DarksideDevelopments

And now our journey is coming to an end with the Citigo. We managed to get it to 360BHP and it is currently in our competition to raffle off for a MASSIVE £15 per entry :P . So if you fancy it...

The ibiza brakes are better by a long way and the tyres are sticker too. Sheer power and overall grip prevailed in the CitiGo, cant wait for the sticky tyres! The BMW had no chance! haha

Not posted here for a while, The Autocar day was great. Managed to get a few video's of the car on track - Some suspension work still to do, mainly the ARB's needing shorter lever arms to get a better rate from them!

Guide me through the process if possible

Lol, The FB post went down well too -

Cheers guys. Yeah the car is 100% road legal and costs £20 a year to tax still, I'll be daily driving it when I'm 100% happy with the whole package. You certainly need a ride out Clive!

Just in case anyone here is wondering what happened to this car, We have made a new topic here, please subscribe!

Some of you may already know and hopefully most people wont, this project was purchased by Darkside From Clive ( missingmyvrs - Briskoda Forum) the week before Christmas 2017. He purchased the car from Richard (BossFox - Briskoda Forum), here is the previous thread - https://www.briskoda.net/forums/topic/243854-citigo-go-a-citigo-with-more-go/. We were alerted to the availability of the car by a random Facebook message and within a couple of days the trip ‘darn sarth’ was scheduled, the next few months would not be easy... After a good chinwag with Clive (more like an interrogation regarding the proposed spec, which remained secret until the car was presented in person!) The car was loaded onto our trusty T5 Transporter ready for the 220 mile journey back to HQ in Barnsley, South Yorkshire. If you are inpatient and can't wait to see how the car looks now, here is the full spec list - https://www.darksidedevelopments.co.uk/citigo-4-motion-2-0-tdi-16v-common-rail/ So the first job when getting back to Darkside HQ was to unload, have a good look around, get a plan together for the full build and make a list of parts that need to be ordered. Lots of little parts were missing that you would hope were there (bonnet pull, boot locks, wiper mountings cut etc), and a good chunk of the fabrication and machining that was already done needed to be rectified or adjusted, Engine Mounts, Wishbones, Pedal box, brakes, the list goes on! The engine choice was already made the day we set eyes on the car. Basically an engine specification similar to the Arosa, mated to an AWD 02M Gearbox with Ibiza Cupra TDI Ratios, linked to the haldex setup at the back, then finished off with Limited Slip Quaife ATB Differentials Front and Rear. By the end of January we had the fully built engine installed and running. Mid February the car was fully MOT ready and passed with flying colours. We still had a lot of finishing touches and lots of specification changes (sounds easy typing that now…) to get to where we are now. Tuning was always going to be a big job, and finding the time between a jam packed diary has been quite difficult, and there is much more to come. We only have a GTB2260vk on there running moderate boost and 280hp until we have proven the chassis. The engine should be able to kick out a reliable 360bhp that will take punishment for 100’s of miles a day on track with the GTD2872vr turbo we plan to run. We didn’t have time to install the WON REVO Nitrous system either but that will come later! When news got out that we had a new project, we were approached by a few Magazines and asked if we would keep the project under wraps until after the first photoshoot that was planned to happen on the 28th of March. It was a difficult decision, as we would have to limit what we could post on social media and who we could involve in the project. I’m sure we had a mole somewhere, as quite a few people did know what was going on but thankfully the nice guys kept their mouth shut We had to hold off transferring the TD1 1 AWD number plate onto the car for obvious reasons. Tuesday 27th mid afternoon the Citigo and our trusty Ibiza track car were loaded onto the truck and trailer ready to head to Snetterton Circuit for the cars first shakedown. We had very few road miles on the car due to the last minute issues we faced so we had to cross our fingers (sorry Paul!) and hope everything was alright. Also, this was my first ever drive since passing my trailer test so the pressure was never off, haha. We arrived at Snetterton just before 9pm to unload and hide the car away in our Garage ready for the day ahead... Wednesday Morning bright and early Adam Walker ( https://www.facebook.com/AJWIMAGES/) was on hand at to shoot the car for the upcoming VWG Magazine feature, be sure to keep your eyes out for that in the next few months! This would be the first time Clive saw the car, we didn't release any information during the build so he was shocked when he saw how far the car had come since last time he saw it back in December, a passenger ride was scheduled for after lunch. Luckily we fitted a larger passenger seat especially for this day, Sorry Clive! The car was amazing on track, we expected the soft springs and no front ARB to upset the handling slightly but we had a good time and impressed a few people. We had a lot of people saying the short wheel base and narrow track would cause issues but looks can be deceptive. Our Citigo has a 2.45m Wheel Base and 1.65m track width compared to a standard Fabia’s 2.46 & 1.64m, its still short for a car with plenty of shove from the rear end but not as bad as you might first think. With ‘only’ 280bhp and weighing in at 1160kg without the 2 fat people on board it was never going to be the fastest car on track. The rain helped show the benefit of the the Quattro Haldex system compared to our FWD Ibiza and was the main reason this project was interesting to us in the first place. A Front Wheel Drive version of this would have been immensely cheaper and much easier to build, and on a dry track likely faster but where is the fun in that... Maybe in the future we will look to build the car into a replica of the WRC car Skoda, No reply from Skoda Motorsport regarding the panels so if anyone can help us with that, please get in touch! I’ll be making further posts about the car build showing some of the major hurdles we faced along the way, some expected and most of them certainly unexpected! Any questions please ask! Ryan Oh and here's a photo we took while servicing a stock Citigo a few weeks ago

Peak Torque on that Graph is about 1000rpm too late. Stock vRS clutch will take around 300ft/lbs but will cling on for dear life well above that if the torque comes in late (ie big turbocharger) Stock SMIC is no good above 160-170bhp, have seen 100+ inlet air temps on mildly tuned cars.

Both Sachs and LuK do not give any ratings for their OEM Products.

No, the LuK is much weaker from our experience, hence why we only fit Sachs to this model. It's no problem, we are pretty busy with the new Unit build anyway so only doing the odd workshop job until we are open from there. Being busy is not an excuse for inflated prices. We are usually booked up for 2 - 3 months but our prices remain the same regardless. If people can't wait it is unfortunate, but they should not be stung.

OEM could be Sachs or LuK, depends which part numbers they use to order. Strictly speaking it should come back as Sachs, but I can't say for sure. The issue with pricing at any dealer is 2 fold. Firstly they have to stick to the retail prices given by the manufacturer (VW, Skoda, BMW etc) which can be more than double the aftermarket price. Secondly they have to charge their standard labour rate (anything from £70 - £100 + VAT per hour) for the number of hours their system tells them (could be anything from 4 - 7 hours). We book them for 5 hours but if everything goes smoothly, it does not take quite as long. With us it works out at £618 for a Sachs Kit, fitted with a new CSC (make sure this is replaced). Someone mentioned about the main dealers changing all the bolts. It works out about £20 or so extra to do this, but is not necessary unless a bolt is damaged. The 02M Gearbox on a 1.9 TDI weighs around 70Kg and is very tight. Get it wrong and you can bust the radiator pretty easily. I would not like to do one without a proper ramp and someone to help lift the box out and refit.

From experience I would recommend a Sachs Kit over the Luk. OEM on the PD130, PD150 and PD160 is Sachs. LuK was fitted to the PD115. It's insane the prices some companies charge for a pretty straightforward job. Thanks

We have a deal on at the minute 10% Off Intercoolers and Pipekits when purchased together http://www.briskoda.net/forums/topic/333725-darkside-developments-current-deals/

We have not supplied the incorrect kit. You have OEM Xenon Headlights. All our kits have been fitted to cars with Stock or DEPO Headlights They are not a poor design. If the car had Xenons from the Factory, it would hit the washer jets before you even got the pipe in. If you read here - http://www.darksidedevelopments.co.uk/products/hard-pipework-kit-for-seat-ibiza-vw-polo-skoda-fabia-with-seatsport-fmic.html THIS PIPE KIT WILL NOT FIT VEHICLES WITH XENON HEADLIGHTS AND HEADLIGHT WASHER SYSTEM So it is not a poor design, it is just not designed to fit with the setup you have. Just like if someone tried to fit it with a different intercooler, it would not fit. I have checked with a few other customers we have fitted them to, and they were all DEPO Headlights, not the OEM Xenons. If you had sent photos, we could have assessed and then suggested what to do, including you possibly bringing the car here for us to modify, jig and then fit a new pipe. Thanks Scott @ Darkside