VW GTI 16v heads WON'T WORK, was re: V8 Head Please!

[John Karasaki <johkar@teleport.com>]

At 12:23 PM 8/13/98 -0400, you wrote:
<snip>

>Hi Larry,
>
>According to the article which compared the 1990 V8Q and the BMW M5 in
>either Road & Track or Car and Driver back in 1989 or 1990, the V8 used a
>pair of Golf GTI heads (a good example of object reuse:). Anyway, I have no
>idea how much Golf GTI heads go for but it might be worth a shot especially
>since there are so many aftermarket heads on the market.


The design of the heads may have been based on the 16v GTI heads, but VW
heads will NOT bolt up and work on a Audi V8!

This has been discredited many times on this list!  Please stop
perpetuating this urban myth!

There are a few VW parts that can be substituted for Audi parts to save
money.  Unfortunately, the heads aren't those parts.


>
>I have been reading your comments about V8s and while I sympathize with
>your plight about the broken timing belt, I do not agree with your
>characterization of the cars as being dysfunctional. The V8 is *not* a
>mainstream car by any stretch. It is essentially a hand built exotic with
>all that it entails, good and bad. Any car of that caliber like the MB 6.3,
>the MB 400E, the M5 all require significant sums of money for care and
>feeding. The big difference is that the V8 can be purchased for fraction of
>the cost of the cars mentioned above.
>
>The Turbo Audis are fine cars no doubt but most that I looked at around the
>same vintage as my car, would be called "beaters" almost anywhere but the
>Third World. The few that are in decent shape sell for the same kind of
>money or more than a V8. The Turbo might be quicker than a V8 but so what?
>I used to have a 1970 454 cubic inch/390hp ragtop Corvette which could
>out-accelerate most things on the road. Stock, it could run a quarter mile
>at 13.66 sec.@105 mph. Does that make it a better car? All cars are a
>matter of compromises. My old Corvette sacrificed refinement for raw power.
>My V8 sacrifices raw power for refinement. By the way, the V8 has all the
>components that most hot rodders would love to have in their engines with
>forged connecting rods and pistons, overhead cams, and the like. The V8 is
>about half the displacement of the Chev 454 but it can drive by a few gas
>stations whereas my old Corvette never met a gas station that it did not
>like:)

Here, here!  My sentiments exactly.
Best Regards,

John Karasaki
Portland, OR