mk2

Yeah been looking around too. No other car has the same rears as far as i can tell. These really are lupo/arosa only parts... 6X0511115

Any more rear springs going? I think I've got your last pair on the back of black SDI...

Yeah, if you can get the money together for a Gti, drive it for a year, have fun, maintain it, then sell it for exactly what you paid for it. A bit like my Bugatti... might even get lucky and make a few quid. Free motoring! They're going up in value. Sadly sports don't hold their value as well.

Welcome to club lupo how about a gti? They're fun... and hold their value.

Check for manifold leaks... they can result in wrong diagnoses a lot. Brake servo pipe cracks are common (sucking in air). you can measure the voltages on the TPS while it moves. it coukd be the ignition on loom supply bus. I think there's a relay, like in lupos.

Only used TPS (vdub's own genuine parts outlet for those that don't know) once and decided wasn't worth it. The prices are the usually same as local dealers, so only in an emergency if you need a part right now. Usually a local dealer can get bits from milton keynes next day, or from germany within 2 days. So i often just go direct to germany and order from there. Gets here within a couple of days, and usually cheaper too. Only 15 euros delivery too.

Bad shaking is usually an injector not delivering right. Both my SDIs are 'almost' as smooth as a petrol. Each injector needs to deliver 'exactly' the same amount of fuel (VCDS provides handy individual delivery numbers). But you may remember the hell I went through to try and rectify those problems a while back. Learned loads about the pump based direct injection system though. Get that blue one on here if you enjoy fixing rusty bits. It looks ok, complete with decent interior- just respray the patches needed. Still nothing beats the smoothness of my V12...

You will realise that an SDI tractor is the ultimate get you from A-B car... Not the most comfortable. THE most efficient however. Cheapest too. Only pain is cam belt changes. I hate SDI cam belt changes.

Mk4 is a comfy car.

Found the answer. kerosene. Much lower emissions without anyone knowing that you're running on that instead of diesel but 15% lower power, so not good for regular running.

Ah, ok, i think that makes sense, but generates lots more questions. So my guess is that it's like shining a laser beam of given brightness and colour through a sample of gas, over a given distance. Firstly through clear air to set the level, then over the same distance through the smoke. The smokier the sample, the lower the received brightness of laser light seen by the light meter. Thanks for the info. Looked but didn't find what you did! And to my questions... what colour light is used? Are different colour lights used to determine particle size (like shining white light through drops of milk in a solution of water removes green and blue light). do they measure reflected light to determine the type of particles emitted? how is the mot test gear kept in calibration? Do they change the filter or light window every 10 tests or something? With my old Sun gas analyser, you have to change the filters regularly, then get the thing recalibrated every 18 months. And chnage the carbon monoxide sensor. how is the smoke level set? Do they have "standard" smoke to test the measuring equipment... could you trick the detector? if you added a small amount of unleaded petrol to the diesel, just for the mot, could you lower the numbers (i've often noticed that when people accidentally turn up after accidentally fuelling their diesel car with petrol, the dregs of petrol definitely reduce the smoky smell)?

Any idea what the numbers actually mean in relation to the real world? Looked it up and none of it makes any sense- and I thought I know about this stuff! Something like micrograms per km of solid carbon soot.... but how the hell can you calculate per kilometre when the car is stationary and the tester's revving the nuts off it??! An engine produces pollution per second, but if it's revving more, each rev will produce more stuff. And then if it's revving at the same RPM but working harder (like foot to floor scenario), it'll chuck out even more.....??? Anyone?

Hi and welcome to club lupo Lots of components are shared with loads of VAG cars... Easiest is part number lookups like these people: https://nemigaparts.com/cat_spares/etka/volkswagen/lu/231/4/ 6N polos are probably the closest.

Yeah the 0.7 plated specification for max permitted emissions is very low. My silver SDI passed at 0.2 but my other SDI passed at 2.4 just under the 'standard' 2.5 limit. I have no idea what the numbers mean relating to real world. Curiously, the MOT inspector told me that 0.2 is actually below the limit for the newest diesel cars, so is well within the new ULEZ for London. But because it's officially an old car, I still will not be allowed to drive it in London. Mad or what?! Apparently to get the numbers down again I'll need a new cat if it creeps above 2.5.

Off any vdub (as they're just about all the exact same). In any condition, so long as not disintegrating with rust. I have an experiment i want to try out, so i need enough metal left to weld to... can't believe I can't find any in my workshop, as they're always knocking about. Must have chucked them. anyone?

yeah that'll kill the sale price... keep it for 4 years and that's the price of the car. £255 tax for an SDI. mad.

your engine loading should be a lot lower for idle. it;s telling you that 11% of your available engine power is being used! cat temp should be 600+ injection timing should be about 1.2-1.6 for idle for hot engine (unless loaded with AC or something) manifold pressure should be lower too. you want a fairly high vacuum at warm idle. it could be an air leak (as in extra air is being sucked in somewhere). Not convinced the cat or the O2 sensor are toast. they're pretty tough. i'd be tempted to pop down to the local mot place and ask them to just have a sniff with their gas analyser for a minute. that'd be ultimate proof of whats coming out of the tail pipe. hydrocarbons are all you're interested in. if high, then it could be the cat. if low/normal then something to do with the fuelling/air system.

Brake pedal is fluid. Bleed them. Or maybe master cyl fault. engine is different problem... what are diagnostics saying? Could be anything.

Welcome to club lupo! You can either make your own from scratch, buy an after market thing or go for OEM equivalent. I always suggest OEM equiv or OEM if the car will be a keeper, but it's entirely your choice. There is no such thing as a performance exhaust while staying quiet. And a bit more noise sadly doesn't mean more power. You need a lot more noise to see a very small increase in power (like 2-3hp).

Yeah, I'm interested.... But at £8 a spring, brand new, plus delivery makes new over used nicer. Means I don't need to sand blast and re-powdercoat. Plus I've had an idea using a short length of tube and another pair of spring cups. So the spring 'rate' will be lower (more comfy ride for the really crap roads around here), but at the normal 4" ride height. Danno, what condition are your SDI springs in?

Take the SDI with you... Bargain car for someone at that price. An SDI makes a great cheap commuter car or for small delivery drivers.

Well I can confirm that brand new, regular poverty spec, mk4 golf front springs fit perfectly, but are too soft for a SDI. Lowering springs! The ride height is now about 50mm down on where it should be. Hmm. Next....! Gonna try VR6 mk4 springs next. That's a heavier engine, so might be perfect for the diesel lump up front. Hard to believe that the front of a SDI is heavier than a regular mk4 golf.

All HID tube drivers are the same. If the system uses a standard 35W Xenon filled tube, then the drive voltage and current is always the same. The things that are different are the plugs and sockets, the box it's in and if there's a CAN bus or fault detection interface. It's a pretty dumb piece of electronics, just like a fan controller. But I wouldn't mess with it unless you know what you're doing, as the tube driver voltage is lethal. Thousands of volts.

I must be missing something. Unless you know the memory address space in the ECU, knowing which pin the K line is on is like knowing the moon is in the sky. Doesn't mean you can just visit it... In the ECU code, there is 100% certain an IMMO off select function. But knowing where it is, is factory info that of course is and never has been made public. You can mess about trying to activate and deactivate various features by experimentation, where most of the time you end up bricking the ECU. Although, once you get a few things right, you know the approx addresses of things that make a difference and suddenly you know how to do stuff in an ECU. Speak to Uwe Ross from rosstech... VAGCOM or VCDS as it's now called. But he did have help from friends at local vdub dealers who allowed him to play on the VAS system (in house VW dealer only computer interface), which he had loggers attached to the serial data lines- which gave him the memory addresses. The more spare ECUs you have, the more experiments you can do. But that is generally only true once the ECUs become cheap, from older models. So new cars are usually main dealer only to do really simple stuff.

Silver aluminium pipe.