Fabia Vrs TDI stage rally car build

[felicia16v]

Decatted it tonite, definatly feels to spool up faster, also the cat had a few blocked holes inside too, just gotta get Fabooka to remap now to get rid of the boost spikes again, also fitted one of these http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/VW-GOLF-MK4-GTi-NEW-BEETLE-BORA-AUDI-A3-SKODA-OCTAVIA-QUICK-SHIFT-SHORT-SHIFTER-/350714899341?pt=UK_CarsParts_Vehicles_CarParts_SM&fits=Car+Make%3AVW&hash=item51a83cab8d

while the exhaust was off, not sure if I am happy with it yet tho so it might come back off and I might fit the TT shift weight instead as the stick has a couple of obvious weak points and the metal doesn't seem that strong.

spent a while on the intercooler spray now and still not happy with it as I think the nozzels I have allow far too much water thru them.

[peterhen]

Looking forward to seeing this go at Down Ampney!

I will probably be in my Scout and not the white VRS (the misses wont let me have it to play as she wants to go shopping!)

Read all of your blog with interest, and must say I liked the way it went at Brean!

[felicia16v]

come and say hi if you are at the rally..

I have spent a while sorting a few little niggles out with the boost pipework, started with the egr delete from the group buy on here and then made a top boost pipe to replace the plastic one and tidied up the lower pipework a bit,

Also fitted the quickshift and sorted it out and seems ok now, changed all the fluids for fresh after running the lsd in and ran it out of brake fluid while I got distracted checking my tyres while it bled thru :(

I noticed that even with the big forge intercooler we were getting quite high intake temps on the slower bits so made up a water spray system for the intercooler, this is a spray tank and pump from a scoob sti, and at the moment a fabia washer jet and activated by an adjustable boost switch so it comes on with max boost.

[felicia16v]

Also I must thank John at Hidden-Power.co.uk again for his continued mapping help as we progress with different mods, different car again now we have removed the cat and remapped to suit, it is sometimes awkward for me to get the log files as the car is often in bits so when i do log them I usually need a quickish turnaround on them, like this evening I uploaded the latest file and logged it after doing some other bits to the car and sent the logs to him at 9pm with a note to say the last chance for logging is lunch time tomorrow as we are loading up at 6pm. By the time I had got home at 930ish there was already another email from him with an adjusted file. really cannot beat that for service.

I will try to get some pics tomorrow of the bits I have changed so far, the water spray looked to have taken 20.c off the inlet air temp but that was using 2 nozzels and the water tank emptied far too quickly so I have gone for a smaller single nozzel in the hope that while it won't cool as much it will cool for longer and be better than an empty tank 3 miles into a 6 mile stage.

[billybob90]

Good luck on the stages later

[faboka vrs]

Just checked the current standings. http://www.cheltmc.com/results/gis2014_results.htm

 

Jim's 5th in class, 13th overall

[faboka vrs]

5th in class. 11th overall.

[ickleginge]

That's a pretty handy ranking for the sole vRs.

I see there's a couple of Datsun Micra's in there...any chance they are running more wild than the old "challenge" spec engines?

[felicia16v]

Just got home, and I have to say, thanks John, she flies now, we surprised a few today that's for sure, followed a 250bhp escort with a sequential box in it for 3 miles and he had nothing on me out of the corners or up the straights..I was surprised when I asked him afterwards what he had in it lol. Bit of body work to sort but otherwise she is good, I'f we had changed the rear tyres a few stages earlier we would have made that top 10 easily but we only changed them for the last 3 stages and what a difference.. Off for a cold pint now..

[felicia16v]

Ok next event is back at Down Ampeney again on 3rd of may, there are 3 events per year allowed there and there is a challenge called "King of down ampeney" of which we are currently 2nd .

http://www.cirencestercarclub.com/stagerally.html

So my main priority has been getting the inlet air temps down as this is costing power and putting stress on things, I bought a cheap temperature controller from ebay

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/131101201417?ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1439.l2649, this has a temp senser which I have pushed into the fins on the intercooler to get a reading of how hot the main body of the cooler is getting, this then determines when the water spray is activated thu the boost pressure switch

what I am trying to do is save the water spraying when it is not needed, ie down long straights and off the start line, so the controller now cuts the pump at temp below 28.c which is where the temp sits really above 70mph or so and switches it back on above 35.c so it should be a lot more efficient on water meaning I can use 2 spray nozzels again without running out of water, I also fitted a bypass button and led to tell me the pump is activated, the bypass means I can gove the cooler a good spray on the line and it will hopefully keep it cooler for longer.

also I made a top boost pipe before the last rally

that is it fitted with the group buy egr delete

oh and you can see I have changed the fuel filter to a 2 pipe one, to try and keep fuel temps sensible along with a big fuel cooler that you just see the pipework for in this pic

fancy quick shift

seems ok I only missed 2 gears all the last event, I have beefed up the weak points under the stick where it looked a bit thin.

Think that is up to date now, all I have left is finding some 16" rims for the new tyres I bought and testing the water spray out, the car was all ok on the spanner check so a quick tidy up of the scratches down the side and all should be good again.

[felicia16v]

Ok didn't have such a good day yesterday, we started ok and had a good 1st stage and most of the 2nd stage was good then I felt something change in the handling, this turned out to be the oil and gas leaking out of the drivers side suspension unit turning the car into a pogo stick which I couldn't get to stop or turn very well so we went home before we did any damage to the car.

Shame really but that is the way it goes sometimes and I guess I need to have a look at my options as these front units have only done 100 competitive miles since rebuild.

I really like the ones I have fitted which are AVO monotube with adjustable damping but maybe they are a bit fragile for the use with a heavy diesel in the front, the other cheapish option is Bilstein 40mm inserts but they come in fixed rate and I don't know what will work with the springs and the weight of the car, the AVO's I could adjust until they felt right.

all in the balance until tuesday anyway and I really can't afford much at the mo :(

[skud vrs]

Just read this from the start and great work so far.

Shame about the last rally but judging by your attention to detail I'm sure it will be better than before.

[felicia16v]

Righto, bringing this back up for an update..

Suspension is back after a bad start with the one damper being returned and failing before I even fitted it!!!

Next event is the carfax stages in pershore on august 10.

I have some plans for upgrades but first I need to get back to the base setup and iron out the problems with the suspension travel, I am having the car on a rolling road next week just to see what we have and they have corner weights so I can get an idea of the weights and plan on what springs to use next.

Currently I am on 400lb in x 10.5 inch length 2.25 diameter springs but I think possibly they are too soft for tarmac still, I am running no arb at all which aids traction slightly but possibly doesn't help turn in.

also I have a different intercooler to try as intake temps are still high even with water spray, this one is from a mitsi evo rally car and is slightly bigger again than the forge one, it is straight thru rather than twin pass which means I can hopefully use a passat intake manifold and run the boost pipework up over the gearbox and in rather than having a sharp U bend somewhere, I suspect maybe a bit more work for Fabooka here if this intercooler flows better lol.

I have some audi TT rear brakes to fit too so the handbrake my be more effective on the bigger disks, I am looking fro some 4 pot calipers that I can run on the 288 disks so I can still use 15" rims when needed.

I will get some pics up tomorrow.

[felicia16v]

took it to the rolling road today, just to get the figures really, quite amazed at the numbers now, 186 bhp and 306 lbf, Fabooka has done a really good job on that map I just need to get the power to last a bit longer thru the rpm range really which I guess is bigger turbo time?

I was under the impression that 175 was about the max for the std turbo but mine is a rebuilt garrett so maybe that is it? the guy who ran it up was impressed with it, we also corner weighted it so I have some rough figures to go from with springs, total weight is 1152 kgs.

[faboka vrs]

160bhp at the wheels is a common target for a pd130. BHP at the fly can cause arguments

You need a gtb1756vk or gtb2260vk. Just mate it to the stock downpipe.

I'm interested in the corner weights

[coskev]

GTB would need restricting on the inlet though IIRC from what Jim said about my old PD150 hybrid,not sure how the restrictor would affect the way the turbo performs?

[faboka vrs]

Yeah the inlet is bigger than the regulations, that's why he has to put a restrictor in place. Same reason rally cars where limited to 300bhp.

 

Either GTB's will out perform any GT generations oem or hybrid.

[felicia16v]

Ah OK I'll put the weights up tomorrow . I didn't adjust them to get equal just got the weights.

[felicia16v]

I am restricted to a 37mm inlet but can't find anybody that will tell me if a restrictor will cause lag or any other problems so was thinking pd150 std unit as they share the 130 inlet I believe so shouldn't need a restrictor still ? I also wonder if much more would be useable really

[felicia16v]

09090001:

This is the 1st stage from the last rally, you can see the dampers are failing about halfway thru , intercom was playing up too which is why there is a close up of Andrews hand for a mo or 2

[felicia16v]

Right, corner weights, bearing in mind I have coilovers which I have just set the spring seats at the same distance from the hub on the front, no spare wheel, half a tank of fuel, battery in nsr corner etc

NSF 343KG    OSF 393KG

NSR 225.5KG OSR 191.5

TOTAL 1153KG

also have a 5 speed box which is lighter than the 6 speed by quite a bit

[danny6189]

That stage looks rougher than the safari rally!!!

[felicia16v]

That stage looks rougher than the safari rally!!!

it was pot holey but made far worse by me changing the springs to shorter ones to get the spring seats above the tyre, they were a bit too short and allowed the struts to bottom out and smash themselves to bits, lesson learnt there now but hopefully the next event is smoother, I also need to lift the seat up a bit so I can get a better line thru the rough bits lol

[felicia16v]

small amount of progress so far, mainly doing little bits like removing the old roof ariel and starting to drill some of the spotwelded rear seat mounts out, I now have another nsf hub as mine is bent so I can finally sort the front suspension out and I have just won a set of 4 pot calipers on ebay, they are Wilwood copies I believe of the dynalite caliper JFZ or something, they are new but old stock so i will see how they shape up, they cost peanuts so ideal as a gunie pig and they have 41mm pistons so slightly more surface area than the sliders do.

I am trying to find out more on spring rates now and have so far found that the golf kitcar used  250-60-080 front springs on tar, which is around 456lb so room for more yet?

 

3 weeks till the rally and I have loads to fit in that I want to change, I need to lift the drivers seat up an inch,, sumpguard needs welding up to stiffen it, suspension needs finishing off, tyres need swapping etc oh and I still need to make an engine mount for the drivers side as I can't see the std one sticking it much more, also have a feeling I may be a bit under geared for the next rally if it as open as it looks on google maps lol.

[felicia16v]

Ok had a mixed weekend on the car, spend most of sat welding up a mates van so he can tow my car to the rally lol,

decided I had to sort the arb fully once I had swapped the bent hub over and got the rest of the suspension back square 

so had a ponder and wondered if I could raid the VAG parts bin and use octavia drop links.

With a bit of playing about I came up with this 

this is a really knackered drop link but you get the idea

I used a M10 double nut (think that is what they are called ) and welded it to the wishbone where the drop link seemed happiest

same the other side and all sorted hopefully, I didn't get chance to road test this eve but it already feels different just driving out the workshop to park it up.

It is never going to as effective as it would be on the std car as on the std strut the arb is in direct contact with the wheel movement, where on mine it is slightly inboard of the strut line so in effect the arm is softer, which may help with traction a bit (on gravel most folk disconnect arb's for grip)

I am struggling to make sense of spring rates compared to the axle weights so if anyone has any input on this I am all ears.

I am now in the middle of making  some spacers to lift my seat a bit higher which sounds easy but in reality is not so, halfway there tho so maybe some pics tomorrow.