surprised

[Hutdog]

Hi all

When it came down to looks for a car i test drove all sorts of things and settled on a 205 gti as being what i was after. at the time it came down to a 205 mi16 conversion (which i didn't test drive) or the one i actually purchased (8v). they were in the same condition, same colour (silver) and same year (1988) the 5k price difference was the decider.

the guy who i brought mine off had receipts for about 8k in spent in the previous 18 months and given he had other 'toys' his wife said it had to go. it had complete motor rebuild, clutch, gearbox, bilstien suspension, K & N intake, new cam and exhaust system done.

After since reading about the 205 Mi16 i have been kicking myself ever since and from what i have read the mods the guy did on mine are not supposed to make much difference to standard power output.

on the weekend the same mi16 conversion pulled up next to me at the lights. we had a chat (as you do!) and gased it off when the lights turned green. and to my surprise there was nothing in it (up to about 80 km/h when we slowed down).

the driver of the mi16 205 look equally as surprised as i was. can anyone shed some light on this for me? what sort of difference should there be in terms of car lengths by say 100 kays? Is there not much between a fresh 8v with mods and a standard 16V motor with a few kays on board? :

 

[Cubits]

I don't know about the mi16 engine specifically, but usually going to 16 valves will reduce the peak torque and narrow the power band. The 205's normal engine has an amazingly wide torque band and truckloads at 4k. Because of that, from a standing start the 16v has a slight disadvantage until it gets to taller gears where the increased top end oomph allows it to start leaping away.

That or the mods to the 8v were decent. A hot cam is the best thing for the 205 8v to gain power when matched correctly to a modified ecu, so odds are your car has some extra twist.

One of the best things i saw for a 16v engine was to make it much more torquey lower down with the addition of a supercharger (mk1 mr2 was awesome with it!). You lose a smidgen of power, but gain a whole load of gear elasticity and acceleration. I hate most jap cars because they hide the feebleness of their engines with a turbo. It's especially horrible on small capacity 16v engines.