February 2004... Winter's passed.

I decided to take things easy with the car over winter, after all; who likes working on their car when its wet and cold outside? The car really loves the cold weather though and the torque produced on a cold winters morning is truly amazing! Turbo cars really do like cold (dense) air! *mental note* Where can I squeeze in a few extra inter-coolers?

The engine is working perfectly now and has been totally reliable for a good two years now - basically since it was re-mapped at GMC Motorsport. Thanks very much for your hard work and...

November 2003... It's been a while.

It's been a while since the last update on my car and unfortunately not much has changed with it recently. I spent all of August and September working in Holland, which stopped all developments with the car.

Before I went to Holland there were a few things happening...

The Saxo's really kicked arse against the Pug 106's at Bruntingthorpe. My car was there to join in the fun too! Read the event report for full details and also see some video footage from the day in the videos section!

On the day I ran...

May 2003... Secure your Saxo.

The Peugeot 106 v's Saxo thrash has been postponed until the 23rd May... bring it on! My car is still stripped out, ready for the day at Bruntingthorpe. The new engine mounts are so stiff that the whole car vibrates on idle. It's so loud too. Not sure whether this is a good thing at the moment!

I was recently contacted by a local security firm, interested in improving security for us Saxo owners. It's gotta be worth a look I thought! Nick is his name... and what a nice chap he is! After chatting to Nick (from Car-Stuff) for a little...

April 2003... Track preparation.

A thrash had been arranged between the Pug 106 boys and the Saxo lads... the showdown would happen at Bruntingthorpe. Ten cars from each side would do battle. It would be the first opportunity of the year to get some timed trials done and probably give people some motivation to take their cars that one step further in the future.

Some quick decisions had to be made. Turn up in standard road going trim or go on a strict race diet!

After a little persuasion from Danny, the race diet was formulated. It would include a serious...

November 2002... Steady running.

Since fitting the new exhaust manifold, some of the idling problems have vanished. It seems that the old system was allowing air to be drawn in after the combustion chamber, which was playing havoc with the lambda control system.

The car is now running 100% better than it was 6 months ago and it seems like I've finally engineered out a lot of the design flaws.

We're now well into the winter season with dark nights creeping in. This makes it difficult to take on some of the bigger modifying jobs, as usually it's too...

September 2002... Time for a Custom Manifold.

After quite a few trips to RC Developments and numerous phone calls, I am now fed up of waiting for them to resolve the downpipe problem. They seem to think they can't re-design the downpipe to be further away from the altrnator!? Working in the chemical industry, I know nothing is impossible

I've asked an engineering friend of mine (Jimmy Hall) to fabricate a stainless steel downpipe, to direct the heat further away from the alternator. Whilst we are at it, I've asked him to make me a new turbo manifold too. I...

July 2002... GMC Motorsport Tune-up.

Danny made the trek upto GMC Motorsport with me... and what a fun drive it was!! John Dobson wasn't happy with the way a few things in the conversion were done, but as they were only minor things, we made a few changes to the configuration and started with the rolling road tune-up fairly quickly.

Straight away we all knew that the car was going to make decent power on the rolling road... it was wheel spinning without any effort. More straps were required to hold it down more securely.

We decided to MAP the car at...

June 2002... Another Alternator?

Things now seemed to be running smoothly, and I'd done quite a lot of hassle free miles in the car, BUT then it happened. I had managed to damage another alternator... the voltage regulator had gone chips again!

This was the second alternator to fail now... I had suspicions that it could be due to the turbo downpipe being too close to the alternator, and so I'd already lagged the downpipe with heat wrap.

With another alternator on the car and two heat shields I set off for the REVS Magazine Saxo Trackday at 3 Sisters...

May 2002... What Next?

Myself and Gaz had another session, trying to improve the fuel map using the MF2 controller. We wanted to get the fuelling right across two different boost settings... 0.5 bar and 0.75bar. After about 20 minutes of adjustments the general fuel MAP was in place and the performance of the car was MUCH better at the higher boost setting.

took the car back to RC Developments, so that Clive could have a drive of the car and check that all was well. Clive was happy with the car's performance, but on the way home, blue smoke started to puff out of...

April 2002... Arrival at Donny 2002.

Thanks to the help of Danny, Gaz, Dave and Lee the car was repaired, cleaned and polished ready for the Donny show... even though I had to leave 8 hours later than planned.

The new bumpers look good and the stainless steel mesh really does help the appearance of the car even though it was a real pain to fit.

The Apexi exhaust really, REALLY sounds amazing, giving a deep burble and plenty of lift-off popping... class! The exhaust system definately was worth the huge expense. The car got a lot of attention...