If you wanted more power, Tom's 1.4 AFH conversion would be the easier way to go - bolts pretty much straight up aside from an engine mount (easily made) once you have bits from a 1.6 Felicia, and goes really well. 125bhp or so without much effort; it'd take a lot of effort (read £££) to get that from the 8v lump.

Rear window - not a Blue Book requirement, but an MOT-related one; a car can fail with that much stuff in the rear, so I was just thinking in case you got a miserable scrut (all have their little hobby horses...).

Never been picked up at Scrut before for rear window issues but worst case the foxes head gets taken off if a Scruit ever did grumble! There is a Blue book requirement however in the safety section from all angles marhsalls must beable to see into the car following an accident (i.e. through every window.) Hence reflective/mirrored film on windows have a patch cut out of them for the marshalls to view inside the car in such an instant!

as for the MOT not sure that will get picked up by our MOT tester purely as he also Rallies and understands the cars purpose he will not insist the sponsorship is removed for the MOT. however he will be strict on the mechanics & electrics of the car understandably so.

Rear window - not a Blue Book requirement, but an MOT-related one; a car can fail with that much stuff in the rear, so I was just thinking in case you got a miserable scrut (all have their little hobby horses...).

MoT Manual on rear vision; I can't see anything in that that would require you to have vision through the rear window, as long as you have 2 reasonable sized door mirrors.

"c. Does not provide a view to the rear of the vehicle".

I know an MOT tester who has failed several vehicles for having the rear window blocked with stickers and so on, so that's why I mentioned it.

Remove the fox if you have too.........Dunlop himself lives 2mins walk from my house and he wouldn't be pleased if you had to remove his "sticker"

"c. Does not provide a view to the rear of the vehicle".

I know an MOT tester who has failed several vehicles for having the rear window blocked with stickers and so on, so that's why I mentioned it.

Is the MOT different for vans? All those lovely white vans with no rear windows at all.......

Anyway reading the quoted article, there is no requirement for an interior mirror at all (being in position 'c'). The tester failing vehicles for rear window being obscured looks like could easily be subject to appeal (as long as the vehicle had correctly placed and adjusted mirrors in positions a and

Obligatory mirrors

Obligatory mirrors are

a. an exterior mirror fitted to the offside (right-hand side when seated in the drivers seat), or

b, an exterior mirror fitted to the nearside (left-hand side when seated In the drivers seat), or

c. an interior mirror.

All goods vehicles

must have two mirrors, one of which must be option 'a'.

Passenger vehicles with more than 7 passenger seats of any age, and all passenger vehicles first used on or after 1 August 1978 (not being a minibus as above), must have two mirrors, one of which must be option 'a'.

Edited 20 June, 201115 yr by RainbowFore

That's by design though, in the same way if a car is built with a servo then it should have one for the MOT, but if it's not then it doesn't need one, etc...

A Car still requires 2 rear facign mirrors as we have 2 the interior one can be negated!

Well update. Car passed MOT, front competition susspension did not, so quick change back to the standard front susspension and the car passed. So we are seeded car 55 this weekend on the Summer stages rally at Crail in Fife. probably going to look at a cheap front end stiffening option for running the standard struts whilst the Bilsteins are getting new liners in the coil overs hopefully they wont be out of the car for too long.

Will post a report next week and hopefully the team website will be up and runnign in the next couple of weeks too.

Phil C.

Well first event out of the way finishing 3rd in Class and 39th overall. not a bad start for the team!

However have now started to look at getting bigger improvements into the car and alreayd have a 1.4 16valve engine been offered to double the BHp before even starting! (not a VW or Skoda Lump though) So thinking of maybe looking at this route to get some vastly imporved performance by switching the whole front end of the car mechanically to Vauxhall based equipment. with Engine close ratio box and hubs. throw into the equiation that I also have some Vauxhall Bilsteins sat in my lock up from a few years ago that are in full working order then suddenly this becomes an even better option straight off. What I need to know really is has anyone on here ever actually done such a conversion or has everyone always stuck with a VW group engine and Gearbox???

Cheers in advance for any information on this

Phil C.

sorry but what 1.4 litres vauxhall engine generates more than about 110bhp standard??

Sonner when I said before starting I mean before we start with it!!! it currently is running with fast road cams and remapped vauxhall ecu at 117BHp

Jim (felicia 16v) had a 2.0 16v redtop in his with gearbox.... he may have some answers for you - I seem to recall that getting the driveshaft angles right (particularly on the short one) wasn't straightforward, and you have to remember that such a change will involve development and failures and therefore some costly DNFs. I'd not bother myself, I'd go for Tom's 16v transplant as it's a much more factory route and therefore more reliable. You can get great power from that engine...

hi yup I did a 2.0 16v felicia, a pm is on its way too

don't try and use vauxhall front end bits as it will just mess up a nice handling setup, its easy to keep the right skoda bits with a bit of thought

unfortunatly mine ended up like this

the 1400 vaux motor is about 100bhp stock BUT needs some expensive mods to be reliable as does the gearbox as the smaller F series box's are pretty weak.

Used to run in a 1400 Nova that I helped build and with the Standard F10 box with the comp preped 120Bhp vauxhall 8v on webber twin 40s ran with out issues gear box wise. hence why I was thinking of going that way. gearbox wise. however still all in the plannign phase!

Well I have been away for a while however we have now had the car out competing a few times with 2 3rd in class results and a Did not finish as a result of the Fuel Pump destroying itself. Need to find smoething extra in the car and in my self as you will see from the Video attached.

This video was from the Pirtek Lindisfarne stages. on Stage 9 the first stage we had a totally clean run following clutch issuse on the opening loop of 4 stages and worse still going to 3 cylinders for stages 4-8.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IEoL_Wd6y0A

so really looking for either a better gearing idea or some way to increase the torque levels now as we plan a season in a 1400 8 valve championship in 2012

12:16 "I'll shut my eyes", made me giggle a lil'

Well done Phil!