[rally_prep] My 205 Constantly Evolving 205 Xs Road Rally Car Project

[tdr_1976 41 1 Cars]

Reading all the various Big and Small 205 projects has inspired me to start my own Project topic.

 

The story begins with the purchase of one 1989 Peugeot 205 XS back in September 2009.

 

I purchased the car from a chap who had already competed in the car, and had done various types of events ranging from Auto tests to PCT's (production Car trials) as well as numerous Road Rallies and Endurance rallies, all with a fantastic reliability record.

 

The car came with a lot of safety features fitted such as Full Roll Cage, Racing seats and harnesses etc.

 

When I drove the car, I noticed right away that there were quite a few things that I wanted to sort out. Things like the drive shafts, gear linkages and a fair amount of other things that needed my attention.

 

As you can see, it needed a LOT of TLC body-Wise!

 

 

 

 

 

I'm currently going through all of the pictures I have taken and will be posting more info on the project to where I am at with it at the moment!

[tdr_1976 41 1 Cars]

The exterior looked very tired, so I decided to give it a new coat of paint in my garage using a few rattle cans to do the job!

 

I also re-painted the bumpers sating black and hand painted the rear badges red, it looks better in my opinion!

 

This is how it looked once I had the bodywork re-painted;

 

 

 

 

[tdr_1976 41 1 Cars]

The interior was also in need of a serious sort out!

 

The seats that were in it were OK, nothing special, but came up well with a good clean!

 

There was also some seriously dodgy wiring going on, on the centre of the dash, I found that the wires ran directly from the fuse box, with only one of the feeds with a fuse on!

 

Before;

 

 

 

 

 

After sorting out the wiring mess and giving it a good clean, things were looking better!

 

 

[tdr_1976 41 1 Cars]

When I bought the car, I had a few extra bits with it, I had a set of four Peugeot 13" ET20 steel wheels, I decided to strip the tyres from them and paint them White;

 

 

 

I also had a brand new un-fitted door bar kit, so a good mate of mine cut them to size and welded them in for me, he did a great job fitting them!

 

 

 

I've decided to run the car on 185/60/13 tyres on road rallies, and 185/60/14 on track days.

 

Here's the car sitting on the 14" wheels;

 

 

[tomcolinjones 26]

it has come a long way. rattle cans tho... seriously lol! probarbly better than my respray effort witrh half decent kit tho!

are you still on xs suspension and brakes? my brakes would boil when just going for a thrash around the lanes, until i swaped over all the 1.9 gti stuff i had from the deceased.

Good work pal.

[james_pug 26 1 Cars]

excellent work looks much better now.

Edited December 26, 2010 by james_pug

[tdr_1976 41 1 Cars]

Mechanically, I have carried out a lot of work on the car, a lot of the stuff, you cannot see.

 

The first thing that really needed sorting out was the "Floppy" gear stick. I bought a set of uprated gear rods from Pug racing along with a quick shift adapter, both together made a lot of difference. The more positive gear selection along with the double clipping of the rods gave me complete peace of mind.

 

Before;

 

After;

 

I also did a lot of work on the braking system.

 

When I first drove the car the offside front brake was slightly binding, so I decided to sort everything, including the master cylinder.

 

I put on two new wheel cylinders, new brake shoes, two new brake pipes & new hand brake cables on the rear.

 

I put two reconditioned callipers, a new set of Green Stuff pads, and two new brake pipes on the front, And a brand new master cylinder.

 

As I was doing these jobs, I decided to fit a wheel stud conversion kit.

 

 

As good as the breaking system was, during a Rally, I experienced some serious brake fade. So I decided I was going to fit Drilled Grooved vented discs.

 

To do this, I needed to fit either 1.9 GTi brakes or fit 1.6 GTi pad carriers onto my existing pistons. I decided to go the 1.6 brake route. After asking a few questions on this very forum, the answers came and it was recommended that in order to fit, I needed to fit 1.9 GTi discs with the 1.6 GTi pad carriers. The difference was amazing, I also cut the driving lights backing from the front spoiler to allow more airflow to the brakes.

 

[tdr_1976 41 1 Cars]

it has come a long way. rattle cans tho... seriously lol! probarbly better than my respray effort witrh half decent kit tho!

are you still on xs suspension and brakes? my brakes would boil when just going for a thrash around the lanes, until i swaped over all the 1.9 gti stuff i had from the deceased.

Good work pal.

 

Cheers mate, Yes - Rattle cans.....lol!

 

Suspension wise, I'm using Koni Adjustable Struts along with 205 challenge 160lb springs, the rear I have left alone on standard torsion bar and new std shocks.

 

 

excellent work looks much better now.

 

Cheers!

[tdr_1976 41 1 Cars]

Some pics of work I did on the wheel arches back in November, as you can see I've sprayed the Koni's black, wasn't too keen on the orange colour...lol!

 

I originally ran the Koni's with a set of 205 Diesel springs, it made it look like I was running coil overs on the front, but it made the handling worse on tight corners even though it was harder.

 

 

[tomcolinjones 26]

Very nice. and you'r welcome.

[swordfish210 20]

Looks much nicer, well done. Do you have any videos of your events?

[tdr_1976 41 1 Cars]

Hi mate, no videos I'm afraid, it's frowned upon in Road Rallying generally. I've got a few pics, I'll put them on the forum tomorrow, as I'm on my mobile at the moment.

[tdr_1976 41 1 Cars]

Hi mate, no videos I'm afraid, it's frowned upon in Road Rallying generally. I've got a few pics, I'll put them on the forum tomorrow, as I'm on my mobile at the moment.

[tdr_1976 41 1 Cars]

After waiting a while for the right seats to come up for the right price, I finally came across a pair of Cobra Imola 2 seats complete with side mounts.

 

After giving the seats a good clean up, they came out really well, so with out wasting much time, I fitted them and I must say, I'm really pleased with the outcome.

 

They are a lot more comfortable than the old seats, and because they are side mounted, I can access the interior of the car to work on it with ease!

 

A few pictures of the new seats

 

Before;

 

 

After;

 

 

 

[tdr_1976 41 1 Cars]

Been busy the last few weeks fabricating some bits for the interior of the car.

 

After the last rally I did, I found that a few things could be improved in the interior of the car to be more practical whilst doing the rallies.

 

The first thing that came to light was that we needed a better place to stow the navigators clip board, during the last event, this was stored between the door and seat, not ideal!

 

So I made this with some 1.5mm Aluminium

 

 

The second thing that needed sorting out properly was the central switch control panel. The old one was made with thick 4mm plastic and the layout needed to be updated to acomodate extra switches and in the future a cut-off switch.

 

This is what I came up with

 

[tomcolinjones 26]

Very tidy switch panel, some good ideas there!

my drivers seat is side mounted, and it makes it som much easyer to get to things as it is easy to remove.

Edited December 31, 2010 by tomcolinjones

[Jrod 7]

Looks really good. Reminds me of when I was rallying an XS!

 

It depends how much of a tart you are... I got some cloth seats out of a GTI as they are black and match the buckets better.

[tdr_1976 41 1 Cars]

LOL..... I was tempted to change the rear seats for darker ones, but I felt that it was further stripping the XS identity from the interior.

 

I must admit, I'm chuffed with the way the switch panel turned out

Edited January 2, 2011 by tdr_1976

[tdr_1976 41 1 Cars]

Some pictures of the two Rallies that we have done to date;

 

 

 

 

 

Edited January 10, 2011 by tdr_1976

[matt.f 16]

Looking good mate,do you not fancy doing any endurance rallies?although with different calipers not sure if it's allowed.

[tdr_1976 41 1 Cars]

Hi mate,

 

The car had done a few rounds of an endurance championship with the previous owner.

 

With the brakes and various other changes, it'd be out of bounds for endurance events now.

 

Road Rallies all the way for me!

[matt.f 16]

I navigate on endurance rallies there good fun,good forest and farm stages then a road rally at night.Costs a bit more but it's more fun.

[tdr_1976 41 1 Cars]

Yes, a lot of fun!

 

There are two events that I'm looking to do next year, outside of the endurance championship, they are half on private land and half on, but in a road rally car class!

 

I can't wait to have a go at them!

 

[tdr_1976 41 1 Cars]

A few pictures from my local Car Club Production Car Autotest I took part in, it was the first I'd ever done and Great fun!

 

 

 

 

 

 

[tomcolinjones 26]

great pictures! cant wait to get out in mine again.