I have a mk4 1.6 16v golf. Power is a bit crappy and also the economy is a little worse than I'd expected.
Before this I had a rover 414Sli (the wedge shaped one) which developed more power out of the factory from it's 1.4 than this 1.6 does by about 10%. Then due to an almost catastrophic head gasket failure it needed the cylinder head skimmed. I think that this was the second time that it had been done so the compression ratio was huge. After this the car got better power and fuel economy (obviously not at the same time). I couldn't prove the power, but I felt it was noticeable and the fuel economy was noticeably better at the pump. As the golf has all the same engine management bits I think it should be able to adapt to a higher compression ratio, giving similar improvements.
What I'm asking, in a round about way, is has anyone skimmed the cylinder head on this engine, if so by how much and did you notice any difference, good or bad?
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