Your car is fuel injected Angelic. The throttle body is the silver thing with the turny bit on it what comes off the end of the air box pipe. (Noob friendly I hope)

@ big_D - Thats why I suggested duration cams instead of high-lift ones. We tried some high-lift items in my uncle Chris' ZVH (Ford CVH top end bolted onto a newer Zetec bottom end) engined Escort, and it made it run like crap. Lumpy and spluttery till like 4.5k, and then craploads of power came in. We swapped these out for some fast road ones (which are duration) and it ran smoother and cleaner than it did with the stock one.

Angelic - You'd be best off going and buying a decat pipe, then a aftermarket airfilter, then get your ECU remapped/get a superchip for best BHP and MPG gains.

Quite. I have a mate who put a MK3 16v engine into a Caddy and put motorcycle throttle bodies on it to very loud and very quick effect. It's quite a common mod for one of the few NA motors worth fiddling with of that generation.

Back to the OP, I really think you're better off replacing the car with something more tunable, than wasting money for 10bhp or so. Which exact engine is it you have? If it's a four cylinder NA petrol and you absolutely must have a fiddle - get a stainless performance exhaust system and some sort of cold air feed into an uprated filter. Leave the ECU well alone. That will improve the noise if nothing else. But personally, I would waste your student funds on something more productive

That means Cadillac to me, I'm praying I'm wrong in this instance.

I always wanted to put the 2.8 VR6 from a MK3 into my Mk2 - wish I had the money!

Saying that, maybe it was a good thing that I didn't!

Hideously expensive, but still prized by some. A 1.8T transplant from a MK4/Octavia/Leon/TT is now the favoured option

And Al, no, it was a MK1 VW Caddy. By calling a Cadillac a Caddy, you are simply showing your whiteness and age The yoof over there call them 'lacs and then only to refer to the old style ones. The new Escalade and CTS are referred to as just that.

There's no way I could imagine anyone with a brain putting a decent transverse European engine in one of those barges! Hemi ftw

Noise isn't really a big concern for me - i'd love it to purr quietly just like it is at the moment when all this stuff is done, i'm not a big fan of the roaring boy-racery style cars. Plus it would sound ridiculous coming from my car which has been described as an "old-man car" by most of my friends!

I have the 1.8 Petrol engine. If that helps, though honestly that's about the extent of my knowledge about it.

Well personally, I would leave it then.

What got you thinking about it and how much were you expecting to spend?

What got me thinking about it was the fact that my friend has a turbo-super-amazing-charged something or other (Golf GTi Mk IV i've been reliably informed) and it gobbled up petrol. He was getting about 30mpg on the motorway, about 23mpg in town.

He then got it remapped and managed to get 40mpg motorway, 26mpg around town.

Which is pretty good for what he paid (£160) and since he's had it done it goes like the clappers. You can really feel the difference..

I wasn't thinking as far ahead as money, but whatever is reasonable really. If it'll improve performance, reliability, life and efficiency then whatever is reasonable =)

That's because your mate has a 1.8T (same lump as me, but less power). They're very tunable and a remap will easily see very decent results. I totally see why you'd want to do it. Unfortunately, you just aren't gonna see anything like that with your car.

That is Cadi, isn't it? A Volkswagen Caddy is basically a Golf with the back chopped off and turned into a pickup - you can also get a plastic top to fit over the load area.

This is an interesting article regarding engine tuning - it dispells the myths about replacement air filters and exhausts. Normally-aspirated engines only generate more power if more air and/or fuel are added, which basically means changing the camshaft profile to change the valve lift. Turbocharged cars are easire - just modify the boost pressure and and the fuelling map.

I want one of these, but my insurance company probably won't understand, and neither will my rear tyres...