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At the risk of being controversial, the highway code does say that with two lanes of traffic merging into one you should use all the available space in both lanes, and merge in turn at the point at which the outer lane stops... I don't understand why people feel the need to merge left 600yards before and then sit there in a massive queue with one lane completely empty, it just wastes road space in my opinion. I have been deliberately held up by someone who'd seen me, in the right hand lane overtaking a queue of stationary traffic in the left lane, they pulled out and sat in the right lane in front of me and went at the speed of the left lane until the last moment... :bad-words:

Are you absolutely certain you have the correct cap on each rod and main bearing, and that they are all the right way round? If one's wrong it may cause the engine to seize as you've described....

I saw a very nice looking corrado parked outside the Hilton in Manchester last night, white, not sure what variant, had german style plates possibly... looked very clean and gleaming in the street lamps....

Got a thumbs up from a Mk2 Golf driver today on the A57 Snake pass, then some doofus in the co-op said 'nice Scirocco mate' to me, so I pretended I hadn't heard :roll:

Shouldn't affect it at all, the cams will still close both inlet & exhaust valves fully for the ignition stroke, unless something is horribly wrong!

There's some info on compression test figures in this post http://www.the-corrado.net/.archive/forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=67231&p=781585#p780935

Bores 1 & 6 do tend to wear faster than the others due to poorer cooling, but it's not impossible it's been overheated at some point and all the bores have worn. Worn stem seals can produce a puff of smoke from the exhaust when you accelerate after overrun, this is one way to diagnose them.... failed rings or worn bores I guess can only really be diagnosed by a compression test or visual examination...

Oily plugs is generally a bad sign, and if it's smoky from the exhaust as well then I reckon it'll be either rings/bores or valve stem seals. There's usually a coating of oil in the inlet/throttle body area as the crankcase vents back into the intake just before the throttle valve.

It's on the front of the engine, right down at the bottom next to the sump on the gearbox end. Replacing it is pretty easy, you just undo the screw holding it on (IIRC a 5mm hex head?), take the old one out, clean up the hole & pop the new one in and replace the bolt. I think there's an O-ring that needs replacing as well, and obviously you need to plug the wire into the connector the old one was plugged into. I've never done this with the engine in place though, so you might find it rather difficult to get at, not much space around there. T

You might consider finding a second hand VR lump, then rebuilding it, with a rebore, new pistons & rings, & head rebuild. I did this myself last year and have a lovely smooth, basically brand new engine for about £1500, but for that price you'd have to do the rebuild yourself. I spent around £600 on pistons, £300 on the rebore and new parts (seals, bearings etc.) for the block, another £300 for a standard head rebuild from Impulse in Rochdale and the rest on various new bits (gaskets, head bolts) along the way. It's quite time consuming, and you have to get everything exactly right, but it's really worthwhile, you'll learn a lot about engines along the way and it's truly satisfying the first time you fire up an engine you rebuilt yourself! And also you can be confident that everything is brand new and should last another 100k miles if looked after... Alternatively there are quite a few working VR engines around that pop up for sale on here, you could do a straight swap with one of those, although as you say you can never really know exactly what condition they're in. Or a company called VEGE can supply a reconditioned VR block & head for around £1800, and I think that comes with a guarantee of some kind...

Does it also use the knock sensors to keep the ignition as advanced as possible without any knocking occurring? I.e when you change fuel types it'll either detect it knocking wildly and retard the timing (if you're going from 99->95), or if you've just filled up with 99 it'll be able to advance it more before the knock sensors tell it to stop.

I'm only guessing here, but it seems like it could be the source of the higher temperatures... I'm thinking along the lines of crap oil is a worse lubricant, therefore more friction, leading to higher temps. Also I guess it could have a lower heat capacity as well. I user Silkolene PRO S 10W-50 in mine and rarely see temps over 110 except in very hot weather, with standard oil cooler.

He managed to spell 'introduction' correctly, even if it's the wrong word, but he gets words like 'of' wrong ('ov'). :epicfail: :lol:

I'll take one of these if still available -- I don't need the drill and tap, just the bracket.

That's what mine looked like when I cleaned it out. You can test it by applying 12V across the terminals, the valve should flick across fully.

Removed spoiler mechanism, dismantled, cleaned, re-greased, removed dodgy thermal cut-out from motor, reassembled. Nice and smooth now! :-) Gonna put it back in the car tomorrow. Also worried about the ever-louder timing-chain-like noise from the engine, and wondered if I should replace the tappets first to see if that quietens it down before stripping the whole thing apart to investigate.

Definitely get some kind of ear protection -- tinnitus is nasty, having had it myself since I was 19. (too much techno!) You won't notice the small foam earbuds after a while and they don't stop you hearing the noise - they just reduce it to a safe level. T

I don't have any air tools :(

New bolt it is then. Does anyone know the best way to hold the crankshaft in position? I just did a little research and it seems like VW Tool 3273 is the one for the job but I'd prefer not to go to the expense if possible. Would a 43mm (?) ring spanner on the pulley do the trick?

What's a woodruff key? Definitely didn't do that, and yeah I only torqued it up to 100Nm. I might take it to a garage and get them to use the air tool. Cheers for the replies :salute: Tom

The crank pulley bolt on my recently rebuilt VR6 keeps falling out, I got home after a 300mile or so drive this weekend and it had unscrewed a bit, and the pulley was wobbling a bit... it's done it before and it came off so much that the belt came off and shredded itself. After the first time I cleaned the thread of the bolt & crank thoroughly, and used some threadlock, then torqued it up to the required 100Nm as specified in the Bentley... but it still came undone again.. Am I missing some critical bit like a spring washer or something, or is it a stretch bolt?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secondary_air_injection

Found this under the windscreen wiper last night... scan0001.jpg[/attachment:1emhjfha] Made me smile all evening, if it was anyone on here, thank you for the compliments!

I had exactly the same problem when my Koni's were fitted a couple of years ago, the spring isn't manufactured correctly and sits at an angle on the plate, causing it to compress unevenly and rub against the body of the shock. Mine were fitted by Stealth and they were very helpful in getting a replacement unit from the manufacturer -- it sounds like you might have to do the same thing.

I took my VR from Manchester to Paris and back the weekend before last, didn't miss a beat. I'd highly recommend it for long journeys over a small engined supermini like a Corsa. Fuel consumption wasn't bad either, averaged around 30mpg, and it's dead comfortable as well.