Bete Noir

Could I ask for one of the earlier slots, please? It looks like I am now expecting visitors that day, but hopefully I will still be able to pop down for a while.

Room for one more? If so, please can I add my Caddy to the list?

I was not a fan of the aftermarket steering wheel that was in the Caddy when I bought it, but it took me ages to make-up my mind as to what I wanted to replace it with. I had a Momo suede rally wheel in the Felicia 1.8T, but that wheel was more suited to a track car. I considered fitting one of the various styles of wheel available on the Felicia / Caddy range, but none of them that I have tried have been that nice to use. After a prolonged period of indecision reminiscent of my partner in a shoe shop, I decided I wanted a three spoke leather wheel like the one fitted in the mk4 Golf GTi. Little did I know this would open up a world of small spline / large spline confusion. This was the old wheel, pictured during some earlier dashboard experimentation, and without its rubber centre cover. I bought a Golf wheel off eBay, and ordered an adaptor to allow the (large spline) wheel to fit the (small spline) Caddy steering column. When I removed the old wheel, and went to slide the adaptor onto the column, it would not fit. I tried easing it on with a little coppergrease, and I tried decreasingly gentle levels of persuasion, but it was not happening. The old wheel went back on, and I went back to the drawing board (well to the internet, actually). I found threads about the spline adaptors on a number of VAG forums, and a few of them said that they can be difficult to fit onto the column, as they are a tight fit, so some force may be required. That convinced me that I had not been sufficiently determined, so when I got the chance a week or so later, I removed the old wheel to try again. This time I tried persuading the adaptor into place using a hammer and a brass drift. It was still not happening. By this point I was confused and frustrated. I think of myself as being an experienced amateur mechanic, but swapping a steering wheel was defeating me. In desperation, I resorted to counting the splines on the steering column and the inside of the adaptor. Given that I am long-sighted, this was no easy task, and I failed to determine exactly how many splines each part had, but I did convince myself they were not the same. I then started wondering whether the Caddy column was evidence of its pre-VAG Skoda origins, and was not ‘standard’ VAG small splines at all. This theory was only disproved after I had done some experimenting with steering columns and wheels from my SEAT Ibizas, which demonstrated that the Caddy column splines were the same as those on the Ibiza. So, I ordered another spline adaptor. When the second spline adaptor arrived, I tested it on a Felicia steering column I had in the garage, and then on the Golf wheel, and confirmed that it fitted both of them before I attempted to fit it into the Caddy. When the opportunity came to fit it, my son was doing it whilst I was working on something else. He removed the old wheel (yet again), but then called me over as the adaptor would not fit onto the column. I had a moment or two of confusion and panic before I realised that there was already a spline adaptor on the column! The old wheel had been fitted using a spline adaptor, but on all of the numerous occasions I had removed that wheel (probably 10-12 times for various jobs) the adaptor had always come off with the wheel, so I had never noticed it. After all the confusion and messing about trying to source the correct adaptor, I had one all along, but I only found-out when I had found the solution anyway. Finally I was able to get the Golf wheel fitted, and the look and feel of it makes the effort worthwhile. I still do not know what the story is with the first spline adaptor I bought. It does not fit any steering column I have, although the outer splines are the VAG large splines pattern. I have stashed it in the ‘just in case’ box in my garage, where it is far from alone. Much as I am happy with the new steering wheel, fitting it had an unfortunate consequence. The centre of the Golf wheel is larger than the old wheel and this makes it difficult to see the bottom row of dashboard warning lamps when the wheel is in some positions. The camera angle in the photo makes this look much worse than it is, and I am not worried about seeing the hazard warning, brake fluid level, alternator, or handbrake lamps all the time, due to the nature of what they are telling me, but if the oil pressure warning lamp comes on I want to know about it immediately. It would not have been that hard to rearrange (and re-wire) the warning lamps in the instrument cluster, but I decided to go another route. The replacement oil pressure sender I fitted had an oil pressure switch incorporated, which I had not initially connected. I now ran a wire from this sender terminal to a second oil pressure lamp which I fitted into a switch blank in the centre of the dashboard. This second lamp is a very bright 10mm LED which I had previously used in the Felicia 1.8T, and which you cannot miss if it illuminates. I like the peace of mind which comes from knowing I have two independent oil pressure warning circuits (plus the gauge!). The steering wheel centre horn push on the old wheel was unreliable, so I had wired a second horn button into the dash. This remains in use as I have not (yet) connected the horn push on the Golf wheel. The picture shows the LED oil pressure warning lamp, the horn button, and the HRW switch wired as a radiator fan over-ride, all resplendent with symbols I bought from Vehicle Wiring Products many years ago.

Engine cooling has always been an issue on the Caddy since the 1.8T transplant. It is not that surprising, as it now generates more than three times the power it came out of the factory with, and the associated increase in heat generation was never going to be insignificant. When the same engine was in the Felicia, the coolant temperature gauge generally sat just above the ‘normal’ mark, but quickly went up in traffic unless the radiator fans were switched-on. The thermostatic switch for the fans had never worked reliably, and manual over-ride had been wired to the HRW switch and tell-tale, and I replicated this in the Caddy. During the transplant the radiator fan circuit in the Caddy had been modified to be a hybrid of the petrol (single speed fan, no relay) and diesel (two stage fan, relay switching) such that it operates both fans at a single speed, switched via the relay. With the new circuit in place in the Caddy, I succeeded in getting the thermostatic switch to activate the fans, and realised that it also illuminated the dashboard tell-tale when it did so, which I like. After the transplant into the Caddy, the coolant temperature gauge would go up pretty quickly after start-up to settle at about 100˚C, where it would stay during normal driving. In traffic it would shoot up from there towards the red if unchecked by the fans, although they would bring it back down to an indicated 100˚C pretty quickly. Despite showing some high temperatures at times, I rarely saw the tell-tale indicating that the thermostatic switch had kicked-in, and I never saw (or smelled, heard) symptoms of over-heating. I concluded that the coolant temperature gauge circuit was not indicating correctly, and embarked in trying to work-out why. In unmodified cars, a problem such as this is usually caused by a component failure. This is also likely in a modified car, but it is also possible that components which were not designed to work together are individually operating as they should, but are not working together properly so that their operation is not having the desired effect. Once I started reading-up on the various specifications of coolant temperature senders fitted to VAG cars, and some of the problems this has caused after modifications, I decided that what I was seeing was a similar issue. This is probably well known to many on here, but the VAG 4-pin temperature sender is two separate sensors, both of which vary resistance with temperature independently. One pair of pins provides engine temperature to the ECU, while the other pair of pins are those which drive the coolant temperature gauge. The resistance of the two sensors is not necessarily the same at any given temperature. It may have been more straightforward for the engine swappers among us if VAG had fitted two separate senders, but they did not. As the engine was running well, it appeared that the ECU half of the sender was doing what it should, but the gauge half was not. I spent ages experimenting with various senders in pans of water which I heated and cooled whilst I measured resistances, ... with temperature gauges which I fed from variable resistors, ... and with various Felicia/Caddy looms which I buzzed-through trying to find a phantom resistor which I had read somewhere was in some models and not others. After all this, my conclusions were... sadly inconclusive . I was pretty sure that I needed to add a resistor into the gauge circuit, in series with the sender, to get the gauge to read accurately, but I was struggling to work-out the value of resistor I needed. Searching online to find what resistance values others had used I came across a thread about someone experiencing similar problems after he had fitted a 1.8T. He had asked for advice about what resistor he needed, and someone had pointed him in the direction of the temperature sender fitted to the mk2 Golf GTi 8V, which apparently has the correct characteristics for the 1.8T ECU and the older temperature gauges. That sounded worth a try, especially as I had one of those senders in my garage. Two minutes later, the mk2 Golf sender was fitted in the Caddy, which then started and ran fine (positive indication #1) and had the coolant temperature gauge settling on the ‘normal’ marking (around 90˚C). Success! In this instance, if I had tried mindlessly swapping parts rather than trying to be clever and methodical about it, I would have got to the answer much more quickly.

After the prang I had in April, the front end had been looking very sorry for itself. My preferred bodyshop managed to fit it in to get it looking more Caddy-shaped and get me back on the road, but it had to go back for paint a couple of months later. As well as painting the panels that had been damaged in the crash, they also tidied-up a few other bits that were looking tired, painted the mirror covers which were previously a different grey, and painted the front and rear bumpers in gloss black. The former owner had matched the bumpers to the grey of the bodywork, but like a lot of the visual changes he had made, that was not to my taste. I considered doing the bumpers satin black, but decided to go the whole hog and go for full gloss. I am really pleased that I did.

As I mentioned previously, with the extra gauges being mounted under the centre of the dashboard, they were very hard to read. The easiest one to see was the one farthest away, which was the voltmeter, and was therefore the least critical of the three. Both the oil temperature and oil pressure gauges spent too much time at the lower end of the scale, for different reasons, so there was clearly room for improvement. The oil temperature gauge was always reading at the lower end of the scale because its range was 60-170˚C, meaning that the normal reading of around 90˚C was close to the bottom. This was easily rectified by fitting a gauge with a range of 50-150˚C. Having never had the oil pressure warning light showing, I had never worried about the reading on the oil pressure gauge, even though it was towards the bottom of the scale. I had to swap out the oil filter sandwich plate because the O-ring had started to leak, and whilst it was out I also swapped the oil pressure sender. I had bought a 0-5bar sender, suspecting that the one that was fitted would be a 0-10bar item, and so it proved. Ironically, now that I have fitted a sender which provides an accurate pressure indication, I have swapped the gauge for one that has no numerical scale, simply because aesthetically it was a better match for the other two gauges I was now using. Having finally located the gauges from my Felicia pick-up, the voltmeter was swapped for the one from that set. The order of the gauges was also reversed, so left to right is now oil pressure, oil temperature, voltmeter. I bought a DIN mounting box to put the gauges in the radio slot, but the box is going to need some Dremel work before it will fit. As a temporary solution until I have the time and inclination to sort that, I used the same gauge panel as had been mounted under the dash, but hung it on the bar at the top of the radio slot, held in by the ash tray and 12V socket. The head unit in the Caddy is a fairly ancient Sony CD player. It hardly ever gets used, so the quality of it is not a priority for me. I had a box specifically for mounting a head unit under a dashboard, but it was too wide for the centre part of the Caddy dash. I struggled for a while to find a solution, before I had a brainwave. The box that the head unit cage fits into is held into place by two screws up from under the dash into spire clips (U-nuts) on the bottom of the box. By turning the box upside-down under the dashboard, I could put the same screws through the holes in the dash from inside the head unit slot, and screw them into the spire clips now on top of the head unit box. I will put some sort of centre console around / under it at some point, but it does not look bad as it is.

The front brakes were a bit more complicated to upgrade. Again, most of the hard work had been done in uprating the brakes on the Felicia 1.8T, and I only had to swap the bits over. The brakes going on are Golf G60 discs (again, same as mk2 Ibiza GTi parts) with Mondeo ATE callipers. The Mondeo calliper mountings line-up with those on the Caddy hub carrier, but the carrier has to be machined to take the larger M12 bolts. The hub carriers I took off the Felicia had this done, and had been fitted with mk1 Ford Focus coilovers. These coilovers are nasty FK units, and will be swapped at some point, but for now they are on the Caddy. Pictured below are the ‘standard’ front upright and brake, and the replacement with the larger disc and the coilover. The difference in size between the discs is not that obvious in that photo, but when you see the comparison between the pads it is more striking. The standard pad is at top left, and the other four are the EBC Yellowstuff pads I am using in the Mondeo callipers. Front upright in place, complete with nice shiny (and shorter-headed) new spacer bolts.

The standard brakes were never going to be sufficient to handle the increased performance, and it was always my intention to rob the appropriate parts from the Felicia 1.8T. TeflonTom wrote-up the conversion on the Felicia thread, so I will not replicate it here. When I removed the rear wheels I found both 25mm and 5mm spacers fitted. The original bolts for the 25mm spacers had evidently gone missing at some point, and the bolts that had been used to replace them did not quite sit flush with the wheel mating face. I definitely should have noticed that when I had the wheels off previously! I sourced some bolts with shorter heads to use when the 25mm spacers were re-fitted (after the photo was taken). The 5mm spacers did not go back on.

Anyone who read my Felicia pick-up thread will know I am a fan of additional gauges to let me know more of what is going-on under the bonnet. When I wired oil temperature, oil pressure and voltmeter gauges into the Felicia I just used the obvious individual insulated crimp terminals we all know and love. They did the job perfectly well, but I am OCD about my wiring, and I wanted to do a more professional job this time. I have several sets of VDO gauges and the associated loom that would have been used to connect them in the Audi 80 or contemporary VWs, but neither the Caddy nor my Ibizas have the connectors in their standard loom to allow the gauge loom to plug in. So, I looked at the part number of the connectors (1x 6-way, 1x 2-way) on the Audi loom, and asked various VAG parts people if they could supply the corresponding plugs. No. Obsolete. Couldn’t even give me part numbers. After much searching I found a website with a really comprehensive connector reference section. It was not in English, so I had to trawl through pages of pictures to find what I was after. Eventually I found part numbers for both plugs. After that, it wasn’t hard to find suppliers who could each supply one of the plug types, but they came without terminals. After further searching I found two more suppliers who could each supply one of the types of terminals required. Three weeks later, the parts had arrived from all over Europe. The gauge loom includes the cigarette lighter, so my plan was to unplug the standard cigarette light connector, and add the new loom between that connector on the standard loom and the cigarette lighter socket. This picture shows the Audi gauge loom, with its cigarette lighter socket connector towards the right, next to the Caddy cigarette lighter socket on the right. The Caddy cigarette lighter socket connector was then soldered onto the gauge loom. The battery 12v, earth, and instrument illumination wires that had previously connected to the Caddy cigarette lighter socket were then fitted to the appropriate pins of the new 6-way plug, along with an ignition switched 12v. The gauge sender signal wires were then wired to the new 2-way plug, and from there it was plug and play. After it was all tested and working, the wiring was wrapped in loom tape for a more professional finish. Under the bonnet I used the oil filter sandwich plate from the Felicia pick-up, which had oil pressure and temperature senders fitted already. A 3-way Superseal connector was used to connect these to the signal wires and earth. The plan was to fit the same gauges as I had used in my Felicia pick-up, but despite frenzied searching I could not find them. Instead I fitted another set of gauges which are intended for one of my Ibizas. Although the gauges had been positioned under the dash in the previous pick-up, and had been fine there, I am not really happy with it in this one. Swapping the locations of the gauges and the head unit may be in order.

This is in the wrong order chronologically, but since it ended in a significant mod... When my son took the Caddy out for the first time since the engine transplant. He had only been driving it for about 20 minutes when it cut-out on him. When I saw his name come up on my phone, I feared the worst, so I was actually relieved to be told he had broken-down rather than having pranged it. I need to have more faith in him J. When I got to him, the Caddy started straight away, but it only ran for a few minutes before it cut-out again, and so it went on. I called the AA, but by the time the van showed-up the Caddy started and ran fine, so the AA guy just followed me the couple of miles home. When I came to investigate the fault, I discovered that my VCDS laptop could not communicate with the ECU, so I was forced to try to fault find blind. I concluded it was probably an electrical component, and tried swapping-out the ignition amplifier, amongst other things. Nothing I did made any difference to the symptoms of the fault, and actually when it did run it had deteriorated to the extent that it was struggling to rev, and smoking badly like it was over-fueling. I suspected the problem may be with the ECU, but unsurprisingly I had no handy spare, and I did not want to buy one based only on my guesswork, so the Caddy went on the back of a truck to JKM. Jim could not get the ECU to communicate either, whether in the pick-up or on the bench, so he advised that a replacement ECU was the right way to go. I found a seller on eBay who had a good reputation for selling gently (my word not his) re-mapped ECUs, so I ordered one, which arrived at JKM two days later. Once it was fitted, the Caddy ran fine, without signs of over-fueling or cutting-out.

I had considered getting a dashcam before this, and I like the idea, but as I have three cars I drive regularly, and knowing that I would never be bothered to swap the dashcam about from car to car every time, I decided against. In this instance, I am not sure whether it would have helped anyway. If the dashcam was attached to the front screen, even if it recorded both front and rear, would it have had the field of view to catch the rear corner of my Caddy?

What is scary to some, is exciting to others, and not at all negative. Not that I would recommend doing the 1.8T without sorting the handling and braking, but since the OP said that would be the priority, the 1.8T should not be ruled-out on the grounds of the effect it has. However, the 1.8T transplant is a lot of work, and what you end-up with when you fit one in a Felicia is not much like a Felicia any more. If you love your Felicia, but want it to be better rather than fundamentally different, I would not recommend going the 1.8T route.

This has proved to be scarily prophetic I went for an overtake that would have been unlikely had the Caddy been standard, but should have been straightforward with the 1.8T performance. Sadly, the bloke I was overtaking took offence, and gave me a little nudge on the NSR corner. I was only doing about 50mph, but I got spun into a barrier at the side of the road. I will not be posting a photo of the front end damage on here, as I do not want to be reminded of it in the future, but suffice to say it is not pretty. When Sussex Police showed-up, I asked them to look at the above tyre marks on the Caddy rear bodywork, which could only have happened if the other driver had turned toward me, and the plod's initial response was that it was paint transfer, in fact he said it was red paint transfer! This observation was made worse by the fact that the other car was not actually red . Even after I told him to look again, and he conceded that the marks were from a tyre, he was still reluctant to accept the likelihood of what I told him. He and I will be speaking again. Meanwhile, the Caddy is back to the bodyshop Monday to be restored to its former glory

During one of the many recent rainy days, I was looking for a task to keep me occupied when I could not get outside to work on the cars. I decided to take apart the speedo cluster from my Felicia 1.8T, as the digital clock had only ever worked intermittently. I suspected it could be a dry solder joint, which could be an easy fix and give me a handy spare. I did not find a dry joint, instead I found that the area of the PCB around the clock circuit appeared to be damaged. The effort involved in sorting that did not justify the benefit, so I had another idea… A while back I bought an OMP digital boost gauge off eBay. It had apparently been discontinued, so it was pretty cheap, and it struck me as something I may have a use for in the future. The gauge display looked a similar size to the Felicia digital clock display, so I decided to have a go at replacing the clock with the boost gauge. The boost gauge was comprised of two boxes, one containing the sensor, and the other holding the LED display plus the driver circuitry. The display proved to be a perfect push fit into the Felicia clock bezel, although the display box was obviously far too long to fit between the bezel and the PCB. When I prised the display box apart, I found that the display was attached to the circuit board via 13 resistors and one wire link, all of which were soldered at both ends. I cut the display end of the case to length so it would fit between the clock bezel and the PCB. The resistors and wire link were all de-soldered from the display board, and as I did not have any suitably fine wire to re-connect the two circuits I separated the cores from a length of CD changer cable and, as I did not have 14 different colours to tell them apart, I used coloured heatshrink. Once all the connections were made at the display end, I fed the wires through the hole in the PCB where the clock illumination bulb normally goes, and re-attached the clock bezel to the PCB, with the boost gauge display inside it. I then started to solder the interconnecting wires to the resistors on the driver board. This was the point at which I wondered why I had ever thought this was a good idea! After an hour or so of peering through a magnifier to see what I was doing, I had all of the connections made. Much to my relief, when I then connected a 12v supply to the boost gauge, the display all worked as it should. So that I could get the wires through the rear cover of the speedo cluster, I cut the cover from the edge, through a screw hole, and onto the hole originally for the clock illumination bulb. The exposed end of the circuitry is protected inside plastic, and the driver box is cable tied to the rear cover. I wired a couple of 3-way Superseal connectors, one for between the driver box and the sensor, and the other to connect to ignition 12v, earth and display illumination spliced-in to the vehicle loom. All fitted and working.

The Felicia body shell is not now as strong as it ought to be. The sills are rotten, but I do not think Tom did them when he did the work on the car. As far as I know, the front end strengthening that he did was limited to the running gear rather than the body shell. When JKM were doing the transplant, they checked the front of the Caddy shell over and repaired anything that was not 100%.

It is probably stating the obvious, but when the steering column needs to be returned to position, the nuts can be wound back up by hand until the column is where it needs to be, then each of the long bolts can be replaced one at a time with the ‘proper’ bolts. It is so much easier than trying to hold the column in place while lining-up the bolts along with the associated spacers, washers etc.

When the engine and gearbox were swapped, the Caddy’s original speedo cable was re-fitted, rather than the Golf item that had been in the Felicia with the same running gear. Initially, it worked OK, but that did not last long. When I disconnected the cable at the speedo end, I found that the inner cable was broken near to the gearbox. Detaching the cable from the gearbox sender was very awkward, even after the air filter was removed and the gearshift cables were moved out of the way. The only way I could get the speedo cable fitting to turn was with mole grips, and the space was so restricted I could only turn it a tiny amount each time before I had to remove the grips and re-position them. When this had been going-on for what seemed like ages, I realised that the cable was still tightly screwed-on to the sender, and it was the sender which was unscrewing from the gearbox. Further faffing about then ensued to finally get the cable off the sender, and the sender back in the gearbox. Fitting the Golf speedo cable was a breeze in comparison, especially at the speedo end, where the extra length of the Golf cable over the Caddy one was a game-changer. When I took it out for a drive, however, the speedo worked for just a few seconds, then stopped I had the instrument cluster out three or four times trying to get the speedo working again. Having struggled to get the steering column back in position after lowering it to get the instrument cluster out, I decided I needed to make it a bit easier. I bought four M8x80mm bolts, and nuts, and after removing the steering column mounting bolts one at a time I replaced them with the 80mm bolts, with the nuts wound-up to keep the column in position. Once all four long bolts are in place, the nuts can be wound-down by hand to lower the column so the instrument binnacle and surround can come out. To find out if the problem was with the speedo cable, the sender, or the speedo itself, I disconnected the cable at the speedo end (again) and poked it round the side of the instruments so I could see it from the driving seat. I found a piece of heatshrink to push onto the end of the inner cable, so I could easily see whether or not it was spinning. When I took the Caddy out for a drive the inner cable spun, but only momentarily. After pulling-over two or three times to fiddle with the inner cable, I succeeded in getting it to go further into the sender than it had previously. Problem solved

That would be true (and obvious ) if I were trying to squeeze more power out of it, but as I said above I am not in that situation, so it is academic. What you have described there is actually what I have in one of my Ibizas.

Absolutely I understand. I posted elsewhere on the forum about the special satisfaction that comes from taking victims when you are driving a modified car, most especially one that you have modified yourself. 1.8T Ibizas, now you are talking! Mine both have the throttle body on the offside, although neither of them came out of the factory with the 1.8T engine installed. My mk1 Leon Cupra R did have the throttle body on the nearside, and there is probably some advantage to be had from that. With the Caddy, I am not trying to squeeze more power out of it (at least not at the moment ). It probably makes around 200bhp as it is, and that is enough for plenty of fun. I generally have the tonneau cover on, so no-one can see what I have in the back. When I collected the diesel engine from JKM, and it was clearly visible in the back, I did cause some amusement to a driver of a more modern Caddy when I went flying past him

The signals for low oil pressure, engine rpm and coolant temp. all go direct from engine sensors to the instrument cluster. The diagnostics connector works fine in the Caddy, I never had reason to find out if it worked in the Felicia. This connector only needs three pins connected: 12v, earth, and the K-line from the ECU, so it is pretty straightforward. I have been driving modified cars (Q-cars mostly) for many years. The most common hazard has always been other drivers assuming I am going slower than I am and consequently pulling-out in front of me, rather than people getting aggressive in response to their (perceived) humiliation.

The engine loom from the Felicia 1.8T was spliced-in to the Caddy's original loom. As the Caddy was a diesel, we thought that might be problematic, but it was more straightforward than swapping more of the loom form the Felicia, which I had thought might be the way to go. The diesel clocks were swapped for a set from a petrol car, and the diesel dash loom had the connection from the fuse box to drive the rev counter, which works fine. I only wish the mechanically-driven speedometer was as easy, that is proving unreliable currently. I have had a few angry reactions from people who have fallen victim to this Caddy's performance. One or two have smiled and given the thumbs-up, but a higher proportion have suffered a sense of humour failure. I am not sure which I enjoy more, if I am honest

When I took the Golf(?) front bumper off, the Caddy resembled something out of Mad Max. The crash bar had been mutilated, presumably to enable the non-standard bumper to fit. Fortunately I had the crash bar off the Felicia to replace it. The top bumper brackets had been removed, but I robbed those from the Felicia too. After those and the crash bar had been painted black and fitted, the bumper from the Felicia went on without problems. With the Felicia bumper and a standard grille fitted, the front end is looking much more like it should. Both the front and rear bumpers will be getting a respray in black at some point, but that is some way off the top of my priorities at the moment. As it is, I am really pleased with the way the front end now looks much more standard.

Car manufacturers spend a lot of time and money developing cars so that they sell. That means they are developed with a market in mind, rather than any individual. When a car manufacturer spends their time and money developing a car with my specific requirements in mind, hopefully I will be able to afford to buy it. Until that happens, I will continue modifying cars so that they better suit what I want. If you have a car that you like, but which you want to improve, then improve it. Do not assume that another car that has some of the features you wish you had in your current car will necessarily make you happy. After all, a Golf 1.8T is just a Golf 1.8T, like all the thousands of others on the road. A Felicia 1.8T, however, is a whole different animal. I know, I bought and drove the Felicia 1.8T that TeflonTom built, and I have now transplanted the engine and other uprated parts into my mk2 Caddy pick-up. My partner has a mk1 Octavia RS that we have owned since new. Both the Octavia and the Caddy have 1.8T engines of around 180bhp, so their performance is pretty similar. The Octavia is more comfortable, more reliable, more practical, and easier to maintain. The Caddy puts a massive grin on my face every time I drive it. If you want a Felicia that goes fast, and unless you have the good fortune to buy one that someone else has modified, the only way to get it is to "mess around" with it, or have it done on your behalf. If you do an engine transplant, the only "paperwork" you need is a note on headed paper from an independent garage confirming the engine number and engine size, plus the fuel type if you have changed e.g. from diesel to petrol. The DVLA need to see that to update the details on the V5C. No insurance company has ever asked to see this documentation for any of the modified cars I have owned, even when I have declared extensive lists of modifications. I have had no problems on the rare occasions I have had to make a claim. I am not saying it is easy to modify a Felicia to go faster, given the fact that it was developed pre Skoda's incorporation into VAG, there is virtually nothing that is a straightforward swap from the VAG parts bin. If you have the time / expertise / money, then go for it. If not, there are other cars that make a lot more sense as the basis for modifications.

You appear to have it listed on eBay currently, so by the end of the auction you will have a pretty good idea how much someone will pay for it, surely? I would suggest editing the title of the auction listing to make it clear it is a Favorit rather than a Felicia so that it stands-out better, even if that means stopping the auction and re-listing it.

Your options are limited mostly by your ability and/or budget. (Virtually) anything is possible, but the 1.8T conversion is not straightforward, and I do not imagine the VR6 transplant is either. Speaking from experience I can tell you that a Felicia / mk2 Caddy pick-up with a 1.8T transplant is great fun to own and drive.