Felicia 1.8T transplant thread

[felicia16v]

Yes it has gone to someone on here thankfully, I'll leave it to him to update the thread he is collecting next weekend.

Lots of idiots out there asking silly questions so I'm glad it's staying in "the family" so to speak.

Sad it has to go but I honestly can't keep it :(..

[Yoss]

Glad to hear it. I must admit I was trying to ignore it. I'm currently looking for a Favorit or early Felicia to replace my MG ZT-T the idea being to downsize and go for a bit of fleet standardisation.

I kept looking at your advert and seeing it still had no bids and was thinking if you hadn't had any by Sunday I was going to have to make you an offer even though it really wouldn't be a sensible option!

Anyway, glad you've found it a home and I can go back to looking for a decent Favorit.

[felicia16v]

Well that's it.. sad day in the shires :(. She's gone but has a decent new owner who I'm sure will be along shortly to update on here. Hope you have fun with her mate.

[Bete Noir]

This is now on my driveway. I have big plans, but I have another project to finish first so there probably will not be much in the way of updates on here for a bit.

I had great fun surprising a few people on the way home. One or two did not believe what had just happened, and came back for another go, only to suffer the same outcome again :-)

[pinjon]

I had great fun surprising a few people on the way home. One or two did not believe what had just happened, and came back for another go, only to suffer the same outcome again :-)

 

That had to be megafun!

[Bete Noir]

That had to be megafun!

 

It was. You cannot beat the fun to be had in a Q-car, and this Felicia is certainly one of those.

[nu99et18]

Mine is nearly finished now, need induction kit, tyres and petrol don't think there's anything else!

Intercooler is black but can just about see it through the bumper also glad to have kept the fog lights.

[ClarkE_123]

Looks busy in there, great work!

[pinjon]

NIce! :-)

Good to see some great work beeing done. :-)

Skoda coud have made a 2 inch larger engine bay :p

what power are we looking at?

[KenONeill]

NIce! :-)

Good to see some great work beeing done. :-)

Skoda coud have made a 2 inch larger engine bay :p

what power are we looking at?

Anything from 150 to about 500 bhp, depending on base engine code and tuning work.

[nu99et18]

I've decided i'm going to get a hi flow exhaust manifold as the stock k04 one is very restrictive. So with a hi flow manifold and the rest of the mods i'll be aiming for around 300bhp give or take, with around the same amount of torque (capped torque as stock rods) if i had forged rods the torque would probably be around 350lb.

Spec is;

Stock agu and ecu

K04 023 turbo

Relentless v4 hiflow manifold

3" downpipe and system (decat)

80mm turbo intake with induction kit

3" MAF/ saab 360cc injectors/4bar fpr

63mm intercooler piping (front mount wellycooler)

Forge 007 diverter valve

5.5kg g60 flywheel/vr6 clutch/quaife lsd

Felicia fuel pump feeding swirlpot and hi pressure Walbro 255 pump feeding engine.

[Bete Noir]

I have signed-up to take the Felicia on a track day at Goodwood on Sep 17th, so I have some work to do to get it ready. Today I stripped-out the interior from the rear, and fitted an OMP rear strut brace I had in the garage. The standard steering wheel is off, and has been replaced with a Momo suede rally wheel. The graphics have come off too, my son decided they had to go, so he got the hot air gun out, and an hour later all the stickers were gone. I will put some new pictures up when I have finished extracting all of the dust from the inside.

[Bete Noir]

I re-located the boost gauge today. It was not easy to see on the passenger side of the dashboard, so I moved it to the where the small panel usually goes to the offside of the dash. I changed the wiring to the gauge too, so that the needle illuminates when the ignition is switched-on, but the dial only illuminates when the lights are on. Not a great photo, due to the low sun illuminating the covering of dust!

As can be seen in this photo, I am also trying to do something different with the gearknob and gaiter and the centre console. Hopefully there should be another update next weekend.

[Bete Noir]

The centre console and gearstick gaiter are now a bit tidier. My son is currently between cars, so he let me borrow his Glowshift oil temperature and voltmeter gauges. I cut a couple of holes in the panel in the centre console, then wrapped it in black vinyl, and fitted the gauges in place. Ideally I would have liked oil pressure as well, as I am worried about oil surge with the shallow sump, but I could not fit a third gauge in the console due to the proximity of the gearshift to the back of the panel. I will fit a large oil pressure warning light instead. The gearknob is a SEAT Sport one that I had in the garage. It is nothing flash to look at, but it is a little lower and better weighted than the one which was fitted. I found a gear lever gaiter and lower trim in the garage also, probably Ibiza parts although I am not sure.

[Bete Noir]

I have been slowly working my way through a long list of jobs I want to get done before the track day, although I am trying not to get too carried-away as I am not planning on tracking the Felicia regularly. I know I could make significant improvements to the handling by replacing the suspension bushes and switching the front anti-roll bar for a 22mm pick-up item, but I am not looking to get into that right now. I have swapped the G60 steel wheels for a set of Oz F-1 16" alloys with Toyo T1-R tyres which I have used on my Ibizas on the road or when wet on track. I have another set of these wheels in 17" which I will use if the track day is dry. These have Yokohama Paradas on. Both the 16" and 17" wheels give a slightly larger rolling radius than the 195/50R15s on the G60 wheels, so I have adjusted the coilovers to bring the ride height down a bit. The car now sits more level, where previously it was a little nose-down. Even that small adjustment has made the handling feel a bit more predictable.

The brakes are lacking in bite, so the plan is to change the pads. I have some Ferodo DS2500s for the rear, and I am going to try EBC Yellowstuff at the front. I have not used these before, but I could not find much choice of track pads for the Mondeo calipers at a reasonable price. It took me a while to work-out that the calipers are the ATE ones, which appear only to have fitted to the Mondeo V6 between 1998 and 2000. I will have a look at the state of the brake fluid before I decide whether I will replace that.

I want to increase the airflow into the engine compartment, I am even considering removing the front grille panel on track. As a less extreme measure, I have cut a row of holes into the number plate mounting on the front bumper. These are invisible (and of no use) when the number plate is in place

On track I will not be needing the front plate, so I can get a little extra airflow

[Bete Noir]

The exhaust that Jim made does give the Felicia a bit of bark, but it is unlikely to get past the Goodwood noise police, who are the worst I have encountered at any circuit. As mentioned previously, I do not have the fabrication skills of either of the previous owners, so I took the car to Mike Stokes Motorsport in Bournemouth with a view to them making a stainless system for it. It is booked-in for early Sep, and they are going to make a system with a removable cat, and with two silencer boxes, so it should be below 98dB for the track day. The new system will still exit in front of the rear wheel on the nearside.

 

On the way back from Bournemouth I dropped-in to South Coast Tints in Southampton, who did me a nice deep tinted sunstrip.

 

Given the nature of the car, I thought it would be fun to have a "SURPRISING SKODA" sunstrip as used on various of the rally cars.

 

I could not find anywhere to supply one of these, so instead I settled for buying separate SURPRISING and SKODA graphics, which I have put at the top of the rear window.

[Bete Noir]

The hole in the passenger side of the dashboard, where the boost gauge was previously fitted, had been exercising my mind. I did not want to just leave the hole, and nor did I fancy swapping the whole dashboard. I considered putting a panel of some sort over it, or even just some tape, but I eventually settled on fitting a battery cut-out switch into the hole.

 

By fitting this onto the front face of the dashboard, this gives sufficient clearance to re-fit the glovebox liner (not possible with the boost gauge).

 

Whilst I was messing around behind the dashboard I ran the wires for another oil pressure warning lamp. These are temporarily connected to a brake light bulb which I have pushed into one of the blank switch slots, as you can see in the photo above. I have ordered an "ultra bright" LED as a more permanent solution.

[pinjon]

Im glad It's evolving on.

The rear sticker is great and it's the rear where it belongs ;-) that's where the majority Will be looking ;-)

 

don't know why are all building side exit exhaust's...yes it's shorter with one silencer but if you are using 2 becomes a bit long to make it out at the side...personaly I prefer the classic rear...but that's me

Edited 29 August, 2016 by pinjon

[Bete Noir]

There are a few reasons why I decided to have the new exhaust exiting at the side, one of them being that having a larger tailpipe visible from the rear might be a giveaway that the car is not standard, whereas if no exhaust is visible that will be a bit more stealthy. The second silencer will fit into the section from the central exhaust tunnel out to the side exit. I will put some pictures up once it is on.

[nu99et18]

What size tube are you having the exhaust system made out of?

Only thing i've got left to do on my felicia 1.8t pretty much, got a 3" downpipe either going into a 2.5" system or go all the way with 3" tube hmmm

[nu99et18]

Also; i have got mine out the garage and given it a test drive around the estate, drove lovely considering it hasn't been mapped yet! For some reason the speedo wasn't working though, i'm using a mk2 golf 1.3 cable like Tom did?

Engine bay done besides a high flow exhaust manifold which i need to get.

Then i test fitted some 16×9" wheels on the rear which do just about fitted to my suprise.

Edited 2 September, 2016 by nu99et18

[Bete Noir]

What size tube are you having the exhaust system made out of?

 

It will be 2.5". I am not planning on taking the power beyond the ~180bhp it is running at the moment, and I have had 1.8T Ibizas up to 230-250bhp on 2.5" exhausts without problems, so I do not see the point in going for a larger diameter for this. If I was aiming much higher power-wise I would be considering going to 3".

Edited 4 September, 2016 by Bete Noir

[Bete Noir]

The battery isolator switch was fitted to cover-up the hole in the dashboard, and I did not actually wire it up until this weekend. It is not wired as a master switch per se, as I have left the starting and charging high current connections direct to the battery. Initially I got the wiring wrong, so that turning-off the isolator made no difference, but then I realised that the 30A connection from the battery is crimped together with two other cables before it makes its way to the fusebox, so I adjusted the wiring to suit. I was more than a little puzzled when the isolator switch still had no effect, until I tested it and found that the isolator was faulty, and remains 'on' whatever position the key is in. I have now ordered a replacement.

 

Insulating the cut-out terminals had been worrying me. The plastic liner of the glovebox protects them, but I still did not fancy leaving un-fused live terminals exposed behind the dashboard. I bought some cable insulators, but they would not fit over the M10 nuts on the terminals. Then I sussed that M10 nuts are 17mm hex, so I pushed some plastic wheel bolt covers over the terminals.

[Bete Noir]

The new exhaust is now on, so now I have a chance of getting through the 98dB noise test at Goodwood tomorrow. It is significantly quieter than it was, and no longer rattles against the sill, which is good news. I did not take pictures when it was up on the ramp, but I will take some when I get the chance.

 

I have managed to get ticks alongside most of the items on the to do list for the track day, so all I plan on doing this evening is to swap the sports cat for the decat pipe, fit the track wheels and load the car up. Previously I have done plenty of track days in various cars, and a bit of racing, but I have to admit to having a few nerves about being on track in the Felicia, because of the disparity between the power and the handling. I will need to keep in mind that this car is not as well sorted as some of the previous machinery in which I have gone barrelling into Woodcote Corner!

[Bete Noir]

The Felicia did not disgrace itself on the track day. It looked somewhat incongruous amongst more typical track day machinery waiting to go out on sighting laps

 

The handling proved better on track than I had feared. Here we are just exiting the chicane, and you can see there is little body roll

 

Even Woodcote corner was under control. The brakes smelled like they were working pretty hard to lose the speed gained along the Lavant straight, but if they hadn't been, we would not have been trying hard enough!

You can make out the new exhaust exiting in front of the rear wheel in this picture.

 

Over the course of the day, we surprised quite a few. A number of people came up to us to ask what the Felicia had under the bonnet, and we resisted the temptation to tell them it was standard, and our speed was due to driving talent! It was amazing how many people were complimentary about the car.