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Has Anyone Got Any Ideas How I Can Get More Power From My Engine? Already Put On De-Cat Pipe, Made Significant Improvement But Wondered If Anything Else Could Help. Cheers

Do you think its worth spending money on the engine when GT lumps are cheap and easily available ? Personally I don't, so thats what I would go for.

Change the hamster

sent u a pm

I second omicron, you need to get yourself a russian dwarf hamster to replace the domestic golden one that's standard issue, and put steroids in it's water.

that's as one 1043 owner to another, i must say. One of my earliest quests in owning it was The Hunt For 50 Horsepower. Fruitless search, especially as I wasn't prepared to spend £150+ on stuff that might have yielded, oooh, about as much thrust as a bog standard 1300cc would have (for the cost, hassle, and increase to the insurance premiums if you're honest, you may as well change the car or do an engine swap, and pay the lesser premium increase of owning a "proper" 1300)

you wouldnt necessarily have to go for a GT, a CL would give you a nice boost and not be that expensive all round, particularly if you got hold of an 8P box to go in at the same time - actually reducing your fuel consumption! In a mk3 frame, that engine's almost as fast as my 1.6 astra. In a mk2, it'd be as quick or better.

still, putting a poloace chip in a 1.0 does smooth out the lower revs a bit, gets rid of a couple of (needless) emissions test power notches etc.

PS you might find typing faster if you don't Hold The Shift Key Down At The Start Of Every Word

Tahrey1043 wrote:I second omicron, you need to get yourself a russian dwarf hamster to replace the domestic golden one that's standard issue, and put steroids in it's water.

Aren't they nocturnal though? Surely it'd start to misfire whenever you opened the bonnet and let the light in? I found a Campbell Russian ("winter white") was great for winter running, but if you want a good sports model, try a Roborovski (available from Vag Parts or Petsmart), they give a good top end, but are a little lacking in torque, on account of their size.

Joking aside, you'll be stunned at the difference a good service and a tuneup can make.

Plugs, leads, condensor, change the oil, fuel and oil filters, have the carb apart and blow it through (clean the crud out of the chamber too), check the vac hoses are clear. Get the carb set up and the dizzy strobed. Buy a pint with the change from £50.

Fuel makes a heck of a difference too, mine hates supermarket crud.

not sure on the fuel front for a 1-litre - going by the manual they seem to be a bit more resilient than the other engines and intended to run on leftover vodka when times got tough in the east european countries they were also sold in
certainly putting super in mine never made a jot of difference (no knock sensor for starters - it'd help if you were to e.g. manually advance the timing i guess).. 95RON is a good 4 steps above it's minimum rating.

similarly the "carb" - apart from the injector nozzle, that may need the odd one-shot of redex if you tend to run on cack fuel, this stays totally clean and doesn't need anything like the attention a mk2 one would. when i dismantled the engine, this part of it looked as good as the day it was fitted at the factory. benzine (petrol) used to be used as a dry-cleaning agent after all...

and also if it's a mk3 the ignition's all electronic - the only setup you can do on the timing is the basic advance that underlies all the trickery that the ECU does on top... probably doesn't have anything like the effect that altering the cam timing would, these days.
(that's what the sports ROM chip does - covers the twin avenues of sorting the fuel mixture and spark timing that playing with the dizzy and carb would have done in t'olden days)

But, the other stuff is all good - very much reccommended to have a clean air filter or even a custom (cleanable/reusable) K&N intake if you want to splash out a little (the golf mk3 conversion is well proven for the 1.0/1.3CL/GT, and quite cheap), i've felt the effect of a clogged one before (followed a few too many trucks and got it jammed with soot after 4k miles) and it's fair surprising the difference it makes!
Dodgy ignition leads can BADLY hurt your low end torque, not to mention damage the engine (basically, you get chronic misfires at wide throttle below about 3000-3500rpm). Particularly noticable in the wet. Same goes for anything else thats wrecked in that department (dizzy & rotor, plugs, etc).
Fuel filters are less than a quid a time, so if you've got the time and knowledge to change it, you may as well.
And naturally it doesnt pay to murder your block with sludgy, swarf-heavy, poorly circulating oil and a clogged filter. This can be no more than about a tenner each 5000 miles if you buy the stuff at GSF, and worth the very slight increase in outlay over doing it every 10k.

Other than that, make sure your exhaust is ok, no holes etc, (de-catting it was probably the best thing you could have done - it robs close on 5 horsepower!), keep your tyres up to pressure, and be ruthless in removing unneeded gear that you might be carrying.

You're right on the carb bit - Didn't spot it was a Mk3.