JonL's 8v budget track toy - now going to be a race car! ;-)

[Horney]

Your plans sound bang on the money mate. I drive mine to and from track days as well.

nick

[Diamond Hell]

Foamalux is a brand.  It's used widely in sign-making, so have a chat to a few sign makers and you should come up trumps.

Tips on upgrades:

Think about a cage sooner rather than later - it might just save your life. It's the one thing that's easy to justify to t'other half.  But you need to do buckets, and harnesses with the cage, as a 'safety package'.

For wheels I'd recommend Team Dynamics - my 15"X7 weigh about 6.6kg each and make a big difference to the car's handling.  Tyres you have a choice of Toyo R888s, or guys on Northloop seem to be rating the Kuhmo V70 (I think that's the model).

have you not seen the picture of the popped testicle  im sticking to 4 point harnesses

 

Yes, I've seen the de-gloved photo.

That's what happens if you have a big accident when the harness isn't tightened properly.  Sometimes you need to actually read the report beneath the photo to be able to interpret the evidence properly, rather than using it to justify fitting shoddy, insufficient equipment.

[JonLeeper]

OK I am going to pick the car up at luchtime, and the MOT is booked for 1500 hrs so we will see!

In order to assist in my planning I was wondering what the rough order costs are associated with my plans?  No specifics just a rough idea will be fine.  I have started with what I have gleaned from around the site but please feel free at add as appropreate.

Stage 1 – Brakes

Fit 256mm or 280mm discs dependant on advice or feedback from track day. £50 each new
Fit hubs and renew wheel bearings from late 16v or G60. £50 pair from scrappy
Identify suitable wheels and tyres to suit track day setup.
If normal steels, for road work to and from track, don’t fit over new brakes get another set that do and adjust speedo to reflect new tyre rolling radius.

Stage 2 – Seats/Interior

Remove horrible tight buckets currently fitted.
Fit new buckets, if available for not much money, or ‘rocco, as they seem to be the best alternative. 'rocco seats £80 pair e-bay
Identify correct seat belts for seats bought – normal 3 points for ‘rocco or 4 point harnesses with some sort of brace bar if buckets.
Sort ergonomics of cabin – door cards, gauges, steering wheel, binnacle, etc.

Stage 3 – Handling

Source shocks and springs to make best use of handling.
Sort wishbones – seam weld?
Fit new bushes – poly?
Source new ARB’s or refurbish existing.
Sort steering rack, track rods anything else that sits in this area.
Look at roll cage – if costs allow.

Stage 4 – Power

Look at engine transplants. What, from where, why, etc
Look at getting the best out of the existing engine.  Throttle bodies, exhaust, gearbox mods, etc.

[Horney]

OK I am going to pick the car up at luchtime, and the MOT is booked for 1500 hrs so we will see!

In order to assist in my planning I was wondering what the rough order costs are associated with my plans?  No specifics just a rough idea will be fine.  I have started with what I have gleaned from around the site but please feel free at add as appropreate.

Stage 1 – Brakes

Fit 256mm or 280mm discs dependant on advice or feedback from track day. £50 each new
Fit hubs and renew wheel bearings from late 16v or G60. £50 pair from scrappy
Identify suitable wheels and tyres to suit track day setup. Toyo R88's are baout £70 a pop fitted for 195 50 R15's, should be able to pick up a cheap set of 15" ET35 alloys with no tyres for £50 for them to go on. Try and find the lightest wheels you can.
If normal steels, for road work to and from track, don’t fit over new brakes get another set that do and adjust speedo to reflect new tyre rolling radius. 14" GTI steels wwill fit over the brakes except for the G60's which will require 15's. I run a late 16v set up with grooved discs and Mintex 1155 pads and they have been perfect so far with no noticable fade after heavey sessions on track, rear I run the standard set up.

Stage 2 – Seats/Interior

Remove horrible tight buckets currently fitted.
Fit new buckets, if available for not much money, or ‘rocco, as they seem to be the best alternative. 'rocco seats £80 pair e-bay - Corrado seats are just as good and should have better sondition bolsters etc being a bit newer than Rocco seats, they also fit straight in
Identify correct seat belts for seats bought – normal 3 points for ‘rocco or 4 point harnesses with some sort of brace bar if buckets.
Sort ergonomics of cabin – door cards, gauges, steering wheel, binnacle, etc. Gauges can be picked up cheap, you should be able to source a set of VDO gauges with all the right wires and senders for them to work for about £50 - £60.

Stage 3 – Handling

Source shocks and springs to make best use of handling. - What sort of budget?
Sort wishbones – seam weld? A full poly bush set isn't hugely expensive and DH will weld your wishbones if you ask nicely.
Fit new bushes – poly? For sure, DH seems to recommend using a TT bush at the rear as well. Not tried it myself but he seems impressed with them. I run all poly and that's good for me.
Source new ARB’s or refurbish existing. You can fit bigger ARB up front and there are rear ARB's available. Can't help you much more on that as I run standard front and no rear.
Sort steering rack, track rods anything else that sits in this area.
Look at roll cage – if costs allow. From emory the OMP one is about £450 and you'll need to get some plates welded up to get it to fit so budget approx £550 I would say.

Stage 4 – Power

Look at engine transplants. What, from where, why, etc Easiest and cheapest is a 2.0 16v ABF engine fitted to MKIII Gti's and a few Seats etc. Will require some mods and some wiring changes but not to bad. Should see 170bhp ish with a decent zorst.
Look at getting the best out of the existing engine.  Throttle bodies, exhaust, gearbox mods, etc. 8v head is not cross flow so TB's are a pain to fit. Best bet with an 8v is to cam it, Polished and Ported head, flowed inlet and exhaust manifold etc etc. But this all costs £££££ so it's cheaper to pick up and fit the ABF as mentioned above. That said the standard 8v will be fun to begin with, I'm lucky as my 8v cam already fettled at someone elses expense otherwise I would be looking into a 16v upgrade myself.

Hope that helps chap, hopefully get to go on a trackday together at somepoitn as it would be good to see my old car again.

nick

[VeeDubGTI16v]

h&r arb's are great! 28mm rear and 25mm front cost roughly £250

[JonLeeper]

Well it's now outside the house and failed it's first MOT. 

I nearly didn't get it MOT'ed at all as the old boy why started the test rushed into the office where I was sitting and announced that he couldn't test it!  I said why and he said because it hasn't got any interior.   I said so, and he proceeded to lecture me about the fact that it ought to have an interior and couldn't be road legal without one!  When I asked to see the VOSA manual that stated he couldn't MOT a car with only two front seats he said that I could go home and fit a rear seat back in and then he wouldn't have checked the rear seatbelts and that was illegal so he couldn't test the car.  When I asked him to show me the VOSA handbook or law that said you couldn't alter your car without making it illegal he said that he would have to give me lots of advisory s as this was very unusual.  He then went back to the car telling the secretary that this would take some time as he had to check everything very thoroughly as this obviously wasn't right.  I just sat tight and said nothing as I held little hope that it would pas anyway and just wanted a check list of things to do this weekend.

In the end it failed on a repeater light, one of the two rear registration plate lights, rear fog, both headlamps, windscreen washer not being full, the passenger door not opening and a CV gaiter being split.  I got two advisor's, the first that there were no rear seats or belts and the other that the horn button was missing!  I thought that it would fail on the horn but that was only an advisory!

Still it all seems easily fixed so I should get a valid test certificate in the next week or so.  I will then try and find a garage that understands that some people do actually alter their cars and it is not against the law.  On a slightly better note he did say that the shell was in a good condition with no real rust underneath and everything looked mechanically very sound, so that is a relief.

I will take some pictures tomorrow and post them up.

[Horney]

Poor MOT tester, ha ha. I get all those kind of "no rear seats" advisories with mine.

SOunds like it's a pretty easy job to get it through the MOT though so nice one!

Nick

[JonLeeper]

Only got out to the car last thing as I had to do some jobs around the house first, sodding movers had left the mower on its end and the oil had flooded through the entire system.  Took ages to flush it out and then I created a smokescreen worthy of a main battle tank when it finally fired!  Still I did get into the car, even if it was only for a few minutes.  I decided that the first job to tackle was the non opening door.  After swearing at the electric motor for far too long I simply unscrewed it from the door frame and "hey presto" to door works perfectly.  It even responds to the key as it should, well it lifts the central locking motor as well but it works!  I will fiddle tomorrow and remove the electric motor totally and remove all of the wiring associated with it.  I will also, hopefully, fix all of the bulb issues.  As for the headlights any ideas why they would not be powerful enough?  At least that is what I read into the testers comments "no beam pattern on nearside or offside" as it does not say "light inoperative" just no beam pattern!  All ideas gratefully received.

[Horney]

I seem to recall I had loads of hassle with the central locking on that car, probably best to just bin it.

As for the lights it sounds like a combo of the standard rubbish lights and  perished reflectors. I'd look into an uprated headlight loom and couple of new lamps. Looms can be got off ebay as can lamps. The loom replace the existing one and should include a couple of relays. You then by pass the existing loom and run them stright off the battery via a relay triggered from the old wiring, bingo brighter lights!

Nick

[JonLeeper]

Mixed day on the car today.  I managed to get the side indicator to work, loose connection, and the front lights had the wrong bulbs fitted so replaced them with the correct items and, hey presto, front lights working.  The doors had both of the central locking motors and all associated wiring removed and all is now fine there as well.  I then started to work on the rear fogs.  That was a big mistake, cue hours of chasing loom around the car.  The new bulbs fitted a treat but didn't light any better than the ones I took out!   I cannot tell if the switch is working as I cannot get a reading anywhere on the system at all.  If anyone knows anything about the electrics please let me know as I am stumped and really don't want to spend a small fortune getting a garage to find the fault for me.  The other two MOT fail points are a CV gaiter (easy to fit?) and the one of the two rear numberplate lights.  I forgot to buy a bulb for that but when I swapped the working one to the other side it still worked so it is just the bulb.  So if anyone knows how difficult it is to change the CV gaiter let me know and also where is the best place to buy these sort of parts on the Bracknell / Camberley area.

Jon