My new Corrado VR6

[PurpleTom 0]

Hi,

I'm new to this forum but thought I'd post up a few pictures of the progress on my Corrado. Long story short I've had a few Corrado's over the years, my last one was a 1996 8V that I converted to TDi in 2011 and took to the Nurburgring as well as using it as a daily. I then decided to move on and sold it in spring 2012.

Here's the build thread for the TDi if you're at all interested

Following selling the TDi I bought myself a 2004 BMW 330Cd which scratched a bit of an itch that I'd had for a while, however it wasn't really very 'me' so I sold it not long afterwards and purchased a 2002 mk4 Golf V5 to run through the winter. By this time, fuel economy wasn't so much of an issue and the V5 was a very nice car to drive - refined and comfortable and overall very good indeed. The engine had plenty of character however I figured that for similar money and similar fuel economy I could easily get back in to another Corrado - so the hunt began :-)

It wasn't long before one became available down in London. It was up for a good price but was advertised as requiring some TLC on the bodywork. I went down to look at it and the description was accurate - it was mechanically pretty good with a good amount of history however the bodywork was poor - it needed some welding and a full respray to get it back up to standard. It did however come with a full heated leather Recaro interior and various other goodies so it was duly purchased and I drove it back to Derby - here it is:

Immediately after getting it home I put it in the garage and started poking around underneath. Unfortunately the bodywork revealed quite a lot of underbody corrosion, particularly on the N/S and on both rear wheel arches. There was corrosion around the rear beam mounting points and also around the rear panel. I soon realised that perhaps it wasn't viable to spend a lot of money on a respray for a vehicle that wasn't in the best condition underneath, even if it did have plenty of new metal.

About the same time as this a friend of mine, told me that circumstances had changed and that he was looking to sell his Corrado which had been laid up in his Dad's garage for 18 months. An idea was formed and I went to have a look at his car. It's a 1992 'K' distributor VR6 in moonlight blue. He had spent over £2k on an engine rebuild in 2009 and money on various other bits. A good look underneath showed it to be in pretty good condition bodywork wise, but it was unfortunately suffering with lacquer peel in quite a few areas following a blowover respray at some point in its past.

However, it was available at a good price so I decided to buy it and make one good Corrado out of the two :-) I debated for a while about what to do about the paintwork but in the end I thought I'd bite the bullet and pay out for a full respray. Once money had been handed over for the car I set to work stripping it down ready for the respray and discovered that it really was in good condition underneath - Ian had never run it through a winter and I don't think the previous owner had either, as a result the only bit of corrosion was at the front of the N/S/R arch as per most Corrado's. Here's a few pictures of the car as it was when I found it in the garage:

Here's a sample of the lacquer peel:

A couple of days work later and I got everything stripped off it ready to take it to a paintshop that I'd found locally:

It was dropped off at the paintshop ready for a full windows out respray in the original colour, it wasn't long before they got started:

They said it would be a couple of months before it'd be ready, which was ideal as it gave me time to decide what to do with the red one. After a bit of soul searching I decided to break it. Not only would it provide plenty of parts for other Corrado's, the leather interior would go well in the new Corrado and it would also have been a LOT of work to get it up to MOT standard and even then it wouldn't have been worth much to sell. So I started to break it and started to make a list of what I wanted to do to the moonlight blue one.

So, with the blue one up at the paintshop and me starting to break the red one I decided what I wanted to do to the blue one in terms of spec. I’d been collecting and hoarding parts ready to fit to a new Corrado-shaped purchase at some point so this what was I was looking at:

- Passat moonroof.

- 312mm front brake conversion

- 256mm vented rear brake conversion with mk4 Golf type rear hub conversion using Polo stub axles – (more to follow on this)

- Recaro black heated leather interior

- Teves20 ABS upgrade (same as I did to the TDi)

- Coilpack and OBD2 conversion

- Internal relay headlamp loom upgrade

I started to gather the bits and bobs needed and I’ll update this thread as the build continues over the next 7 days. To cut a long story short I picked it up from the paintshop on Tuesday 9th July, all freshly painted. Here’s a small selection of pictures from the paintshop:

The only work I had done on it was the deletion of the rear wiper – there was a small bit of corrosion around the wiper hole so I decided to do away with it altogether. The car was already fitted with a third brake light in the bootlid as well.

Here’s a couple of pictures of it on the trailer after picking it up on Tuesday:

I’ve been spending the last few evenings slowly getting it back together and I aim to have it up and running, including getting it through an MOT, ready for the Corrado club national day at Castle Combe next weekend. In that time I am going to do the ABS conversion, brake upgrades and get it MOT’d etc. Not too much to do but enough to keep me busy!

Thanks for reading!

[VR6Pete 1,455]

Hi mate, bodywork looks stunning now, and some sensible upgrades there, how much did you pay for the respray if you don't mind me asking?

I don't suppose you have the plastic handbrake trim at all ?

Keep us posted with progress, what advantages do you get out of upgrading the ABS?

I've not looked at this before, but ive only just installed all new hard lines etc... but braking seems fine at the moment? running 288's up front too, perhaps could do with some better pads though as they were bought on a budget at the time

Cheers

Pete

[PurpleTom 0]

Hi Pete,

Thanks :-) The advantage of the ABS upgrade is that it eliminates the brake bias valve on the rear beam, the ABS pedal position sensor on the servo and the ABS ECU in the passenger footwell. It also results in a better pedal feel :-) It's not a particularly complicated install and it means I can change all the hard lines at the same time so good all round really. Late Mk3 Golfs and B4 Passat's use the system.

The respray cost me £2200 all inclusive but I saved a lot of money delivering it to them pretty much ready to paint rather than them having to strip it all down.

I have a couple of spare handbrake trims - I'll dig them out for you and get some pictures!

Tom

[VR6Pete 1,455]

That's not too bad, I need some fairly major work doing to mine in all honestly bodywork wise!

I've literally already replaced all my brake line with the green steel ones :)but happy with how it brakes....

Cheers for looking for the handbrake trims mines split and gets caught everytime I take the handbrake off lol

[dazvr 13]

Looks great,really like that shade of blue, might see you at National Day !