Mystic Rado

I found a very similar kit - one from hids4u.co.uk didn't really work well with the headlight design in my 'rado and I'm about the rip the thing out and go back to halogen. It's also more complicated to fit to a Corrado because you'll need to drill holes in the back of the removable headlight access cover things to feed the wiring through to the bulb. I'm wary of saying the kit won't work as there seems to be so many variable involved, but I found that I got a very poor beam pattern with the Corrado. The lighting was massively worse than the uprated loom / bulb set-up I have in my Mark 2. I'll probably chuck the HID kit in the Golf just to see how it performs with a conventional round headlight, but to be honest, I'd go with an uprated loom and possibly higher wattage or the new Philips 80%+ bulbs first. I have the gubbins to retrofit some proper HID projectors into a spare headlight set at some point, but not the time right now - too busy riding my bike :-)

I think it would be easier to simply fit HID projectors into an InPro housing, chances are - if you can find the right projector - it'll just bolt straight in. I'd do it, but I don't really like the way InPros look on the VR6 :-(

Mine does that, it's an option buried deep in a sub-menu which, in turn, is located in another sub-menu, which in turn can only be accessed from the hidden micro-nav setting sub-menu. Unfortunately I pressed the wrong button and it does it every time I exceed 30 mph and I can't find the relevant sub-menu again ;-) Anyone with a Road Angel will know what I mean, it's like an electronic central London one-way system. You keep finding places you know you'll never see again deliberately at least.

Aren't they about to make laser detectors illegal in the UK? I guess you need to make sure you can disable the laser detector bit if that happens. Based on the Autoexpress test of the things, the laser detectors don't seem too hot generally. I've just acquired a Navigator 600 from a mate which seems pretty good on speed cameras and has sat nav as well. I don't have much to compare it with, but it seems good so far and was Autoexpress's choice of combined camera warning / sat nav units. If you take a look at the autoexpress site http://www.autoexpress.co.uk, they've tried a load of them over the past couple of years. Dunno how reliable the findings are, but at least it gives you an idea of what's available.

If it's E-approved, which it will be I think, then presumably there's a shield in the projector which controls which side the kick-up is, so for a righthand-drive car it'll be on the left: \___ On a lefthand drive on the right: ___/ I think ;-)

Cheers for the info on the In Pro lens compatibility. Supercharged, yep, the beam might be wrong - or fairly wrong - but maybe not. I'm asking because I want to retrofit a proper E46 HID projector into a Corrado headlight unit, but keep things looking relatively OM. It'll be easier to fit a projector into an In Pro housing than into a standard 'rado light - would mean butchering the reflector - and it gives me either the option of fitting a later VR6 lens and bezel so it looks 'normal' or just using the clear In Pro lens and putting up with the aesthetics for the sake of HID lighting. Sometimes HID projectors with fluted glass work acceptably, sometimes they don't - I've seen some pics of them working pretty well and some where things are totally fecked up by the glass, but without trying, it's hard to know, if that makes sense.... I don't understand why In Pro doesn't do a VR6 fitment :-(

I'd just like to mention that I follow a similar procedure for tea making, but I've found that using a Sainsbury China and Darjeeling blend has given markedly better results without some of the diuretic side-effects that can manifest themselves with cheaper, unblended teas. I've also found that the fineness of the strainer is crucial to producing a really effective cuppa. I use one with a mean straining diamer of 5 microns. Any larger than that and my finely developed tonsular sensors can detect a distinct grittiness to the tea. This may not be apparent to casual drinkers, but trust me, once you've used a professional quality strainer, you won't go back to a common or garden household item. My strainer was produced by Swiss tea specialists Teamol and cost me £500, however I consider that money well spent given that I use it up to three times a day and it has a lifetime guarantee. Has anyone used their calibrated teaspoon? I generally weigh the tea does on a digital scale before brewing, however the mass versus volume debate in teatailing circles has me wondering whether it might be better to simply rely on a standardised volume measure. On the biscuit front, it's vital to store your biscuits in a hermetically sealed chamber with carefully regulated temperature and humidity to ensure the correct rate of crumble and particle size for consumption. The Teamol Biscuit Safe Plus is the best I've found so far, but I've also heard good things about cryogenic biscuit storage facilties. Good to see tea making getting the coverage it deserves at last.

I think a new motor is around £160 from memory, or maybe it was £190, but it's a lot anyway. You're better off looking for a late second-hand motor. They have a built-in thing - sorry, I'm an electrical dunce - that cuts the motor if there appears to be resistance to movement, but it's quite sensitive and if the motor's tired, it can cut-in very easily.

I think getting a one-off glass lens would be prohibitively expensive - been looking into all sorts of options for fitting HID projectors into a rado light housingg btw - you'd be better looking into getting a Lexan lens made or make one yourself. If you do end up getting a new light and the one with the broken lens is surplus, I'd happily bung you a few quid for it cos I want to see if I can retrofit an HID projector into one easily in place of the standard low beam and see if I can make the bezel/lens more VR6 friendly, if that makes sense? Anyone know if the lens clip-on system / bezels with the In Pros are compatible with standard corrado parts? ie could I fit a standard corrado glass and bezel to the front of an In Pro housing? I think I've seen some pics of it done btw, so I'm thinking it maybe doable :?

Andy, are your looms going to take the trigger signal off both sides rather than just one? If so I'll be up for a p and p version here as well.

If you have a look in the suppliers' forum, I think, andy_vw is doing just that and is just testing his prototype so they should be available from him soon. My connectors didn't come with the rubber bungs so I sealed them with silicone goo which seems to have worked fine. I'm guessing that the rubber seals are available, but I don't know the part number :-( The bit that's really hard to source is some sort of male connector to link to the original headlight connectors to trigger the relays. I'm just going to cut and solder, but it would be nice to simply plug them in for ease of installation. The nice thing about making your own is that you can go ape on sealing stuff properly and solder connections instead of using dodgy exposed crimps. The weak point on my mark 2 Golf loom were the fuses and solenoids, which were pretty much exposed to the elements inside the engine bay and eventually corroded. Ideally you want to seal them away from damp.

I've made my own loom using the OE connectors which are available from VW, just waiting to get the car back so I can fit it. The uprated loom I fitted to my Mark 2 GTi made a massive difference btw and I'd expect similar improvement on the 'rado.

Are your reflectors / lenses in good condition, that also makes quite a big difference.

You might have damaged the tyre - I did something similar in a pothole and the steering kind of wobbled at low speed. Turned out the tyre had a trashed sidewall, but with no visible damage from the outside. Something else to tick off anyway.

Just off at a bit of a tangent, I don't know if it's been mentioned before, but Gruvenparts has an ongoing project to develop replacement billet parts for the most commonly broken areas of the Corrado sunroof mechanism. See this thread on Vortex: http://forums.vwvortex.com/zerothread?id=2218912&page=1 I mailed Paul at Gruvenparts this morning to ask what the state of play is and he says that they've not got very far as they've been working on other stuff like the bits Kev's trialling, but it's still on the cars, though "it will be a little while". So I guess it's watch that space. How flippin' great would that be :-)

Cos the main bulbs are H4s which have a dual filament, so you get dip and main in one beam. The light closer to the centre is a single filament H3 that only comes on with main beam, so you get an extra 110 watts or something on main.

Looks good in a green and red sort of way. I'm always a bit wary of upgrade impressions cos you're generally replacing something that's knackered with something new and even with standard parts it'd still probably feel better, but I can see the piston size reasoning and like you, I want to stick with the Solitudes on my Storm.

If it's sound, I'd go for the Mk2, no question. There's a reason why people say that the Mk3 didn't deserve the GTi badge. Mark 2s are just brilliant, nippy, chuckable things. Mk3s, with respect, are none of those things. If you want something to just amble around in though, the Mk3 probably makes more sense. I'm biased cos I also have a tweaked Mk2 8-valve, but I really can't see the appeal of the Mk3. Ugly things they are too. A Mk3 valver would probably be a good compromise if you can find one.

Yep, it really was the lights he was taking the mick out of. If your lights are on the dim side, what you need is an uprated wiring loom that ups the voltage at the lights by taking power direct from the battery - it's a common VW problem and without one, even new bulbs are sad. See the thread about uprated looms on the suppliers forum, I think. The ones on eBay are a bit gash, to be avoided. If you do a forum search, there's a lot of stuff about looms :-)

Usually crocus bulbs, but some of them come with up-rated daffodils at this time of year :-)

Standard are H4 (dipped and main in one bulb) and H3 (main only). When you have dipped it's just the H4s, when you switch onto main beam you get the main beam filament of the H4s plus the H3s. Angel Eyes are different, I think they're twin H7s, one for dip in a projector and one for main.

I'm pretty sure that the 'Plus Suspension' was one of the differences between the G60 to and the VR6. Supposedly wider and slightly softer sprung, I think that's one of the reasons the VR6 has wider arches. If not, then I'm stumped, though I'm sure someone'll know.

I think the 'plus' is simply the VR6 option, but I may be wrong.

I think I was having a random moment, gawd only knows what I meant :|

Have a look at the video at autoexpress.com. It implies, pretty clearly, that if the beam pattern gives glare then it won't pass. If your mate is being flashed 'all the time' his headlights are either producing loads of glare or they're badly adjusted. If they gave proper, well-adjusted beams, he wouldn't be being flashed, er, would he? Halogen projectors are much more likely to give a decent cut-off and beam pattern than halogen reflectors, as used in the standard Corrado headlight, though still won't be quite as good as proper HID projectors because they're designed for use with a halogen bulb not an HID one. So yeah, you're much more likely to get a decent beam with angel eyes. You could always get an HID projector which is the same dimensions as the original halogen one in the In Pros then swap them over so you have an HID projector instead. Kit results seem to vary and MOT testers can be quite random, but that's pretty much how I understand it.