1990 205 Gti 2.0 8V Turbo Conversion (Xu10J2Te)

[lemmingzappa 75 1 Cars]

 

Finally time to put another engine in the 205 after the bottom end let go on my previous 8v. This time I'm going for a 2.0 8v Turbo conversion and it's the first time I've ever attempted anything like this. It will be interesting to say the least!

 

I picked up an XU10J2TE from Jackherer, which was apparently removed from an Auto XM Estate:

 

 

I've started by trying to make note of what goes where and as I've never owned a boosted car before some of the parts are alien to me. Slowly getting there though! Now to start cleaning the grubby bits:

 

Off comes the throttle body:

 

That's better!

 

Removed one of the factory boost pipes, gave it a good degreasing, masked up and then tarted it up with some silver high temp paint:

 

The inlet manifold was a bit crusty and wanted to do the same with this too. The black bracket and throttle wheel were in the way so decided to remove the circlip (7mm) from the top of the wheel and slide the spring off. The rest of the bracket comes off in one piece but requires some yanking force! I couldn't get the circlip off without breaking it so this will need replacing when it goes back together:

 

 

 

I took a wire brush drill attachment set to the manifold and ground off all the grime, it handy having different shapes and sizes to get into all the corners:

 

 

 

The insides were a bit coked up so I used some Mr Muscle oven cleaner (foaming spray) which would expand inside and eat away at the dirt. The can states that you shouldn't use it on aluminium but this isn't an oven and I would probably never end up doing this again anyway:

 

 

I thoroughly jet washed the foam out and the results were quite good. If you wanted it to be perfect I would recommend repeating the whole process a second time but I didn't want to expose the bare metal to chemicals and water for too long:

 

 

 

I've already dried out the manifold, masked it up and applied two layers of high temp paint. I'll post pictures after the painting is finished. I have bought a load of service parts for the engine and some extras such as this Sierra Cossie 2WD intercooler:

 

[jackherer 543]

Good work, that's looking a lot better!

[Slo 283 1 Cars]

You can buy a brand new throttle body on ebay atm (ive got one). They have got them up at £49.99 buy it now or best offer. I offered them £20 twice and they accepted. It even comes with a new throttle switch that is now nfp and retails at £143 alone so got to be worth it for the throttle switch by itself not to mention an airtight butterfly.

 

Good luck with the conversion its a lot of work but the boost is something else and worth doing properly and spending the money to get it right.

[lemmingzappa 75 1 Cars]

Thanks for the heads up Slo, the seller wouldn't accept less than £35 but still a good deal! I'll be running the standard management for now so nothing crazy.

[Slo 283 1 Cars]

Did you re offer them £20 like i did? they counter offered 39.99 the first time and accepted 20 the 2nd time. Nevermind even at £35 its a cracking saving over retail

[lemmingzappa 75 1 Cars]

I did and they countered with £42.99, then £39.99.

[lemmingzappa 75 1 Cars]

Progress is slow as we have a new baby girl to look after, but I'm doing what I can with whatever daylight is available after work. Here's what I've been up to since last time.

 

Finished painting the inlet manifold:

 

The bracket which sits on top of the manifold is usually black, mine also had some corrosion. Whilst fixing it up I thought I'd spray it the same as the other parts to match:

 

Ground back:

 

One layer of paint complete:

 

Whilst taking the upper timing belt cover off the engine these fell off the back of the block somewhere. I had no idea they were there and not sure if they were holding something together or not!?

 

Off comes the loom:

 

Pulled the engine mount and a few other bits off, slowly getting there. Want to get it as naked as possible ready to clean up and paint:

 

Old throttle body vs brand new:

 

Time to start grinding back the Mi16 engine mount:

[Slo 283 1 Cars]

What are you chopping off the engine mount? I had to use the cast iron mount from a gti6 as the mi mount made the engine sit cock eyed plus i wanted pas too and its very neatly compacted compared to the old system that the original mount had and that 2 belt bottom pulley.

 

That throttle body

[Tom Fenton 1,525]

Old throttle body vs brand new:

Err is it only me who can see the hole spacing to attach it to the nanifold is drastically different? Look at the lower mount hole.

[welshpug 1,622]

jist the angle of the picture I think.

[jackherer 543]

Whilst taking the upper timing belt cover off the engine these fell off the back of the block somewhere. I had no idea they were there and not sure if they were holding something together or not!?

Before I cleared my garage out there was a whole layer of other stuff on top of that engine and that tool must have fallen out of a box and ended up on your engine. It definitely wasn't holding anything together

[cheesegrater 43 1 Cars]

Josh if you need a '6 mount I have a few kicking about.

[lemmingzappa 75 1 Cars]

What are you chopping off the engine mount?

No chopping, just grinding and painting.

 

 

Err is it only me who can see the hole spacing to attach it to the nanifold is drastically different? Look at the lower mount hole.

 

Just the angle of the pic, I did have to double check though

 

Josh if you need a '6 mount I have a few kicking about.

Cheers, hopefully I'll be OK with the Mi one but I will keep that in mind!

[lemmingzappa 75 1 Cars]

One of the ball pins on the throttle linkage was damaged due to corrosion. After I popped off the original plastic ball joint it would not go back on and kept popping off. The same happened with a newer plastic joint. I thought it would be a good time to replace the joint and at the same time make them quick release!

 

First I drilled out the old 8mm ball from the plastic throttle wheel. The ball is attached to a metal insert which is pressed into the plastic and this is easily cut away. A 5mm hole was drilled and an M5 ball pin screwed in by hand, which managed to cut it's own thread on the way in, very handy! To ensure it would last I bonded the part in with a Gorilla 2-part Epoxy Resin.

 

New ball size = 6.4mm

 

Next up is the ball on the brand new throttle body. Unfortunately there are no quick release joints to fit an 8mm ball, so this had to go. I was a little scared about hacking away at a brand new part if I'm honest but here goes nothing!

 

Ball whipped off with a dremel.

 

The centre was drilled out with a small HSS bit and the raised part then fell out of position, leaving a nice straight surface.

 

This part was a bit of a nightmare! The remaining hole was too small for my M5 ball pin so naturally went to drill it out to suit, not so easy! I spent quite literally hours with various drill bits, including high quality bits meant for the job. I don't know what the hell this bracket was made of but drilling speed and oil cooling made no difference to the process. Got there in the end though and added a couple of washers and nyloc nut, fits very nicely.

 

The quick release joints have sprung sleeves and have matching LH/RH threads to fit the original linkage rod. Added some thread lock to the rod and copper greased the joints.

 

All fitted and ready to go. I may need to short the rod slightly as the plastic wheel doesn't sit against the 'rest' when the butterfly is fully closed. I don't know if this is a real problem or not, other than adding extra load onto the ball pins?

[Slo 283 1 Cars]

Nice work and attention to detail

[lemmingzappa 75 1 Cars]

Got the engine up on the crane ready to pull apart.

 

Off comes the pesky torque converter! Unfortunately my spanners weren't good enough to get the 3 bolts off with everything in place. I had to remove the sump first and then unbolt the first visible bolt, then turn the engine over and remove the other two as I went along. You will need another pair of hands to hold the crank bolt still with a breaker bar as you undo each bolt.

 

Doesn't look too bad under there at a quick glance. Will most likely take some of it apart to inspect more closely at some point.

 

 

Off comes the head!

 

 

The head-gasket was a bit knackered, but not as bad as I originally thought. Time to take the head to the machiners!

 

Got the head back today with 15 thou skimmed from the face, valves lapped, shimmed/clearance adjusted, new stem seals, new cam seal and DKZ cam fitted. I also got them to drill out a couple of bolts which had sheared off in the thermostat housing. There is some deeper pitting in a couple of areas of the face which I've been told shouldn't cause me any issues. Even with a MLS gasket.

 

 

Next I will need to fit the 'camshaft buffer' (part 081010) which will retain the DKZ cam in this head. Unfortunately as this is an earlier head I was unable to retain the cam using the first cap and require the buffer fork which sits right next to the cap at the pulley end. Will be making more progress with the engine this weekend.

[idoari 10]

are you planning to replace the auto gearbox with a manual one?

[lemmingzappa 75 1 Cars]

are you planning to replace the auto gearbox with a manual one?

 

Yes, a 1.9 BE3 box.

[lemmingzappa 75 1 Cars]

Replacing the water pump, tensioner & timing belt.

 

New pump on and looking fresh! I used new genuine bolts for the cam and tensioner at this stage, just to be sure.

 

GTi6 Multi Layered Steel gasket went on the block after cleaning the surfaces.

 

Head back on and torqued down with new bolts. The cam/crank pulleys and new timing belt were fitted, along with the new camshaft buffer acquired from Skip Brown.

 

Buffer as mentioned above, now the DKZ cam is happy

 

I cleaned the sump out as well as I could with degreaser and brake cleaner. There's some really baked on stuff left in the metal imperfections.

 

The turbo oil return pipe was leaking where it joins the block so I removed it to clean the surrounding area.

 

I re-sealed the pipe using loctite gasket sealant but it hasn't worked too well with the pipe sitting on its own. Once the turbo is bolted back on I will give it another go, at least then it will be held in place correctly.

 

The valve cover could do with some attention so I attacked it with wire brushes.

 

A bit better...

 

Much better, silver VHT.

 

Lightly cleaned and re-fitted the thermostat housing using Loctite gasket sealant.

 

New Valeo & Leader sensors fitted. I've fitted this according to the ServiceBox diagram, which shows nothing in the bottom right hole. I guess I will just keep this blocked with a bolt?

[welshpug 1,622]

you don't need that brown one, its for the A-C, the other hole will be occupied by the green ecu temp sender which is shown on the ecu page not the thermostat page.

 

blue one you need to replace with the 205 sender, the 205 temp switch IIRC will fit where the brown one is, both same threads.

Edited May 23, 2015 by welshpug

[lemmingzappa 75 1 Cars]

Thanks for the info, I'm having trouble finding the ECU section on Citroen servicebox. I found the 'front harness' but doesn't have much info there.

 

EDIT: I searched for 'green' and managed to find it. Part number: 1920Q2

Edited May 23, 2015 by lemmingzappa

[lemmingzappa 75 1 Cars]

blue one you need to replace with the 205 sender, the 205 temp switch IIRC will fit where the brown one is, both same threads.

Also....

 

Just to confirm, '205 sender' is the dash temp gauge?

This: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Febi-Coolant-Temperature-Sender-Sensor-Unit-OE-Quality-Replacement-Part-/390978371345?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_3&hash=item5b08207f11

 

'205 temp switch' is the dash warning light? If so, 105 or 110 degree?

[lemmingzappa 75 1 Cars]

Next it was time to clean up the block and give it some paint.

 

Much better

 

 

New inlet gasket with a thin smear of sealant.

 

New throttle body went on.

 

I removed the GTi loom from the car, ready to be grafted onto the XM loom for me.

 

Got myself a new turbo manifold seal, old vs new.

 

 

Time to clean up the manifold a bit prior to painting with silver VHT again.

 

Much nicer! I also opted to use copper flashed nuts to aid with future removal. A couple of studs were also missing and I couldn't see sense in paying out for genuine items in this case. Opted for some stainless eBay specials and they appear to fit perfectly.

 

New sensors in the thermostat housing.

 

Baby snail now in place.

 

Test fitting some pipework....probably won't be using the upper hose as I will be fitting a 406 SRi pipe at that end.

 

Pulled the fork off my 1.6 box ready to swap over to the 405 SRi/ BX GTi 8v box I got from Jackherer. At the same time the tin cover and diff needed re-sealing so whipped them off for a clean.

 

 

 

 

I do unfortunately have an issue with the crown wheel attached to the diff. It appears to be an Mi16 part and won't mate up to the pinion correctly, causing the diff cover to foul. I will need to replace this with the correct 1.9 part which I am currently waiting for. If that doesn't fit either then the pinion will need swapping too, or opt for another box altogether.

 

Luckily I had this spring clip for the gearbox fork pin (which I believe is a 306 part), obtained from Paul_13 a few years ago and was a great piece of advice from him. Makes the job so much easier!

 

Next up I wanted to fit a GTi oil spray bar in the head as the plastic XM part didn't appear to have any spray holes at all and only fed oil to the journals. I've not seen this done before so not sure if it's truly required, but best to lube up the cam as much as possible right!?

I bought a set of genuine XM seals which are used on the plastic model and attempted to fit them to the GTi bar. Unfortunately once fitted the bar wouldn't fit into the caps correctly as they were too large, but without a seal it would come loose very easily (GTi appears to have smaller mounts).

 

Instead I would recommend going for a smaller o-ring, such as the Viton type above. 4.5mm rather than 5 and also a smaller cross-section. They were a bit fiddly to get on and still wouldn't push into the caps easily, but a little persuasion with a rubber mallet helped massively and the thing is nice and secure now!

 

 

Also fitted some new Viton seals to the injectors and bolted the rail up to the manifold.

 

Only issue here is I seem to have a small gap? I don't believe that is normal but I couldn't push them in any further. Will my rubber mallet have to come out again or is this acceptable?

[jackherer 543]

Looking good!

I don't think the gap you are seeing on the injector is an issue in itself but do you have the plastic spacer/ring above the seal? The yellow ring on the left injector in this photo:

[lemmingzappa 75 1 Cars]

Thanks mate. Yes I believe all 4 had the plastic ring attached. I will double check though!