Erny

don't wanna sound like I'm tellin me granny to suck eggs, from past experiance I've gone with these, When your running you engine up to temp do you have your heaters on hot? Hot is open an free flowing help remove air etc. If the pipe is swelling an over geting then your engine is presurising, do you have one way valves into and out of the heater matrix? If so try running the car with out them get a bit of copper pipe in should help rule out faulty valve, as mentioned above header tank caps cause pressurising when they fail. run the engine up to temp with the header tank cap off and the heaters on let it bubble over and wait till the fan kicks in squezzing the pipes doesn't hurt, keep an eye on the water level, an let it cool also with the cap off, this should help clear the airlock. Is your water pump working? Test your thermostat with a pan of hot water and a thermomiter so you know it's opening at the right temps.

By the sounds of it your engine found the weak spot and went with it, ied imagine your heater matrix is fine if your feet dint get wet, be intrested to know were the fault was fir future reference

Don't take the head off the other engine just yet, if you think your head gasket has gone and are goin to gl to the trouble of swapping heads why not just take off your head and fit a new gasket and set of head bolts, chances are the head isn't too warped, an could be a Nice and easy cheap after noon fix the 9a is a 2.0 version of the 1.8kr basically, an alternative to the above would be to use the 9a head and block as they are and gain alittle power n torque, run it all on your current injection system and wiring and ecu,

You no idea were the fault is or what went wrong? A little more info would help

Try unplugging your cold start maybe, there's acproblem there and the fifth injector is continually adding fuel

1.8 with a 2.0l bottom end, more tuneable management system, and slightly simpler so easy to home tune, and no cat or ever a need for one. Probly cheaper to buy from the off and possibly cheaper to insurance. Pretty much 6 and two 3s at the end of the day tho mate. Each has somthing alitle differnt to offer,

Have a little sift through this link, http://www.corrado-club.ca/forum/viewtopic.php?t=5880 fitting a vr is realy simple, pretty much all spanner work and a few wires to plug in provided you have everything all the parts needed, unlike on mk2s you won't have to ding the chassis leg for the pulleys, and your pedal box set up cable change set up and brakes, can remain as it is.

Car looks mint pal, what's the craic with the spoiler? Was it a mate who made it? You notice a big difference in weight?

Matey if you wanna drive to Sheffield I've a kr sat doin bugger all you can have for 40quid, the original head was removed and and gas flowed ad used on another engine but there is another head there ready to go, just needs a head gasket and bolts,

Matey I've had the same problem, took a few days before mine drove again, get a hair dryer or hot air gun, n steadily dry away, pull your ht leads and spark plugs out carefully, take off your dizzy aswel, youed be suprised were the water gets, the tops of my suspension had puddles in, try an let it dry out best you can and don't be turning it over too much, last thing u want is water in your cylinders.

You could loosen the fuel feed to the metering head and see if anything is getting up there when u try firing it up, you generally get alittle warning when your fuel pumps/filter are getting tired, the car tends to feel like it's got a lack of power like getting starved of fuel and jumpy like a missfire on full throtle,

If you use full abf managment then u will need the abf manifold, personally ied stay k-jet it's all In place

What engine? Is your engine even trying to start? (eg if you give it a little gas will it fire up) what exactly happend when it just stopped? Did it stall? You can set you throttle bodie open alittle to bypass your isv if you want,

K-jet management I the most basic to use and tuneable setup, my favourite by far. Kr head isn't a straight bolt onto a abf bottom end, if you go 2.0l via the abf route just source a abf block head and cams and use all your kr ancillarys bolted on, you will have to bolt your crank pulley on as abfs run different belts, abfs on kr management seem to be the better option for torque and power when all parts are stock, the only down side to this is your sump will be closer to the floor and you may have to cut your rear engine mount down alittle for clearence below the bonnet, I can't confirm this as iv never fitted an abf in a corrado before, if I was to hav anoter valver mk2 or corrado ied go abf on k-jet personally. Fitting a 9a or 6a bottom end or complete engine is a peice of piss, if you know how to swing a spanner, same again use all your parts, fr all valver related info go to club gti an geek it up in the 16v section 1.8t strikes me as a realy good engine for corrados, just alittle pricey fitting a vr6 is pretty simple too, again you do need to be relativly competant. Corrado front ends are pretty much identical to mk2 ones so mk2vr6.com has all the info needed. But a donor car helps alot.

Kip lucky to get a sump in as good condtion as that from the dealers, usually come from them lookin like they've hit a speed bump or two

Clean out your isv with a little petrol, wd-40, carb cleaner. Few Americans remove the ISVs to help towards cleaner bays but if you have the plastics it's well hidden anyways. ideally you don't want any oil at all into your inlet, re-directing to a catch tank is best place for it.

Sam I have a spare set of 9a cams if you would like to try the twin exaust cam mod, there yours for free I you want to come collect them, I live in Sheffield city centre, my friends 9a is rapid I'll ask him what cams he uses, I know he has a chip, and has spaced out his metering head and done the wur mod to help cope with the fueling, his is in a mk2 on k-jet he also has a few differnt gearboxes and different size wheels depending on what his driving situation is going to be, his box with longer 3rd is fun.

Sounds like yours might not be all that standard then jonny, I felt the loss in low down torque was very noticeable when switching between the 2 manifolds. Ied personally stick with the 42mm one, Back to the original question, if I was to start all over again, ied buy a 1.8, Cheaper insureance, simpler engine management, and often cheaper to buy.(paid 500 for mine) and put a 2.0l block n head (abf IMO, nuff torque) in alittle further down the line, and run it all on the 1.8 management. The kr/1.8 management is more tunable, and doesn't require a cat for m.o.ts, stick a 4brqnch on, if I stuck with a kr or 9a ied use a exaust cam as an inlet cam. But as above I prefer the abf block head and cams on kr management, shame it's a taller block tho I wound up putting a vr in mine in the end. Insurance wound up cheaper.

Welded a thick plate to my vr6 one till I get a mk5 r32 one, then when the new one is tucked up a little higher I'll make a snug fitting skid plate allowing enough space for alittle engine movement, hopefully that combo should have the sump gaurd sat roughly where a normal vr sump would be. Anyluck

Also if considering lookin for another engine to simply swap don't ignore the automatics that are offten for sale, I've notice they don't seem to sell as fast and don't fetch as much money, and seen as you already have everything it's just a case of whipping the flywheel n clutch of yours and putting it on, ied imagine you could pick one up for around 300quid. There often not gunna have been ragged to death like most manuals

I've not spoke to joe for a few weeks now, his last set of plans for the vento weren't quite as entusiastic as his first, but he could have quite easily changed his mind again, I'll have to call him I haven't seen the vento yet, I wanna see how easy his wheels will be for me to nick, haha, me and me mate are makin exaust systems for each of our cars from the head all the way back, both will be 6 branch and decat only difference will be he won't have a mid box so we can do a pretty fair comparison of systems which might help to answer question elsewere on the site.

If your in no rush ben you'll be able to see/hear for yourself in a few weeks my mates makin himself a full system and doesn't plan to have the midbox or cat seen as it's not a car that sees the road often, there's videos on YouTube with various differnt combinations of missing boxes, your bound to loose alittle low end torque won't realy see any gains till it's screaming, and it will be screaming, my old valver with only a back box was too much to drive daily, pretty raw like

Both me n me mate got the wood saws out and cut our tired old 90mm splitters down to 50, they look like new now, pop your front lights apart and paint all the none reflective parts black, they'll look good againt the black, how did you paint the car? Rattle cans or compressor or roller? You no had too much trouble with it tiger striping, shows real bad on matt black usually

Joes old mk2 was alot quicker than my rado, you'll have to take us for a spin sometime ben, give me a taste of what I've got to come, I'll never fork out for the shrick manifold tho. As for prams in the boot, I've had no trouble gettin em in the back of mine, kids love rados too

Club gti has a good how-to with pictures pinned, there 16v engine section is realy good, plenty to read