Great thread so far

Keep it coming

Update, well I have spent all weekend from sat lunchtime, till 9pm sunday doing bits, mainly prepping the engine to get it back in the car, fitted the new clutch and bolted gearbox on, spent ages drilling the turbo housing bolts with a 3mm drill so they can be sealed by the scrutineer, that was a right pig to do and I ended up changing then to m5 caphead bolts so they were easier to drill

I worked a deal with work for the bits I still needed off a 2.0 fabia we are breaking, so I had to dig that out and remove the driveshafts, gear change cables, slave cylinder and clutch pipework and starter motor. unfortunately I thought the 2.0 used a big gearbox and everything would fit but it uses the 02T which is different to what I have. the shafts do fit but I am unsure they are the correct length as I have nothing to compare to.. but the gear cables are good as long as you have the 02J bracket to bolt on the gearbox, starter doesn't fit either so I have to have a scrounge around tomorrow as that is the only thing stopping her from firing up now hopefully.

also if anyone else is thinking a asz from a golf is the same as fabia think again I spent a couple of hours on sat drilling and tapping the block as the golf uses a hydraulic cambelt tensioner and the fabia mount won't clear it so I had to swap the entire backing for the belt drive and found that there was a casting for the idler but no bloody hole  , this goes into the cylinder wall so I had to be very careful not to go too far  and had to mess around cutting a m8 tap as I only had a taper one and it had to thread the blind hole all the way down  . also the oil filter housing is different and uses a different filter (same filter as octavia) as well as having the pressure switch on the other side of the housing.

I'm waiting on a reply from a firm called 3J driveline on the availability of a plate lsd to fit but I can't afford that until the last few fabia vrs parts have sold (still have a gearbox and few bits). no pics as I was too oily to get my phone out lol..

Sounds like fun

It lives!!! fired straight up this eve once I had a starter connected

only backed it out of the workshop tho as no cooling pipework yet

then it was time to go home :( 

Good news!  There's a hell of a lot of effort going in to it for sure!

What bonnet lifter kit is that?

Seat needs a bit of adjustment still as it moves a bit when I let the clutch out lol

What bonnet lifter kit is that?

golf strut with my own bracket rive nutted into the inner wing mate, it's not perfect but does the job and saves mucking around with the std rod all the time I'm working on her.. 

Going to spend some time tidying the engine bay next now it all works as I just fired the main wiring in to get it running, such a pain having to push the car out of the workshop every morning, now we can really push to get the rest sorted out, 

need the rad in next then the brake pipes and hydraulic handbrake unit to do before I can put the seats in and if the suspension is back by the weekend I might even risk a cheeky drive down the road to clean the brakes off

Ordered the lsd today too so will have to take the box back out once that has arrived but no rush on that for now as I can get the rest tested and settled in plus I may have made a mistake with the ratio's I have in that box but won't know till I drive it really.... busy busy busy.

Fair enough - little more brutal than my kit

Fair enough - little more brutal than my kit

aye but £50 cheaper mate which is what counts here lol   nice as yours is, drilling and nutserting the panel was not something I was worried about where as your kit just bolts straight in and does a nice job of fitting under the wing etc..

bugger looks like I almost gave that 6 speed box away on ebay    seen loads fetch well over £200 and mine goes for £137 grrr. oh well win some lose some I guess.

 

bugger looks like I almost gave that 6 speed box away on ebay    seen loads fetch well over £200 and mine goes for £137 grrr. oh well win some lose some I guess.

I let 5 polo steels & tyres go for £1.70.... I was not happy!

Ok she is up and running now, got the rad back in and the heater piped up.

unfortunatly the lsd from tran-x will take 12 weeks even tho it is in stock it needs more machining or something so that is a no go, got a refund and found a wavetrac at just performance.co.uk for a bargain price of £688 delivered and in stock in the UK

http://www.just-performance.co.uk/wavetrac-differentials-volkswagen-02j-mk4-golf-bora-beetle-5mt-2004

after a bit of a battle with my creditcard people as they had blocked my card due to the payment being refunded I placed the order with them, then 4 hrs later had an email saying it is ready for dispatch.... 10 mins later another email saying not in stock gggrrrrrrr but they have promised it before the 18th of Jan so I should be able to fit it that weekend.

I still need crownwheel bolts tho as the diff doesn't come with them (sure the wavetrac used to tho)

but a big bonus, I posted the front monotube inserts back to chassis dynamics (AVO) on monday as one had lost pressure and oil, and was going to call them today to see how much it was going to cost after they had looked at them, when a parcel arrived for me, from AVO, so slightly confused I opened it to find my inserts freshly reconditioned and a note saying FOC as long as I put 2 stickers on the car (stickers are small and were in the box) how often do you get service like that then??  ...

other news , the paddle clutch is every bit as savage as I expected it to be and getting the heater pipes to reseal on the matrix with the O rings wasted 4 hours of my life  maybe a road test at the weekend with some luck..

Well got loads done this weekend, but still not quite ready to road test her :(

spent most of sat afternoon making the hydraulic handbrake fit and getting the brake pipes plumbed in, I bought a complete handbrake unit off ebay for £35 with the brake cylinder included, can be fitted vertical or horizontal 

1st thing I did was remove the cylinder and fit a decent quality Alcon racing one that I had in the cupboard should be better than the chinky one anyway, I was intending on leaving the origional handbrake in place to do the std cables but having tried several different places to mount the hydro one I decided that it should be where the handbrake usually is instead. I have made a bracket to lift it up off the floor and have a pulley to attach the brake cables to the handbrake lever 

should work ok once I get a cable to fit there and attach the the adjuster.

Got the front suspension back together too

First I needed an adaptor ring to be able to use some helper springs with the main springs as I have more travel on the damper than the spring has and the only helper springs I have are 60mm id and I have 2.25in springs

back where it should be

I always fit braided hoses like that, as it will allow the hose to move if it has to and will also allow it to not get ripped off by a flailing tyre or tree branch, the small cable tie will break first. ARB links to sort out yet but not critical at the moment, and finally after a couple of hours bleeding we have working brakes again

next up was the intercooler and that has taken almost all day today (sunday) but I think we are there now.

just getting the pipework to fit was a right pain and I have no idea how it fitted on a fabia before with the pipework that came with it !!

my biggest problem is that the front sumpguard mount is attached to the crashbar brackets so I need to at least keep the brackets.

anyway pics

the 3rd from last pic shows that the upper pipe is a tight fit against the rad surround and there is no easy way to fix that as I need to leave at least some of the plastic there, do you guys think it would be better to get an alloy pipe and make it slightly oval where that bit is? it might even fit ok as it will be smaller diameter? I can get 51mm ext pipe with swaged ends off mr silicone for around £8.50 for 300mm or will the silicone pipe take it ok there are no sharp edges but it is squashing it slightly..

I'd best update this a bit.

she is all together now I have done a few miles settling it in and generally hooning about in it, the gearbox is absolutely spot on for rallying she tops out in 5th at 101mph according to the satnav on the private road I tested it on, and it gets there pretty quickly if I can stop the wheels spinning, clutch is good not that sharp and seems fine at whatever power we are at now.

I will take some pics tomorrow and update more then, at the moment I have the gearbox out and stripped to fit the Wavetrac lsd which I am hoping will cure the wheelspin problems. I am hoping to the msa scrutineer will come and logbook it monday eve and then its just a bit of testing to sort suspension settings etc

I must say a big THANKYOU to CosKev for the boost pipes he GAVE me today they will be cleaned up and put in the spares box just in case, nice to meet you and Dan.

more tomorrow guys.

Was good to meet you too! If you need more boost pipes I've got some at home!

LSD is a very nice piece of kit you have there! Keep an eye out for some seats for me

Interesting read. You have done a lot of work on this and hopefully you will get your log book. Look forward to seeing it covered in mud soon.

I'd best update this a bit.

she is all together now I have done a few miles settling it in and generally hooning about in it, the gearbox is absolutely spot on for rallying she tops out in 5th at 101mph according to the satnav on the private road I tested it on, and it gets there pretty quickly if I can stop the wheels spinning, clutch is good not that sharp and seems fine at whatever power we are at now.

I will take some pics tomorrow and update more then, at the moment I have the gearbox out and stripped to fit the Wavetrac lsd which I am hoping will cure the wheelspin problems. I am hoping to the msa scrutineer will come and logbook it monday eve and then its just a bit of testing to sort suspension settings etc

I must say a big THANKYOU to CosKev for the boost pipes he GAVE me today they will be cleaned up and put in the spares box just in case, nice to meet you and Dan.

more tomorrow guys.

 

No probs Jim,good to meet you

 

Keep us updated on events your entering please.

Well it's been a hectic few weeks for me, got the car logbooked on tues eve all good , he had trouble sealing the turbo due to having to get the locking wire thru the small bolts that hold the inlet housing on but apart from that all was good.

I have been flat out finishing bits off on the car and trying to sort out and improve as I go along and been using it as my daily for a week now to see what falls off.

John from Hidden-power.co.uk has been a great help with the mapping side and I'm sure I have given him a few headaches along the way asking for odd stuff to be done, there can't be that many people asking for the egr map to be altered to run water spray after all lol.

I just haven't had the chances to do all the logging he needs done to fine tune it yet but I can say with the gear ratio's in it now she pulls to top speed very quickly and with no smoke.

last weekend I fitted the Wavetrac lsd unit and apart from the diff being harder than the spline bolts it all went well and I took the box out on the friday eve and stripped it, had it back in by sat afternoon and the 1st drive with it was in a monsoon sunday morning............  What a difference it has totally transformed the car from a wheelspinning monster in the wet to a rocket ship with hardly any spin at all, where I had spin coming off a roundabout in 4th gear as the weight transferred it now just digs in and goes, I am very impressed so far and has made the car much more useable and probly faster than I would gain with a bigger turbo and more power.

 

Finals are out and the entry list makes interesting reading.

http://www.crswrallies.co.uk/breanentrylist.html

4 Skoda's doing it, my apprentice on his first rally as a driver (he navigated for me last year) in his felicia with 1.6 16v AVY on throttle bodies and 6 speed straight cut gearbox at last car 101

then at 97 my last car with John Moule driving (on the list as James for some reason lol) basically no changes to it from when it was mine except suspension and brakes are different and the gearbox is fixed.

an interesting one at 91 Geoff Phelps who has a fabia with mitsi evo running gear under it and the wrc kit on it, no idea why he is behind us really as we are car 72 so starting 1st Skoda and hopefully maintaining that position over the weekend lol...na we are treating it as testing really especially if we are getting beaten lol.

few more pics I have on my fone

showing the airfilter and breather setup

the breather goes to a Y piece down the front with a long pipe from the bottom to act as an oil catch, the theory is the oil should drop from the airstream as it goes thru the tight Y junction and fall into the lower pipe

the bottom is capped with a threaded blank and a removable bolt to drain it and it seems to work, oil is in the pipe and the inlet is clean still so as long as I keep an eye on the catch tube and drain it regularly it should be fine.

 

I'm too skint to be able to buy the vibratechnics gearbox mount so I spent today (sat) making an uprated gearbox mount 

old and new

should be nice and strong now and stop the unwanted movement, it has poly bushes that were for a locost kit car wishbone setup so they are reasonably soft but do transmit a lot of vibes (the girls will love it !!)

swapped the tinted glass out and replaced the electric front window mech with wind up ones and totally removed the rear inner doors and bolted the glass in place.

tomorrows plan is to fit the sumpguard and tank guard and get John his boost logs so we can get it fine tuned and finshed hopefully for tues day eve, then I need to sort a trailer and tow car lol.

The eve of the rally start for me, We have to be at scrutineering in Weston supermare tomorrow afternoon, the last week has been kinda stressful for me as the MSA had not received my logbook by tuesday which meant no run if it didn't get there before tomorrow, luckily for me it arrived with them on weds and they promised to put it straight in the post as soon as it was stamped and processed, at the moment I still don't have it but they can now email me a covering letter as they have processed it and we leave before the postie will get here tomorrow....

Anyway here she is looking a bit dirty after a few wet roadtests

my alternative arb mount as the spring is in the way now

inside

the more observant of you may just spot what I am using for my inside door handles lol

 

she is all loaded up on my trailer now and hopefully ready to go, I must say a big thankyou to Faboka VRS for the help with the map it is lovely and smooth and still hardly any smoke.

there are "Live results" thruout the weekend link here

http://www.mcsrallyresults.co.uk/2014BREAN.html

for anyone wanting a peek tomorrow afternoon and local to weston the scrutineering is at the college 

https://maps.google.com/maps/ms?msid=201039189391703216535.0004408e56982d5ce12a1&msa=0&ll=51.349485,-2.964334&spn=0.037847,0.086603&iwloc=00048302dbc420484c7d0

and spectators are welcome at the event all weekend

https://maps.google.com/maps/ms?msid=201039189391703216535.0004408e56982d5ce12a1&msa=0&ll=51.349485,-2.964334&spn=0.037847,0.086603&iwloc=00048302dbc420484c7d0

if anyone does come make sure you pop over and say hi, I'll be the short fat one with glasses near the car lol probly swearing at it.

I'll try to update on here over the weekend if the wifi is working down there.

Looking good Jim.

Good luck with your event

Looking good! 

Good luck. Will be waiting for results on how you got on!! 

Scrutineering all done, had to chase around to catch the postie to get the logbook this morning

If I'm reading the results right so far. Jim's 3rd in class D, 42nd overall.