fendervg

Personally - and only hypothetically speaking of course , I would only ever fit Topran if I had no other choice or to to get to the parts shop to buy some Febi or better ones.... There's a good few sorry tales of Topran parts failing pretty quickly - in my case an oil cooler and top mounts - having said that, bump stops can't be that hard to get right, and most cars are running around on ones that are years old.

Sounds interesting - but I think OE connectors at the headlight end are pretty important if you can get hold of them, because from experience I've had spade type terminals work loose or become corroded in the past. There's a German company on fleabay that sell 4-relay, 4 fuse loom, fully waterproofed and in a box with the OE connectors, at both ends - even the ones going to the original loom - I don't know where they managed to get that one, probably 3D printed - I cut up a damaged headlight unit to connect my uprated loom. But the German one is very pricey - SC Tuning was the company I think - I managed to pick up one second-hand that was never fitted and will see if I can dig it out for some pictures. From what I remember it actually has the male connectors at both ends, where one is just wired for the sidelights - lol this thread just reminded me that I should think about fitting it some day!

You don't really need the tool - the inner panel can be detached/pulled from the metal outer, rotated 90 degrees, and will then slide out to the front.

That smell of old gearbox oil always gets me - truly awful!

Comes with the much coveted gauges - wonder if it has a history on here?

Ouch - that looks well nasty - I see you had to get the hack saw out! That looks very different to the insides of a VDO pump btw.

Doesn't sound right - distributor ones are longer than coilpack as the dizzy body sits further away from the side of the head. In any case, there wouldn't be any difference between OBD1 (all Corrado VRs are OBD1) and OBD2 with coil pack (as far as I know all OBD2 Golf AAA etc. engines are coil pack only).

Maybe take a look at the ARZ Tuning site - they sell (or at least used to) a couple of different timing chain kits for the VR6 - this might be easier than trying to source all the components separately.

The extra mm or so in girth won't make your car go any faster, contrary to what some would want you to believe! The coil pack leads are slightly shorter, but to be honest, not really noticeable fi you have the distributor ones on there instead, but you might prefer them just for a neat and tidy look. They also won't come with the centre lead for the dizzy. Back in the day, any half-decent factors would have been able to make up a set of leads to your specification - it's not rocket science after all. It might also be worth checking out any of the other makes of cars that were fitted with the coil pack VR, such as the Ford Galaxy, Seat Alhambra etc, and I think even some Mercs.

Looks like a door contact switch for the interior light - doesn't seem OEM, the switch part looks different and has more metal, and the electrical tape around the wires is suspicious - but an alarm fitter might have replaced it or fitted a different one that has more contact pins than the factory one (they usually have two).

This might the significant price difference between the VDO/Bosch units and the cheaper copies - it could well be that the grade of metal being used is inferior. Still, corrosion shouldn't really happen without water in the petrol.

Hmmm - will be interesting to see where that ends up - parted out or restored. It's quite a lot of money for one in that condition - but could steal bring in a few grand if broken. Not having a V5 won't help its case.

The ECU relay 109 and fuel pump 67/167 are correct - sometimes the numbers changed over the years.

Ouch - nice neighbourhood. Looks like they'll be ok though - another convertible sitting on the drive 😉 If it has been a Fiat/Renault/Alfa it would have jsut gone on fire by itself without any help. Seriously though, always double check everything is tightened and prime and do a leak test with the starter motor only and leads disconnected before starting an engine after working on the fuel system - have nearly been caught out a few times myself.

Fair play - I'm always cautious of these "agreed" values as they will invariably pull out other clauses or claim the terms of the classic policy were broken and end up paying out what they call market value - I have yet to hear of anyone getting a full agreed value when a car is written off for a Mk2/Corrado/Scirocco/quattro etc, but I'm open to being pleasantly surprised if anyone can prove otherwise or has lived to tell the tale. Agree with you fully Keyo that insurance should get you back what you lost, or at least what you started with before whatever bad incident took place - just in practice it never seems to work out that way.....

Not me - mine is taking a pandemic holiday to save some tax dollars at the moment! I do know of a silver 8v up around there, so could be the same car.

Yep, the tech guides were great - that was the one I used to do my heater matrix as well!

It's a shame because there used to be a really good Corrado Club of Canada web site with a busy forum and lots of tech how-tos and articles - your questions would have been answered there for sure - but it's long gone now. The Peter Russek VR Engine book arrived today - it's actually more an A5 pocket manual, 88 pages, cheaply printed, but with good illustrations. Gives a good description of the VR design and layout and looks like it would be most useful for an engine out rebuild - the other sections on ignition. cooling and fuel injection are pretty sparse and the Bentley is better for that I'd say - cost was £12 direct from the web site plus postage, so not that cheap but because it's so useful worth it to the enthusiast/home mechanic. I've never been able to find a PDF version of it and they don't sell electronic copies.

I think the two airbags were only ever offered on very late Canadian cars, and a driver's side one was an optional extra on the run-out European models. I'd say a wiring diagram for those would be hard to find and come as an additional supplement to the main diagrams - same as for the electric Recaros.

This is great info Keyo - interesting to see what fancy bits and bobs you could spend your ill gotten gains on back then. The Japanese love their Euro import cars and always had lots of options and dealer extras that weren't seen elsewhere, so I'm not surprised that there was a specialist like Cox Motorsports over there offering all these highly sought after extras.

Yeah, the Bentley really is the best we can expect - it's way more detailed than a Haynes in any case, just a slight pinch of salt needed some times due to it being US specific.

There is no Haynes for the ABV engine or Corrado unfortunately. There is a Peter Russek engine manual for the VR6 which I have ordered recently but haven't received yet - it's supposed to be very handy for engine rebuilds etc. Some people use a combination of the Passat and Golf 3 Haynes, which cover a lot of stuff common to Corrados, but to be honest, the differences between the US AAA and ABV aren't that much. VW had an extensive Microfiche repair manual set and also a set of booklets, but these are very hard to find and most scans tend to be in German. PM me your email address and I might be able to help out some.

Bosch, Beru or Bremi are all decent brands. The VAG ones originally on my car were Bremi, others I've seen had Bosck ones.

We can declare them off the road, on a month by month basis although the minimum taxation period is 3-months,which works out more expensive per month than an annual renewal. Mine was a daily, but has been off the road since March due to the pandemic outbreak and working from home, so at least I'm saving some cash. We have a cheaper to tax family MPV diesel that's still in use.

You would think that, wouldn't you? Doesn't even get spent on roads, just goes into the overall tax revenue pot. How much is it annually for a VR in the UK? Apologies to mnmv12 for hijacking the thread - that VR looks like a lovely example and should be a worthy replacement and successor to the 8v.