Mystic Rado

I'd be really interested to see what sort of beam pattern you get with your lows - I'm guessing, as you refer to your lights as 'Euros' that you're in the States, but using European-spec headlights. The problem I had when I fitted an HID conversion - one of the hids4u.co.uk ones - which is very well regarded, was that the beam pattern was simply awful, lots of light all over the place, but mostly in the wrong place. I reckon it's down to the design of the reflector and, in particular, the metal shield that sits in front of the H4 bulb in the main headlight compartment. Just from your garage door shots, it looks like the cut-off is pretty flaky, viz, there's a fair bit of light above the cut-off. I'm just about to rip the whole thing out and go back to halogen... :( Longer term I'm going to stick some OE HID projectors in a Corrado headlight, getting it done proper should give me summat to do over winter :-)

You'd want to wire it so the low beam is constantly on, I think using a diode, so that switching onto mains doesn't switch off low beam otherwise yep, you'll have a delay while the HIDs fire up and you'll also reduce bulb life with switching it on and off.

Or if you don't trust yourself to hack gearshifts up, Dieselgeek's one is essentially the same thing, works great ime, and also has the option of a side-to-side reducer as well: http://www.dieselgeek.com

Glad you're not dead...:-) If the fuel's been sitting in the tank for 18 months it'll be way past its best - it deteriorates, evaporates and generally dies. Try draining it out and adding some fresh gas as suggested above. [Mind you, I might have read your original post wrong, has the car been sitting for 18 months or is the battery just 18 months old and dead...]

Cool, cheers for that. I stuck the front wheel of the Golf in a massive pothole on the Wrynose Pass in the Lakes - it trashed the tyre, flatted the inner rim of the wheel, wrote off the damper and bent the wishbone on that side... All cos some muppet came round a blind bend in the middle of the road. Nice.

Cheers fella, is the pedal feel better with the 288mm brakes? Let us know what happens with the wheel as well, I need to get the GiT one sorted :-)

Be interested to see what you come off with - flatted one of my Mk 2's wheels in a humungous Lake District crater and need to see if I can get it fixed. For now it's running a steelie on one corner, which looks crap to say the least. Google threw up a place in Preston that claims to be able to sort this sort of damage. Keep meaning to get them to look at mine, but I'm mired in inertia and getting some 288mm brakes sorted for the Storm: http://www.wheelrepair.co.uk/ It's all at your own risk etc and reading up on alloy repairs implies that if you do have it straightened, it'll be weakened at that point. Anyway, if you do get it fixed or find somewhere nearer Manchester / Stockport / Peak who can fix it, let me know :-)

Oh, and if halogen projectors are the same as HID ones then the beam pattern is down to a shield fitted inside the projector housing which forms the kick-up that makes them LHD or RHD. Don't take this as gospel, but usually what you need to do is remove the shield and replace it the other way round so the kick-up in the beam is on the correct side, if that makes sense.

Cheers fella, interesting stuff. I'm reasoning that if the halogen projector in the In Pros works okay with a standard headlight lens, then it may be okay with VR6 lenses and bezels and a proper HID projector fitted into the In Pro housing, which would also neatly solve the 'what to do about sidelights' issue I'd get if I fitted HID projectors into standard reflectors :-) Watch this space I reckon...

So, how's the beam then, any feedback?

I've got Dieselgeek quickshift fitted to mine, basically it's a modified standard shifter plus a side to side reducer and I'm very happy with it. I know people in here have modified their own shifters with good results, but I'm a mechanical incompetent and didn't really want to DIY it. http://www.dieselgeek.com/ Other options seem to be the Neuspeed shifter, which is reputed to be excellent, but very, very expensive and the B+M one which is more affordable but gets some really poor feedback on this forum anyway. If you do a search, there are a few threads covering modifying your own, which looks like the most affordable option if you're capable of doing the machining yourself. Otherwise the Dieselgeek one, which is basically the same thing, seems good to me.

I'd be interested to see how the beam pattern comes out - I'm thinking about fitting an HID projector into an InPro housing but with standard rather than clear lenses on the front. Should be a lot easier to retrofit a projector into a housing already fitted with one than butchering a standard reflector, and the InPros look weird on a VR6 I think, hence the standard lens... And if I did do that, I'd end up with two spare InPro lenses.... ;-)

Ah... I pushed the buttons a few times to see what would happen. Not a lot thankfully. The alarm is already getting on my tits because i'm not quite sure how to use it properly yet and it keeps locking me inside, and going off when i try and get out of it. Also its really noisy to lock/unlock, and if you stand near the car it makes loud noises until you move away. I can't wait to sort the M tech badge cos i don't like it staring at me the whole time. But the wheel is a bit nicer to use than the standard one in my old vr. If ya look at the Clifford site all the alarm manuals are there as downloadable PDFs but you should have a manual with the valet code on the back of it. You can silence the alarm-arming / disarming chirp thing using the button thing - keeps the neighbours happy :-)

Thanks Dinkus, that's pretty much what I thought, but it's nice to have it confirmed.

So what are the factors that make one brake disc better than another and how apparent would the difference between a cheapo pattern part and some top-end bling be assuming the same brake calipers, on the road that is rather than barrelling round a track with smoke coming off your pads ;-) I've found the Brembo Max discs more than adequate for erm, spirited road use, and I'd be surprised if I could tell the difference between them and discs costing two or three times as much. Cheap discs - Zimmerman have a rep for it - seem more likely to warp or crack, but why is that? Do they use different grades of steel? Are more expensive discs treated in some way to improve their friction capabilities? Can you actually feel the difference at the pedal? Fwiw, I'd have thought you'd be far more likely to benefit from fitting better brakes pads than expensive discs, though ideally you'd do both. Reason I'm wondering is that I'm just about to fit 288mm brakes on the 'rado and I'm thinking that the money would be better spent on getting the calipers professionally refurbed and coated rather than blowing it on fancy discs. I'd be quite happy to fit Brembo Max again or even OE Golf VR6 parts and EBC Greens. I'm talking about real world road use btw, not track days :-) Any thoughts...

I've had two sets of Brembo Max on my Mk2 GTi and fitted a set to the 'rado last year. Bottom line is they seem fine to me. No problems with warping, cracking or premature wear, good brake performance with both Pagid FR and EBC Greens on the VR6. I've never used anything else bar stock discs, but they seem like a decent value option and basically do the job, like, well, brake discs really ;-)

Oh, and you might need uprated fuses to cope with the initial increased draw from the HIDs, if that's the problem you're having with your original uprated loom.

Depends a bit on how the kit is wired, but probably your best bet would be to get a loom made up so power from the battery goes direct to the ballast using a relay switched by the original low beam feed to trigger the HIDs on low beam and a separate circuit for the high beams, so they're also uprated. You could then, if you wanted, I think, wire a diode in so that the low beam HIDs stay on when the high beams are activated. That might be worth looking into because you want to switch HIDs on and off as little as possible to maxmise the life of the bulbs and ballast and if you're driving in conditions where you're switching from dip to main frequently, I'm guessing the HIDs will be going on and off every time. I'm no electrics expert, but that's pretty much how I understand it. There's a load of info on that American site I linked to above, have a look in the 'University' bit of the forum and there's some detailed stuff on making looms.

If you're loaded, came across this the other day. Complete caliper overhaul - new seals, pistons etc - plus aerospace-style coating in a variety of colours including red. Prices are for two calipers, not cheap but maybe worth a look if you can afford it / you're terminally lazy :-)

The reason the lights won't come on unless the engine is running is that HID takes a massive intitial surge of power to actually strike the arc. If you're not running an uprated loom with them, there's probably not enough voltage at the ballast to strike the arc initiially - after the spark up, they actually use less power than stock halogen bulbs. Generally, if you can, it's probably a good idea to use an uprated loom even with HIDs - apart from anything else, it'll stop the headlight switch from overheating and failing. As far as standard Corrado headlight go, as I posted elsewhere, I fitted a hids4u H4 bixenon kit to mine with disappointing results. Very poor beam pattern and disappointing light output overall. I've seen a few postings suggesting that the shield housed inside the headlight unit is to blame, but generally, HIDs in reflector lights have a bad rep for causing glare. They work much better in projectors, even halogen ones like the InPros, though the best solution is probably to retrofit a complete HID projector into an InPro-type housing with clear glass lens. I've seen a few people post about fitting kits to their original lights, but no-one's ever come back with positive - or any - feedback afterwards, or not that I've seen anyway. There's a US site for HID weenies with a useful forum at http://www.hidplanet.com/forums. Lots of useful info in a slightly sad, obsessive sort of way....

Didn't someone find that the Vibratechnics ones died pretty quickly? I think I'll do another search... [cheers Kevin - I'm not a lunatic, but I don't hang around either. The 'rado's for best really, the GiT's a daily driver and I do find it weird swapping between the two. I'm sure some of it's the weight difference but there's also a slight wooliness to the C that the Golf doesn't have. So, do I have it right that I can fit R32 rear bushes and they'll do a better job than stock? What about the ball joints? I remember you had issues with those and changed them with good results]

I'm thinking about getting all my bushes replaced - front and rear - and I'm wondering what to go for. I'm reluctant to go the Powerflex route as my Mk 2 went that way and is now a bit too harsh for my tastes, though it steers nicely. So, I'm wondering whether I go just for standard OE bushes on the basis that the originals have seen better days after 90,000 miles or whether there are non-poly upgraded bushes I can fit in some places. I seem to remember someone mentioning that TT and/or R32 bushes are a direct replacement in some places. Which ones? Are they better? And does anyone have part numbers for them. Car basically handles nicely, but just not quite as precise as my GTi :-(

There's a link somewhere on here to a German site, I think, selling just the reflectors, so you could simply replace those. If they're early headlights though, they're not that expensive from the dealers. Or if later, and your lenses are okay, you could buy early ones and swap the glasswork over. The mirror reflectors are super fragile though, don't touch 'em...

That's interesting - I'm guessing he means the metal bipod with a hole thing in it that slots in front of the bulb. I was thinking that myself, but I couldn't be arsed with pulling the headlight apart to see if it worked, then having to put it back in again if it didn't...

Will the 100-watt bulbs really melt stuff? I use 100/90 H4s and 100-watt H3s in my Golf with an uprated loom without problems and a good beam pattern. Which bits melt on the 'rado?