[Best front pads for a VRS?]

I don't really understand why EBC yellow gets such polarised reviews.. I have them and they are great, bite well from cold and stay strong even when stinking hot, pretty kind to discs too, they don't give a hint of material transfer onto the disc even when abused.

The ones I have are quite recent, I believe they have changed the compound somewhat, so maybe peoples' bad experiences are with older ones?

[Shark Performance]

Chap I work with has a late Cupra Leon and bought a Shark STS remap, he has been well impressed and satisfied, and he's the hardest guy to please I know in that respect

[should i swap my vrs for this?]

I had a Mk4 Astra SRi before the vRS, OK not much of a performance car, but for lots of reasons one of the more dissapointing cars I've had. It feels a very "dead" drive compared to the Skoda, with little driver involvement and feedback. Check out how heavy the thing is, they are horrifically heavy for the size of car and that's what really dulls off the experience.

Sure the turbo cars will be quick, but don't be seduced by the power alone on a 10-minute test drive

[Best place to get hybrid turbo?]

another vote for CR Turbos, brilliant people to deal with and very competent work

[Current Draw when not in use]

It's not. The current drain on a standard car should be about 20mA. That's about 0.5Ah/day.

2nd that. Although I I wouldn't be alarmed by anything up to 50mA

The only course of action is as siad above - monitor the drain whilst removing fuses in turn until you find one that dramatically drops the current draw.

Allow the system to stand a while after fitting any current measuring equipment, as various systems on the car will remain active for a period after the ignition is switched off (or battery disconnected/reconnected). So to get a true measurement of standing current, wait 10minutes or so to let it settle.

[Engine rebuild - 1.8T vRS - ITS ALIVE!]

Presumably the other cam shield went on the inlet cam before it went back together? You will get a lot of oil going out of the breather otherwise

[Brake problem]

if there's any chance that air has got in at the top (reservoir level dropped too low) then it will 100% need bleeding out of the master cylinder nipples.

[O2 Sensor]

p0141 O2 Sensor Heater Circuit Malfunction (Bank 1 Sensor 2)

Before you rush out and buy a new sensor, check the heater circuit (the two white wires on the sensor) is receiving 12V power from the vehicle when the engine is running. *edit* whilst you are under there, unplug the rear sensor and check the resistance of the sensor heater - measure the resistance across the white wires, should be a few 10-15ohms or so. It may quite possibly in this case be open circuit, so timwe for a new sensor.

It could be the sensor heater broken or could be the heater supply circuit faulty elsewhere.

[Engine rebuild - 1.8T vRS - ITS ALIVE!]

Don't worry it will be having a fair few easy miles, I don't drive it hard anyway but it will be extra careful. I want to make sure its all running sweet before I start doing anything else. Its certainly been an educating experience!

equally, don't be TOO gentle with it, a medium load and cylinder pressure helps push the rings out against the cylinder wall and helps the bedding process. It's excessive and/or constant rpm that needs avoiding. Varying but gently increasing rpm and medium load (but not labouring) is what is required for best bedding in. Also use a suitable oil for bedding in - ideally plain old mineral oil but you'll get away with semi synthetic, DON'T use decent synthetic oil as it won't wear enough and bed in properly.

On the race car we're lucky to get 20/30 minutes driving on the dyno in road simulation mode, at reduced boost and progressively increasing rpm, then straight into a mapping session lol That gives us good compression seal and low crankcase breather emissions..

[Bleeding brakes]

I always used to use the pedal pump method ( with one way valves) until the seals reversed on my old MK4 Golf ( 145K) .The problem in using this method is, that if the seals travel into the "ridge" between the highly polished normal brake master cyl. area and the normally unused cyl. bore area, there is a chance that the seals will reverse or get damaged. It makes sense to use the pressure bleeding method as this way the master cyl. piston/seals are stationary.It took quite a few years of pump bleeding to learn this lesson ! The cost of the pressure bleeding kit ( Halfords) was a lot less than a new master cylinder !

this is the real reason, and essentially is due to wear in the cylinder, nothing to actually do with travel.

So to avoid the "possibility" of having a problem, use the pressure bleed method, it's way easier too

If you get problems with damaged seals whilst bleeding, it's likely to be because the cylinder needs replacing anyway

We use pedal bleed to full travel all the time on our race car on a regular basis, with no problem at all, but the cylinder is new

One thing to not forget is the bleed nipples in the top of the master cylinder - often overlooked but equally as important as the rest!

[Engine rebuild - 1.8T vRS - ITS ALIVE!]

BAM pistons will have slightly lower compression ratio - in practice this should have little effect, but may feasibly make a marginal reduction in performance, but likely not noticeable. However with a remap it should allow a slightly more aggressive ignition advance curve which could then pick up some benefit

[Immobiliser problem?]

nothing to do with the battery in the keyfob, that is purely to operate the remote locking - the key transponder is totally independent and unpowered.

If you have a real immobiliser issue, when you turn ignition on, the immo light will illuminate or flash on the dash - a car shape symbol with a key in it, orange colour.

[Dump valves]

I too have been looking at the £29.99 eBay diverter valves.

I don't fancy forking out twice the price for the name. Are these still tried and tested?

I had quick google and found a VW forum that posted pictures of snapped springs and the like..

Rgds,

Keith.

My experience is 4+years of use with no maintenance, not sure how far that gets towards "reliable" ?

[Which cylinder head fits the AUQ? Will a BAM head fit?]

yes BAM head will be the same with VVT mechanism in the cam chain tensioner. I'd be surprised if the cams are different but don't know for sure, and indeed could be swapped over if that's the case.

When getting involved with cam changes, I'd advise taking VERY close note of the relative positions of both cams and the chain, in fact marking the cam sprockets and chain before disassembly is strongly reccomended to ensure you get the correct number of links between the sprockets to maintain correct timing. Also get a tool to compress the chain tensioner, they aren't expensive and freely available on Ebay etc. Mine is made by Sealey and was only a few quid.

[Pic request, front lower arms]

the arms are the same both sides, however unfortunately they are not symmetrical in the region of the rear bush mount, the nearside one "looks" and frankly technically is, upside down.

With stadard style press-in sleeved bushes (either void or solid TT type) this shouldn't be a problem, but with polyurethane types it is more of an issue as they really don't sit right in the nearside, especially the early Powerflex ones which did get forced out.

[Head removel - Price / Code for pistons or aftermarket pistons?]

Do you have a link as I am not a member mate.

make sure of what engine pistons have come from - BAM uses lower compression and 20mm piston pins, most others have the higher compression and 19mm pins (except some early engines, AGU for example I'm pretty sure uses higher compression with 20mm pins) so you may need to use the whole set of pistons, and possibly the rods if your pins don;t match. All rods are the same effective length.

[Rolling road results]

big difference between a cossie block and a 1.8t block

:S please explain?

Both old iron blocks designed for shopping cars (and vans in the case of the cossie )

Relevant to the discussion, Cosworth developed the engine originally at 300bhp and Ford decided to detune to 204.. consequently they will run a stg1/2 upgrade all day long if looked after properly, as will the 1.8T , they won't worry about 250bhp in terms of long term reliability.

[Rolling road results]

it's because rollers cannot measure engine HP - they predict it from wheel HP measurements

so its to do with the calculation they use to predict it, and like i said earlier it will attribute more power loss from frictional and transmission losses at higher rpms so will estimate peak engine power at higher rpms

hope that made sense

no it doesn't make any sense - the peak power is measured at the wheels at a particular rpm, and a calculation applied to that data to derive the engine power . The two figures can't actually occur at two different rpms, so it must be some vagary in the way it uses rundown data to make the calculation, or there is a settling period during lift-off which creates an artificial jump in the apparent losses which are included in the calculation.

[Help required removing door lock]

try pulling the handle at the same time as operating the keyfob unlock, sometimes you get lucky and it will pop open.

[Rolling road results]

not too sure if you mean that, or why max torque and max power don't occur at same time

if its the former, frictional losses which increase with engine and transmission rpm may be the case

if its what i suggested it because POWER = TORQUE x ENGINE RPM (plus some conversion constants we won't get into - google it if you are interested)

No, I meant exactly as written, I'm totally happy about how HP and Torque relate - in the first run example shown :

Max wheel HP 218.6 @ 4878rpm, max engine HP 245.5 @ 5453rpm - significantly different rpm.. ??

Considering the engine HP figure is a calculated derivation from measured wheel HP, how do the two occur at significantly different rpms? Unless it is an anomaly in the way the system calculation uses the run-down losses in the guess - sorry calculaton - of engine HP ?

[Dump valves]

Forge 007p is proven to be fault free on our cars. I know of 2 people who bought Bailey's & had EML issues on a VRS & a mkiv Golf, however a mate fitted one on his Cupra 180 & it was fine.

I have Forge clone DV from Mobile ECU Remapping, & it's been fine. £29.99 on eBay.

£29.99 will get you a valve that works perfectly well mine's been on for some 4 years now and I haven't needed to touch it. If you fancy the name on it then by all means get your wallet out

[Rolling road results]

Curious observation.. but how is max. engine HP developed at significantly different rpm than max. wheel HP ?

[Front passenger door won't open]

Lift the knob at the same time as operating the remote a few times - worked for me recently.

I've since dismantled the door and removed and completely dismantled the door lock assembly - to be honest I didn't find anything amiss.. with the door lock hanging out on the electrical connection you can operate the locking system and get a better idea what does or doesn't work.

When you do get into the door, remove the connectors from the lock module and door module (part of the window motor) and check for damp ingress and any corrosion on pins. I can only conclude that dismantling mine and refitting it was sufficient to clean some contacts and return to normal working.

[Skoda Octavia 1 aftermarket head unit]

I've had a search but can't find anything spectacular, maybe i'm not searching properly.

Why do i need to switch the permanent and live wires? (usually the red and yellow wire) Is it to stop the CD player being on all the time? if it is I prefer to have mine that way so I can sit in my car without the engine running listening to my music.

Also about this blue wire, I have seen lot's of aftermarket aerial boosters now and they all come with a blue wire to power the aerial I am guessing I use the blue wire on the aerial booster into the blue wire (which in my case is the remote function from my CD player) so the aerial booster turns off when the ignition is switched off?

If the permanent and switch live are the wrong way round, radio station memory will usually reset everytime the ignition is switched off. In your case maybe you want to wire both red and yellow to permanent live?

The detail regarding the blue wire is NOT to connect the blue wire terminal from the aftermarket head unit to the vehicle wire that is in that position in the ISO connector - this wires to the "K" line in the 16pin OBD diagnostic connector under the steering column. It wouldn't affect the way the stereo functions, but sending the 12V switched antenna supply to the diagnostic connector will stop access to vehicle diagnostics by any tester plugged in there, and at worst may damage the tester.

So cut and isolate the wire to the car and connect the aerial booster to the blue wire output instead.

[Skoda Octavia 1 aftermarket head unit]

Normal single din one will fit straight in.

You will need to swap the permenant and switched lives over and you will need a booster for the aerial. And don't connect the blue wire or you put 12v down the K line used for diagnostics - use this wire for the aerial booster.

Try a search loads of info on doing this.

Everything you need to know []