They are delicious wheels indeed. I wanted a direct fit set of wheels for the track action (when it happens) and these had some road tyres on I can kill off when it first sees a track.

They're 17". Hopefully it will soon become apparent why, lol.

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I'm Si btw

Night Blue VW Golf GTD
Bianca LBSC Rallye - Track/Road Slag Project Thread
Sparkling Silver Mini Cooper D - Super Dooper - (The other half's wheels)

Close but only half a cigar

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I'm Si btw

Night Blue VW Golf GTD
Bianca LBSC Rallye - Track/Road Slag Project Thread
Sparkling Silver Mini Cooper D - Super Dooper - (The other half's wheels)

Something 330mm to need 17s to clear

AP Racing?

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Chris
1999 China Gti6 Supercharged [Fun car] >>Project Thread<<
2000 Bianca 306 Diesel [Work runabout]

Looking good - a polish and new stickers have worked wonders.

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Cherry Rallye SOLD

My Rallye has exactly the same issues as yours had paint wise. It looks really badly oxidised, almost like chalk, this has more than inspired me to sort it out. I have just got a set of decals so no excuses now either

The polishing compound you hit it with, was it just for finishing or did it have a cut to it as well?

Cracking work, looks really nice!

EDIT: The power of search says the Menzerna stuff is a medium cut compund

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Almost standard 1999 Bianca Rallye
Hilux InvincibleX daily

306 No.13

Carp and specialist Anglers Click here

*dusts off the cobwebs*

So, what a few months it has been.Spent a lot of time sorting things out after moving house, had a very busy few months at work, had wedding stuff to plan etc...

Anyway, headgasket was confirmed as having gone by noticing a constant pressure in the cooling system for a period of days, and the fact that bubbles were ever present in the header tank during running. Fail, coolant pipe gets the last laugh.

So, I ummed and ahhed about whether I had the time and patience to whip the head off, given that the many issues with the car had begun to make me lose the love somewhat. Thought about buying an evo for a bit, but then subsequently decided to diy for the first time. I took the head off and took it to the engine builders behind work, who confirmed a 4 thou skim was necessary to clean up the head. They skimmed the head, cut all 16 valve seats, cut all the valves and pressure tested the head for an (accidental) price of £100. Nice.

Then I went on holiday to Brazil, met Jesus on a hilltop.

Then I did jack sh!t for a month, took the mrs home to Cape Town for xmas with the inlaws.

Then arrived 2015 so I got off my arse in January and started the rebuild. I'd never rebuilt a head before so did it slowly in the evenings after work. It was quite easy and just required being methodical tbh. Tonight, finally finished putting it all back together, and started it up for the first time. It's good to hear it after a few months in pieces on axle stands. It's not quite finished yet as the setup needs some fine tuning, but it's on the way - gives me some motivation anyway.

Head during stripdown, took the cams out for the safe approach:


De-valved, such as to drop the head off at the machine shop for a skim:


Purchased some Victor Reinz loveliness:


Head post-skim and parts wash/pressure test


Valves cleaned and re-cut


Stem seal replacement and re-valving


Valves all refitted to the head


Head refitted to the car, sans cams


Tappets back in:


I don't seem to have a photo of the cams in, but then managed to damage one of the cam seals as i fitted it so bunged a replacement in. New timing belt and water pump (again) and off we go.

Learning as i go so no world records but its been quite satisfying.

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I'm Si btw

Night Blue VW Golf GTD
Bianca LBSC Rallye - Track/Road Slag Project Thread
Sparkling Silver Mini Cooper D - Super Dooper - (The other half's wheels)

Ditto Id love to have the balls to do that! Might do it with my current engine when it's out and replaced

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Just Drive It

Well then, set about doing the driveshaft seal that was leaking such that I could drive it, and so that it stopped leaking oil on the driveway!

Got the seal out no bother (had to be the long shaft didn't it). and then couldn't get the roller wishbone to go back in the hole it came out of. Cue much swearing! Anyway, new driveshaft seal and gearbox oil done and onto the engine oil. Time for a new filter and some Fuchs Titan. Life started poorly when the sandwich plate for the oil cooler rotated instead of the oil filter.... ended up removing the radiator to get my mitts on it, and the front end to tip the oil cooler up and do the change properly. With that done and rebuilt, onto the coolant and thermostat.

That didn't go well either when I hamfistedly managed to snap the plastic elbow, having only just fitted my spare when i rebuilt the head. Off to Peugeot for a new one, thankfully only £14, and convenient that Peugeot is about 100 metres from work. New coolant and a new thermostat and good to go. As a courtesy, a new supercharger belt went on and new sparks.

So I've basically just been driving this and she's lapping it up. Really pleasing to have it working well I must say, with no major niggles. Managed to make it water and oil tight and i'm really pleased with it. This is the culmination of a lot of hard work since returning from South Africa. Many times i'd thought about giving it up, but I wanted to finish it. I need to get some trackdays booked after the wedding, i've identified a couple of potentials and i'll see how I get on. I'm running short of holidays and would rather avoid Saturday trackdays when i'm basically just going to kill my tyres on purpose.

Managed to lose the steering clonk. It turned out that the steering rack was shuttling on the bolts on the subframe. One of the bolts moved maybe 1/8 of a turn, and the other one seemed to go about 2 turns at the same level of tightness before going FT. I'll have to keep an eye on that, i'll pick up some new square section nylocs if that happens again, can only assume I overlooked torquing them up when I built it all the way back at the start of the project (seam welded subframe). Having been at the long driveshaft to change the box seal, I must've reseated the brake disc a little better as the little wobble I had on the first few uses has gone.

Here she is tucked up in her new home.

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I'm Si btw

Night Blue VW Golf GTD
Bianca LBSC Rallye - Track/Road Slag Project Thread
Sparkling Silver Mini Cooper D - Super Dooper - (The other half's wheels)

So Monday was the day she finally made it to a track day. Like the aligning of planets, the car working and me having some free time came together. Bedford autodrome innit.

I was late arriving after jumping in the car and finding the fuse for the clocks etc had blown so couldn't see what speed I was doing on the way down. I�d had it before (see earlier in the thread) but couldn�t remember which was the right one so pulled a few fuses and couldn't find the right one but had to go, so just followed one of the lads who worked for me down there. Traffic was horrific and I was late for the briefing but tbh, didn't seem like i missed much so they must've been late starting and it�s pretty standard anyway.

Interesting mix of cars in the car park. Three or four Mk7 Golf R's (no way is my GTD ever seeing a track!), a C63 AMG mercedes with track rubber on and his plate taped up lol, a Ferrari 458 Spider, an R8 V10, a 997 GT3 RS 911, and then all sorts of mix and match machinery. New Fiesta St, track slag A3 turbo (which died spectacularly on track lol), an E92 M3 V8, a few E46 M3s including a track prepped one, standard 350Z, standard M135i brand new, your typical track slag MX5s, few caterhams, few E36 slag beemers, few evos and scoobies etc, standard Clio 197, even a 140 VVC MG ZR lol. Had the car noise tested at 85 db but no idea what revs, cat still in as i couldn't get the smegging lambda out of it when i took it off last week and couldn't risk breaking anything..

I did the sighting laps on the Oz wheels and you could tell the tyres are s**t (they�re 5 years old now), it was a bit skitty and of course i'd not set the tyre pressures as had only just arrived. Came in from the sighting laps to let everyone loose and sorted those out and my fuse. By the time i'd done that, this R33 track slag skyline had been towed off the circuit and he never made it again, so guess that was terminal. Went out on track, set myself 3 laps to get the car going, then came in and checked tyre pressures again. At that point i noticed some drips off the front of the car, so whipped off the front bumper and intercooler and found the RHS union on the engine oil cooler weeping quite a bit. Only had mole grips with me and had to use those to bollock both of them up tight. Bumper back on and out again with lower tyre pressures and really started to have some fun.

Photos have only just gone on the website, i'll work out which ones to buy later as there's loads, here's a few snaps tho.








Car was working really well, had the windows down a bit and the heaters on to keep things cooler, though the water temp was pretty rock solid all day long around the stat temp unless doing like 7 or 8 laps and then it would come up to 90. Every time i came in off a cool down lap the fans had already stopped. The 40mph (!) winds were quite useful as the car cooled down within 10 minutes every time inc tyres and brakes!!. I'd worried that the brakes were warped on the front, but having ridden them fairly normally all morning to give them a fighting chance of being useful they were getting better and better and better. Reckon i got somewhere around 30 laps in in the morning, but the tyres were barely wearing really and after 5 laps or so they were understeering really badly.

They said track was shut 12-2 but i must not have heard properly. We went off to town to get a Maccys, came back and put the track wheels on to kill those tyres off, lots less tread to roll of course. At that point (1pm) everyone started going back out, so we did too. Did about 4 laps and then noticed the fuel gauge was sitting in the red zone on corners. Headed off to the nearest shell about 5 miles away, and no fecking VPower. Lsot about half an hour there finding the next shell and filling up, should've just used the 102 octane fuel at the circuit in hindsight.

The toyos were much softer. Forgetting they were 5 years old and never been driven on by me, I turned into the first corner and the back end just carried on, nice little catch and away we went. Tortured them all afternoon, started to lean very heavily on the brakes (which, by this point were insanely good). You got to like 75m, stood on the brakes and could've stopped the car by the corner. ABS cuts in on the bumps but is gone by the time you'd react anyway, quite unintrusive on the whole. The gearing meant that exiting a few corners i was having to reach for the shifter, like coming off the 2nd hairpin which wasn't ideal but i don't mind. Started to have real fun with it by this point, throwing it around. Even with standard beam it was handling fine, could feel the rear dancing about but you knew exactly what it was doing 100% of the time. Again, you could get about 7 laps in before the road tyres just had enough, and you started to wildly understeer. Chased the C63 but couldn't catch him - his power and track rubber were too much for me and i would've ended up binning it. Here's me practically doing an endo on the brakes in the process



We were an even keel though and i'm on old road rubber!! Diff worked phenomenally well, you could really feel it sucking you out of the corners on the throttle, honestly a real hoot to drive. . That's what trackdays are like i guess, and bedford is a power circuit after all. The R8, C63, Ferrari and some Astra VXR track slag thing all came together - the latter was really quite quick but that had track rubber too.

Mechanically it worked well all day aside from the cooler weep, and only noticed a leak when i got it back home. Power steering must've started dripping on the way home as it wasn't far below minimum. It has dropped a bit on the drive though as obv it's hot and thin. I guess the hose is leaking where it sits on the pump but I was shattered so just left it for another day. Considering how long it's been in the making, i'm absolutely chuffed it made it there and back in one piece. Come the weekend or one evening i'll give it a once over, look at the brakes etc as i noticed the pedal sitting deeper in the afternoon than the morning, but of course the brakes were getting hammered. Felt like i'd done enough by the end of the day though and went home shattered.

Need to get the beam on at the very least for next trackday, and hopefully if i drive it around a bit i can kill 1 set of this dodgy rubber off, else i'll do a cheap spring day. Glad it worked well, need to find an annoying heatshield type rattle which drove me potty all day (magnex baffles I suspect), and need to put my top mounts on. Need to fix some rusty bits, find something that's rattlingg around somewhere in the back but can't be found, wire in my oil pressure/temp gauge and possibly invest in some better brake fluid after the next day.

Considering how long it's been in the making, and how heath robinson some of it is it worked well, but maybe the weather didn't help for interaction. A pretty antisocial trackday, since nobody came to look at the car, didn't feel like anyone wanted to be approached, loads of people left early etc

Missed the smell of hot brakes and rubber though!!!

________________________________________

I'm Si btw

Night Blue VW Golf GTD
Bianca LBSC Rallye - Track/Road Slag Project Thread
Sparkling Silver Mini Cooper D - Super Dooper - (The other half's wheels)

Nice update

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Goldie the track car.

Congrats on getting married and your MSc too by the way.

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Goldie the track car.

that just looks pretty typical of a beam from a late xsara tbh, fact it wad recently lowered hasn't much to do with it, they take a long time to get to that state.

Doesn't look like the bearing has been worn right through though so may be salvageable, needs both shafts obviously.

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need a part number? get on here - http://public.servicebox.peugeot.com

Bring on the Trumpets.