Saxo VTS Track-Day Fun.

[VeiRoN]

Thought I would share my project car to try and revive the forum a little bit as well.
This started as a 1.1 Saxo then swapped to a VTR engine,done 1 track day at Donnington and decided I wanted more so put the 1.6 16v in,some pictures of the the job I went trough the last 2,5 years so there is going to be quite a lot of pictures.

VTR engine out:



Before putting the new engine in I wanted to do some fab on the engine bay while treating the rust and doing some streghtening too:



































some pictures missing but didn't want a lower brace sticking out of the bottom of the front end so decided to weld on above the chassis leg to do the same job:





























VTS engine mount,version 2 as the first one the pipe was not thick enough.





that's not finished some pictures missing.

Engine in:







It made a few pops when it was cold lol:



I think i drove it standard for about a year then decided it was time for some performance upgrades,staying NA though for reliability reasons and usability.

Old head off:

[VeiRoN]

Pistons clearence for the Piper BP300 cams:



Used a C2 VTS 0.6mm MLS headgasket:



Solid lifters adjusted to correct spec for the cams:



Piper BP300 Cams and JP4 head:











Piper pulleys just because they look nicer:



New seals:





Piper double valve springs,apparently they're good for limiter over 8400 rpm:



C2 inlet with custom fuel rail,original injectors at the time:







60mm exhaust:













sounds like this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8iHtdbyJEQ4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p6j5DTKlhH8

Baffled sump:

[VeiRoN]

Then it was time to get it mapped,drove 4 hours to Chipwizard on the 3 plug unmapped ecu,drove okay luckily:





after 7 hours of hard work he got 166hp out of it at 7500,limiter 8000 and 170nm of torque,was very happy with that result,very fun to drive.
Last month i went to the weybridge again to get an accurate weight and the total weight with reserve fuel is 840kg,quite good considering the cage is about 35kg.

Straight after i went to Castle Combe:







First time around the driveshaft bearing let go,vibrated like hell but was able to get home (2 hours away) albeit slowly so a new one went in:





few months later the driver side let go as well,this time i was on the motorway and it pulled me to the left quite violently when it happened but had good reflerxes.

second time to castle combe the master cylinder leaked inside the servo,of course i could not see any leaks,only found out when i went straight trough the chicane.



Also did a few other meets,mainly simply french 21 and 22:





Few other things broke too after,first the clutch let go and damaged the crank sensor so left me stranded,at least wasnt far from home:



How it shoud be:





So put a helix clutch was used but atleast it lasted a year:





alternator terminal broke:



idle valve completely came off its housing,this is just to reconstruct where it came off:



alternator tensioner bracket split,no earthly idea why:



one day just after work the rear pad decided freedom:



atleast i found it back,it was ebc greenstuff it was good i found it:



I have a satchshift and everything is on rose joints so one broke and after fixing that the gearbox arm broke too:







Fixed as best as i could with the box in place:



One of the inlet fuel rail tab broken (how does this happen?) no idea:





But for a while things were good and nothing broke so had time to do some other jobs,this is just some pictures not in chronological order.

Interior.

Harness bar,unfortunately the omp cage doesnt come with one:

[VeiRoN]

To be honest welds were not great on the original tube so I just added those plates just in case.

Had to put some gussets because I like:















The omp cage only comes with a single bolted door bar,i wanted a bit more heavy duty ones so made my own:













Carbon panel with oil pressure,oil temp and water temp:





Sabelt steering wheel,also next to it I have an air fuel ratio gauge:



Carbon footrest:







Sparco Grid:





Tidied up the maxi fuses:







Brake bias:



Wiring mess:



I always wanted to have a splitter so made one from plywood,to be honest it did feel more planted trough the corners but unfortuntaley i dont have any concrete proof so you will just have to take my word for it,anyway in the end i took it off as why too low and wanted to redesign it which i still have to do,and make better mounts as well.

[VeiRoN]

I had made seat mounts similar to what omp offers but i felt they were way too hiogh and ruined the driving feel a little bit some bought some universal one to weld in,this is as low as they will go,they are basically touching the floor but it is fine as a lot easier to go higher than lower if it needs be:

Before measurements (this goes from the floor):





After:





I also strenghtened the tunnel mount while i was there:













I need to put a nut behind this eye:



















Evocorse 14" wheels,tyres always Nankangs NS2R:









Made a mount for the catch tank and put a nicer one too after having cheap china for a while:









Flocked the dash surround as well as the rest of the dash:





Put DS3000 and a second set of discs after the pads eaten them alive in a few months:







Reinforced the front arms mounts the rear axle mounts and the old powerflex bush design,this also allow to simply unbolt the axle or lower arms with the nut welded inside as it doesnt just spin on the inside:

[VeiRoN]

In the future i would like to connect the axle mounts to th cage and this allows me to do just that:

[VeiRoN]

Found a very cheap fiberglass bonnet and couldn't say no,it had some vents fitted but i was able to smooth these out with fiberglass,this is not as light as the ccf bonnet i wanted to buy at 5 kg but still a good weight save of 8kg for 50 quid (sold the vents for 30 anyway):

Original bonnet weight:



















I also got the fiberglass boot after:









Mounts for the aerocatches:





Weight comparison,17.9kg vs 3.3kg,about 14,6kg weight saved,not counting the aerocatches,the mounts and the polycarbonate.





I thought the rear plexi is pretty cool where in a certain light you can see different colors reflected because of the heat treatment it is used to make it.



Pressure equalization pipe thingy remade as orignal was leaking:

















Made some deflectors for the radiator and induction,especially for the radiator as it gets to 100c on trackdays in the summer:

[VeiRoN]

Rose jointed track rod ends,still need to do the inside ones though.



Replaced the bolt with one that won't rust so easily and added the proper spacers:



One day after work i was making a right turn to get some fuel with my indicator on and a van decided to rear end me,it wasn't very fast but still did some damage,from that i decided to do some reinforcment in case somebody decides not to pay attention again:





























Wanted to try a full race clutch so got this,pretty fun to drive:







but the gearbox couldnt contain itself and ejected some balls:

[VeiRoN]

Replaced the original vts thottle body 52mm with the clio rs 60mm one,at more or less the same time i also did the conversion to single plug ecu as the 3 plug is not compatible with the different type of potentiometer the clio uses,did try to make it work but realized the only proper way was to switch to the older style ecu:

Idle control,it works more or less,it's a universal part i was able to adapt:



















Then my chassis leg decided to split as it does:







Then finally the intake of my dreams turned up for sale,best intake you can ever fit to this,only inferior to itbs of course,they are from a S1600 206 cup car,not straight fit,chassis need to be cut and a few other clearences issues are present but all worth it in the end.

Comparison with the c2 inlet:





Injectors sits a bit further back but no issues there:





c2 measures 41mm x 28mm.





S1600 46mm x 32mm.





i opened up the gasket as well,before:









Weight,c2:





Before:

[VeiRoN]

Had to convert to a LHD wiper set up as well:







but of course after a while it cracked on one side where it was repaired:





Got that repaired by a shop and added two mounts to help spread the load,no idea if it makes any difference at all,time will tell:







got some nice carbon covers from spoox:





This is pretty much where things are at right now,from the last ecu remap and figures i have only added 330cc inectors,clio rs tb,s1600 inlet and the single plug ecu,it has a basemap on it and it does pull nicely on the high rev range but need a trip back to wayne,will be interesting to see what kind of figures it will get this stuff on,can't wait but need to save some money first lol.

[sri_130]

That's a massive inlet.
Is Wayne still doing Pug/Citroen stuff?

[VeiRoN]

Originally Posted by sri_130

That's a massive inlet.
Is Wayne still doing Pug/Citroen stuff?

It's quite big yeah,sounds great too,yeah Wayne still is,he didn't seem to annoyed when i brought him mine lol,I was looking for somebody closer to go to but nobody seems to want to touch the stock ecu with this set up,if I'm not mistaken he remapped your turbo Saxo on the stock one right?

Well,more stuff broke,I had one of the silicone coolant pipes from the heater matrix at the back of engine that had a pin hole in it and was leaking slightly over time,cut that end part out so it uses the good bit and went to bleed the coolant and the brass thermostat bolt snapped,good thing i had a spare:

[VeiRoN]

Got some old pics of some work I've done at the time for the current suspension that's fitted on the car.

Had the lower arms strengthened by Spoox:







Unfortuntely had to scrap the VTS axle as it developed big play on the wheel:











So just got a base 1.1 axle to refurbish:



















Got some different bearings to avoid scoring the pin again and added grease points to put grease trough periodically:







25.4mm rear anti roll bar and 22mm torsion bars:







-2 negative camber kit from VD Motorsport:

















In the end it was a bit more than -2,about -2.40 degrees:

[VeiRoN]

I was thinking when the alternator bracket split here:



I welded it back up and moved the weak point to the tab thats bent where the tensioner bolt goes trough,overtime that tab started bending inwards and in the end I think thats what snapped the bolt becasue of the angle the bolt was working with:





so my solution for now is a 3mm reniforcement plate on that tab to help spread the load,will see it that stops breaking it lol.

[VeiRoN]

Made the 8 hours round trip to Wayne (Chipwizards) to get it mapped after switching to single plug and fitting the S1600 inlet and 60mm throttle body.
There were a few things to fix but as always Wayne goes above and beyond and got these done pretty quickly.
The Clio throttle body I bought was sold as ported and polished and whoever did the work assembled the flap back the wrong way and wasn't allowing it to close fully holding the revs,also the single plug ecu hadn't been socketed correctly so that was fixed as well.

Not too much difference in peak power 171.5 (5hp more) but the main thing is (if I'm reading this correctly) the wheel horse power,now getting 148 hp at 110mph against the 137 hp of before at 120mph which hardly ever reaches,it idles great and even getting 36mpg on the motorway sticking to 70.

[VeiRoN]

Took advantage of the sunny day and relatively dry roads today to go for a first proper drive after the remap.
The engine really feels great,definitely feels quicker and more responsive from about 5k to the limiter,love how it idles too,proper lumpy because of the cams.









Added more cooling just in case,the two air inlets next to the number plate are connected directly to two air ducts fitted to either side of the radiator,hose diameter is 51mm.







Think i sent it too hard and broke a rose joint for the gear linkage lol:

[VeiRoN]

Went for a drive with a Saxo friend and asked to take a video from outside as never heard what it sound like driving by:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vaQe6F2HNrg

Also fitted new tyres:



Re-done the oil temp sensor fitting as previously i just welded a nut from inside and it was leaking:



I'm gathering the parts for the BE gearbox conversion for reliability,I will also be fitting a Quaife LSD seeing it's only a few bolts to swap:







Fitted a threaded insert for rose joint fitment:

[sri_130]

All of the images in here aren't resized and it takes an ice age to load LOL.
Sounds good though!

[VeiRoN]

Originally Posted by sri_130

All of the images in here aren't resized and it takes an ice age to load LOL.
Sounds good though!

Thanks,i dont know why that is,it loads the full res at first for me as well but then it resizes them all in a second.

Spotted a Bedford Open Pit Lane Trackday Friday 3rd for the following Monday,6th of February for the cheap price of 99£ so couldnt say no to that so booked it.

My rear tyres were on 2,5mm so i went to look for some replacements and luckily i found a set nearby of good used Toyo R888 on VTR wheels too for a 100£ so grabbed and fitted these.





Few pictures:









I've done 175 miles on track for the day so about 45 laps,average of 6 miles a liter,just out of curiosity lol,the Saxo performed fautlessy all day and I really pushed it,hoping to break the gearbox as to give me motivation to do the BE swap lol.



After that just in case it was too loud for the trackday (current static noise test at 4500 rpm is 95db),ive removed the centre silencer as i wanted a bit more sound,surprisingly it's not much louder lol.





small video of the idle after:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tq46a5TXup8

[VeiRoN]

After much work and cutting finally finished putting the BE box with the Quaife in and went for a test drive today.
What an amazing feel the diff is,it has so much more traction anywhere but especially in corners,the more you accelerate the more it grips,really happy with it.

I guess it is a good thing i have done the gearbox swap as this is what i found when i drained the oil from the old box,it was crunching in 4th on the last track day a little bit:





Got out the old diff:



The new Quaife:





And bolted the crown wheel on and torqued to 60nm:



Size comparison,standard MA diff on the left:



Saxo hub to the left and BE:



BE driveshaft mount:



Lower mount.the alluminium spacers got squished for some reason,need to sort this out:



Homemade mount:







Bit close but enough clearence,might modify the chassis leg in the future:



Then I couldnt get the all the gears,found out the overspray was preventing the linkage to go down enough lol:





The gearbox sits lower than the engine now,it's great for weight distribution but need to be a bit more careful lol: