inconel(the generally accepted alloy for the precups) does contain some iron, but not much.certainly not enough to be magnetic enough to notice, and not enough to rust.one of its properties, in fact, is resistance to corrosion.I have never seen a rusted precup, and I recently got a pile of junk heads a guy had sitting in his backyard for years that had rust on the valves, and corrosion on the aluminum so bad that I just threw them away(all the valves seized, and all the nuts rounded from rust)might be a fair bet that your 1.5 had them replaced with steel ones at some point in its life before you got it.-Owen
if you click the link, it doesnt go anywhere, if you paste it to your browser, it works fine.
I don't want to get too rapped up in inconel, but the one I have is a brownish, tan color which makes sense due to alloy. Ones I have in a cheap head I bought don't have the brownish color so I'm sure they're steel. Have these steel items like you've (anyone?)had held up fine?I bought what I think are NA ones off the somba as suggested in this topic from Lloydminister as I'm not far from the guy being in Saskatoon. Hopefully they will fit my good TD head or the cheap one I bought. I'd prefer to use the TD head but it seems where I am no one can get them. I've checked VW and several other repair and engine rebuilders - no luck finding one TD precup!