Matt's 'Make it moar better' / 'less sh*t' S1 106 XN Project

[D4MJT]

So, I had a VTS. It was Blue, it was fun, I put "some bits" on it, I took it apart, put it back together again, and generally had fun in it. Being a last of the line-ish 2003 car, it's obviously completely rotten, so basically, I'm breaking it for any decent parts and scrapping what's left of the comically cheesy shell.

I set out to find ideally, a non-sunroof tidy early 106 shell, as I figured this would be a good base if I wanted to start a proper project. Which brings us to the car. As always, one popped up when I wasn't actually looking, so back in August, I picked this up:





It's a 1994 106 'XN', which appears to be french for "extra poverty specification". The amount of features it doesn't have is frankly staggering. It doesn't even have intermittent wipers, they're either on, or off.

What it does have going for it, is a lack of sunroof, and the correct number of doors. Being devoid of anything even remotely entertaining or useful, it's also supposed to weigh 790kg apparently, which is nice. I'm sure I can add to that. It's also somehow only done 49,000 miles, has all the old MOT's and thus a nice clean shell.

So, I've ran around in it for a couple of months here and there, and yesterday I SORN'ed it to start 'fiddling' over christmas.

The end goal, is going to be a sort of 'fast road' type of affair I guess. I'm wanting a car that I can drive to a track, enjoy on track, and drive home. I really fancy some european tracks and road trips though, so I'll be trying to retain some level of comfort. Having done a good few trips out in MuZiZZle's VTS now, I don't fancy a euro trip in fixed back buckets and no dashboard.

I've been accumulating "stuff", and off the top of my head I've got a handy 16v engine that was fairly well refreshed 5K ago by my fine self, an S2 Rallye Gearbox, a set of Bilstein B8's, a 4-1 manifold, a 2" pugsport, 23mm torsion bars, polybushes, VTS wiring looms, various braces, VTS airbox and all the sets of brakes apart from the ones I think I want now?

I've got a 283mm setup, and Brembo's. I was going to use the Brembo's but I think now I've decided to go with 14" S2 Rallye Steel wheels, which shoots that plan down in flames as they won't go over the brakes. So I'll likely sell them and go for a decent 266mm setup.

So there we go, probably more pics over the next month, picking up over xmas when I have some time off. Progress wise I'm hoping to get the wiring sorted and the engine and box in over xmas, I'd be really happy if it was rolling and running by early January, but we'll see I guess.

I need to make a beam, argh.

Last 2 dull pics for now, squeaky clean boot floor:





Yeahhhh buddy. There's a tiny little hole in one of the front inner wings I've found which I'll attend to over xmas, and I'm toying with the idea of stitch welding the engine bay.

That's enough waffling for now I think, so cheers for reading!