PhatVR6

it's because the syncro system isn't THAT good, and you have to let it understeer a bit before the rear diff does anything, that's how it works, when the viscous coupling sneses a speed difference between the front and rear axles. and most people back off the throttle to tuck the front end in when it starts to understeer, when in fact they should just wait for the diff to kick in, which it will, just not as quick or as fiercly as the haldex does.

I thought the golf handled well, I was impressed with the turn in and lateral grip. It would have been brilliant with 4wd and/or a diff, it was almost invincible as it was! I'm not sure what you mean about the 'poor' rear axle. yes, it's heavy, but it's nigh on identical to an E30 BMW rear axle, and don't forget they are only 2wd, and the E30 M3 isn't exacly know for it's bad handling now! I never even had a rear anti roll bar on the corrado and it didn't feel THAT bad. The body roll got a bit scary, as did the drivshafts rubbing on the rear chassis legs, but that's why I've taken it off the road, to sort it all out.

my biggest regret was spending a fortune on a mk2 vr6 and not just buying a corrado in the first place!!! Biggest dissapointment was a B&M shifter. worst heap of arse I have ever bought in my life.

Daz, I hope you don't mind me saying this, but your mk2 suffered VERY badly from lack of traction, yet you never went for a diff OR 4wd, even though it was a syncro shell!! and that's with 2220bhp and slicks! the reaction of your Mick when he took it out at donny that first time, with me in the passenger seat as he wheel spun it through 3rd gear said it all (being an ex Audi S2 driver). Yes, there is sense in what you're saying, and it is good to be able to experience both setups, but knowing coxy, he won't want to take the car off the road again so it's a case of now of never. ir more a cas of not now, and then being very frustrated with the cars' lack of grip.

Interestingly, the Country will understeer if you push it in the wet or on mud, but the 4mo, when the haldex is working right doesn't understeer at all, it just goes straight to full on 4wd in an instant. I will be going haldex on the corrado.

whitout a doubt my longest post! I didn't realise I wrote that much, just got carried away reminiscing (sp??) about the cars! and I thought I might have to put in some of the "history" to back up my opinion, rather than giving it the usual "it's great, that's why I've got it, if you haven't your a dick" style of posting wich doesn't seem to go down too well! Thanks for taking the time to read it! I think there's only about 3 of us on here who've ever driven a 4wd corrado so I thought I'd say as much as i could!

now go and post in coxylaads 4wd thread! he's not listening to me! nice purchase. enjoy.

still no pics?

Ok, here goes! I've been ASKED to ad my opinions so please don't complain as I waflle on!! I believe I probably have more experience than most on this topic, so here goes! Having owned a mk2 2.8 (and then a 2.9) VR6 for a few years I'd gotten tired of the god-awful gear ratios. I'd also worked out for myself that the understeer "horror" that people used to go on about was largely due to the amount of power you have to put down through the front wheels with an open diff and NOT due to weight fo the engine. Something mk2 1.8T owners are now finding out....Anyway, I blew that gearbox up at York dragway a good few years back, and all I can say is good riddance. I was straight ont he phone to stealth and TSR and played them off against each other on prices for a quaife diff, and in the end I plumped for a quaife diff, with a gemini 6 speed kit, 3.94 final drive (I detested the 3.3 in the vr6 box) and a longer 6th. This gearbox sat in my conservatory for a year as I was still messing about with the mk2 golf shell. Suring this time I found out it'd had a rear end shunt and theboot floor was buckled. Marcel from http://www.dutchdub.com convinced me that cutting the boot floor out and replacing it with a rallye one and going 4wd would be the way forwards. like a nutter I agreed! so I went over to holland to meet him and buy a vr6 syncro setup off one of his mates. I got a smashed up rallye shell of volksspeed and cut the floorpan out on my driveway(much to the delight of my neighbours!). Anyway, I got all the floorpan and tunnel in, but never got around to finishing it off. I'd had the gearbox back to stealth and he swapped the syncro bellhousing on it. unfortunately I had to sell the unused quaife diff on and buy a peloquin item ,as quaife weren't interested in making one for a syncro application. ANYWAY, the box was sitting unused, and I'd missed a season or 2 and I was getting bored. so I bought a mk2 golf 16v shell off a mate for £100 and put all my vr6 gear in it, with this fresh box and schrick VGI etc etc, but only in 2wd format (with the transfer box output flange just left spinning in fresh air). With this car I managed to get a 13.74 1/4 mile time, a full second quicker than the old mk2, and a 20.34 60' time, which has got to be good for a mid 5 second 0-60. it was quick. I also took the car on a few trackdays. my first ever go being at Kames, the clubgti scottish national day trackday. My tracking was SO far out I wore out the front tyres just driving up there! so I swapped the wheels over and did the track day. My first ever go, and I managed to come 3rd! A few weeks later I had a go at the Curborough track day, again, held by club gti. I took a mate along too (I was still banned at the time!) and we took alternative goes in the car. He could not believe the grip available from the diff. It really is a mind altering feeling for anyone used to a powerful FWD car. Gone is the frustration of having understeer coming out of corners, and you WILL find yourself going around roundabouts a few times! anyway, the car was driven in all weathers for 5 months. in the dry it was amazing and I oculd only get it to spin the wheels if I REALLY wanted to, but it'd still light up BOTH fornt wheels in 2nd gear coming ouf the first right hander at curborough. Now, this car was a pile of crap. it was thrown together on my dirveway, never had a geometry setup, yet it was a right track tool and a total blast. I was going to 4wd it, but the corrado came instead. from that day on I was "into" track days, and all the showy stuff just fell by the wayside. For his reason, I had had enough of the mk2 shell and decided to buy a corrado. the day I got my license back (the mk2 was so quick I got banned after a high speed chase on the first day I had it on the road!) I bought my corrado. The corrado was going to be a track car, but I decided it was too nice so I made it into a road car, then tracked it anyway!! It started off as an 8v, but my rebuilt 2.9, along with the schrick and the gemini box made it into the car too. I ran it in 2wd for about 6 months. again tackling the curborough circuit with even better results than the mk2, it handled so much better, but I was STILL getting both wheels spinning out of that tight corner and in the wet it was still a handful and I could spin in 3rd (the mk2 could spin through 4th in the wet!!) with of course, the horrid understeer returning. After a slight oil seal accident, the 2.9 died so I was stuck with a choice. fit another 2.9, or fit the 3,2 24v that I'd bought for the mk2. you know the rest.... I fitted the 3.2, then over xmas decided i'd do another 4wd conversion, this time with a brand new floorpan and the vr6 syncro parts. I didn't actually get the car on the road until may, and just missed out on the croft trackday. but I did run it for a good few months on the road and on a couple of track days. again at curborough, this time beating a milestone time of getting a lap under 30 seconds, which for a car in full luxury road trim is some acheivement!! this time I didn't have the traction iissues out of the first bend. It felt weerd and it actually took me about 5 laps before I actually felt I was giving it enough. the traction was just silly, and as a result made the car FEEL slower! because it wasn't being a hooligan and lighting up the tyres, letting the engine roar, it was just gripping and pulling my round the corner. I have mpegs of the track runs, which have been posted up on here, compare them with the likes of the big power turbo cars, my corrado was far quicker out of the bends (if not along the straights :-( ). the final outing in the corrado was the GTI trackshow at donnington. in the same spec I took the car out there. again, the grip was so good it was almost boring at times! in fact, I had to take a rew leisurely laps as I'd killed the brakes and a wheel bearing. Although driving around the OUTSIDE of a 260bhp mk1 was rather amusing! I now have a mk4 4 motion, which coxy's engine came out of. Even with 265bhp (at 5800rpm) I could only light up the tyres is the conditions were anything other than bone dry. It was such a quick and planted car I decided to keep it over the corrado (not now, I've keeping both!!). I haven't taken it on a track day, but I drive on a VERY twisty road to work each day, and I can almost gain as much speed in the bends asI could in the corrado. the best thing is the traction. rain, snow, ice, you name it, I never get stuck, the car just goes and goes. only problem now is it feels a bit gutless as it's a 2.8. also, I now have an ABS fault which has all but killed the 4wd. it now understeers quite badly when you try and pwoer it in the wet. need to get that fixed asap. Finally, I even bought the missus a Golf Country. she works on a farm and has to drive through the woods in all weathers, the car has not got beaten by the weather yet (although I'd hardly say it HANDLES!). so, a few cars, and just about every possiblity of weather conditions, road surfaces, track use, daily use, even drag strip use. Been there, and made my decision. I now have 3 cars, all 4WD. will I go back to FWD?? no, never ever. diff or not, you CANNOT match the traction of the 4wd. For track use, in dry weather, with slicks, yes, FWD is good enough, providing you don't have much more than ~250bhp. For anything else, and if it's to be used at all in this awful weather, you're mad not to want 4wd. As for the weight? pah, nonsense, you can't feel any penalty. the car feels stiffer, better balanced and turns in better. I even used to have a 1.8 carbed jetta syncro, and that drove far better than any mk2 gti I've ever owned or driven. You have the parts, the know how and even the time to do this. it's only plain laziness that's stopping you.

whoever declared them dead in the first place! the cheek.

now, i have heard that the skoda fabia VRS has a fancy 6 speed that's unique to the car, which may or may not be smaller than an 02m and possibly suitable for a corrado!? shame it's a TDI so the ratios will be a load of bollocks.

Jay, car is looking stunning. Any plans to change anything for this year? I can't help thinking that it's crying out for a set of split rims of some variety?

another closer pic to give you an idea of the size of the pump and the quality of the parts. the white plastic bit in the foreground is the standr vr6 housing, the ally bit being a customed machined tank cap (yes, that's about 5" diameter)

I haven't got a turbo yet. I'm just building everythign else up in anticipation for going turbo in the future as an when I can afford to (if at all). The gearbox and clutch were always specced to at least 400lbs.ft as tey also were going in the mk2. as for that pump fitting in the housing, lol!!! it's bigger than a starter motor! the filter is as big as the standard pump (the blue bit on the left, shown directly above the standard VR6 housing. the pump and filter as made by SX, that pile of bits cost me £400, but you simply can't deliver enought fuel for much more than 350bhp without a setup like that. with AN-6 lines that's good enough for 600bhp (ball park figure), with AN-10 delivery line (yes, the same size as my oil cooler hoses!) it'll deliver enough for 700bhp (again, ball park figure ased on it's deliver rate and the compustion of engines that can produce that amount). I tried to modify the syncro tank so I could fit the bigger vr6 style (and the R32) pump into it (as it has a small cap on it like a mk2 GTI rather than the large corrado.passat.mk3 golf one), I cut the top of the tank off and plastic welded in the top of the corrado tank. no matter how many times I had it wleded, or how much stuff I tried to seal it with (silicone, sikaflex, araldite) I just could not get a decent seal on the tank. it reeked of fuel inside and outside the car and as I couldn't get the fuel pump holder to stick to the bottom of the tank (it's done by friction on the vr6) the pump kept coming loose. this was happening on a daily basis, and was probably THE most frustrating aspect to runing the car, which is why I cracked up and it drove me mental. After the echaust came of it's hangers around donnnington and melted a hole in the side of the tank I decided enough was enough. This time I'll be starting with a fresh syncro tank, but now I have this fuel setup availble to use in the corrado now the golf has gone I can fit it. That ally bit you can see attached to the filter is a replacedment cap for the vr6 tank, I'll have to have a new one made for the smaller fitting. I think the tank is actually tall enough to allow the pump and filter to be fitted in the tank, but I'm going to fit it under the boot floor as there is a really handy cavity in front of the syncro crossmember where they can both sit. Up out of the way so they won't get damaged, dirty or too hot, but easy enough to get at for servicability. fuel lines are stainless steel overbraided through out. AN-10 from pump to filtter, then stepping down to AN-6 to the fuel rail and return. Other items i nthe pic are a check valve and some more fittings so I can mount the pickup off the cap. it'll take some setting up, but this time nothing will be rushed and it'll all work spot on.

well, the lower prices you can find the more he has to beat! if he can't beat it (and I can't how anyone can be cheaper than him seeing as he's the sales manager for optima batteries!) then it's his loss. (well, not really as we'll buy them anyway from one of his dealers)

I've had the fuel system for 2 years. it was all going on my mk2 with a vr6 turbo. things have moved ona bit since then, i.e. i don't have the mk2 anymore (still got the corrado though!) this will be going in too

I used to make them, I don't get the time now. it's really not hard, you can see exaclty what he's done to it.

in preparation of......

AN-6 fittings welded to the fuel rail. Standard barbs were too smmall, so I cut those off anf drilled out the fuel rail to 7mm and had these stainless fittings welded on to suit my new 7mm bore fuel lines.....it'll need it....

so why post up those details.......... :cry:

well, that was my theory. I got a tiny front plate made up, but I thought it'd stick out like a sore thumb, but no plate at all, well, it just doesn't really attract much attention. my mate never ran one on his mr2. whenever he got pulled he used to jut say it's fell off. i saw a big yank car o the motorway last year with no plates at all!!

I never got pulled. Then again, I don't drive it in town, and i live and work out in the sticks. I only rmemeber seeing one copper, and he never batted an eyelid. LEE never seems to have any bother, seen him on the M1 a few times going to/coming back from shows and never seems to be wearing the front plate. they are being really strict on plates these days though

agreed. it spoils it, and it'a guaranteed to flake off, which will look a right mess. one hell of a shade though!

a golf v6 4 motion I only work 5 miles away, I do a lot of short journies and I have a lead foot. on a motorway run I can hit 380 miles between fill ups.

it does, but that's the stance and the wide wheels, NOT the lights.