Kevin Bacon

Would love to see more on that SD1. The little video on YouTube only leaves you wanting more. There's some good videos on Jay Leno's Garage YouTube channel though - he's got a Bentley with a Merlin engine :)

Indeed. Trouble is I just don't like Jay Leno! :)

It's amazing the work Charlie put into that SD1 though! He had to use a gearbox from a bus that stepped up the revs cause the Merlin runs so slow. Then he had to get a custom ECU from Dave Walker at Emerald to run the 24 spark plugs! Then he converted it to EFI. Then there was something about the cams, cause they don't exist for Merlins! And ridiculously enough, it wasn't powerful enough to achieve 200mph! Hence the turbo and making his own dyno. He reckons he needs over 600hp, but as it stood it was making nowhere near that, for what ever reason.

Only option is to grind the journals flat again and use oversize bearing caps....but not sure that's doable on a head like it is crank journals as there's no separate bearing.

Do you remember the guys fitting the merlin engine to a rover SD1? Was a few years ago now.

Aye, Charlie Broomer in PPC mag! Last I heard he was building his own dyno and turboing it, but that was aaaaaages ago! It's not been mentioned in the mag for months.

Reminds me of Brutus -

After my experience with Vetech wheel bearings from GSF, I wouldn't touch them with a barge pole!

Historically VAG engines have had issues with coolant so it's wise to stick to genuine. They're constantly improving it and G13 has extra lubricants and rust inhibitors in it to extend water pump life etc.

It's like putting the whole class in detention because 1 student misbehaved. How do we know this producer didn't deserve a smack in the chops? We've only been given one side of the story. Clarkson should have been suspended rather than sacked, but canning the whole show and p1ssing off millions of fans is just childish sanctimonious horse schitt that is so typical of draconian organisations like the BBC.

If TG goes back to the 90s tweed jacket and tan trousers format again, focussing on boring nonsense like mpg, it will flop big time.

Don't worry about it. Plenty of VRT boys have given their standard shafts a good shafting and they've held up fine! If you really want to over engineer it though, Drive Shaft Shop in America do some indestructible shaft n CV sets.

No worries. I'm not gonna bother now as the clutch is booked in for 3rd April and there's no way I'll get one sorted before then.

Fair dos! My particular BDB ECU would only work with a floor mounted pedal. It's an odd engine that one!

The interior loom, which is the power supply (MAF, Lambdas, ECU etc) and pedal loom, often gets chopped by careless breakers as it goes inside the car.

If you're using a BDB engine or a BUB, you will need a floor mounted pedal. If you're using a MK4 engine, you can use either a floor one or a bulkhead one.

I know a boosted VR6 engine isn't anything new or special these days

I beg to differ, a boosted VR6 is always special!

A lot of the ME7 stuff is a simple byte change - on or off, which works with things like the MAF etc, but for some reason it doesn't like the absence of an SAI signal and without that, you don't get any long term fuel trimming. I suspect some of the core emissions controls are just not available for full disabling?

Pleased to say I just got the VR reinsured at a great price finally. Lynbrook Insurance who I've used in recent years, and who a good friend of mine insurers a Scirocco with just came back with a price of £173. Needless to say I could barely get my card details out fast enough.

 

That's a real result. Thanks Lynbrook :)

That almost seems too cheap, given both the broker and the underwriter are making a profit! Still, don't look a gift horse in the mouth :)

Agreed on the inconsistency of insurance. You never know what to expect from one year to the next, but it's definitely getting cheaper I think. I just renewed my Ed30 at £284 based on 15K miles a year and no garage. That is by far the cheapest insurance I've had....on any car.....ever. A bit of a shock to the system as I'm still used to paying a grand to insure the VRT!

I just put a switch across the black temp sender on my dash. Full speed on demand and it drops the idling temps right down pretty damn sharpish! Only drawback is the mahoosive current draw when it kicks in, so the engine will stammer for a second or two.

Mine used to pull 1.5 amps with everything off. Turned out to be a defective C/L controller, which is behind the driver's side rear 'door' card.

I don't see what the problem is in leaving the relay in place? It hardly takes up a lot of space. The fact of the matter is Vince at Stealth went through all the SAI maps in the ECU (about 20 of them) disabling all instances of it's operation, but the ECU still threw a code if the relay was removed. As for why, I personally didn't care. Was happy to just leave the relay connected. I'm no automotive electrical expert but I guess the ECU must see the circuit made across pins 85 and 86 of the relay. 86 could be feed from another area of the ECU, not sure?

Yeah I just read on PistonHeads that he sold his share......and that he allegedly punched someone because there was no catering arrangements on the last show :lol:

Jesus wept, first world f'cking problems :roll:

I still get confused by the relationship between Top Gear and the BBC. I assumed Top Gear was independently produced and sold to the BBC but evidently not. Do the BBC still own some part of it?

From what I've read, Clarkson has a 50% share in TG, but the BBC can choose whether or not to air it.

Frankly, it's absolutely pathetic of the BBC to punish every single license payer just because Clarkson and some other bloke had a punch up (allegedly). Big f'cking deal. Do they stop airing football matches because of a dirty tackle? Of course they don't. Someone high up in the Beeb obviously just doesn't like JC for whatever reason and looked for an excuse to pull the show.

More people like JC than don't like him and consequently there's a massive petition going on somewhere to reinstate the show.

Bloody ell, the wanderer returns!

G60's are getting hard to find though - think they're going to attain real world classic status (in terms of prices) quicker than the VR is.

I'm 50/50 on that one. The G60 was the first 'fast' Corrado and the G-Lader engine is shared with the Rallye, so there's some motorsport links there, but in terms of popularity, the VR wins hands down. It's the one people remember, especially the journalists when they first tested it. The valver was cited as too slow and the G60 was kind of in limbo between the two.

The 60 is rarer for sure, but that engine is an unknown quantity to Corrado newbies and the fragility of the charger can cause scary bills. At least with shagged bores, the VR is still usable.

Worth resetting the codes, using car and scanning again. I found faults show up in vagcom if you have pulled a plug on a component.

You normally just get ABS codes because the back wheels aren't turning.

Standard VR making 197 and a standard ST making 212, figures seem a tad high.

That's normal on a cold day. In all the years we've done dyno days there, VR6s always pick up 10hp over the winter months. As for Jim's, that's just turbo cars for you. They're all like that.

UK VR boxes are pretty much all the same ratios I believe with a few different codes. None of the UK ones came with 3.68 or similar FD as far as I know.

3.39 as standard. The US SLC got the 3.68 as standard to make up for the lack of power compared to the Euro VR6.

Balls indeed! I was getting ready to dust off my credit card at that price!

So.... what are the difference between the Schimmel and the Schricks - advantages of each please?

Schrick's bugger the idle quality, SP263s don't. 263s also give more torque everywhere, the Schricks just move what torque you had further up the revs.