Scirocco->Corrado transplant

Seems to be a lot of work to downgrade (IMHO) the Corrado with the 1.8 16V engine. That Corrado seems to be a heavier car than the Scirocco. I think you want to spend little money but don't mind the extra work. ;-)

What is wrong with the G60 engine? If it is just the bottom end maybe the

16V shortblock will work. I dunno but some things are possible! How is that supercharger? With the proper tweaking ($$$) that G60 engine is awesome!

What do you want as the final result?

JMHO

The Corrado engine is, basically, dead. (see below)

... it moves pretty damn slow. Yes, it's heavier. I don't recall how much right now.

Sorry, wasn't clear about that. The Scirocco is mine, the Corrado is my son's. He'll be doing the majority of the work.

The supercharger is blown. The previous owner removed it. With the supercharger it's listed as 160HP. I don't know what the HP of that engine is without the supercharger, but I do know the car didn't move too well. Then he loaned the car to someone who did ghod knows what to it and it ran even worse. Mechanic said something about the head being screwed up, but I wasn't directly involved so I don't know exactly. I do know the dollar amount to fix it all was rising steadily.

I've heard that there is considerable wind up on the supercharger which produces noticable lag. Or is removing that wind up part of the "tweeking" you're talking about?

A low-cost way to get the Corrado back on the road. We'd been told that without the supercharger the 16V engine in the Corrado was putting out less than 100 HP. I've got a 123 HP 16V engine. It seems it would have to be an improvement over the performance it was getting. And anyway, being that the car isn't running at all right now, it's clearly and improvment over that.

But, if the job is going to be a nightmare of mis-matched parts and emissions and electrical problems, it just isn't worth doing.

On the other hand, if it's a "pop it in and go" job (or something near that), it's worth it.

That's really what I'm trying to gauge here.

- Bill

Yeah without a good supercharger that low compression 1.8l engine is pretty weak. ;-)

The supercharger does not typically have a lag since it is running all of the time = boosting all of the time. The turbochargers have the lag until it winds up to provide boost.

Not sure but I don't think it is a "pop it in and go" job but it is probably doable. Fuel Pressure requirements might be different since the injection systems are different. I have only worked on 2 Corrados and am not too familar with their systems since they both ran fine. Throttle bodies, fuel pumps, fuel injectors, fuel distributor, exhaust manifolds and other components might be different. Now anything can be done if you want to modify and also since you have all of the components that you need on the donor vehicle.

I am wondering if you take your Corrado to a VW shop, can they actually work with what is there. Maybe it only needs a supercharger to make it powerful again. ;-) ebay item # 150220178775 or 320222926373 I know my 1.8t is pretty slow without a good turbocharger. I still have to check my engine out more thoroughly to make sure that it is running at its optimum level.

Buy an entire G60 engine and supercharger ebay item # 110228430058

That is your call! ;-)

I know. That was what was surprising, as I recalled, about the G60. There was supposedly a noticable lag between hitting the gas and having the boost apply. I'm speaking from what I heard here. The supercharger was out of my son's car before he bought it, and I've never had a chance to drive one with it working. The couple of Corrado's I test drove were VR6.

Right. I hadn't thought of that one.

Yeah, it can. But I'm not willing to do that much work and while he's willing, this isn't the sort of work he's really good at. To minimize the chances of a failure, it's got to be fairly straight forward.

It for sure needs more than a supercharger. There's something screwed in the head and may have been other problems as well.

I'll have him look, but the dollars was a lot of the motivation behind this.

Thanks for the comments. Especially pointing out the fuel pressure. I didn't have that on my list of possible problems.

- Bill

I would remove the head to see what is wrong. If it is dead anyway it costs nothing to look. To swap engines you probably need to move the wirng harness for engine management and all the sensors and computer stuff. I doubt that it is a simple swap. It may be that an already properly running car is a better deal.

He's already got it out. I haven't looked at it myself, but some "car guy" he knows said it needs serious help. My son is an absolute whiz at car sound systems, customized interiors, and that sort of thing. But he's got very little experience with the "go" stuff for a car.

I'd figured on that, and hoped it wouldn't be necessary. But I think you're right.

It's looking like that's the case.

If the money were there, yes. He's got very little cash available. On the other hand, the labor is free.

Well, we won't be doing this till summer time anyway. Time to gather ideas and precautions. And, of course, to just forget the whole thing. :)

Thanks.

- Bill

How about this option:

Cecil

message

snip

Then I suggest that he do some trading of vehicles/parts and his labor. Quite a few people are probably looking for interior customizers and probably looking for Corrados and/or Sciroccos with 16V engines. Trade both of those pieces of cars for one good one, or trade some interior work for mechanical work. Whereabouts is he? I could use some repairs to my leather driver's seat and know some VW Beetles that could stand some interior work too!

Thanks. I'll have him take a look. That price might, maybe, be something he could manage.

- Bill

Good idea.

In the vicinity of Framingham, MA.

Hmmm. That's not what I meant by "interiors," but I'll mention that to him as well. He does mostly things like designing/building/adding one-of-a-kind enclosures for sound and video equipment.

- Bill

Have him post what he wants to do/trade on craigslist.org. Couldn't hurt! ;-)

OK he is more like Pimp My Ride with the stereo systems in the cars then.

Another possiblity.

Somewhat, though I doubt he'd like the analogy. He was going to do some work on my Scirocco for my birthday a couple of years back. The parts he made were absolutely top notch. Very well done. He was disappointed when I wouldn't let him actually put them in the car. I know that some people like that sort of thing, but for me, I mostly* want the car to look like it was built to look.

- Bill ______

• "Mostly" ... the stock sound system had to go. I'm not into huge bass boxes and illuminated speakers and all that, but I did want something that would play CD's and would use a USB thumb drive. He picked out a nice system and did a good, clean, unobtrusive installation job.