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Kevin Bacon

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Everything posted by Kevin Bacon

  1. If you consider how close the cylinders are to eachother on a VR6, it's no wonder it runs hot. A W12 must generate enough heat to warm a small village during the Winter! When I first picked up my VR, it was running at 114-118 degrees cruising at 80mph, which is too hot for my liking. I installed a Mocal oil cooler and it sits at 96-98 at the same speed, and 102-104 at a constant 100mph, which is more like it. Kev 94 VR6
  2. Don't worry about the chains until you need to. There are a lot of urban myths about the chains. If the VR6 used a cam belt, the engine would approx be 1.5-2" wider and therefore wouldn't fit in the engine bay. Have a look at how much clearance there is on the airbox side chassis leg and you'll see what I mean. If your VR is stalling regularly, hook it up to VAG-COM and see if the idle valve is OK (N71). Cleaning the idle valve helps for a while and replacing it sometimes cures the problem for good, but not always. As for working on VR6 heads, it's not a pleasant job. The camshaft end gear bolts are very tight. Make sure you use a VAG headgasket and make sure it's the revised one. Might be an idea to replace the two plastic tensioners whilst you're there. A flowed head if done properly can give good results. Try Stealth Racing or http://www.hiflowheads.co.uk/ Cheers Kev 94 VR6
  3. If it was a VTS (16V) Saxo, they are pretty quick. They only way about 900Kg though. Corrados significantly more! The book speed for a standard G60 is not that impressive due to the odd gearing. The Saxo VTS's 0-60 time is lower than 8 seconds. Just some things to consider, don't be too disheartened. My VR6 struggles to keep up with some embarrassing cars too. Kev 94 VR6
  4. Sort of.....RON (Research Octane Number) is a measure of the fuel's resistance to knock when compressed. It is because of high octane fuels in the 80s that engine designers could safely raise the compression ratio to give more squish, and then more bang for buck. When 95 unleaded came around in the late 80s/early 90s, engine designers were forced to either lower the CR or include knock sensing circuitry. If you notice a difference, then by all means use it. Some engines respond well to Optimax, others don't. Shell in all their marketing wisdom insist that you don't get the full benefits unless used continuously. How much of that is the truth or down to revenue gathering remains to be seen, but mixing Optimax with 95 won't give you the full benefit, I'm sure. What I've noticed though is how much variance there is between filling stations. One tank of Optimax from one Shell station could give fantastic results, whilst filling from another actually makes my car underperform or yields no difference. VW state in the manual that if you're worried about the quality of fuel, use 98 RON. The petrol flap says "95 Oktan Min" so basically the knock sensing circuitry will have been optimised for 95 since it is the lowest Octane you can get in the UK and universally availabe. Using 98 Octane will allow the knock circuitry to relax a little, although my VR has never pinked on 95 UL. The manual says you can use 95, can't argue with that. Maybe my knock sensors aren't working, I don't know, but it seems to prefer 95. Yep I realise that, for a start you've not got 4 x tyre resistance or wind/air pressure to contend with but my car was on the rollers for half a day and consistently put out 200bhp. It's just a benchmark figure and indicates how healthy the engine is, regardless of what it does on the road. Motorway cars have less carbon build up resulting in a cleaner burn, hence the variance in readings but it's never massively different from that reason alone, a few hp + or -. Glad someone has done a optimax/95 back to back test as I've been wondering about that. At the end of the day, use what ever fuel suits your car and your wallet but you can't say "use 98 only because that's what it says on the tin" because most petrol engines these days can run on anything, except of course diesel. It's like arguing over what boot polish is better for your shoes because one has slightly better shine agents but your shoes can take any polish. Horses for courses! Kev 94 VR6
  5. No you're not mate! My car is still sporting the agricultural ride height! Kev 94 VR6
  6. The more grease you apply to the runners, the less chance you'll have of shearing off one or both of the cable guides. Once they do snap, it's down to the scrappy to get a 95-97 passat roof mechanism and subframe. A chap where I live has done a few moonroof conversions to Corrados and I'm next in line :D Most passats had air conditioning and hence no sunroof, so if you come across one, snap it up immediately. Kev 94 VR6
  7. There's a MK2 Golf GTI on GT4, there must be a Corrado, surely? There's 1000s of cars on this version, apparently. I read an article in Evo about the inventor of GT and he is so valuable to Sony, that he's not allowed to pursue motor racing, which he really wants to do! Ode to being in demand, eh? Kev 94 VR6
  8. I think the pagids work best with either VAG standard discs or their own black grooved or OE discs. To be honest I've found all the pads to be pretty similar, except Green Stuff, which really are bad. Stick to what you know and like mate! Kev 94 VR6
  9. The bottom tab on the slam panel that secures the headlight can sometimes bend causing misalignment. I had to fiddle with this on mine to get the lights lined up but it only did it on the driver's side. It's fine now. Kev 94 Vr6
  10. Another reason they judder a bit is because of the idle quality. If the engine idles roughly (as mine does) then this is reflected in the bite smoothness. Mine is fine from 800rpm but at 650rpm where it idles, it just judders. When the car has a good day and idles cleanly, the judder dissappears. Kev 94 VR6
  11. Err yes that is bad, the wheel coming off is bad enough, but the resultant damage to the brake disc, strut and bodywork is worse. Much damage? How come your wheel bolts became so loose as to cause this? Vandalism? My mate had all 4 wheels' nut's loosened (deliberately) on his Audi 90 several years ago. 3 fell off on the motorway at 80 mph. The car was written off due to the underfloor damage and 2 cars hit his wheels causing frontal damage. There are some f'cked up, very sick individuals out there. Kev 94 Vr6
  12. Sorry, meant to say that is just for the bottom half of the manifold. You also need the long 4 hole gasket that joins this to the 'banana' bunch. Another thing I've found that helps with valvers is to run an earth strap from the inlet manifold to direct to the battery negative terminal. I used to use those black cables that Halfords sell by the batteries. Secure it to the manifold under one of the 13mm nuts. Cheers Kev
  13. The 50mm manifold should give more pull at the top end, but at the slight expense of bottom end. Swapping the manifolds works on some engines and has no change on others, it's a 'suck it and see' thing. A full manifold overhaul includes the following:- 4 x brass injector seats 4 x brass injector seat seals (black) 4 x Orange/brown plastic injector guide tubes 4 x lower injector seals (black graphite coated) 4 x upper injector seals (green) The whole lot comes to about £50 and gives a really nice idle. Cheers Kev 94 VR6
  14. Kevin Bacon

    VR6 chip?

    That is a lot for £250! You can spend more than that on an air filter and not even get half that increase. AmD's website quote an increase of 12-15bhp. If you get 15, that's exceptional value. Kev 94 Vr6
  15. Not sure on the compression figures of the VR but it's CR is 10:1, so figures around 180+ should be about right....I think! Ask Vince at Stealth Racing, he'll know for sure. The only place I've seen Corrados rust is around the driver's side repeater and on the front driver's arch lip. The passenger side doesn't seem to rot! You can get small amount behind the rear number plate trim where it clips into the metal work. Other than that, Corrados seem to fend off rust quite well. Kev 94 VR6
  16. All I know is that normal OE pagids produce jet black dust and the Fast road pads generate a dark brown dust, which tends to stick to the wheel more tenaciously!! Kev 94 VR6
  17. Yeah and the driveshafts will clobber the chassis legs over big bumps and pretty much ride on the bump stops all the while! With the VR6 at least, I feel VW got the ride stiffness and damping spot on but they could have given the car a neater ride height though, especially at the rear! I've had the rear of my car laden with 3 bikes, luggage and toolboxes and the ride height stayed exactly the same! I think 1.5" arch clearance is spot on, not 4 inches!! Mind you, even with my tractor ride height, I still clout the chin spoiler regularly. Maybe VW weren't so daft after all? Kev 94 VR6
  18. Badging techniques! VR = old engine, V6 = new engine! VW are big on red badges at the moment which distuinguish certain engine types. For example, GT - red I = 20V T, GTI all in silver = 2.0 8V. TDI = 90bhp, TD red I = 110bhp, T red D red I = 130/150bhp or now it's GT T red D red I. I don't think that many people actually understood what "VR"6 meant, but everybody knows what a "V"6 is. Just a guess! Kev 94 VR6, or should that be V6, or inline V6?
  19. Optimax has different effects on different engines. Some see no difference at all where as others love it. My 16v used to like Optimax but in my VR6, it just doesn't feel as torquey compared to 95 UL. I'm not overly convinced every batch of Optimax is the same either as I've had different results from different filling stations. Perhaps some of it is a placebo effect, like air filters and exhausts? Optimax does make the engine run a little smoother but I think that's just down to an upper cylinder lubricant. Using Redex would give the same result, in theory. If you're not sure it's doing anything, don't use it and don't be suckered in by Shell's marketing tactics. All good fuels (not supermarket stuff) contain detergents, anti-oxidants, stabilisers etc etc so your valves are not going to gum up like Shell claim if you stop using Optimax. Cheers Kev 94 VR6
  20. Erm, not too bad to be honest, since getting it in Feb, it's had the following done:- New clutch, top mounts, Engine speed sensor, cam position sensor, plugs, air filter, fuel filter, coil pack, HT leads, VT front mount, Turn2 gearbox mount and new pads and front discs. The coil pack I got cheap anyway and that and the leads were just done as a process of elimination, so didn't really need doing. The other stuff is just regular servicing bits or done for my own satisfaction, like the brakes and engine mounts as they didn't strictly need doing either, I'm just fussy! The only 'issues' I've still got are noisy tappets, non working sunroof and a messed up heater direction knob (still!) which are all common C stuff! RE the VAG-COM, just order it from Ross tech mate and be done with it! I contemplated making one up but it's not that easy and if you damage the brain, you've got no comeback! I ordered mine on a wednesday afternoon and it was at my house on Friday morning courtesy of DHL. Plus if you register (which you can only do upon purchasing the cable), you are entitled to software updates etc etc Cheers Kev 94 VR6
  21. I disagree with that, my standard VR6 makes 200bhp on the nail with 193lb/ft torque on regular 95 Unleaded. Proven on Stealth's rollers in March. I find Esso 97 RON Super Unleaded is better than Optimax. Optimax is roughly 78p a litre and Esso 97 is nearer 80p litre, depending where you live. Nobody knows what is in Optimax but as a guess it contains a number of detergents and an upper cylinder lubricant. To get 98.6 RON, they just refine it to that level, rather than putting expensive octane boosters in 95. Kev 94 VR6
  22. I removed mine buy heating the strips with a hair dryer (for like 20 minutes!) and then cutting the double sided adhesive strips with dental floss. They literally fall off if you do that. Once the strips are off, you can use some Evostik solvent (called glue remover) which breaks down the remaining glue and just rubs off. Don't worry, this stuff doesn't attack acrylic paint but if you think your car is painted with cellulose, don't use it. Once the strips were off, I didn't like the look of it as it made the car look bare and vunerable and augments the panel gaps and looks untidy. So I colour coded my strips and reattached them which looks great whilst retaining the knock protection. Beware though as paint sprayers use the side strips as a reference point for blow overs, so you may not like what you see when they're removed. Cheers Kev 94 VR6
  23. Pagid Fast Road pads do not have the same compound as their OE pads and Pagid are the OE supplier to Porsche, Audi, VW to name but a few. Green stuff pads are utter shite, I was at Stealth when Vince was on the phone to the EBC sales rep and I overheard Vince saying that after 3000 miles they still hadn't improved and he had to left foot brake to get any real bite. When I picked up my VR in Feb I noticed it had poor brakes, but a quick look under the wheels soon revealed why, yep, Green stuff pads all round. So Vince whipped em off and fitted Pagid grooved discs and FR pads all round. The transformation was unbelievable. I used to use Mintex 1144s quite a bit on my Golf 16V, they were OK but were hard on discs and used to make a horrid grinding noise when cold and wet, plus they needed plenty of heat to come alive. The Pagids need no preheating and are imo excellent all rounders. You can only find your ideal pad through experimentation unfortunately but with 10 years+ of VW ownership, I've found the FRs hard to beat and they don't squeal at all on my car, which is interesting. Must be something to do with the grooved front discs? Cheers Kev 94 Vr6
  24. Kevin Bacon

    Smoking VR6

    Oh and re your smoke at idle problem, almost certainly valve guides/seals mate. At idle and on overrun there is slight vacuum in the chambers which pulls in oil through the worn stem seals. When you then press the throttle to pull away, that sucked in oil is burnt off. If the blue smoke continues whilst accelerating, you have bore wear, which by the sounds of it you don't. I would say you've just caught it in time and you should plan for a head rebuild in the near future. You can of course just change the seals with the head in situ but this is usually only done as temporary measure as worn guides will eat new seals pretty quickly. You say 'only' 100K, but that is the average head service life for the majority of cars and I've seen a few 8V Golf GTI's need a head job at 80,000 miles! It's an old cliche, but it's all down to how the car is treated. I'm sure you've looked after it well, but what about the previous owners? Cheers Kev 94 VR6
  25. Kevin Bacon

    Smoking VR6

    Mobil 1 'Motorsport' is their 15/50W stuff and it's got a picture of an F1 car on the can. Halfords sell it but it ain't cheap and you need 6 litres of it, so you'll need to buy 1 x 4 litre can and 2 x 1 litre bottles or 2 x 4 litre cans and use the remaining 2 litres for top ups. I used to use it in my 16V Turbo and it's thick enough not to burnt in droves. I just use VWs own Quantum silver stuff, 15W/40 which is fine. The engine doesn't seem to use hardly any of it. I reckon I must put a 1/4 litre in every 2000 miles or so. Vince recommends Quantum silver because some synth oils cause the hyrdualic lifters to only last 30,000 miles, as opposed to 70-80,000 miles. Cheers Kev 94 VR6
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