Buying a 6

[cwspellowe]

Comparing a tuned car to a standard car as usual is always unfair, if you cammed a 6 or supercharged/turbocharged it it would munch a dt big blower or not.. albeit yes, it would cost more to modify the 6 to that level but then again, past big blowers on a dt that's pretty much it unless you plan on sinking major money into the lump which lets be honest defeats the entire purpose of the dt engine cheap and plentiful.

True, but when you can build your own 170bhp+ beast for under £1k including the car, in fact even 190bhp if you went balls out and picked up a cheap donor pump, you really can start comparing them. A GTi plus £400 for cams plus fitting and mapping gets expensive VERY quickly. And even then you'll have near 190bhp, you may need pocketed pistons unless you have a very mild lift or run the cams retarded, you may need a decomp plate to help with clearance, and your engine will be asthmatic unless you rev the crap out of it.

GTi6 - i dunno, £1k-£1.5k for a decent one these days?
Cams - PT81's, PeterT reprofiled cams - £400ish
Pocketed pistons - £3-400
Mapping - Another £3-400, or you could go standalone for ease of mapping but add another £400 for the ECU

You could be talking £3k all in just for that, and you'd be barely any faster "real world" than a sub £1k XUD. Maybe you stick with the MM 1AP ECU and get someone like RichW to map it, and you run your cams retarded so you have no clearance issues. 185bhp if you're lucky? And still £1800 unless you buy a turd of a GTi in the first place.

Smiles per gallon is a myth too. I get smiles AND mpg.

Don't get me wrong, GTi's have their place as an out of the box bit of fun. But the lack of any easy or cheap power mods makes them boring for 90% of GTi owners without the money to get some decent power out of them.

---

And Niall, there's quite a few diesels running 6 seconds 30-70 or less, a GTi would NOT do that. Fact. Whichever way you want to argue it, a 3rd gear pull - diesel would win. Let the GTi use more than one gear? Factor in gearchange times etc, i'd still put money on the diesel.

I did own one once upon a time, remember?