Now where was I? Ah yes, after sorting out our idle problem and fixing the poor ride I turned my attention to the overall performance. Not sure what to do, I asked for some advice from my friendly local specialist. The suggestion was to bore the supercharger to a stage 4. Now this isn’t a particularly cheap modification, but it is one of the best ways to get a reasonable performance hike out of the G60.

Whilst I was considering this option the garage contacted me and gave me another choice. They had come across someone who was selling their Rallye 1H lump, which already had a stage 4 charger bolted to it. Not only that, but it had a 68mm pulley, gas flowed head, high lift cams and all of this for less than the cost of boring out my current supercharger. Bonus! So it was a bit of a no brainer really. Without further ado it was out with the old and in with the new.

With a replacement engine and charger I thought I may as well go the whole hog and so added a new intercooler with some custom pipework to match. Mix in a stainless steel manifold and a month of mechanical effort and she was back on the road.

How did she sound now? In a word, loud. Probably too loud to be comfortable if I'm honest, but I couldn't be bothered to wrap the the stainless manifold, which is the root of the problem.

Over the following few months the car went back and forth to the garage. The complex pipe work was disconnecting in various places and minor boost leaks were appearing. I decided to get the ECU re-mapped to try and get the engine running perfectly. G-werks switched the stock ECU for a Green SNS chip and also fitted red top injectors. Once all the boost leaks were fixed, this set up was giving out 15-17psi.

I now had a quick car that sounded unique, but still looked standard (and a little tired if I was honest). The next obvious step was new wheels and herein lays a story.

I had seen some FK alloys with a split rim style that I just had to have. I could only source them directly from the manufacturer in Germany. The sales woman spoke good English and said that for the Corrado I should get 8x17’s for the front wheels and 9x17’s for the rear. I had them sent directly to the garage where the car happened to be for some fettling. I quickly received a call from the garage saying that the rear wheels were never going to fit. Serious modification would be needed to the arch.

I was straight back onto FK in Germany asking them to explain why they had mis-informed me on the correct size wheel for my car. They said that 9x17’s would fit if I modified the arches! Not happy that they had neglected to inform me of this before my purchase, I asked them to exchange them for 8x17s, which they did. Even so, I still had to have the rear arches rolled to get the 8x17’s in.


At last they were on, so I rushed to collect it, full of anticipation of how it would look. The wheels were fantastic, but the car resembled a 4x4. The garage had fitted 45 profile tyres and they just didn’t look right. A switch to a set of 40’s and the car was spot on.

It didn’t stop at the wheels. Over the next year or so I treated the car to a number of cosmetic enhancements. The bump strips were removed and the doors re-sprayed giving the car a really clean look. The standard front grill was changed for a de-badged one and the rear lights were switched for set of FK’s.


More recently I have invested in some In-pro Angel Eye headlights and chrome door and boot catches, which contrast well with the black paint work. Clear side repeaters have taken away all evidence of orange lights and the Lupo wiper modification now means that I can see in the rain (this is a must do for all Corrado owners).

The car looked sweet from the outside, but still had the tired, old, grey cloth interior. After a lot of hunting on the web I managed to source a black leather interior in good condition and from a separate source I obtained the black carpet and pillars (still to be fitted) to complete the look.

Now I have a fast car (about 200 -220bhp) with a mean look and clean interior. All is good and I can now stop spending and just enjoy the car. What more could I possibly do? Hmmm, well……….

Go to Part 1