Skoda-Msport

Jetex have released a system for the vRS. Its £188.11 inc VAT which I think is the cheapest cat-back system you can get at the moment for the vRS. The only other systems I am aware of is the Scorpion system which is around £200 and is only 2'' and then the blueflame and Milltek (2.5) which are similarly priced - (Miltek being slightly more) According to the website the Jetex system is mandrel bent, 2.5'' stainless steel with the slightly squarer oval tail pipe. They are good quality exhausts, I had one on my S40 T4. They dont sound chavish at all and the tail pipes are tastefull OE looking. Good luck finding a system that suits your car and needs, Alex

Isnt discussing a Ford in favour of a Fabia vRS sacrillage? Afterall the Fabia vRS has achieved godlike status and cannot be compared to anything else on 4 wheels, even its VAG siblings, it simply is an object of absolute power and beauty! Seriously though, I didnt realise that the Focus and Fabia were even in competetion for the same market segment? Shouldnt we be comparing the Focus to say an Octavia and the Fabia vRS to a Fiesta 1.6 TDCI Zetec??

Is your car the 1.2HTP or the 1.4MPI?

Sadly, one of the best features of the Skoda Rapid 136 was its all alloy 62bhp 1289cc engine and the fact that in racing trim made 130bhp - a figure not unattainable today with modern tuning practices.

The Tatra 3.5 V8 is the best engine swap IMO to do on a Rapid and has been done many times in CZ. Saab 2liter 16v turbo though has also been done, the 2.8 VR6 engine has been fitted. various air cooled porsche engines and also Alfa 3.0 V6. Even a 5.7 V8 chevy small block powered Rapid has been done. There was an RX7 powered Estelle on ebay a while back too, not to mention a 2.5 Subaru boxer engine so anything will fit within reason. Although, I think these cars are getting seriously rare, and even rarer in original condition, which is why I have kept my 88 Estelle more or less standard, any mods undertaken can easily be reversed.

Ive had 3 Volvo 360 GLTs, great cars and most understated.

1.8 20VT has already been done in both Estelle and Rapid over in CZ as have alot of other engine transplants.

When I have cancelled my insurance policies I have never been charged. I am currently with one of the mainstream insurance companies for my Fabia vRS and it costs me £400 a year, thats for a 27 year old with 5 years NCB, fully comp with £350 excess and in a high crime rate area. All the other insurers were dearer apart from Directline but I stayed with them as I have been with them for years now and they have always reduced my premium annually and have given competetive quotes on my previous cars. In fact I have never paid more than £600 on a policy with them (that was when I was 23), and Ive insured intermediate to higher insurance group cars like Corolla GT-i16, Sierra XR4x4, Nissan 3.0 V6 QX, S40 T4, BMW 325TDS, Saab 9000 Carlsson etc I really think its distgusting to be charged £168 to cancel, its bordering on pull your pants down extortionate really. What exactly does the £168 cover? Admin charges? The cancellation letter? Perhaps an all expenses paid fatcat's weekend in Monaco? Most people pay thier insurance without fail and never make a claim, they pay it because they are being good citizens and lets face it, insurance companies never struggle, its compulsory to pay insurance so its not as if there is a shortage of people to pay it, and we always get penalised for other wrong doers such as uninsured drivers, vandals etc so why insult people futher and charge £168? ...that could be a weeks wages to someone. It Really is appauling to say the least, and it doesnt matter that its in the small print. There is so much small print in just about every aggreement these days if you were to read every single sentance you would never have a chance to lead your life - and that is where they get you. Just my opinion anyway. I do hope you find a resolution to this and an acceptable premium.

How easy would it be to retrofit xenons? Will it be a case of headlights, ballasts and wiring? I wouldnt be fussed about the washer jets in the bumper.

Can one be fitted to the later ones from the early type though? I think the engine bay looks a bit tidier with one.

If you want to see some real Czech Tatra super cars look up "MTX Tatra V", "Tatra Eccorra Supersport V8" and "Tatra T700" - A real shame those cars were produced in such small numbers

I picked up my vRS after booking it in to have some issues looked at, all cosmetic and they have all been sorted, bar 1. When I opened the engine bay I noticed there was no plastic cover in the engine bay (the black box like cover in bottom right corner) I have noticed every other vRS has one except mine, so I mentioned it as missing. When I picked the car up the company who sold me the car said that they had checked with a main dealer and my model doesnt come with one? Are they talking b******s?

If you remove the cat on your car you will hear a deeper exhaust note and the car will rev more freely. I did this on my Favorit and the results were definatley worth it. The engine runs alot better without it.

...Thats the MK4. I assumed it was a mk2 with a 2.0 16v conversion.

....Why not something with the winged arrow badge? Octavia vRS PD170? BMW diesels are the sweetest sounding, smoothest and most refined diesels out but is it needed to pay the premium for one? Unless you do the motorway miles its not worth it?

From what I have read on the forum the best most cost effective and usefull mods withut spending ££££s are:- 1. 312mm brakes with braided hoses and some decent fast road pads- you can never have too much stopping power, aids safety afterall 2. Jabba Rear ARB - apparently the understeer is much reduced with this mod 3. PD160 with Green filter (getting the airflow right before the remap) 4. Milltek downpipe back system (if stock system goes replace, preparing car for step 5, getting the cat removed to reduce backpressure will help the increased flow of gases after the remap 5. Live Remap - 130bhp isnt exactly earth shattering but when the brakes, suspension and engine breathing mods are done then you u have power to match I would say those mods are the best starting point. I think building an Uber Furby vRS with FMICs, bigger turbos, internal engine work, bigger injectors etc is a waste of money for the average owner but I dont see anything wrong in modifying a car after a standard OE part has failed, eg, stock bushes go so replace with poly ones, that way you wont have to replace them again any time soon and the handling will be better (the ride wont be though) I find most of the above posts arguing about spending money on tuning the vRS when you could go and by a scoobapoo or "better" car quite tiresome. If that was the case then why the hell post on Briskoda, and indeed why does Briskoda exist if all the Skoda owners just buy a Skoda and then say, well, My Skoda isnt the fastest or greatest thing on 4 wheels so Il buy a Subaru or Mitsubishi or whatever piece of tin that captures the masses "imagination". The fact is for whatever reason people have bought vRS's and modified them by the thousands now which is why theyp post on here, to share with like minded souls. Its about passion for the car, for the marque and most of all enjoying the car and the mods you have undertaken. ..Ergo, does it really matter what it costs as long as everyone is happy? Its thier car, thier time and thier money and maybe not everyone wants to drive around in a petrol guzzling, high insurance, high bling factor ricer car - afterall, the reason most of us own a Fabia vRS is because they are cheap to buy, cheap to run, cheap to mod etc etc and just happen to be understated street sleepers that are a little bit more interesting than the mainstream tin cans that joe public drive. The vRS afterall fills a niche in the Diesel hot hatch market. Name another 5dr fabia sized diesel hot hatch which is more worthy of ownership and as cheap to run as a vRS? Thats just my opinion ayway Good luck with the mods mate!

The MK2 Golf should have done a better time tbh, they are alot lighter than a Fabia vRS (930kg vs 1315kg), and lighter still stripped out,not to mention they have 150hp stock - guess the driver wasnt at his best that day.

...I read somewhere on a Czech Motoring magazine website that the new vRS was currently under test and that they were having issues with the engine mounts and suspension geometry.

Ive noticed alot of people are doing this interior light mod on VAG cars. Has anyone done and got some pics of what it looks like illuminated?

Ive never personally had any issues doing it. I upgrade DDR1 laptops and PCs all the time and most of my customers have less than DDR400 in thier PCs/laptops eg 266/333 etc and normally I add a 1GB DDR400 stick to thier old 256/512 stick which is running at a lower speed. Never had anyone come back saying thier system was unstable or doing anything untoward. Sometimes you can have incompatibility between different manufacturers of ram modules though, normally I use Kingston, Transcend or Corsair RAM and 1 of the 3 works with whichever ram happens to be in the system as stock.

WD drives are very "fussy" over jumper configuration. I have been repairing PCs/laptops for 10 years now and have worked on over 15,000 units and I can tell you now there is no drive worse than a Western Digital except maybe a Hitachi "Deskstar" sorry, I meant deathstar lol. I didnt think to advise on checking the jumper config, I assumed it was either set to master or Slave. On western digitals there are several jumper settings; Cable Select, Single or Master, Slave and Master with Slave present. Normally if the drive is used in conjunction with another HDD or other type of IDE drive you can get problems recognising either of the drives.

I am thinking of having my rims powder coated in a different shade rather than the stock alloy/silver. 1. Do I go for a gunmetal grey look (a la renaultsport) 2. Motorsport white 3. A shiney black (like I have seen on some Fabias on here) The car is Corrida red so I think either black or white would suit it very well, just not sure on the gunmetal grey. Alternativly I was looking at some 17'' BBS or Team Dynamics rims but havent seen any going cheaply.

I phoned my Local IAM group today and they are sending me an application form tomorrow. The next meeting is in September so I will definatly be attending. I know some people think its a bit anal, but I think it is more beneficial to me than most people. I am not a awfull driver but I do have issues with depth perception as I only have 6/60th eyesight in my left eye so you can probably understand I have a certain disadvantage of judging the road than most people with normal sight. Thanks for everyone's constructive posts.

...Cant they make modern cars without the horrible bling shiney crap plastered all over the interior and ugly looking dials and switches etc?

Get yourself a copy of "Hirens 9.9" and then bootup from it, go to Harddisk Tools and run the western digital basic and advanced test. It sounds like thedrive could be faulty or there could be some file corruption on the drive. If you cant copy the contents of the drive in windows use Hirens CD again then bootup with the "Mini XP" option, its basically an emulation of windows which runs from the CD, once that starts up there is a program there called "unstoppable copier" select your source drive as he western digital and the destination as your other HDD, then click copy. The program should then copy the entire contents of the drive. If there are some bad corruptions on the drive you might have to run a chkdsk /p then a chkdsk /r from the recovery console on the XP CD. Hope that helps