Something to watch out for, whether you do the whole engine or just the head, is the resulting compression ratio. The VW 16V engines seem to have come with anything from 10.1 to 10.4 compression, but our rules state 10.0 since that's what's in most of the literature. That means the IT limit is 10.5. If you think you've got 0.5 to work with but realize too late that you've only got 0.4 or 0.2, you may have just made a potential IT head and/or bottom end into a street-only piece. In general, you *might* be able to shave the head 0.5mm *or* the block 0.4mm, but sometimes less and never both. Not sure if this could legally be salvaged with a thicker head gasket...

EDIT: Here's a useful link: http://www.not2fast.com/turbo/compre...pression.shtml