Kevin Bacon

Carbon build up on piston crowns and the back of valves was a lot more common then and the Redex treatment was a proven way of preventing and reducing it

Yeah fuels and oils have improved a lot.

After 60K miles on a rebuilt VR6 engine, which was used exclusively on Optimax / V Power, the port side of intake valves looked like new. The piston crowns were brown with oil deposits, but they just wiped off with a cloth back to bare metal.

There must be different MK3 subframes then as mine wasn't even close to fitting! If you get one that fits, it sounds like the way to go :)

Thanks fellas ill jepp all this in mind when making a purchase , and glad you have told me about the judder !! Mine seems ok although there is sometimes a light squeely sound when i set off in first

 

Kev i agree with you about fat thing lol , i do know its on its way but to be honest i must have just got used to it and automatically adapted to how high it bites !

Well test it properly at weekend and see if its dead

A new clutch is a revelation after getting used to a heavy knackered one! Like losing 2 stone over night :lol:

Suspension is the same. Dampers start wearing out and you adapt to it automatically. Re-suspensioned Corrados feel awesome. Like going from rough to buff over night :lol:

Good point about the release bearing actuator arm, they can start to bend as the clutch gets heavier.

that's what I thought.... but when I changed mine they were SNR. I've had the car since day one and know they were the original.

They tend to change brands throughout a product life cycle. What ever is cheapest and meets the minimum requirements is what ends up in the parts warehouses. I've seen 3 different brands of serpentine belt for the VR6 in 9 years of ownership. Gates, Continental and some Japanese make I can't remember. All OEM from the stealer.

Manufacturers say to check the tyres once a week but most drivers dont do that.

 

For a person on any forum to say, you need to set your tyres at this pressure is still only a guesstimate and should not be taken as gospel.

The handbooks recommend doing all manner of checks before setting off on journeys, but do people ever bother? Only the fastidious do!

Tyre pressure and oil levels are also things that seldom change between services on modern cars, which breeds laziness.

Agreed on the second point! I've dished out my fair share of opinions over the years, but I've come to learn that OEMs really do know better than we do! :)

The pressure they specify is a compromise over many 1000s of miles of testing to maintain a good contact patch with good wear rates.

Given the importance of tyres, I find the whole stretching thing baffling to be honest, but we were all young once (some of us still are, lol) and get hooked into trends. Unfortunately, meddling with tyres doesn't always give immediate results. They're not like engines that either work or they don't. It can be many days, weeks, months or years before you come a cropper from fiting inappropriate rubber, but it WILL bite you in the arse eventually.

I wish I'd learned cause & effect at a much earlier age as I've done some dumb ar$e things during my car career, but the OP has learned from his mistakes. Some people don't and end up in a ditch :)

Doesn't surprise me. That will affect 1000s of MK3 Golfs!!

Cheers for that /\

Might be worth typing it out as a list and stickying the post.

Jim, I wouldn't use Febi parts tbh. Stick to the genuine stuff!

Why not stick it in and keep the VR6 engine for a rainy day? You could even slowly rebuild it over time.

Do you have any authenticity paperwork with it? I think a Corrado with an Oettinger 1.8T could be a good investment.

I'm more interested in go than noise, but I know I what you mean about the VR. it gets under your skin!

Yeah please do!

It would be good to check the intake valves and piston crowns before and after the treatment, but it's a right faff on the VR6.

Strange name for an engine cleaner! I'm sure I read / heard it was originally made for marine engines? The yanks have sworn by it for years.

Some of their stuff really does work, such as Q-bond, K-Seal & redline oils, but a lot of it is also snake oil!

As David says, I suspect the better running is down the seafoam / petrol mixture in the tank. Most of these cleaners are kerosene basically, with a bit of tolulene added (very high octane) and some oil (upper cylinder lubricant). These burn better than petrol and oil in the fuel will make any engine run a bit smoother.

Not knocking it though. Providing it does actually shift the crud and not just burn the product off, then cleaned piston crowns and spark plug tips can help prevent pre-ignition.

One engine that really does need this is the TFSI as the intake ports and valves clag up with crud like diesels.

Even more annoyingly, the clutch is dead smooth for a few weeks, and then it starts juddering :lol:

DMFs have to be the biggest con ever. LUK have cornered the market, so no matter what make of car or how small it is, you always have to pay LUK shed loads of money for a DMF. Car manufacturers must have been hoodwinked by LUK somehow as the old fashioned SMF + sprung clutch disc worked perfectly fine for many years.

Seems a good price for a peice of history from a well respected tuning house.

I think more details of what's special about that engine over a regular AGU would help oil the marketing wheels a bit more :) Aside from the turbo, does it have stronger rods, different cams, different pistons etc etc?

As a newbie 1.8T buyer, it would be easy to skip this in favour of the more powerful BAM engine, unless there's something unique about this one?

Clutches are hit and miss on the VR6. Sometimes they judder (irrespective of brand / source) and sometimes they don't.

During my battle of the clutch many moons ago, I had a new VW flywheel fitted as well as a new VW clutch and it still bl00dy juddered. It seems that what ever secret blend of herbs and spices VW sprinkled onto their factory fitted clutches, just cannot be found anywhere else!

One thing's for sure, at 115,000 it's well and truly past it. It may not be slipping all the time, but past half worn, the pedal gets very heavy and the bite point gets higher and higher. Wearing clutches and suspension is like getting fat. You don't notice it happening until one day, someone calls you a fat git :)

FWIW, Valeo clutches seem to give the fewest juddering issues.

1) Does the MK3 one actually fit? I tried offering one up many moons ago and not only were the locating dowels misaligned, the bolt holes were too. I'm sure it could be modified to fit but the dowels lining up is kind of critical for panel alignment really. If it's not a direct fit, I would swerve it personally.

2) Correct. Equally cr@p.

3) Done that but it was still sh1te. Needed a new motor as well. It seems once the nice smooth black anodised layer wears off, the plastic feet on the guides just dig their heels in and the motor struggles like hell to move them.

Weld the hole up is probably the best option! But if you can get MK3 or MK4 Golf ones to fit, they are the most reliable.

German cars seem to bring the aggressive out of people. The makers of that program should come and film in the South East of England and they'll see plenty of base spec Audis and BMWs being driven aggressively.

If the head is off, measure the bores. 82mm for 2.9, 81mm for 2.8. If you can't see the engine number, there is no way of telling aside from the intake manifold, but they can be fitted to 2.8s easily enough. There is a "2.8" casting on the back of the block, but that's on both the 2.8 & 2.9.

Either the mocal thermostat has jammed shut or the oil temp sender / MFA is lying.

Was hoping you'd pop in to confirm :)

But they could drive through every speed camera in your area and get you banned though :)

The VW procedure is to do it with the ignition on and I think start with the rear calipers, then the fronts, but I don't think it matters really so long as you flush each corner good and proper.

Sounds to me like the ABS pump needs stripping down and cleaning out etc. Do a search for KipVR's threads as he did that himself a few years ago. There's no need to replace it. They just get crudded up through lack of use. It's a good idea to activate the ABS on quiet roads from time to time to keep the valves moving freely.

There are nipples on the ABS unit and the Master cylinder, although these aren't normally bled.

It's nice to switch to a coloured DOT4 like ATE super blue or Motul. That way you can see when all the old crud is flushed through.

I bet a good proportion of those are SORNed for breaking.

What a common car though. I'm so glad I upgraded to a rarer car :D

Need a few boxes in that one though. I have one on mine but Im adding a centre silencer in as it is loud at motorway speeds. Agree it sounds brilliant though.

The one I linked to should be the Dual borla one, or do you mean adding a 3rd silencer? I didn't get even a hint of drone with my dual borla and I didn't hear any in Mic's car either, which was a 24V and that has a tonne more drone than a 12V.

I do wonder if it depends on how well fitted the system is; I have a two box Jetex setup and to be honest it's a bit boringly quiet... Was fitted by a reputable VW specialist and is easily drowned out by the BMC when at full chat,and by wind noise (which isn't that loud) on the motorway...

Drone and noise are subjective though and I think it could be engine related. Maybe some are just quieter than others? I remember a week after getting my Milltek fitted, I started getting headaches. The drone at exactly 70 (typical!) was unbearable. Went back to the factory to get a 3rd silencer fitted, still no better. But other people say theirs is quiet, so it's hard to know what to make of forum opinions sometimes :)

It's the same mentality people have when giving a rental car a good thrashing, but the brain dead morons who infect some dealers and bodyshops have no self control, no respect, think they're clever, think they're funny and need an aluminium baseball bat taking to the backs of their heads.

We have a Supercar dealer round the corner from my office and when walking to Tesco at lunch times, I always see young technicians thrashing Ferraris, Porsches, Maseratis etc around the estate. I've also seen them in the town centre with their overalls removed trying to pick up girls in customers cars!!

I have to say, some of these Ferraris sound bloody awful at urban speeds.

My old Standlone had a Valet mode. I could restrict the throttle opening and / or rpm. Very handy. It also logged rpm etc, so I could see if some chump redlined it frequently. I'm pretty sure the newer VAGs have all this as well.

Unfortunately Jetex and Milltek use cheapo thin wall stainless tubing and thin walled silencers (and not very big silencers at that) and 2.5" bore. All of these cause drone, especially the combination of stainless + bigger bore. As David said, that big old suitcase does a fantastic job of eating drone. The stock system also used 2.25" mild steel tubing which keeps the noise down too.

ChargerCharger, the *only* aftermarket exhaust I fitted to my VR6 that wasn't droney was this one - http://techtonicstuning.com/main/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=2_138_139_301&products_id=663

MicVR on here had one too and we both agreed it was bassier at low rpms, then silent from 3000rpm up. It's a really well made exhaust but you don't get any fancy tailpipes with it. Just a plain 2.5" outlet. You could always weld a stock tailpipe onto the end of it, but we liked the stealthy pea shooter look :)

4 things I find useful in a meter:-

1) Backlit LCD for those dark areas

2) Current measurement of at least 20A for parasitic load tests.

3) A range of lead ends, including crocodile clips.

4) Buzzer for continuity testing

The price difference is sometimes caused by option 2 as it needs much heavier duty circuitry.