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
My Saxo Project Thread
Updated that.
lol
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