My Saxo Project Thread
 

It all started off in 2002 when my good friend Ian bought a brand new saxo VTR in icelandic grey. He started the modding pretty soon after with sound system, lowering on PI, sparco strut brace, magnex exhaust and then took it to GMC motorsport for a camshaft upgrade, exhaust manifold and green enclosed air filter, with the mapping tweeked on a dastek piggyback system. The car went well with approx 105bhp@wheels, over 120bhp@fly.

This wasn't enough, he purchased a genuine new peugeot sport 106 cup car TU5J4 16v lump at a bargain price on ebay. He also managed to pick up a set of brand new peugeot sport maxi direct to head throttle bodies and a maxi exhaust manifold. This was installed but then needed an exhuast fabricating to fit as the maxi manifold finishes in a 2.5" sleeve section substantially further back than the 2" standard system starts. A trip to H engineering in tunbridge wells saw a £1300 exhaust system - flexi join on manifold, swappable sports cat/decat section and 2.5" system with single repackable silencer with 2.5" straight cut tailpipe all in very high quality stainless, mandrel bent and welded to a very high quality. Then an emerald ECU was wired in to the original loom. The car ran on a rover K series base map for a short while, it sounded very nice but without mapping didn't go too great.
A mocal oil cooler was added with a thermostatic takeoff plate to help keep the oil temp within safe limits on track.

Engine out:





Ian bought a set of 15" team dynamics pro race 1.2s and a hispec 4 pot conversion using 285mm discs. I fitted the brake system which is tried and tested to work very well, i had a set on my VTS at the time.
Now ian trailered the car up to Dave Walker the emerald guru for mapping but the engine expired part way through the mapping process, stripping down of the engine showed a catastrophic bottom end failure, big end bearings had gone, suspected oil pump failure was our diagnosis. All on an engine with under 2000 miles on it. Power during mapping was said to be rising still and at about 155bhp.

Anyway seeing as the inlet and exhaust system were designed for an engine making 200bhp+ and the cup spec was only around 150bhp it would be a good idea to go for a higher spec on the new engine build.
QEP were very well known in the 205 tuning market and had been doing a lot on saxo engines recently, most notably with catcams. They had a very good rep and i knew them personally as i had bought a standalone ecu and some cams from them so i recommended them to Ian. As far as i knew this was to be the highest spec of engine they had built for a saxo/106 so far.
More or less the whole engine we had was scrap so all that we retained for the new build was the peugeot sport baffled sump and a few odd bits and bobs.

Engine spec as it was:

TU5J4 1.6 16v
Baffled peugeot sport sump
Mocal oil cooler with thermostat
Polished and balanced crankshaft
New bearings all round
Rebore
Steel H section conrods
ARP rod bolts
High compression kit car pistons
Enlarged inlet and exhaust valves
Head ported to suit bigger valves and match inlet & exhaust systems
Solid camshaft followers
Double Stronger Valve springs
Catcams 803 cams
Maxi(S1600) exhaust header
2.5" stainless exhaust system
Maxi individual direct to head throttle bodies
Long polished trumpets
Larger pico injectors
Peugeot sport grpN engine mounts
Lightened and balanced flywheel
Helix paddle clutch
Standard VTR gearbox

Then the car was trailered up to Dave walker once again for mapping, as it was a fresh engine it needed a bit of wearing in, after a short bit of wearing in from Dave the mapping was done, giving a maximum power output of 183bhp@7800rpm and not tailing off well over 8000rpm. The engine was built to safely handle 9k+ with no problems so it should be very reliable with the revs limited to around 8k.



As we all know, using a long ratio gearbox on the rollers shows less power and it was a fresh engine so it's safe to say it should be making a decent bit more now, a map tweek will give a good indication later this year.

Next up i sold Ian an OMP full 10 point roll cage and fitted it for him together with some cheap cobra buckets and subframes. This gave him much more confidence to really push the car on corners. Next up the stupidly long VTR gearbox needed replacing, with a theoretical speed over over 170mph in 5th. My friend Mankee Cheng of Practical Performance Car fame was enlisted to build us a 106 xsi gearbox with new synchro rings, bearings and seals. Ian fitted this(not that well)

Me fitting the cage:







Not long after we booked up a track day at llandow sprint circuit in wales, the day before we finally got round to fitting our GMC motorsport springs and groupN bilstein dampers, this made the car not only much more stable but also improved the ride quality suprisingly. We were due to be meeting the convoy at reading services at 7pm. At 8pm we had only just finished lowering the car, that's dedication. After ian had faggoted about we left mine at 9pm and arrived in wales at some ungodly hour. He had forgotten to refit the gearbox mount bolt properly so that fell out on the M25 leaving the engine swinging about all the way there, the AA came out to help with a makeshift bolt the next morning.

Some llandow pics:









On the way back i was following Ian on the M4 and one of the rear dampers(which Ian "fitted") fell off and came flying towards me in the outside lane, luckily it bounced down the central reservation but was very close. Alas the PI rear dampers were refitted for time being! A week or so after llandow i swapped my VTS black headlights, black foglight mesh and mk1 rear lights for ians standard set, they went better with the wheels and also meant a little weight reduction.

Some pics i took after swapping the lights over:







After llandow the car was barely driven, one of the gearbox seals went leaving oil all over the clutch and flywheel assembly, a 106 gti box was fitted while the xsi box was inspected and a new seal fitted. It then spent a year sat on Ians drive feeling sorry for itself, there was a running problem with the engine.

Ian was fed up with the car, we had discussed selling the car on many occasions, and i was in a lively mood so i agreed to buy it. I went to pick the car up, it started first time, drove it off the drive after adjusting the clutch cable a lot and off i went. Was a slight clicking coming from the rear wheels but i thought it was just where the handbrake had been on. Rear wheel locked on when i first used the brakes and refused to release for quite a distance, anyway i managed to nurse it home very carefully(very late at night on single track roads) and Plonk it on my drive. Inspection the next day showed that the pad had in fact rusted onto the disc, the pad material had then stayed with the disc and left the backing still in the caliper, so every time i had been pressing the brakes the backing plate had been catching on the edge of the pad and locking the rear wheel. Scary.





Some new mintex discs and pads were ordered for the rear straight away. When i came to fit them i discovered the rear pads had been fitted wrong, the locating lug that stops the caliper pistons from spinning had been fitted on the outside, and the caliper pistons hadn't been rotated to the right positions so they hadn't been ratcheting, plus the pad contact surfaces were very rusty and not sufficiently copper greased. Anyway after an inspection all was well and the rear brakes were sorted.





I still had my VTS but it was sold pending collection and i needed a decent car for driving day to day so i shelled out £10500 for a Skoda Fabia vRS. As a result my wallet was suffering so i knew i had to make some sacrifices. I had always wanted to keep the car looking a bit more standard so i sold the 4 pot brakes and wheels to a friend building a supercharged 106 rallye. I fitted some VTR alloys and standard VTS brakes with EBC greenstuff pads just as a stop gap, which work perfectly fine for road use in the winter, i can't see them holding up for very long on summer track days and at the nurburgring though.
I also ordered some LUKE 4 point harnesses as it still had standard seatbelts in it which were pretty awkward as the cage mounted to the seatbelt points.

Before:



After:



To go with the VTR wheels i bought some standard headlights:







And the tailpipe was looking brown and crap so i gave it a quick once over with some autosol:



Then after a good bit of checking over, fiddling with bits and refitting the cat it was ready to go, within 4 days of having the car i had it MOTd, both my VTS and this VTR passed on the same day, not dodgy MOTs either, totally legal which i'm pretty chuffed with, took a fair bit of tweeking on the map for idle and high idle to get it to pass, was way too rich to start with, giving out tonnes of CO even with the cat. So the car was road legal, MOTd, taxed and insured.

Towards the end of the MOT the car started chugging at idle, which i presumed was just it being upset from idling for so long however it wasn't too happy to restart, starting it when hot with high comp pistons was never easy, took a jump pack to get it to turn over. It didn't run too well on the way home and promtly cut out when revs returned to idle on my drive and wouldn't turn over again for several hours. I presumed this was the running problem ian had mentioned, which we suspected was the coilpack, there was a makeshift coilpack plug fitted, which i chopped off and fitted a proper locking coilpack plug from one of my spare looms.

The car seemed to run fine and i took it for a long drive, but the rev counter kept flailing about sometimes it would stop dead when i was accelerating, bob about, and generally react pretty slow, followed by the car misfiring now and then, i limped it home it wasn't running too great. I got a spare coilpack but it's the wrong type so i can't try it. And it's sat on my drive since then because i've been too busy and the weather has been useless, i am going to rewire the coilpack so my new one works and hopefully that'll sort it, sounds like it will anyway, there's a big crack in the current one.

I went to bridges in pease pottage and got myself some brakes from a peugeot 306 that use bigger discs and pads, and a 406 non ABS master cylinder to improve the pedal travel and brakes. The brakes take 266mm discs and i can get ferodo DS2500s for them cheaply. The standard master cylinder is 20.6mm whereas the 406 one is 23.8mm, should be a good difference, i had used 4 or 5 sets of 266mm brakes and my only worry is ruining the discs but i will take spare sets to track days so that if i crack them then my day's not over.

New master cylinder fitted 25.03.08 - Brakes are FAR better with a lot less travel and less effort required to get decent braking power. Bastard to bleed afterwards.



Old MC and 406 reservoir -



Bosch 266mm caliper -



I have sold the cobra clubmans now in favour of some nicer seats, was supposed to be getting some cobra monacos, nothing special but FIA approved and a good bit better than the clubmans, they will do until my wallet is more flush in the winter.

I had a freshly rebuilt S2 106 rallye gearbox spare from my vts, i also had a quaife diff, put two together and you have a brand new gearbox with a quaife ATB diff, this should stop the problems i had getting grip out of corners, together with the R888s i have on order.

The suspension will be staying as it is for this year, although i'll be seam welding the shell and i have a lower subframe brace for it too.

I have also purchased some Speedline Chrono 15" alloy wheels which i will refurb in white and some Toyo R888 track tyres for them.



As part of tidying the car up in general i have done lots. Including going through the interior and taking out anything i didn't need, this included two carrier bags of mess, an airbag ecu, airbag wiring, an amplifier, amp wiring kits, speakers, junk, rewiring the electric windows to the stereo slot in the dash and ripping a load more sound deadening out too.

I then set about sorting out the doors, some carbon composite doorcards were fitted where the vapour barrier once was, this fills an untidy gap and keeps water out. Some mk2 106 lower doorbins were fitted to store stuff on on journeys to the ring and also just to neaten up the lower doors in general, covering up the speaker holes.

Doorcards -





Rear wiper removed -



A coilpack cover was fitted after polishing the trumpets up a bit to bring some bling back.

Before:



After:



Gave the engine bay a quick wipe over today -



My sluts -



31/03/08: New seats fitted & stickers removed.







There's plenty that i've missed, i'll keep updating it though, keep an eye on this first post :)

Future plans:

Rewire for new coilpack which will hopefully sort running prob, if not i'll investigate with the multimeter, compression tester and eagle eyes.
Fit my Quaifed gearbox, slippy diffs rock. - Helps grip out of corners
Get my speedline chronos refurbed, get the R888s put on - Wheels look great and are strong, plus the R888s will increase grip and handling no end.
Reroute fuel lines to std location
Fit my big brakes
Remove more weight
Tidy up dash, new centre console here, gauges are going in that, removing gauges from dash.
Tidy up bodywork
Squeeze some more power out of her
Get mapping tweeked
Scare the shit out of anyone who dares to get in the passengers seat in germany :D
Maybe wash it, if i get bored.

...................

Nice little progress there dude! I'll be keeping my eye on this one :)

keep up the good progress mate, before you get the map tweaked, 809's sounds like a plan to me ;)

Nah thinking more of 734s, as my head would need more work to make the best of the 809s and quite frankly you're having a giraffe if i'm spending £1k on a new head, the 734s should give the same top end power(probably closer to 190bhp) with higher torque and a better spread, should get rid of my flat spot at 3.5k too. you can see on the graph the jump at 7k, it should keep going up but the head is limiting it so it dips down again.

That £1k could be spent far more effectively elsewhere i reckon, like tarmac spec suspension and track days :D

Edit: forgot to mention about the diff :S Updated that.

alex are 734s hydro cams though> was it marcus who mentioned that you cant run 734s with solids?

group buy on 734s :P

looks quality

jealous though :( lol

Updated today with plenty more pics, and did some work on it after work.

Ryan you can run hydro grinds on solids but not solid grinds on hydros ;)

Good progress. :y:

Hows the Saxo compare to the VRS?
Both amazing cars,
Saxo looks shockingly nice,
should look awesome on chronos.

Cheers Saxy1 :)

Saxo is very different to the fabia, both great cars though. The fabia makes max power at 4k, the saxo makes it at roughly 8k lol Fabia is awesome for on road, drove the saxo on track a good while back and loved it, only thing that worried me was the brakes which needed attention, would lock up all over the place, fitting some more conservative ones meant i could moderate the braking and also reduce rotational mass. Plus the rear brakes were fitted wrong so that won't have helped. Bring on the ring, that's the next time i'll drive it properly, bar test driving it to check all is ok.

I'm thinking white for the chronos, need to get a photoshop guru on the case though really. Anthracite is great too. Argh choices.

I have a catch tank and will get some silicon hose for the breather system.
I have some cam covers too ;)

such a sleeper on vtr wheels - love it.

enjoyed reading that. even though i read when porki finished it lol

id go with anthradite. more of a sleeper imo

i contributed une vtr wheel

Alex i'm def thinking i need one of those 406 MC's whenever your next going?!

RyAnal wants one so i'll get you both one when i go, there are always loads of 406s! The difference is huge.

Those trumpets are pure sex pal.

Good stuff, i wont have time to fit untill after the 28th May (last exam) anyway so no rush i guess ;)

got my top mountage today, springs should be here soon. I'll PM you