Galactic Warrior
Most of your assumptions are correct
The head has significant porting on the exhaust side, and very little porting on the intake side. The valves have been sunk down to ~0.010" vs ~0.040" stock as well as unshrouding the seat area due to the deeper valve location. Intake and exhaust manifold ports have been matched as deep as physically possible.
Injection timing according to VagCom is correct. Cam timing has been run at 0 degrees and also at 8 degrees advanced. EGT's went up a "little" at steady state and rise faster with advanced cam timing. The engine is a "little" more responsive down in the 1500 RPM range as well.
My PP502's were last run 12Dec2011 and re-started 03March2012 - they were removed from the head and put in a clean, but open to atmosphere, plastic container in the front passenger seat foot well.
A couple weekends ago, I took the PP502's off their bodies and gave them a good cleaning with carb cleaner and pop tested them - again with mixed results. I had a couple injectors that were good, sprayed OK, no leakage/streaming, etc but there were a couple that would pop good a few times and then stream once, then be good again, etc. One thing that I noticed was that it was very difficult to get the needles out of the bodies of the nozzles. Once out and cleaned with carb cleaner they were smooth and free moving, but were really sticky to get out the first time. After all this, the car didn't run any different.
I purchased a used set of stock ALH injectors and installed them with mixed results (see post 316). I don't know how long the stock ALH injectors were out of service before I put them in.
I took the spare set of ALH injectors and put Bosio Race 520's on them and put them in the car tonight. I started it up warm and only drove it around the block quick so it's too early to tell, but initial impressions are much smoother, much quieter, much more powerful and even in the darkness they managed to make a large black cloud of smoke. I'll know more tomorrow once I get more than .2 miles on them. One thing that I did notice was that the exhaust now smells like a normal TDI instead of the acrid eye burning smell it's had since I got it running back in March.
So - Galactic Warrior - I think you were right. I've changed things before and thought I've had problems taken care of initially, only to have them come back in a few days/weeks, so we'll see how this goes.
I'll evaluate the PP502's that I took out and see if I can find something decidedly wrong with one or more of them.
I have a set of BFI Stage 1 Yellow 65 durometer mounts that I hope to install this weekend. I think the ones I put in brand new back in March are junk already (~3500 miles). It was smooth for the first ~1000 miles and has been like driving a bad massage chair ever since (with random periods of smoothness that come/go with the wind).
If anyone sees a stopping point here, give me a shout so I don't miss it