Thanks everyone, maybe with the exception of thai-wronghorse. I never said it was a beast. I said it is torquey, and it is, especially at very low revs - 1000 to 1500 it is way far more torquey than my 1.9 umweld, which I consider remarkable!
Now I have all this information I have a new question. My box is a 020, and the boxes with the gearing I want, ASD and CTN, are 02A. I believe their natural habitat is in Passats. But Googling about I discover that this is a bit of an involved conversion, cable to hydraulic and linkage to cable. This post seems to cover all the details but this is way more work than I have the time for. Converting the 02A box to cable and linkage seems a better bet. Does anyone know of a walkthrough for these two operations?
As well as ASD and CTN I found two more supposedly with the right final drive, CHU and CYP but I have no info on which model box they are. Chances are of course they are 02A or 02J.