26/04/08 - Grp A Gear Levers & Bronze Bushes etc...

To increase the speed of our gear changes we realised that we needed to replace the standard, worn our gear levers/rods. In place of these we now have expensive rose joined Group A rods and levers. To also increase the quality of the gearbox feel we have fitted bronze bushes in place of the cheap standard nylon ones. A short shift pivot completed this modification. All parts were purchased from AB Motorsport. The quality of the parts were excellent although a real fiddle to fit! The job took us seven hours!

The result of the new gearbox setup is very pleasing, and a gear change can be completed (almost) without the revs dropping off at all! This should improve our times whilst competing, and also more or less eliminate the risk of "popping" a joint! The only slight downside, for road use anyway, is that the rubber gear surround and heat shield has now been removed, so we get the full exhaust rasp from inside the car, which is also visible from inside the car, as is the road rushing quickly beneath.

Once we were happy with the above setup, we changed both driveshafts, which had been supplied directly from Drivelink - supplies of OE quality driveshafts. These went in without any problems, which was a welcome relief after the trobules we had fitting the linkages! The old driveshafts both had considerable play in them, with one of the CV boots badly split.

Our final repair that day was to fit an SKF drivers side rear wheel bearing, as the current one had threaded, meaning we only had the strength of three wheel bolts, not four.

12/01/08 - FIA Approved Seat

The current Cobra seat had served its purpose well. However, we wanted something a little more supportive which offered better head and neck protection. We now have an FIA Approved Cobra Sebring S seat. Very Impressive although looks slightly out of place on a road legal car! The seat as expertly fitted by fellow competitor and mechanic Steve Bailey who specalises in motorsport preparation.

03/11/07 - Brake Bias Valve

If you have been reading about the recent events at Loton Park with the back end locking up, you will understand our need to get this sorted ASAP! We now have a single brake line running inside the car, past where the passenger seat used to be. The bias value is situated near the bulkhead and has been a real help in sorting the backend locking up issue. The job took around 7 hours after we encountered several issues including the bias value leaking, and finding the offside rear brake caliper bleed nipple had broken off. A replacement was quickly found! Although the season has only finished out winter repairs and upgrades are well underway.

28/08/07 - Fitting the 200bhp 16v engine

The car now has a 16v Mi16 engine. It has a knife edged crank, forged rods and pistons, along with Twin Weber 45 carbs, and rally cams making around 200bhp. It will now rev up to 8,500rpm - which in simple terms is around 80mph in 2nd gear! The cars performance is now nothing short of violent and requires a great deal of self control to keep your feet on the ground and the car on the road. The engine was fitted by Steve Bailey Motorsport - who else!

10/06/07 - 24mm Torsion Bars Fitted

We wanted to finish complete the rear beam. It already had a 25mm Anti Roll Bar fitted. The results were great. However, thinking along the same lines, we wanted to add the 24mm TBs for even better results at Loton. Although the quality of them were great the times at Loton Park were no different to when we had the standard TBs. Our advice is, that if you have a fat Anti Roll Bar and are happy with the results do not bother getting the TBs as they dont offer much improvement - not with our setup anyway. However, we cannot comment on other car setups as some report excellent improvements.

01/03/07 - Roll Bars and Tyres

As the 2007 season starts off we wanted to ensure the setup was complete as early as possible. We have gone for a rare 22mm front Anti Roll Bar from a 309 GTI and a 25mm rear Anti Roll Bar from X-Sport Racing. The thicker bars will keep body roll to a minimum. We also invested in four new Yokohama A048-R tyres (soft) which have a life of around 3,000 road miles. Not great, but the performance they offer for track use is very impressive.

15/11/06 - Tran-X LSD

We are determined to get great results in 2007, and so pulled out all the stops and got a Tran-X Limited Slip Differential, a plate type with 45 degree ramp angles. The car is now extreamely agressive to drive with very snatchy steering - you can no longer afford to keep one hand off the steering wheel. Not recommended for road cars, although ours is road legal.

04/10/06 - The Rebuild

The rebuild involved replacing the main and big end bearings. Also the oil pump was changed along with the piston rings and the crank was also reground. Whilst the engine was out our garage also replaced the front brakes pipes and also the brake servo and master cylinder. The engine feels much stronger and is showing a nice healthy oil pressure.

30/09/06 - Sorting the Carbs

We had finally decided the Weber carbs were in need of a rebuild, so off to Shropshire Automotive Service we went for a full rebuild of the carbs, including a nice new throttle linkage and a rolling road session. The car is making 128bhp. Not that great but after the rebuild and new cam we want to be near 150bhp. The car runs much better now and can idle without cutting out.

01/08/06 - Cutting the Bonnet

In Practical Performance Car Magazine (which our car appears in from time to time) they featured a 205 Mi16 which had a large bonnet square removed to allow lots of cool air to feed the carbs. Well, we have done the same! See the picture above for the result. It is hard to register the power increase but we think we could have gained up to a further 5bhp at speed, thanks to the cooler air getting directly to the carbs. This has also helped with cooling the engine too. Ideal if you only use for 205GTI for weekend and competition use, and is kept in a garage. But in the real world, where you have to use the car every day it is best avoided.

05/06/06 - Weight Loss Diet!

Lets face it, the 205 is not a heavy car. However, we felt it was important to ensure any excess weight was removed. What we removed:

Passenger seat saved 15kg
Drivers Floor Plate saved 2kg
All door seals saved 4kg
Hydraulic tailgate holders saved 1kg
Passenger and driver side windows (4) saved 12kg
Window regulators x2 saved 4kg
Door Mirrors saved 3kg
Steering Wheel saved 3kg
Side Skirts saved 1kg
Rear Spoiler saved 1kg
Bonnet catch plate saved 1kg

There were a few lighter parts we had to add in place of the removed items above, such as Polycarbonate windows, OMP Steering Wheel and new low drag door mirrors. However, after the job was complete we estimated that the car had lost 35kg.

25/03/2006 - Stopping the Leaking

It has become obvious that a previous owner has enjoyed carrying out some bodged plumbing on the oil pipes. As a result time has taken its toll, and the car had started to leak quite badly. We now have replaced all the oil pipes and have made up some better quality ones which look great and stop the leak. The car now has had its PAS removed (PAS fluid leaking too!), and a manual steering rack fitted. The car feels that much raw without PAS, and has further increased the already great feel when being driven hard.

10/01/2006 - Koni Adjustable Suspension

We finally decided to go for a Koni setup on the front and rear. We also went for Group N top mounts and poly bushes. The wishbones were replaced at them same time. Since these upgrades the car feels much firmer which should improve our lap times no end!

05/01/2006 - Group N Engine Mounts

To stop the engine moving too much under hard use, we decided to put in heavy duty engine mounts. Now at idle the car vibrates a bit (which is to be expected) but will possibly save us £££'s in craked exhaust manifolds - so it is not all bad.

23/11/2005 - Recon Rear Beam

French Cars Ltd (one of our sponsors) as part of the 2006 sponsor deal, have fully reconditioned the rear beam. We did have Group A rear beam mounts for them to fit (thanks to Baker Bushes & Mountings). This reconditioning project, was unplanned. However, after careful checking, it appeared the rear beam was shot (typical for a 15 yr old car) and fitting Group A mounts to this beam, would be about as useful as fitting some sexy cross drilled discs to a car, which has knackered calipers - totally useless, see our point, yeah??

Coming soon...The 205 will soon have Group N engine mounts, Poly front bushes and an Overcoil suspension kit to match the Grp A rear beam mounts....

25/07/2005 - The MOT

Quite painless when you consider what we had had to put up with - well sort of...It failed the MOT as a few bulbs had gone, and it had a leaking caliper (so we replaced both) and the emissions...oh the emissions...The testing station had a reading of 2,000ppm, which basically meant it was running too rich. So a quick session at the rolling road sorted it out, now for the twist of luck....Once they had finished the rolling road the clutch fork snapped, so once again the car is costing ££££'s "that's the nature of running a competition car" we keep telling ourselves!!

15/06/2005 - Spraying the Alloys

Lets face it, there has been lots of snow, rain, poor drivers behind the wheel and nasty curbs popping up now and then since 1990. So we decided to remove each wheel and paint them, it took around 3 days in total but now they look fantastic.

25/05/2005 - New Starter

The starter was locking so we removed the old one which had been sitting there for the last 15 years and replaced with a Bosch Reconditioned unit.

02/05/2005 - Sorting the Rear Brakes

Having the rear brakes locking up at 100mph whilst entering a corner at Loton is not good, so we worked out that the rear brake compensators were faulty - so these went and were replaced with new ones - problem solved!

20/03/2005 - Fitting the Roll Cage

The roll cage was fitted by a local fabricator/rally driver, Nic Blackhurst. This guy has a great deal of experience fitting cages and took the car off our hands for a week whilst he welded the cage. It went in fine (which is good evidence to show the structure of the car is not bent in any way!!). Apart from having to remove the sun roof it was quite a painless task (so we were told!)

13/03/2005 - New Distributor

After having problem whilst at Loton Park we ended up having a new distributor fitted. It now runs much better - like new!!

28/02/2005 - Flywheel dies!!

The fun has just started! On the way back from fitting the new hose, we found it very hard to change gear, investigation showed flywheel was shot. We wonder if excessive overheating from 26/02 caused the flywheel to overheat..??? we replaced the clutch (again) the flywheel and the clutch cable - the joys of running an old GTI were starting to show!!

26/02/2005 Coolant Hose Blows!!

After a quick blast down the dual carriage way in Shrewsbury, we noticed to our horror white smoke was bellowing out the back of the car! Getting home quickly was of vital importance! Although engine was in the red (whoops) we did not do any engine damage. Initially we thought that the Head Gasket had blown. However, further investigation showed that a coolant pipe had burst and the coolant came out all over the exhaust manifold - sorted quickly.

22/02/2005 Fitting the Brakes

We decided to keep the discs standard on the car to save costs. A set of Drivemaster discs all round were fitted. The discs on the car were ok, but we are strong believers in new stuff works best - so off the old ones went. We also fitted Mintex M1144 pads all round with Goodridge Hoses and AP Racing Dot 5.1 fluid for good measure.

05/02/2005 - Getting rid of those old fog lights!

Almost 15 years of weathering had really taken it's toll on the fog lights. Apart from that fact that they did not work, they were full of rust inside making the car look old, and so they had to go.

In place of the fog lights, we fitted some air ducts directing air towards the front brakes, which should help a little with cooling.

26/12/2004 - Sorting the seats!

Any serious competition car needs to have the proper seats. We opted for a pair of Cobra Monaco S. We were lucky, as we went direct to the Cobra factory in Telford, Shropshire to buy them. They had a sale on, so as a result we picked them up for £79 each (Demon Tweeks sell them for around £120.00 each!) The race harnesses are also Cobra.

23/12/2004 - Getting the Engine sorted

Okay, we said we are going to show you how cheap motorsport can be. Well this is a very big "Can" as we have spent quite alot of cash on sorting the engine, around £1,500 in everyday terms, that is if you do not have sponsors! Some of the things we had replaced were not about to fall off or die, and perhaps if we were only gong to use it on the road, would have not bothered replacing them just yet. However, the race track is a harsh place for cars, and If you think you can buy a 15 year old GTI for just over £1,000 and track it with no problems, you are dreaming (or very very lucky!) as the chances are, anything which is weak will probably let you down on the day. With this in mind, we ensured our local garage really went to town on making the engine reliable.

What we replaced:

New cylinder head gasket, including having the head skimmed and pressure tested, replaced the cam belt and all tensioners, new crank oil seals, new water pump, new crank pulley, new radiator with hoses, new alternator belt, new temp swithces and thermostat, new O/S driveshaft, new gearbox oil seals, new O/S engine mount, new gearbox linkage, repair gearbox mount, new distributor cap and leads, new valve steam seals, one new valve, new cylinder head bolts, new heater matrix, new cam covers, and a skimmed flywheel....oh yes, and a new clutch!

It appeatred to us that the previous owner, although liked doing the oil changes (as the engine appeared in a nice, clean internal condition) and there was little wear, they obviously were not bothered, or could not afford to maintain parts of the car a DIY novice would not be able to do. Without this major initial service we think the car would have done a few laps on a hot July afternoon, before juddering to a halt!! - not nice!

Remember, this is just the engine, we have yet to sort out the brakes and suspension....

27/11/2004 - Sorting the Rust!

Remember, this car was brand spanking new when we were all watching England losing on penalties to Germany the Italia '90 World Cup! Since then time has taken its toll on parts of the bodywork. Although the rust is only on the surface, we are treating it all. Once this is done we will repaint the inside and return it to new! ready for the roll cage!!

20/11/2004 - The Initial Strip. As we currently do not have the bucket seat, we are not stripping the front of the car. By focusing our attention on the rear section of the car we can spend time treating the small patches of rust.

The Engine - circa 130bhp

After an engine service which covered new plugs, HT leads, oil, coolant and spark plugs, we felt it would now be prepared to face the rolling road to fine tune those carbs!