kebabman

Exactly the same as my reasoning, so it eats a £5 plug in Cyl 6 every 3-4months and costs me £20 in oil every 3 or so months, but that's nothing compared to a head recondition. If it's still making good power and running smoothly, why pay all that cash to fix it? My compression is 11BAR on all cylinders though, so I believe mine is leaking through the valve stem seals rather than the piston rings. I'm just going to drive it until it breaks then buy a new engine I think, they don't seem to be particularly expensive and then I'll have a load of spares as well.

Right, have reset the MFA2 to work out how much oil it's using, will report back, but I'm begginning to think I may have an oil leak somewhere. How much can valve stem seals leak? Did the test holding it at 3000rpm and it didn't start smoking....so I guess the rings are ok? Also bought myself a gunman's compression tester from Halfrauds, and all cylinders gave 11Bar. Is this normal for a VR? (It was in the green section on the gauge so presume it's ok.) Still going to run at Snetteron on the 29th as I've already paid up for it, Green Flag may be getting some business :lol: Cheers for all the advice lads 8)

I could've over-estimated that figure. What's the volume of oil between the max and min mark on the dipstick? I'll take some notes and work it out properly. How much is a valve stem seal/guide refit? Is there a way to tell if it's the cylinder bore or the valve seals? Lastly, why has it only affected cylinder 6 and will it continue to make good power if I just keep the oil topped up? I'm supposed to be doing Snetterton on the 29th of July, hope she'll be ok :?

Sorry wasn't meant to sound like I was taking the piss, it was a question, I should have put "How can I tell if my MAF is knackered without knackering it?" :oops:

How can you tell if your MAF is knackered without knackering it? :-P I have an AG ecu on my VR, mid '94, does this mean I have a coil-pack ignition system? (I know I really should just go out and have a look, but hey I'm at work for another few hours and I'm bored :lol:)

Thanks for the advice :) It does sometimes blow a puff of smoke on downshifts when it's hot, but nothing on idle or when I just rev and release the throttle, it needs to be really hot to do it. In everday use I think it would be un-noticable, it doesn't smell of oil anyway. The engine has done 134k, it uses more than I'd like, but I have been doing quite a few trackdays where the engine spends a lot of time at high rpm...and to be honest I do rag the car most of the time, so I put it mainly down to my driving. I'd say it uses almost 1/2 a litre between fill-ups + 1 plastic can, i.e. ~400miles, and I'm running 10w40 Castrol GTX magnatec, although I haven't actually taken note...thats just what I think from when I remember having topped it. There's no oil splattering on the back bumper though, and I do have a slight leak from the sump-pan gasket. How much is it to get the valve seals done? Is there an easy way to determine if it's the valve seals, guides or piston rings?

I've stuck another NKG plug in there for the meantime, the other 5 look a bit worn but otherwise healthy (nice light hazey deposits). How much are genuine VW ones? Are they bi-electode like these? And do you think it'd make a big difference? Don't really want to shell out on 6 new plugs if I can help it.

Hmm that pic is a bit on the large side! Sorry :lol: Andi - you should add the DHTML dynamic resize mod, it's only a few lines and it saves having to worry about big pics even when they're remote linked. ;)

Noticed I was getting a slight misfire at high revs recently, and last time it was down to plug fouling....so I whipped them out to give them a clean and look what came out of cylinder 6! This plug is less than 6 months old! :shock: My theory is this, I know cylinder 6 burns a bit of oil, I'm presuming because the valve seals have perished. To me it looks like the plug has become heavily carbonised by oil deposits, and then over-heated causing the ceramic core to shatter. Sound plausible? I presume having the stem seals replaced is an expensive job (head off)? It doesn't burn much oil really, and it runs fine and makes good power, so I was just going to put a higher heat-rated plug in and clean it regularly. Am I heading for a disaster by doing this? It runs surprisingly well on 5, maybe I should just remove the HT lead. :lol: Mod edit: Pics resized

Thanks mate. I'll have a go at this :) Not quite sure what you mean by this. When the roof is shut measure the height of the mid-panel trim front and back? Mine sits high on the rear side (side closest to the rear of the car) :? Bentley manual? The foam option is sounding better and better.. :lol: Cheers guys. 8)

So does no one know? Or was my post just really crap? :(

Hi, sorry if this has been asked before, but I did a search and couldn't find the info I needed. My sunroof is rattling, at the 'closed' position the middle section of the roof trim seems slightly 'open'. It's not enough to let water in or create any wind noise, and on the outside it looks in the correct closed postion, but it means that the inner trim has ~3mm in which to rattle up and down. Very annoying! If i open the sunroof 1 click, the roof 'shuts' properly inside and stops rattling, but then it sticks up slightly on the roof. It's almost like the outside and the inside of the roof are slightly out of sync :? Anyway, I spent ages with a porter manual (which is absolutely useless for sunroof info, and door cards) and couldn't figure out which screws adjusted what. Not wanting to break it I left it as a slight rattle is better than a non-working sunroof, but it's really getting on my tits. Does anyone know how to fix it/adjust the park position of the interior trim part of the roof? Any help much appreciated. :)

A mk2 Astra GTE 16v, with comedy plate. :lol: It's a sh!tbox, but I remember my mates being reasonably quick, they're 150bhp but should be sub 900kg when stripped. :) Ebay special, some pics on there: http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll? ... RK:MEWN:IT

ARSE. Well my track car weighs about 900kg, maybe slightly less. Guess I better get down a weighbridge. :(

I've got a towbar fitted to my VR6 already, and I've just bought a car trailer and track car. (Trying to save the poor old VR). Thing is I'm a bit confused about the regulations regarding towing vehicles. I passed after Jan 1st 1997, so have only catagory B not B+E, but I can't work out if my trailer requires B or B+E. The way I see it, the VR6 is about 1300kgs, so if my trailer + car is This is the from the DVLA website(MAM = Maximum Allowed Mass):

http://www.camskill.co.uk are the best in my experience, http://www.mytyres.co.uk have been a bit hit and miss on delivery times I've found.

Joe how go the engine troubles? I am very tempted by one of these after what happened to your VR! My car is -40mm, think I'd be OK? My sump is rusty and full of dents at the moment so needs replacing anyway.....

Right, since changing the rear discs on my VR I've been getting the good ol' ABS light showing it's face again. Is fairly infrequent, but it's only happened since I did the work. VAG-COM shows it up as "rear left speed sensor out of bounds". A quick on off on the ignition fixes the problem. It also only seems to happen when I got over 115mph. I've also noticed that under heavy braking down from 100mph+ the back feels a bit unstable and I have to correct the weave to keep it tidy, I don't remember it doing this before but it could be because I'm thinking about it more with the ABS failing. :? So some background, when I was removing the old cage from the rear left to fit it to the new hub I bent ONE of the wires in the cage by a few fractions of a mm. Not a lot, but I could see the gap between the wires was ever so slightly smaller on one side than the other. Could this be what's causing it? Seems a bit of a cooincidence it's the left. :(

My personal favorites are Bridgestone's Potenza RE720, well worth a look, at least as good F1s IMHO ;)

I hear nothing but bad things about so called 'ported/polished' stage X heads....would never have it done to a car of mine. Sorry about your car though, can you not change the pulley on the S/C and up the boost up a bit? (I'm not a G60 person so this may be rubbish! ;) )

Will settle a bit as well, they just keep getting better for the first few weeks. Enjoy. 8)

IMHO the Koni SSK kit is great value for money. I've got it fitted to mine and don't find the ride too harsh at all, even the mrs agrees with me, and I live down an un-tarmaced road! They've been great on track as well, no body roll at all, so overall I'm very happy with them. I'm running standard VR6 wheels....so maybe that's what makes the difference? :? oxfordpaul, if you want to see what they're like give me a PM....no free kebab's though sorry :lol:

Rears are easy, first side took me about 2 and a half hours (with tea breaks of course :lol:) because I didn't know what I was doing and took the carrier off before bashing the caliper off the disk, which made it a bitch to get off. Once I'd sussed that the other side only took an hour. I did strip two carrier bolts so it is definitely worth following hw100v's advice and getting some replacement bolts before you start! They're 8mm(?) allen heads I think...should've written it down sorry. Also another top tip from Gavin was to use the old grease caps, the new ones didn't fit properly. I have a couple of pics from a VR change if you need them. Haven't done the fronts sorry. Good luck ;)

I got mine from VW motorworld in Kidlington (Oxford) for ~£18, they had to order one in but didn't quible, they even lent me theirs for 20 mins while I did a plug change outside because it was running like a dog! 8)

If you get a lambda from GSF it comes with the correct plug, no chopping required ;)