if you want power, forget the 8v, forget the 16v, fit a 20vt and remap it..
other than that, your never gonna set the road on fire... just depends what u want from it i guess.. they are nice cars anyhow, i love mine, prefere driving it over the mk 4 which has just shy of 200bhp and the mk 3 gets ALOT more attention too
Thats because there are loads of mk4's and all look reasonable. Not often you see a NICE mk3 really is it?
And I agree about the engines, 20vt

Should be a sticky for the 'I want more out of my 8v/16v' and the answer being fit a 20vt