DieselMonte

Why not have a look at build threads on here? There have been plenty of modified vRS thats mods were well documented, might give you some ideas. A lot of people would get a rarb as one of their first mods, I have one ordered for my mk2 fabia although it'll fit a mk1 or a mk2. How olds your vRS? How many miles does it have? have the console bushes been done? Just replacing drop links and worn out bushes can make a world of difference, especially when a cars coming up in age/miles. For the most part it depends on what you want to get out of the car, but it doesnt make much sense to me to go out and put a bigger turbo on your car if the suspensions knackered. Not much else I can really add though, its moreso stuff i've picked up lurking on here and my own (albeit limited) knowledge from messing around with my own cars. Good luck with the car by the way, if you are planning on doing any mods you can always make a thread in the fabia projects section.

It runs! The battery mishap seems to have been just some water getting into a place it wasnt meant to, charging fine now. Had it out and moving under its own weight, Drove fine, no leaks or major problems. It still has a ways to go before it could go back on the road but this was definately a major step forward.

Quick side by side of the new and old front ends.

Car is cleaned under the arches and front is back together. Not perfect mind but Its much better than what it was before. Only problem is that I ran the battery low by quickly starting the car to move it down to the power washer and then back up again. Couple that with the fact that the belts and alternator got a little wet it was obvious that I was going to run into trouble. I had the car Idling while I was bleeding the radiator, all the electrics on, draining the battery. I noticed the gauges had frozen and knew straight away what was up. Just to make sure, I opened torque on my phone and noticed that it was reading 6.6 volts on the voltmeter, not good. I gave the car a few revs and to my surprise it revved freely and much quicker than it normally would, but it sounded like the power washer that cleaned the **** out of the arches just an hour or two before, I presume it was just dumping fuel into the engine at this point. Shut it off and put the battery on charge overnight. Its a big battery so it'll take a long while to charge. Hopefully the car dries out a bit more and the alternator hasnt in fact crapped out on me. The pile of dirt you can see is the dirt I scraped out of the passengers side quarter panel while I had it off.

Does the sound get worse when you turn on the a/c? I only ask because my mothers avensis had a problem where it sounded like the car had a blown engine but it got really loud and obnoxious when the a/c was turned on. It was traced back to a faulty crank pulley apparently, something about it putting more stress on the pulley when the a/c was engaged thus causing it to make more noise. There are no rear droplinks on fabias as there isnt a rear anti roll bar. The torsion beam acts as a rarb in our cars case. You'll find a lot of people will add a Whiteline or H&R rarb to these cars though, meant to sharpen up the handling. (I was surprised when I learned these cars didnt have rarb's but it makes sense when you look at how the rear suspension has been designed.)

Making a lot of progress over the last few days. Have the front radiator support and crash bar back on. Ended up giving the crash bar a quick scuff with some 120 grit and 2 coats of gloss black just to clean it up a bit. Took both front fenders off as I thought i'd need a bit more room to get the front support on, I didn't at all. On the brightside I managed to remove about 20 kg of clay from the front arches. Next day i'm out i'll take it down and pressure wash the bay and front arches and see where the car sits.

Making good progress thus far, have the interior 80% done, vRS bits et al. Also,made good progress on the front. Got the Front crash bar on and bolted and can probably get the radiator and other bits in soon. Only thing is one of the bolts holding the crashbar to the frame stripped so I need to extract it. Also have put the passat seats aside and just put the standard seat back in for the minute.

When I say clamping I mean on the rubber bit of the hose, not clamping the hardline shut naturally enough. If you're removing the whole rear beam you could take off the calipers and hang them on the body somewhere with bungee cords, would save you from bleeding them at all doing it this way.

Clamp the rear brakes off to stop you losing all your fluid. I think the abs only becomes a problem if you lose too much fluid and air gets into the pump. Then you need to get a computer to run the abs pump and bleed it iirc. atleast thats what I remember from when I had to do a caliper on an old hyundai of mine and made a mess of it.

Polished up the new grille and put my touch on it. The vRS badge has seen better days but i'll leave it for now. Got the dash in today too, massive pain in the ass trying to get the fusebox in properly but got it done in the end. Lastly I made some progress on the front end, got the vrs radiator out and my sdi one in. The bits being from a UK car are a little rusty, all of the Torx bits are covered in Crust, some of them stripped straight away and one was stuck so tight it snapped my cheapy torx wrench. I have the a/c rad from the vRS but it looks like one of the pipes were cut trying to get it all out, probably of no use to anyone now, not that my car has a/c anyways.

4 wheels on and all holding air. 2 have old but still quite decent looking maxxis tyres, they went on the front. 2 have Toledo brand tyres, One is on the wear bars and is scrubbed bare on the inside, the other is cracked around the side and is bulged all over the sidewall, It is on the car and holding 15 psi of air but I wouldnt dare drive the car on it. I have the front bumper and all sitting in place but not bolted to the car, need to straighten the chassis to be able to properly fit the front end onto my car. Finally, I put a bit of wood onto the drivers strut to make the car sit level for now.

Managed to find most of a front end from a vRS to replace my Mad Max front end on the Fabia. Not the prettiest mind, but considering I got it, a dash, Vrs steering wheel,handbrake,Gear Knob and a full set of vRS alloys for decently cheap I am over the moon. Have the plate obscured as its the one from the car I got the parts from, not my car. Not that it really matters either way but still. I can now proudly say that my car is the slowest vRS in the world!

One good thing about Irish roads is that no one ever bothers to salt half of them. My orange fabia surprisingly has minimal rust for the most part. Most of the rust that has formed is moreso due to my over-exuberance in fields and leaving the car perpetually caked in crap. the underside of My Monte Carlo is about as crusty as my orange fabia. Its funny to me how a car that spent most of its life in NI,where the roads are always salted in winter, has half the miles and is half as old is equally as crusty as the older, Irish registered car. That being said, neither of them are really rusted at all underneath, just that they are both equally as crusty.

Making moves.

That does look pretty grim, I would think the only way to properly clean that up would be to send it off to be sandblasted and powdercoated, atleast then it would be good for years to come.Probably easiest to find a cleaner rear axle and swap it out though.

If you are trying to get a standard one beware of the cheap, bottom of the barrel variants. I got a midpipe and backbox for my fabia a few months ago and it had to be cut and rewelded to fit, even though it was the one for my car. Sounds nicer mind, a little more noise from the engine without being at all obnoxious.

Snow Pics from a few days back.

I mean, mismatched axle to axle isnt too bad all things considered. If its two different tires side to side per axle and especially on the front I would agree with you. I understand that on a track the main problem would be tires heating up at different rates and what not,but if you have the same tires side to side of each axle would this not become a non issue? Besides, on a nose heavy,front wheel drive car such as the fabia wouldn't the front wheels be doing 90% of the work on a trackday, so them tyres would be the ones that would be taking the brunt of the wear and tear of hard track driving. Because of this, surely the rear tyres wouldnt necessarily need to be some mega expensive r-comp barely street legal tyre, a decent tyre should suffice for all but the very top level of racing.

I have Accelera Phi-R tyres on the Front of my Monte Carlo, one of our lovely Potholes wrecked the old front left tyre so I replaced them both. Honestly a great tyre for the price, considering they are just a summer tyre. They took the snow and non gritted, ice ridden roads like a champ over the last few days. From what I've experienced with them over the last 1000 miles, they grip well, are quiet, are comfortable and are very predictable when they do start to slip. I went for a spirited drive the other night and came across a lot of Ice, much of the road was frozen over. I did slide once or twice, but the car was remarkably predicable and stable when it slid. All things considered, for tyres that were €65 a corner I cant be dissapointed. The large rim protectors are also a nice addition, not that I am terribly prone to using my wheels as curb feelers.

I doubt it looks as bad in person, I only noticed the overhang about a month ago on my car. It wouldnt be very noticable I suspect.

Stock grille badge overhangs by a bit anyway,at least, thats how it looks on my car.

Weirdly, when my fabia was sat outside for a year, the seats,belts,headliner and steering wheel were coated in mould but the carpet atleast looked to be bone dry. My car leaks from everywhere though even on the top part of the windshield. You may want to take the interior apart to fully get rid of the mould. It'll soak into the padding under the carpet and will lie in the ducts of the climate control system. On the other pic, there should be a drain on the bottom of the door, most likely just draining onto the sill from there. Car plan upholstery shampoo and Car plan Powerful odour eliminator are both decent products for the price and I've used them with good success, you can get them in Asda for cheap.