CrazyDave

Oh my we are getting carried away now! Anybody put an Audi V10 in the back of a C yet? They sound wonderful :) I know what you mean about the R32 standard mapping, it's a bit over the top with the 1/4 throttle thing. But with a standalone it'll make more power and you can set the throttle up how you want anyway. It's amazing how much engineering goes into making a modern car sound right.... but the trouble is everybodys taste is different. I like quiet, refined, smooth with huge lumps of torque. Others like millions of revs and loud rasping exhausts. But hey, it'd be boring if we all liked the same thing :D

Great engine, very very quite compared to the 12v. Difficult to tell if a standard one is actually running at idle!

Thanks for the welcome Dave. Have been ploughing through the posts for a while and this is the kind of user experience I need to hear. The common problems you mention seem to affect other makes and provided they are easily accessible for fixing, then I'd not mind. The timing chain issue is clearly more serious in its potential consequences and I'd think about doing this too provided it did not require special tools and preferably not an engine pull. Don't know anything about actually working on any VW unit yet so would have to source a manual. A turbo is an interesting idea - I'm sure it packs a punch that brings on a grin! The knowledge base on here has lots of guides for the common tasks, and even the not so common ones. Chains is quite a job, but to be honest, I don't know anybody who's actually had a chain fail, they just get very noisy. I did mine mainly as a precaution on the drive, on axle stands whilst the rest of the car was in bits for turbo stuff. The biggest part was having to get the gearbox out, the chains are down the back of the fylwheel. But if your handy with the spanners it's not that bad. I've listened to VR's with 140k miles that are quiet, without a hint of rattle. The turbo is great fun, and has been quite a learning curve as a DIY job. But yes, the grin factor is well worth it.

If the engines tired, what about fitting an R32 instead, that'll give you some extra power even if you use the standard ECU (246hp?). Nice amount of power and reliable for everyday use. Think that'd be my route if mine dies...

Hi Peter, welcome to the forum! I've had my C for about 5 years now and it's great. Completely standard to begin with, but did some general replacement of rubber bushes, suspension, brake etc. Great fun and being a 2.9 V6 used daily 30mpg was pretty good. Not the kind of thing you want to use for a lot of miles though. If you spend some time finding a decent example I'm sure you'll love it. As usual, quite a lot of rubbish around to filter out, but plenty of help on here. Reliability is pretty good, they do have a few niggles to watch out for, sunroofs that don't work, idle problems, rear spoilers, coilpacks, cam sensors. But most things are easily fixed without major expense and obvious when you go to look at a car. High mile VR's might need timing chains, but you can usually hear impending trouble. Should run nice and quite, no rattles. High mileage isn't really a problem as long as it's been looked after. Mines still used daily, and I've recently added a turbocharger, which is just fantastic. Dave

Ham and cheese please 8)

I think Dinkus shops in Dorothy Perkins.. :lol: :lol: 8)

Good choice, but they are all pretty good in their own way. Trouble with this stuff is that once you start it just goes on and on. I blame the forum myself, for putting all these ideas in our heads! :lol:

It's sooo frustrating though when you have a new engine, especially when you've sunk money into it for more power, you just want to see what it'll do, that 1st thousand miles seems to take forever to go past, then before you know it there's tens of thousands on it! Sure is!!! But worth the wait IMHO.

For mid range kick the turbo is spot on, and lag is minimal with modern turbos if you size it properly (fully spooled at about 2.5k ish). Smooth, quiet, refined. Got one of these :) Vortech's are very linear, but you have to work the engine into the upper rev range to get full boost. Charger gearbox whine sounds good, but some get bored of it. Drove one of these on Saturday! :) Rotrex have a good mix, the rather clever gearing system allows it to run much higher boost lower down. So this should be good. Almost silent gear drive. Not been in one of these yet but look and sound very promising. Rob's going to take me out in his :lol: Downsides: Turbo. No RHD turbo kits and you really do need to do head / rod bolts as a minimum to get the engine bottom end suitable. Cost? Vortech. Midrange a little dissapointing. Belt maintenance quite high. Rotex. Help me out lads, I can't think of any for the Rotrex? Except that maybe running so much boost all the time will kill the fuel economy. Somebody reported only getting 150 miles to a tank!!! But he is making 370hp :shock:

Well my only experience of a new engine was a brand new one. Don't labour it, don't rev it hard, and don't sit at a constant speed on the motorway. A nice mix really. For 1000 miles I kept it below 4k. Changed the oil, still on Silver. Then gradually built up over the next 2-3k with occasional accel to 4.5-5k. Still running sweet at 89,000 miles. Doesn't use a drop of oil between changes (every 6k) and revs clean. Several people have said that 1.8T's use oil, not mine. A bit of restraint for a few miles will save you having to rebuild it again. Unless you enjoyed it so much that you want to! :)

It was a pretty long day and as already mentioned, not quite entirely to plan! Here goes: Rotrex fitting guide part 1 The little fella on his bracket. Other side. Idler pulley if you don't have aircon, which most of us don't (DOH!). The bolts needed for this are really long M8s, about 160mm does the trick. However we couldn't find any this long so used some all-thread cut to length instead and some nuts / washers on either end. Looks like the best way to fit this is to remove the front of the car. It goes under the alternator above the PAS pump, really awkward to see let alone get at! The mounting bracket. Belt tensioner removed and ready for the first part of the kit. The carbon cannister was also removed and the tank breather tucked down near the air filter. The blue solenoid valve was left connected to prevent ECU fault codes and idle trouble. Fitting the first part of the kit, easy eh? TWO HOURS LATER! For some reason the thread picked up when we fitted this bolt and it got stuck half way into the hole. We broke a pair of grips and nearly broke the pin at one point. Fortunately the pin did eventually come out and we re-taped the head to clear the thread out. It went straight in. This bolt was given a name that due to the family orientated nature of this forum cannot be mentioned :lol: Fitting the standard tensioner to the Rotrex bracket. The exisitng bolts are used to fit the tensioner to the bracket. We needed 2 x M8x80 bolts to fit the bracket to the head as they didn't seem to be in the kit of bits? The tensioner pulley then needs the extension piece fitting, but it didn't fit. It was about 0.2-0.3mm oversize. So we improvised a lathe out of a battery drill and a file. After 2 batteries and 1 file it fitted nicely into the pulley bearing with a lite tap (with the Brummie screwdriver!). This part was also given a name that also cannot be mentioned on this forum as above! The bracket with the tensioner pulley and tensioner mounted up ready for the charger. The charger needs 4 off M6x120ish filed down a bit allen bolts to fit it to the bracket, these run through the bracket and right down the length of the Rotrex planetary gearbox and thread into taped holes in the compressor housing. Maybe Rob can measure the exact length of these cos I can't remember (only that trying to find 4 allen bolts that size on a Saturday morning is not easy but we got lucky at the local hardware store!). The charger won't fit until the tensioner has been cut away like this. And the tensioner pulley catches here on some cylinder heads, so this needed attacking with the angle grinder. Cue Dave getting 'Crazy' and hacking lumps out of Robs cylinder head. Tea / coffee and bacon sandwich break! Quite a bit of horsepower in the paddock. Rob busy! The charger has an oil system which also has a radiator and a fluid header tank, we found a home for this just in front of the alternator (it'll need a funnel to fill up). The radiator we housed in front of the main rad by drilling two square holes out (13mm) that already exist in the front cross member. The pipes ran along the front panel and up to the charger. The MAF cable was also extended to allow it to be mounted quite far away from the charger inlet (about 600-800mm) so the air filter will be right under front panel somewhere? Thats it for now, sure Rob will take some pics of the remaining bits and bobs. Things left to do: Figure out the belt routing! Fit the charger. Two bolts? Set the belt pullies and release the tensioner. Fill the charge oil system with traction fluid and prime. Pipe up the inlet system. Fit the RR regulator. Rob you need some fuel hose to fit the hose tails on the reg, and some vacuum hose for the small pressure line. Use one of the green tapping point off the brake servo pipe (just above the gearbox, pop the cap off and fit the tube). The reg goes in the return line to the fuel tank, make sure the arrows on the reg are the correct way round. All in all a fun day, Rob didn't seem to stressed by the unfolding fiasco. More soon.....

About 5:20 into No.3 some great jumps, I love the one with the early Imprezza all crossed up and you'd think he'd have lost it, but regained perfect control on the landing.

More of this and less of the other: McRae, Australia, Bunnings, say no more. If your a fan you'll have seen this loads and loads before. I seem to remember he pulled out at least 20 seconds on everybody else on this stage alone. Awesome driving. Enjoy! Could find it with english commentary, but the Spanish says it all anyway it you listen closely. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c_BQIaKYsk4

Very sad day. Always remember being at the end of the stage when he won the championship, awesome atmosphere. Great guy, will be missed.

Well I know it's not really about fuel economy, but I had a gentle run out to E38 the other week and a bit of to and from work. End mileage 381 pretty much a full tank. Thats about 30+mpg...... I find that nothing short of fantastic! Or maybe I don't drive it hard enough?

The sister thing was started at edition just because i mentioned i have a sister who had my tent. Its a bit worrying really as they all assume my sister is going to be gorgeous so does that mean they think im gorgeous? :lol: unless they want me to dress up and pretend to be 'my sister' :lol: I should stop right now Rob, just digging the hole bigger and bigger :lol:

Gonna be quite a large amount of horsepower on your drive this weekend Rob, hope the neighbours aren't sensitive :) Pics and most likely videos, but nothing quite as hairy as when your about Toad! I've obviously missed out the the whole 'sister' thing, news to me!

Farnell Electronics, but its usually in rolls of 50m or more. I have some off cuts from installation jobs I've done recently 8) You can have some FOC http://uk.farnell.com/jsp/Cable/Multicored/PRO+POWER/7001799/displayProduct.jsp?sku=1190185

If I was doing the all again, it'd be Rotrex all the way :D . I love the turbo, and the engineering has been fun (cos that's what I'm into), but the lack of quality VRT parts is a major problem for anybody doing a DIY job.

Do you need another pair of hands? or would it be too many cooks? I'm all excited and it's not my car! Mmmmm FI VR6 Karl, I've got some 6 core screened that's ideal for MAF extension cables, can't remember the Belden no though.

Kevs car and mine are daily drivers! Think thats why we fuss so much about drivability :) Corozin is track mad and I can see why, cos you really get to drive the car at its limit. Sounds like my kind of fun though, always been a front drive person. Looks like I need a diff on my shopping list next. Going to have to wait for a bit though. Any front drive car is going to be fun with quite so much power, but the Corrado is still one of the best front drive chassis ever IMHO. :D

How many Rotrex Corrado's have we got on the forum Dave do you know? Mr Fusion (haven't heard from in a while), Hersites(just about to happen!) and PeteC. Can't think of any more. Saw PeteC's at ED38, sounded very refined, charger hardly makes any noise at idle, no belt tension issues (uses the standard VW tensioner) think it's making 310hp with 10psi.

The other thing I forgot to mention was that the extra VR engine weight seems to help with traction (but only in the dry). Boost mid corner in the wet is great fun :) as long as your ready for it! Takes some practice to get just right. And I'm sure that's when you really need the diff to stop the inside wheel lifting. Storms Rotrex cars are very powerful. They really are pushing the limit of front drive VW's for road use (well until you look at Bill Schimmel's stuff on SPturbo.com!).

Well I'm not quite sure how much power my car has at the minute, but it drives really nice. It has loads of torque from 2500rpm. Changing up at 4K for every gear is a really nice 'quick' experience. As with all things like this it's not so much that the power is over the top, you just have to be careful how and when you use it. With standard gear ratios 1st is very hard work and requires quite a bit of self control to get any use out of it at full throttle. 2nd is good in the dry, and an incredible sensation coming off roundabouts etc. The rest are no problem at the minute. I would like to get an LSD at some point, because that will help loads with the lower gears. But the main thing is that all the bushes / suspension components are in good condition. Dampers don't last much more than 40-50k before they are getting tired. Bushes about the same, but I only fit new standard bushes and change them regularly to keep them 'tight', so as not to make the ride to severe. Engine mounts should also be uprated, as this does improve the handling quite a lot, even on a standard VR. On the whole, the chassis seems to cope very well with the extra 'go'.