corradophil

Well, whilst at my local dealers parts dept. getting bits for mine I spotted a GSF invoice while the bloke was getting my parts and guess what - It was for discs and pads, I reckon they didn't have em in stock and went to GSF. I have Zimmerman drilled discs on the front and black diamond drilled/grooved rear all running pagid fast road pads, they work fine and no warping yet!

I have done the following on my 2.0 16v: Lightened flywheel - Made it more lively in lower gears, worth doing if you need to take the gearbox off (£80 from Race Power Motorsport). D.I.Y. gas flowed head/inlet/exhaust manifold - A small increase in power throughout the rev range (£100 including gasket set, carbide cutter and various flapwheels). Cold air feed from scoop behind grill sealed into std airbox (£ Free, had the pipe in garage at home) - Slight increase in mid range power. Schrick 268/276 cams & vernier pulley (£410 second hand) - Very lumpy idle no particular power increase :mad: The car already has a full magnex exhaust fitted by previous owner. My experience of tuning a 16v shows you can make a bit more lively with a moderate power increase, but so far its nothing special. I went out in a mates Mk2 Golf 16v running a std KR (1800) engine and its every bit as quick as mine with more mid range power :( Just collecting as much info about KE-Motronic now, to fine tune it. By the way since putting the cams in I've tried loads of different cam & ignition timing settings, with very little improvement.

The schricks are in, been experimenting a little and at the moment it seems best with the vernier set 0 deg (std spec). The ignition timing is set at 6 deg. Cannot smooth the idle out very much by adjusting the idle mixture. Any comments from anyone who has fitted these cams i.e. cam and ignition timing settings? Not going to be able to get it set up for a few weeks, because of other commitments.

Funnily enough I have a mate with an H reg 16v Calibra and in std form compared to my Corrado his has more mid range grunt. Since then I've added a KR inlet cam, it already has a magnex exhuast, and most importantly make sure timing, fueling etc are correctly set. If done right it should be a match for his car, but still won't be a fire breathing monster. As far as chipping is concerned there does not appear to be much scope for improvement, for the money AMD quoted £300, you could get a pair of re-ground fast road cams - much better option. By the way mine has done 144,000 miles and is going better then ever.

You are probably right about the manifold, on the original there is a tin shroud which the hose connects too. If you have a tubular one then you probablt don't have this. Sounds like your not too impressed, hope you can sort the grinding noise out without too much grief. I look forward to reading about how it goes when you have put a few miles on it.

David Should have given a full spec, shouldn't I! I have mildly gas flowed my head and inlet and exhaust manifolds. Have a full cat back magnex and replacement filter eliment, also looking into modifying the airbox to accept a cold air duct from behind the grill. I have a cat by pass pipe which looks like a cat but is empty, I'm considering cutting this open and welding in perforated pipe and fillling it with rockwool to make a straight through silencer, because the exhaust is a bit louder than I would like, and I don't think its ideal for smooth airflow, obviously i'll re-locate the lambda probe so it sits in the gas flow rather than rockwool. I also have a KR inlet cam. So after all this work its definately faster but not quite enough yet. Its a difficicult choice between extra power when I want it and everyday driveability. My previous car was a Mk2 8v GTI - I loved the grunt that had, but the 16v needs to rev. What spec is yours? I take it you have mild cams.

After lots of research, into both the above I still can't make up my mind what cams to put into my Corrado. I've narrowed down my choice to the following. Inlet Exhaust Kent 264 deg 10.49mm 258 deg 10.26mm (Reground KR cams) Newman 268 deg +1mm over std 278 deg +1mm over std (Reground KR cams) Schrick 268/276 or TSR schrick copies. Every specialist I've spoken to gives different opinions. Some say Schricks will be fine with smooth idle and only slightly reduced low end power others say it will be rough. Has anyone tried any of the above cams in a 9A running standard spec KE-Motronic? I have been advised chipping this system is a waste of time by several people including someone at Bosch, but also been told its well worth doing by others.

Drilled mine, every once in a while tape the holes up to try the standard setup, but it only stays that way for a few days. I don't particularly like the idea of sucking in warm air from the engine bay, but it really does seem to increase the perfomance. Anyway I'm going to modify my airbox to run a cold feed from behind the grill and block the holes up, but till then its swiss cheese all the way.

Ideally I would have got a G60 or VR6. Don't want to replace mine now because I have done loads to it, the only thing it lacks is power. From reading posts relating to the 16V engine, I think with the right cams and set up there is hope of 170-180bhp which should be lively enough to keep me happy. I drove my mums Renualt Megane 1.6 16v the other day and I have to say although its not as powerful it delivers the power in a much more lively way - mine just feels so flat. Also raced a mate in a new Mini cooper 1.6 the other day (115 bhp) I had to push very hard to make any kind of gain on him, which he found funny after all the mods I've done to mine.

Alot more power from 2K upwards would be nice, especialy for £35. Even with head mods. lightened flywheel, KR inlet cam it feels kind of lazy compared to either of my previous GTI 8 valves which were both standard. Corradokid - Interesting that you can't find it. As you say the man at RPM really knew what he was talking about.

Thats a possibility, although he did say 11mm lift. How does the car go with this set up? Some people seem to think its good, others say it reduces power at low revs making it feel faster at high revs.

I'm going to look into it more over the next month or so, I will ring piper and ask them about them. He has a dyno and says he compared them with standard 9A, and various performance cams in the same car and these gave good results. I'll let you know what I find out.

He was very knowledgable about these engines, he had not heard of them either, but spotted the Corrado 2.0 16v with around 150BHP quoted as a standard figure in a snap-on technical book. He reckons he spoke to a friend who works for VW, who confirmed a short run of cars with these cams. They were apparenly stopped because of emmisions. I am running a 9A with gas flowed head and manifolds, KR inlet cam, performance exhaust and filter and was discussing cams with him, he managed to obtain a pair and recomends them over others including Schrick 268/276. He sent them to piper who can apparently produce them either as re-grinds or new. Unfortunatley I don't have access to such a snap-on book, would be interested to hear from anyone who has. Apart from that, any reckomendations which cams I should use. Fast road use only.

I had interesting conversation at the weekend with Race power motorsport, apparently for about 1 year VW produced the Corrado 2.0 16v with cams of around 11mm lift, as standard the car was putting out just over 150BHP. The car is supposed to be listed in a Snap-on data book. Has anyone else heard of this?

Well GSF knew what a G60 was, get G60 pads to match the G60 discs. When I converted mine I got Mk3 16v pads which have the same back plate design but the friction material is not as thick, I think the Golf's discs are thicker. Ended up having to go back to GSF to get them swapped. Peter, they do look better - mine are drilled too!

Pretty sure you can use 8v or 16v, just make sure the discs are 280mm diameter. Make sure the callipers are of the same design as your originals and you can use G60 discs and pads. You will need the carriers to as the new callipers will be wider than your originals. I did this mod a few months ago although it helps a bit, don't expect a huge difference in breaking.

I had the same problem, turned out to be the rear springs (FK) were to hard. Luckily the rear shocks have adjustable platforms using grooves and a circlip, so I now have the standard rear springs but the ride height is matched to the front. I've not been sideways since.

I had the same problem, it seemed to happen when starting the car. But was not the ignition switch. The smoke was coming from the indicator swich contacts, after cleaning it all up the plastic between them was slightly pitted, this then filled with grease which allowed current to pass between the contacts. To repair it the plastic must be cleaned with solvent then, I used araldite to fill the pitting. This was last summer and I've not had any more smoke since then.

As far as modding the inlet manifold I cleaned up the casting marks, making sure eveything is smooth. Make sure you do not have a step at the joints, i.e. make sure the ports on the head are slightly larger than the ajoining manifold parts. I did a lot of work on the exhaust manifold - on No.3 cylinder there is a large disruption of airflow, this is because VW needed to allow room to get one of the manifold to head bolts on. I managed to remove alot of this plus opened up the surrounding pipe work to account for it. I'll let you know how it runs in the next week or so.

The intake ports where the manifold joins to the head are of a smaller cross sectional area than the smaller manifold, so unless you have much larger ports than standard, I can't see there being an advantage with the larger intake manifold.

I have looked into re-chipping my 9A engine. I've spoken to loads of people about including Bosch, who advised there is not much which can be done with it to increase power on a standard engine. Got the head off at the moment and gas flowing it and the manifolds. I have got a KR inlet cam but will probably get fast road ones in few months.

For anyone interested in dome D.I.Y head work, its worth looking on the VW vortex forum. http://forums.vwvortex.com/zerothread?&id=1240027 There are section photos of 16v heads showing waterways etc. Very interesting reading!

Cheers Smiff, the more info I can get the better - printing it out as I type this! . My next door neighbour has a compressor and die grinder and also happens to have modified motorbike cylinder heads when he used to drag race them. Has anyone got any photos of a flowed 1.8 or 2.0 16v head, that would be really useful because it would show specific details of how the pros modify them.

I've spoken to TSR and C&R, neither of which were that useful. Also spoke to Grant motorsport, he was very helpful and seemed genuinly interested in my car. Also looking at moding my head myself, which I just read a book all about, plus I'm quite experienced with engines anyway. Also I am considering a new set of cams, I currently have 2.0 16v with a KR inlet cam. Can anyone give me any tips in flowing/porting a 16v head?

I had an 82 Mk1 1600 GTI, very low hard suspension, could not put up with it every day though. I wanted to replace it with a Corrado but could not afford it and got an 8v 1990 Mk2, which was almost as much fun and handled almost as well. Finally got my Corrado and so far have been dissapointed with the handling, I have gas shocks, 35mm lowered springs polly front suspension bushes. It still is not as chuckable as the MK1 and I'm not as confident in it, although I'm trying std rear springs at the moment because it has a tendancy to break away at the rear, its definately better with the softer springs, but it does not make me grin like the good old MK1.