haven't stoppped smiling since i've had it finished! :D cheers pal good to meet you too finally! i never thought of that with the plenum chamber - makes sense! (i just hope it doesn't blow up/crack on me like the VW mechanics said they had seen happen :? ) no worries pal - good to see you again, it's been a while. really pleased you liked the car (as let's be honest you are a "bit" of a stickler!). it's really not done yet, but like you said, it should hopefully be somewhere near where it needs to be once i've gone over it and sorted all the final little bits. looking forward to getting it corner weighted with Jon - can't wait to see what it handles like then! :twisted: also i'll hopefully be healed by then; as it hurts to turn hard right at the moment due to my bigger side bolsters! don't you worry about yours - it will be finished soon. and you have seen now that it's worth the wait! :D

looks fantastic bud - can't wait to see these finished :D

here are a couple of engine bay pics as it stands at the mo. there are still a couple of things to do here - going for a braided fuel ine from the reg to the rail for safety and also going to sort a mounting bracket for my bmc so it doesn't rub on the coolant hose/washer bottle pics below:

would kind of like some advice off you lot here actually - i had some issues with the place that sorted my gearbox. i took them the gearbox in originally (on it's own out of the car) and said strip it down then give me a ring. basically i'm looking to replace anything that looks as though it's even a little worn and i want you to fit my quaife for me at the same time. (bear in mind that at this point there was nothing wrong with the box; i just wanted it covered as a matter of course due to the r32 lump going in and wanted to keep reliability etc) sure enough i got a phone call from them to say got the box apart, everything is perfect inside, so we'll just change the bearings and fit your diff for you. they did this and i picked it up the next day, cost me £300. when i finally got everything sorted with the silly short shift on my car the day after i first got it back (a while ago now), it became obvious that 1st had a nasty rattle. i could get all the gears just fine, but first was persistently making a graunching noise. i took the whole car back to them and they said there's defo somehting amiss, bring it back to us when you can and we'll sort it for you. admittedly a fair amount of time passed between then and now (probably 3 months), but i was on the phone to them reminding them amount it and who i was etc, so they definitely wouldn't have forgotten. anyway, i took them the whole car about a week and a half ago now and said please sort it. they got the gearbox out of the car for me and found the problem (a cracked washer behind first gear). they then went on to say that they didn't touch the spindle with all the gears on and therefore it wasn't their fault! they would do the job for me, but they would be charging me. £200. anyway, onto the best bit now. i went up there one week previous as well the when i dropped the whole car off with them having arranged to take a courtesy car away as i would need it to get to work etc. i got f*cked off then as they said they had given the car to a pregnant woman in an emergency; consequently i wasted a trip from hereford to birmingham and back! when i finally got up there again and dropped the car off properly (as described above) and got my hands on the courtesy car, it was a complete shed! a rover 400 turbo diesel with 150k on the clock. i wasn't too bothered about this at the time as at the end of the day it would do what i wanted and i didn't have to put up with it for too long. it defo needed a cv joint changing, drop links changing on both sides and/or ball joints. the tracking was also miles out and the car was generally in sh1t state. i was driving it back up to them to collect the rado on thurday night when the head gasket blew! (and no i wasn't ramping it either - probably doing circa 75-80 the whole way) LOADS of white smoke bellowing out of the exhaust. pulled over and switched the ignition of. the fuel cut off valave obviously failed as the car continued to rev it's nuts off on the redline (diesels obviously working off compression, not like petrols which need sparks). this was bad as it had slowed the motorway (m50) to a crawl as nonone could see through the horrendously thick smoke. thinking i had to do something asap i lifted the bonnet with a view to crimping off a fuel line etc - anything to stop it! i didn't get the chance to touch anything on the car anyway.... just as i put the bonnet on the stay, the radiator exploded all over me! as a result i now have some cracking burns (see grizzly photo's below) and am off work for a while. i have been in touch with a solicitor to ask what my options are with regards to the garage, but i was wondering if anyone on here had any input that would be useful. i'm really not one of the new "look at me and i'll sue you" generation, but the garage didn't do a single thing right for me and frankly their service/car/attitude all stinks. (what if the headgasket had gone on the pregnant woman who had the car before me?!)

LOL! Guess who :lol: Looking good Pete, glad it's finally coming together. thanks very much for the compliments gents - really pleased it's more or less all sorted now :) just got the height/geometery left to sort and then start putting the glovebox etc back in and find/stop all annoying rattles. wheels are ABT's, they are not the lightest unfortunately (9.6 Kg WO tyres), but hopefully they will clear my brembos without needing spacers... i think they look nice, not as nice/classy/oem as the RX's, but nice nonetheless. they will do until i settle on another set that will clear brembos/are v light and that i like. i'm really fussy when it comes to wheels, so it might take me a while to find some that match all criteria. i feel your pain regards tools! i have a stupid amount of kit now considering i don't use it to earn a living. it was soooooo frustrating with little bits of it all here/there and in all different boxes as you say. very pleased with my new box - worth every penny! :D the story on the car now is that it's now back, working and more or less all sorted. the gearbox is now all sorted too (no thanks to a "hiccup" or two along the way; but i'll put that in my next post). the RAC man came out the night i got the car back from having the wiring finally sorted - the car decided to shed one of the rear calipers! as it stands though, it's very fast, very smooth and i'm very happy with it. it's still a bit of a handful as the camber etc is all over the place. the guy who did the tracking/camber at vw didn't do a single thing right and consequently (especially with the presence of the quaife) you have to keep a firm hand on the wheel to make sure the car doesn't leap off the road into the hedge! hoping to get that sorted before too long... thanks very much, i'm really pleased with how it's turned out. at idle the r32 is very noticably quieter than the 12v. that's about as far as it goes at the moment though. when pootling around it's still fairly quiet which is nice, but give it some beans and it really doesn't sound stock! i'm going to put a cold air feed on the end of my bmc to try and qieten things down a bit, and also am considering another silencer in the exhaust. it's by no means chav and i could easily live with it day to day if it comes to it, as it's still nice and quiet when you want it to be. make no mistake about full throttle though - people will know it's not stock straight away!

hey pal - apologies for not getting back to you sooner (i've been "otherwise engaged" for the last couple of days and not in a god way!). got your PM, if you want to give me a ring it's probably easiest to discuss what you want as i really can't be arsed to type out all the options etc and the moment as physically i'm in a bit of state... my number is 07888701877 - Pete and i really wouldn't even bother with the ebc's/greenstuff approach; i would go straight for the 288's. give me a buzz if you like and i can help you out a bit more. cheers :) Pete

and personally i wouldn't touch black diamond with a barge pole - IMO they are schitt! i had a black diamond clutch in a tuned application. i never did any nasty starts etc and my car absolutely destroyed the clutch as if it were a standard one (which is essentially all they really are!) you also pay a premium for "performance" aftermarket parts - you really can get a much better result for the same money by swapping the brakes for their more modern equivalents

sorry - you need to caveat exactly what you want on here though - there are so many brake options on the corrado! your best bet in all honesty is to go either 288 or 312 brakes (which works by taking the brakes off a mk3/mk4 golf) as these will bolts straight on. they are a massively marked improvement over the standard equipment and you will see big performance gains without having to spend lots of money on aftermarket items; you can spend the money much more effectively on better bits. if you check out the wiki on here there is a 312 guide - 288's are excatly the same, just different carriers and different discs. if you've got any questions feel free to reply in this thread and i'll do my best to help you. it also depends a lot on how you drive/what plans you have for the car in future. for example i currently have 312's and while they are good, they are definitely not good enough for me runing the enigne/power i now am, so i have some brembo's en-route. tell us what you want to do/how you drive and we can be more specific :)

yes if you just wind that bolt out that oyu can see (although you may want to loosen, but not undo the other engine mount bolts as well to allow for more movement), then you will be able to jack up the engine; best place for that would be on the corner of the sump. not sure if you'll get enough clearance to get it out like that (certainly going to be an awkward way of doing it!), you'll just have to try i guess. if it was me i would just take the front off, given how easy it is...

no sure if that would solve it tbh - admittedly mine only has a piddly little 10-row, but it's not FI and the 24v/R32 engines run cooler than the VRs anyway. mine climbed to 114 when sat stationary and just letting the idle for ages. it didn't go any higher and normally sits around the 96-98 mark when driving.

i ditched the standard cooler (useless thing!). if i was you, i would see how/where you're going to mock up the cooler before you do anything definitive with the lines. you can check out the piccies in my thread to see how i mounted my 10-row if it helps (viewtopic.php?f=11&t=62901&start=105) i have 90 fittings on both ends of the lines no matter where you mount it up front, you'll almost certainly find things easier if you just take the front off (it really is a very quick and simple job once you've done it once or twice) :)

nice!- good point!

i have just read through this whole saga including your thread - it's like the phantom faulty corrado! i still think it's electrial - i mean if the compression is INDENTICAL between all 4 clyinders, then surely it can't be the head gasket??? did you get a leakdown test done in the end? it's so odd though seeing the lengths you've gone to with continuity testing and the amount of new bits on the car etc... have you got a different ecu you could try on there? oh and good luck btw! keep us updated :D (and hurry up and get back on it! :lol: )

oh yes.......... :norty: have you got a build thread? (haven't seen it...) get some piccies up - always good to see the subtle differences of how they are done :) they are MUCH faster than the VR's aren't they?! - the guy who remapped mine for me came out with me for my initial test drive and he described me as giggling like an 11 year old schol boy for the majority of the drive! :grin:

so will the new wheels be "keepers?!!" :norty: :lol:

nice to see you taking the time to "heal" it like this - you're making me want a mk2 as a runabout now though! :lol: looks like a lovely example, should be very nice once it's all back together :D

surely it has to be the body (or shank) of the bolt that is cambered rather than the head for it to work effectively; if it was only the head, then it would have much less to brace against and might even encourage slippage more than the standard bolts (as well as probably being more prone to shearing). if the body is eccentic, then it has much more to brace against and is much more likely to hold the hub assembly in place relative to the strut. (well, that's how i see it anyway!) i would also be very interested i a set. not going to bitch and name drop; but my local vw garage did my tracking/camber for me and sealed up a join in my exhaust as i didn't have the right clamps at the time when i put it all together. after no more than 2-3 days driving the exhaust was blowing and the camber is off just by eye (the car feels "wobbly" at best!) - cheers VW; £160 well spent! :mad2:

car sounds evil! nice work James :D bit noisy for me personally, but seeing as it's your toy and not your daily i'll let you off ;)