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Hey, This little project has been in the pipeline for several months now, and a few members on here already know of its existence. However been as though I'm about to take the plunge and rip my Corrado apart I thought I might as well start a thread detailing roughly whats going on. Firstly, some of you probably know my 8V. It was my first Corrado, I bought it in 2008 and spent a happy year owning, maintaining and improving it. I then sold it to a local guy and bought a VR6 which I also owned for a year. However, moving into my own place meant I needed to free up some capital so the VR6 had to go. The day the VR sold I saw my old 8V driving past with a 'for sale' poster in the window. I followed it back to the guys house and eventually struck a deal to buy it back. Result - some capital free'd up and I was still in a Corrado :) Here's the 8V (and the VR for good measure): There's something else though, while running the VR I also had a brief fling with a Mk2 Ibiza TDi (90bhp) which I bought cheaply for the missus to learn to drive in. It was a great car, nice and torquey but still great on fuel (55mpg +) and with plenty of tuning potential. I sold the Ibiza to Matt (Leonard) on here just before buying the 8V back, but even though I'd only owned it for a short amount of time it had planted the seed of an idea in my head, here's a picture: Soooo...where was I...oh yeah, inspiration. I bought the 8V, ran it for a while and in September 2010 my Dad decided that he didn't need the Discovery TDi that he was using as a daily and asked me to help him find a more practical daily driver with a similar internal capacity. 'Passat B4 TDi' sprang into my head as I'm slightly biased towards VW and I knew that they could be picked up cheaply in reasonable condition - so an eBay search ensued and not long afterwards I found a 150k Passat B4 GL TDi a couple of miles down the road, with FSH and 2 owners from new for £400. It was immediately purchased and my Dad was a happy chap. I was also a chap with a head full of ideas, as while researching for Passat information on the internet I'd discovered http://www.tdiclub.com - an American website devoted to the VW TDi range of engines. While having an innocent browse I'd also discovered a member called 'G60ing' who happened to have built two Corrado TDi's over in the states. Reading his build threads over on VWVortex led me to think more and more about the possibility of doing my own TDi conversion. More research, including finding 'Mikkijayne' on this forum and Vortex, led me to discover that the ideal donor vehicle for such a conversion into a Corrado is a Passat B4 TDi - exactly the vehicle I'd bought for my Dad! The B4 is ideal because it is essentially a Corrado in all the bits that matter. The clocks are the same so are literally plug and play, the engine wiring loom is seperate from the headlamp loom (unlike the much more common Mk3 Golf TDi) and a lot of the other bits are a simple swap onto the Corrado, even as far as the fuel filter bracket on the O/S suspension turret. Further research led me to establish that the B4 GL TDi (not CL) was the one to go for, as that spec level featured the MFA as an optional extra, which I really wanted to retain on the Corrado. I established that if I could find a B4 GL TDi donor (with MFA) then pretty much everything would be a straight swap onto my Corrado, as they both run CE2 electrics so everything *should* work. About the same time as all of this was happening I had bought another Corrado VR6 which turned out to be a total rust bucket and potential moneypit. I soon decided that it wasn't worth trying to get back on the road and set out to break it. However, the widetrack running gear wasn't going anywhere as I decided my potential Corrado-8V-TDi would really benefit from being widetrack and therefore 5-stud, allowing a much wider range of wheels and of course the possibility of better, bigger brakes. So the VR6 unfortunately met a slightly sad end but parts of it are on probably 50 other Corrado's so its not all bad! Just after christmas my Dad asked me to help with the cambelt change on his B4, so round I went to help him do that... While working on it he happened to mention that the car was due for an MOT fairly soon and that it would need discs/pads/caliper rebuilds all round as the brakes were constantly seizing on. He knew all about my TDi plans and I asked him whether he'd be willing to let me buy him another B4 (in better condition but not necessarily a GL), so I could have his B4 as a donor vehicle. The long and short of it is that the answer was yes, I found him a really tidy B4 CL TDi in sherry pearl (the same colour as my Corrado!), and I ended up with his old B4 GL sat in my garage as a TDi donor 2 days after I'd finished breaking the VR6 and scrapped the shell :) Here's the MFA clocks with the MPG potential: So...my plan was this: Corrado 8V 1.9 TDi 1Z engine (90bhp - 142lb/ft as standard) Widetrack running gear front and rear Reconditioned suspension components 288mm brakes Mk4 rear calipers There are quite a few things to do apart from just dropping the engine into place. Firstly I have had as many of the widetrack suspension components and 288mm brakes blasted and powdercoated black (thanks Mark and Dave!): I've also been thinking about lots of other things, such as enlarging the fuel filler neck (diesel fuel nozzles are bigger!), fitting a front mounted intercooler and pipework as the Passat one doesn't fit at all, sorting out fuel lines, ensuring that the exhaust will work ok and of course making sure the engine bay and inner bulkhead is suitably soundproofed - I don't want a rough, unrefined car. Then there's the tuning potential. Advice from tdiclub.com pointed me in the direction of the AFN engine, which is a 110bhp lump fitted with a VNT (variable vane) turbo as standard. They were fitted to the Galaxy/Sharan/Passat B5/Audi A4/Seat Toledo and a few other models and they will work quite nicely with the Passat B4 engine loom. However they are £500+ on eBay and I couldn't justify that. So more research established that the AHU (Mk3 Golf, Mk2 Ibiza) engine (90bhp, no VNT) is an AFN in every way apart from the lack of VNT. I looked for AHU's and they fetch about £200 - even better. Then I looked at the difference between the AHU engine and the 1Z as fitted to my donor B4 and found out that there really isn't much difference between them at all - 3lb/ft and a small amount of difference to the internals. I decided that the best thing to do would be to get the conversion running and then worry about tuning later on - however a set of injectors will see me at 120bhp from 90bhp with no other modifications so that'll do to begin with. Couple that with a VNT turbo, PD130 inlet manifold, a remap and a couple of other small modifications and I should see 150-160bhp with approaching 300 lb/ft of torque which I think would be plenty for a daily driver. One final modification that I'm planning on doing while the conversion takes place is an upgrade to the later type ABS system thats fitted to the Passat. Its made by ATE and basically gets rid of the annoying ABS ECU (it's integrated into the pump) and the even more annoying rear brake compensator valve. The ABS sensors are the same as the Corrado and the bracket that mounts it to the bulkhead is even the same - job's a good'un! I'm planning on replacing all of the brake pipes anyway so it makes sense to quickly fit the new ABS system while I'm at it. Wiring should be fairly simple too as the Corrado and Passat are essentially the same in the wiring department. I took the Corrado off the road at the end of February in readiness for the conversion and happened to buy the old Ibiza back from Matt to use as a daily while I carry out the conversion - it all worked out rather well really! I think that's about everything, hopefully you're not bored to death reading about it by now!! This weekend just gone I set about removing the engine from the Passat, which was nice and straightforward: The Passat will be weighed in this Saturday coming (2nd April) and then the Corrado will be coming home as I've got the next week booked off ready to do the majority of the work. I'll also be replacing the heater matrix and a few other bits and bobs while I'm at it. I think thats about it - plenty more to come but its going to be done for Stanford Hall on the 1st May, that is my self enforced deadline and I really don't like missing deadlines ;) Thanks for reading, keep an eye out for more updates Tom