It's been a while since I last posted , but I thought this might be of
interest. I was thinking that the VR6 wasn't running as well as it should be
, so I took a look at the air intake prescreen ( aka the snow screen ). It
was covered half way with a fine silt. After cleaning it off , removing the
resonator , & installing a K&N panel filter , I thought I was set. The
performance was better , but still not what I thought it should be.
     A few days ago I decided to clean the engine bay , & sprayed a fine
mist in the vicinity of the coil pack. I started to hear a loud crackling
sound , & the VR6 started to run rough. Sure enough , the coil pack was
arcing heavily.
     Yesterday I picked up some Plati-Dip at Home Depot. After removing the
coilpack , I stuffed some paper toweling inside of each of the six coil
towers , & then placed the assembly tower side down into a small aluminum
foil pan. I poured the Plasti-Dip into the pan until the level was just
underneath the four nuts on the side of the coilpack. I pulled it straight
out & let some run off into the pan before righting it.
       Once it dried enough , I trimmed the coating on the towers down some
with a razor blade , so that the plug wire caps would fit , & removed the
paper toweling. I then let it cure for
seven hours overnight.
      The stuff is very thick. It might be a better idea to thin it out some
with one of the thinners listed on the can. Because it was so thick,  it was
hard to get it as neat as possible. Ideally it should be as neat as the
factory coating when finished.
        I reassembled it this morning , so I will let you know how it holds
up in the coming days.

        - John Tumas
          '96 VR6 GTI

----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Wayne Berg 
  To: John Tumas ; GTI 
  Sent: Tuesday, June 11, 2002 8:06 PM
  Subject: Re: [gti-vr6] Alternative material for coilpack fix ( Long )


  Wayne wrote :
  Since I have been off-line the last two days I missed this.
  I think this may be a very good idea. 
  May be a little messy, but I bet it works great. That stuff
  is supposed to be pretty tough. Good luck on fixing the problem John.

  Wayne

   To which I reply:

    It seems to be holding up well. When it dried , the puffiness
  was gone. All of the air pockets disappeared. It was similar
  to removing air pockets when shrink wrapping something. 

     It seems to be as hard as the original material , which I
  didn't expect. I thought it would be more like the vinyl coating
  on the handles of a pair of pliers.

      It would be a better idea to thin it some first before dipping
  the coilpack. I guess total expenditure would be about $10
  to $12 at that point. It has the potential to be a very neat
  finished product compared to epoxy. If done correctly , it
  would be worth the extra dollars to use it over epoxy.

   -John Tumas
    '96 VR6 GTI

After giving myself about a week to see how the Plasti-Dip fix is working
, including driving in some torrential South Florida downpours , everything
seems to be okay. The thing that stands out the most,  is that the bottom
end of the r.p.m. range pulls much stronger than it did previously. I also
can't get it to ping at throttle tip-in like I could previously.

    -John Tumas
	      '96 VR6 GTI

I had a Jeep that I built up for Moab - had to cut the fenders to
accommodate big tires and twisty suspension.

I used plasti-dip on the fender edges - making a 1/2" black border all
the way around them.
This couldn't be done with the stuff as it comes in the can (too
thick)so I used lacquer thinner to thin it to paint consistency.  It's
actually very easy stuff to work with.  After a year it looked the same
as the day I painted it on - even repelled rocks.  And it was exposed to
brutal elements here in Utah. 

Jason