It has been several months since I last posted any progress. I had made significant traction in Project Corrado and in July of 2012, I finally drove Project Corrado on the street. It was years in the effort and the final kinks and legal issues were ironed out late last summer. In the rebuild process everything except the motor and head were rebuilt. My last task was spent finalizing and charging the air conditioning system. Some of you remember, I opted to progress forward with the fully assembly without the motor. The motor would have taken several more months or years to complete. With only 174000 on the pedometer, even my auto repair shop was surprised with the high compression tests and overall condition of the engine. I had a spare short block in the garage, wasn,t needed.
The first 500 miles were driven easily as I shook out the car. I had to retune some specs because in the effort to pass the strict smog requirements, several adjustments were made to timing to keep emissions within acceptable levels..but performance was lacking
After three weeks, I finally drove the car in the mountain roads above southern California. This is where I remember this super charged car excelled. But once I reached the roads, I was disappointed in its performance. The brakes were solid and responsive but the Kuhmo tires and Bilstein/Neuspeed suspension setup did not inspire confidence as I once remembered. The traction was lost easily and the body roll was not controlled or balanced. This will require some more tuning to work this out.
The first 500 miles were driven easily as I shook out the car. I had to retune some specs because in the effort to pass the strict smog requirements, several adjustments were made to timing to keep emissions within acceptable levels..but performance was lacking
After three weeks, I finally drove the car in the mountain roads above southern California. This is where I remember this super charged car excelled. But once I reached the roads, I was disappointed in its performance. The brakes were solid and responsive but the Kuhmo tires and Bilstein/Neuspeed suspension setup did not inspire confidence as I once remembered. The traction was lost easily and the body roll was not controlled or balanced. This will require some more tuning to work this out.
Acceleration lacked too as I had difficulty keeping up or passing most other cars. This was a different personality than the corrado I drove nine years ago.
I drove home without incident from a weekend outing at the cabin, I suddenly experienced a misfiring from the motor. I found it unresponsive at lacking power.
I drove home without incident from a weekend outing at the cabin, I suddenly experienced a misfiring from the motor. I found it unresponsive at lacking power.
I was disspointed to see fresh oil in the driveway following my mountain excursion. So I did an inspection. Oil was leaking from the Samco Intake hoses above the radiator fan. From previous experience from the Samco coolant hoses, I found it a challenge to get a good tight seal using the silicon based hoses. When compared to the OEM rubber hoses, Samcos are much less forgiving. Each interface has to be clean of defect, hose clamps have to be intact and straight, and there can be no deposits or residue left over. And doing a quick search online for OEM replacement hoses is not very promising. Many of these hoses are no longer available in the VW network.
So I reluctantly removed the Corrado from any insurance coverage, changed the status with the DMV back to Non-operational, put the linen car cover back on the car, and parked it in the garage.
I'll need to look in my old parts bin to see if I discarded any of the original intake hoses. I discovered also that the tapered hose that came with the BBM RSR outlet will also need to be replaced. The knurled fittings put a permanent ridge on the inside surface of the hose. It makes a great seal when installed for the first time. But Unfortunately, this makes for a leaky seal if removed and reinstalled.
Compression check revealed that my previously intact motor was now down on compression in the number #2 cylinder. This was the biggest disappointment. I originally planned on rebuilding the spare PG block and head for this project but opted to bypass this since compression was still high and consistent across all four cylinders. That was no longer the case. So what to do now?
I begin to contemplate the options. Should I build the spare block? Should I rebuild the head? Or should I go on to another project?
In response, my brother and I sent the spare PG block to the machine shop. We were both rebuilding a Corrado G60 so one of us was going to use it. We had intended to upgrade to ARP fasteners, rebuild the rods, align bore the crank, replace all the seals and bearings, and hone the cylinder bores. After a brief trip to the machine shop the refreshed short block returned appearing ready to be built. But closer inspection revealed that the cylinder bores still had a perceptible ridge where the piston rings reached the top of their travel in the bores. We also discovered that the previous owner of this PG block had sheared off the Woodruff key at the crank pulley. Fortunately my brother had another PG crank on the shelf which we had cleaned along with the block. The damaged crank can be repaired at a later date.
Here's the show stopper. The cylinder bores in the cleaned short block revealed that there is much more work to be done. There is a ridge that is outside of tolerance and could pose a problem with the installation of fresh piston rings. Fresh rings would hit the ridge which would likely cause premature failure. So this block would need to be bored one step over and a new set of pistons & rings ordered. At roughly $650 for a set of forged pistons, this is a dramatic and expensive set back. Then we'd have to send the block back to the machine shop for further machining--more expense. (ironically, I can purchase six pistons for a VR6 for less than the price of four G60 pistons--go figure!)
So The Endless Corrado project is once again idle. For now the corrado lies quietly covered in the garage. I've removed the battery and have poured gas stabilizer into the tank to prevent the enamel build up that is so common with gasoline in long term storage.
I will have to sort out where this project and what I am willing to spend both in time and money.
In the meantime, I am sending the head to be rebuilt. When it comes back, I'll decide what to do moving forward. My brother will use the rebuilt head if I do not move forward.These past few months have been disappointing and I've been unable to gather any motivation to work on the Endless Corrado. That time has been spent on other projects including my MKII Project GL 16V
So through this experience i have to surmise that 2012 was not meant to be the year that the Endless Corrado Project would finally reach its conclusion.
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