Jump to content
  • Welcome to 205GTIDrivers.com!

    Hello dear visitor! Feel free to browse but we invite you to register completely free of charge in order to enjoy the full functionality of the website.

Sign in to follow this  
jonnygoodhand

[car_overhaul] Uk 205 Rallye Engine, Suspension And Body Mods

Recommended Posts

jonnygoodhand

This project has been going on for a while and I thought I'd open up a new thread document the work-to-date and future work.

 

It'll be a slightly retrospective article as work started (albeit slowly) back in 2006. Plus, with the benefit of hindsight, I can edit out the silly mistakes and daft decisions made early on :D

 

I purchased the Rallye in April 2006 for £500. The car was pretty much standard, right down to its rusty 13" steel wheels

 

010506.jpg

 

Despite every intention of keeping it 'as it was', I decided to replace the ripped and tatty seats with some cloth GTI ones. About the same time I started to do a bit of research (a bit back to front, I know, as you'd have thought the research should come before you buy a car!) and reaslied the Euro 205 Rallye was quite a different beast! I partcularly like the wide arches of the French spec car, and bought a set of replica items off eBay:

 

b01.jpg

 

Then, in order to fill these arches, I bought 4 white compomotives:

 

wheel2.jpg

 

When the arches arrived it was apparent that they weren't quite up to the standard I'd expected (never bought any kind of body kit/spoiler before, so didn't really know what to expect from third-party produced fibreglass items). Just aswell really, as when the wheels arrived they were not a matching set! 3 were ET25 and 1 ET20!

 

So, this idea was quickly shelved!

 

Come December 2006, I decided to go the route of painting the bumpers white and spraying some 1.6GTI alloys the same colour:

 

rallye-01.jpg

 

more to come...

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
jonnygoodhand

I still was 100% happy with the looks of the car and started to make a few enquiries about new sets of decals. After weeks of scouring the internet and checking eBay every 10 minutes, it was a apparent they were pretty thin on the ground. Therefore, I paid a visit to a couple of sign writers who quoted in the region of £150 to replace the stripes - that was with me doing the measurements and artwork.

 

I thought this was a little steep so looked into ways of printing them myslef. Ebay (the saviour and, at the same time, the bane of my life) revealed you could buy a vinyl cutter for a few hundred a quid, so I took the plunge and had a bash at producing my own decals. My reasoning behind this was, I could produce a couple of extra sets and hopefully recoup some of my initial outlay.

 

plotter.jpg

 

17042007253.jpg

 

Once applied, the car was beginning to look something like I wanted it to...

 

08042007244.jpg

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
Ethos

Looking good mate, are these any lighter than the gti? They certainly look it!

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
johnnyboy666

keep us posted! i'd like to see whats happening under the bonnet, some quite exstensive work i beleive?? BE box or something?

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
jonnygoodhand

Come March 2007 I went in the hunt for a bit more power. I kept my eye on eBay and crawled a couple of forums (unfortunately, I had yet to be introduced to this one) and settled upon a 'Race' K2A engine. :P

 

Not knowing a great deal about the oily bits, I was rather taken in by an eBay ad which stated the engine's head had been gas flowed, ported & polished and the bottom end lightened & balanced. This, together with a freshly painted block & cam cover had me well a truely hooked! :wacko::wacko: The seller also had a pair of Dellorto carbs for sale, which I opted for, and agreed to fit the engine for £100. Bargain! Or so I thought...

 

After purchasing the engine and carbs, the seller informed me he didn't have the inlet manifold to connect the carbs, but suggested I get one from TI Motorsport. I promptely ordered one, but unfortunately it didnit arrive in time for when the engine was fitted.

 

The engine was fitted with its original carb and seemed to tick over OK. The guy I bought it off/fitted it said it may appear a little rough as the 'timing needs sorting' and recommended I take it easy for the first few hundred miles as the engine had recently been rebuilt. This seemed reasonable enough, plus, as I intended to fit the Dellortos shortly, the 'timing issue' didn't bother me too much. :wacko::wacko::wacko:

 

After clocking up around 500 miles, I booked the car into my local, specialist garage to have the manifold fitted and carbs set-up. On the way there, I attempted to rev the engine a little higher than usual (up until now, I'd tried to keep it below 3k), but noticed it was reluctant (well, point-blankly refused!) to rev past 4k! I was a little concerned, but convinced myself that the garage would sort it!

 

As it turned out, the garage couldn't sort it, blaming it on the 'wrong type of carb'. Apparantley, the Dellorto DHLA 40Hs I'd been supplied were 'emission type' carbs and were only suited to a larger engine! I was left with the option of having it put back together, minus the Dellortos, and facing a bill for acheiving nothing, or purchase a new set of Weber DCOEs from the garage and having it running how I wanted. I relluctantly opted for the latter. :wacko::wacko::wacko::wacko:

 

Despite the new DCOEs, the garage still couldn't get the engine to rev as it should and it only produced 74bhp at the fly. :angry: They couldn't really explain as to why the engine was, to put it bluntly, siht. They did however note that it was marginally better with the DCOEs. :ph34r:

 

To cut a long story short, I was out of pocket and had an engine which was no more powerful, yet notably rougher, than the original unit!

 

power.gif

 

engine-bay.jpg

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
Jrod

That seller is a dodgy cnut.... as you are now well aware!

 

What did you do with the engine? Had it had the work and parts claimed?

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
jonnygoodhand
That seller is a dodgy cnut.... as you are now well aware!

 

What did you do with the engine? Had it had the work and parts claimed?

 

The head showed evidence of a bit of work, but the cam (which was supposed to be a piper 285) was standard.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
jonnygoodhand

After the trouble with the engine, I nearly threw the towel in, but decided after spending the money I had, I might aswell get it well and truely sorted! I therefore drove it as it was for a couple of months, whilst I tried to scrape enhough cash together to have a complete rebuild.

 

It was about this time when Trogboy introduced me to this forum :ph34r: In the meantime, I fitted a set of 106 Rallye (series 1) wheels, lowered it slightly and swapped a perfectly good rear beam for a slightly dodgy 1.9 beam - don't ask! :P

 

a01.jpg

 

beam.jpg

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
Fox

Looking loads better! They look great on the 14's.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
jonnygoodhand

After much research (mainly using the search function in this forum) and questions, I decided to opt for a XS/106 XSI hybrid engine and bought a stripped down 106 unit off, you guessed it, eBay. As I'd bought a brand new pair of DCOEs, I decided to stick with them and approached Sandy for an Inlet Manifold.

 

After a couple of messages to and fro, I asked Sandy if he'd be willing to take on the entire build of the engine, which he agreed to. I also decided to switch the dampers & springs for a Bilstein Sprintline/Eibach set and upgrade the brakes to 266mm 306 S16 items.

 

JGH26.jpg

 

Sandy opened a thread, documenting the entire build, which can be viewed HERE. Some of the i mages have since deceased, but I managed to grab some of them, which can now be found HERE

 

During the early stages of the engine build, I mentioned to Sandy that I was interested in swapping the gearbox for one with shorter ratios (the standard UK Rallye box is ludicrously long) and he pointed me in the direction of a BE box on eBay. Not just any BE Box, but a brand new one intended for the TU engined Partner/Berlingo van, which a Citroen dealer had surplus to requirements. Sandy worked his magic and got it all to fit together nicely.

 

JGH23.jpg

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
jonnygoodhand
Looking good mate, are these any lighter than the gti? They certainly look it!

 

I think they're marginally lighter than a GTI - around the 800kg mark apparently. Would like to get mine on a weigh bridge once complete...

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
jonnygoodhand

With the car 200 miles away and in bits, I began stock piling various parts to fit upon its return:

 

New OEM headlights, indicators (amber - going retro!), rear light clusters and rear fog lights

New bumpers (stumbled across some white bumpers, complete with holes drilled to attach the arches to, so can only assume they're genuine French spec Rallye bumpers)

Red GTI Carpet

GTI Steering wheel

Rallye seats (was offered a set in very good condition, which is pretty rare!)

Red Seatbelts

 

line-up.jpg

 

I also started thinking about weight saving and sourced some kevlar front wings (with integrated rallye arch), a fibre glass bonnet and a pair of rear arch mouldings (this time much better than the original ones I bought). With the garage empty, I had a go at spraying them up myself.

 

bonnet.jpg

 

front-arche.jpg

 

rear-arche.jpg

 

Once again, I was left the task of filling the arches and was lucky enough to un-earth a new set of Speedline SL434s.

 

434s.jpg

Edited by jonnygoodhand

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
dale205mills

That do look nice, well done and keep us all posted B)

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
jonnygoodhand

On thing which struck me about the 434s was their weight. I'd expected, perhaps unrealistically, them to be reasonably lightweight. Infact, they weigh around 8kg each - about the same as a regular 1.9 GTI Alloy. I therefore decided to pay my local Citroen dealer a visit and pick up some C5 alloy steelies with a fitting kit.

 

c5-wheels.jpg

 

fitting-kit.jpg

 

When you first pick these wheels up, they feel quite strange as they come in at 4.7kg each. Plus, as they're of a similar design to regular steel wheels, they remain in keeping with the 'Rallye' look. I then set about spraying them up, together with the 434s.

 

white-c5.jpg

 

white-434.jpg

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
jonnygoodhand

We're now getting pretty much up-to-date. I picked the car up from Sandy's a last week. The headline figures are 141bhp at 7000rpm and 121lbft at 5000rpm.

 

graph.gif

 

This, together with the noise and the whole 'sense of ocassion' makes a fantastic engine which I believe is ideally suited to the car (well, I would say that). Ta very much, Mr Brown - a superb job!!

Edited by jonnygoodhand

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
Sandy

Much obliged Mr Goodhand, knowing what I know now, my Rallye would have got a similar 8v, rather than the 16v TU I went for, much more fun.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
welshpug

looks a very nice engine, similar curve and figures as my standard 8v XU9 but keeps going for another 1k rpm at the top :D

 

any pictures of the completed car?

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
DaveW

Blimey you got too much money(well not now :D ) how much did them swines sting you for that crap 1.4 engine then?

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
jonnygoodhand
Blimey you got too much money(well not now :D ) how much did them swines sting you for that crap 1.4 engine then?

 

It's an addiction my credit cards are paying for!

 

I bought the original (i.e. knackered) engine for £375, Dellortos £200 and he charged £100 to fit. What really stung was the cost of fitting the carbs/manifold and cutting the engine mount. Only for them all to come off again and swapped for a new pair of DCOEs. Off course, both sets of carbs had to be (rather unsuccessfully) set-up. This time the parts (DCOEs, trumpets, linkages) came in at, IIRC, around £850 and labour/Rolling Road time around £450. I try to forget it, as I'm not sure if I was taken for a mug, had a run of bad luck or took it to a rather expensive garage. Probably a combination of all three...

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
Sandy

It's a common theme, I'm often a bit frustrated by the amount of money people have spent on their cars before they get to me! (By which time they're usually running out of money!) Another 205 Rallye that came to me last year with an Mi16 on carbs, had a receipt on the dash for over £500, for two days "investigation" of why it wouldn't run properly. They didn't actually fix it either. The major problem I found to be a crushed fuel pipe that was bleeding obvious :)

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
danpug

Nice little engine! How much are the c5 alloys?

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
jonnygoodhand
Nice little engine! How much are the c5 alloys?

 

The C5 wheels are around £50 each. All 4, with the fitting kit (wheel brace, bolts and washers), came in at just under £230.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
danpug

Ok thanks.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
jonnygoodhand
any pictures of the completed car?

 

Exterior is, at present, pretty much the same as the last pic, but I've been working on the interior over the last couple of days.

 

First-up, I removed the seats, carpets, belts and some interior plastic:

 

stripped.jpg

 

Despite the new Rallye seats being in overall very good condition, the drivers side bolster had started to sag a little. I decided to investigate further and pulling back the cover revealed a slightly more knackered bolster than I'd imagined.

 

bad-bolster.jpg

 

I then transplanted a passenger side bolster from my original GTI passenger seat.

 

good-bolster.jpg

 

The embroidered PTS logos stitched on the Rallye seats had also seen better days, so I had a local embroiderers knock me up some new patches.

 

patches.jpg

 

Carpet was then laid, seat belts fitted and new seats installed.

 

interior-01.jpg

 

interior-02.jpg

 

seats-installed.jpg

 

I aslo had a PTS patch left over which I applied to some modified GTI mats.

 

mat.jpg

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
danpug

Those seats look great, you won't ever see a set in that condition!

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
Sign in to follow this  

×