205 1.9 GTI Group A 'Archeology'

[Kobayashi 35 2 Cars]

'I accentally a Group A rally car', that's what I keep saying to my still slightly overwhelmed self  
A few weeks ago, I bought a historic rally car that I was - quite pointlessly - lurking around for the last 3 years or so. Actually buying it had never been a realistic option until I just started doing some research, completely went down the rabbit hole and subsequently contacted the seller.

This week, I finally picked up the car and brought it to a friend's workshop for an analysis and kick-start of my new project:

 

The plan is to bring the car back to a fully period-correct Group A specification again (plus the safety features that FIA wants nowadays).
Although it will probably never happen, the car should - in theory - be able to be used in official historic rallies when I'm finished, including all the correct paperwork.
A secondary goal (or, maybe even my hidden primary goal?) is to learn a lot about Group A and historic rallying in the process - that's what 'Archeology' refers to in the thread title.

I will probably post some more info on the car's history and current status & specification soon, as well as on it's planned future, but first of all, some pics 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited July 30, 2022 by Kobayashi

[SRDT 175]

You can look here for all the 205 homologation forms:

https://historicdb.fia.com/sites/default/files/car_attachment/1600902901/homologation_form_number_5325_group_a.pdf

[Kobayashi 35 2 Cars]

23 hours ago, SRDT said:

You can look here for all the 205 homologation forms:

https://historicdb.fia.com/sites/default/files/car_attachment/1600902901/homologation_form_number_5325_group_a.pdf

I know, thank you. This stuff played a major role in my extensive 'rabbit hole' experience as well as my personal 'feasibility analysis' phase before I decided to give this project a go. 
Let's just hope I didn't miss anything crucial.

[SRDT 175]

After finding the information you wanted it's important to check for any erratum, they are many.

[wicked 103 3 Cars]

Nice catch!! 

The car has many interesting details, like the moved fuseboard, base model doorcards and many PTS parts..

 

 

[SRDT 175]

Your Speedline Wheels are a bit special, one is a SL 434/ and the other a SL 434/A.

I'm not sure what it means.

[Kobayashi 35 2 Cars]

 

17 hours ago, wicked said:

Nice catch!! 

The car has many interesting details, like the moved fuseboard, base model doorcards and many PTS parts..

Thank you.  I also think it's quite nicely built, with touches like these hand-made pouches attached to the door cards, et cetera. And of course all that PTS stuff struck me, I will post some more on that, soon.
Generally, the build quality seems quite high to me, so far.
 

15 hours ago, SRDT said:

Your Speedline Wheels are a bit special, one is a SL 434/ and the other a SL 434/A.

I'm not sure what it means.

Correct, I was about to ask here if anybody knew more about it?
Aesthetically, there seems to be no difference to the SL 434.

There are 1x 434/, 1x 434/A, and 6x 434 that came with the car.

Oh, and that SPEEDLINE sticker is not straight at all 

Edited August 2, 2022 by Kobayashi

[SRDT 175]

The old SL 434 have a bigger center hole.

The 7x15 version is the SL 341 bdw.

[Kobayashi 35 2 Cars]

There actually IS massive progress... Trying to bring you guys up to speed!

Group A top mounts
For me, one of the coolest features of the 'works' (or works-inspred) Group-A-205s back in the day was the red and blue suspension top mounts, matching the identically coloured brake disc centers. As my cars did not have that when I got it, I absolutely needed to get those 

The following steps were done exactly to the PTS Grp.A-Build Book, using some remanufactured parts from France.

[Kobayashi 35 2 Cars]

Exhaust System
 

To meet the historic homologation, the catalytic converter had to go.
Also, the exhaust that came with the car had not been built with any aesthetics in mind, and it had been prone to quite some corrosion.

So I opted for a wholly new exhaust system. It was designed after an original 1.9l 130 HP exhaust that I borrowed for this purpose, but with larger diameters and different silencers. The center silencer has an 61,5mm entrance and an 60mm exit, and the rest of the piping was built with strictly those measurements. The center silencer is made in stainless steel from german company Powersprint, as well as most of the additional piping and parts. The backbox is a french OMP copy, also in stainless steel.

I am quite looking forward to hear it in action 

Edited November 27, 2022 by Kobayashi

[Kobayashi 35 2 Cars]

Paint and Livery

The livery on my car apparently tried to mimic the 1995 and 1996 Peugeot Sport Liveries.
Most certainly, the original  build had been done by then.


 

Well, the 90s are cool to some extent, BUT the 80s are cooler in my opinion
And after all, one of the goals of this project is to accurately meet a historic group A homologation, which ended after 1990. I think it should also have the period-correct looks.


For this set of reasons, I decided to have the car completely repainted in an original 'Blanc Meije' tone. I always had a soft spot for the painted bumpers and wheel arches of the works rally cars, so these were a must-have. 

The first of the follwing pictures might be a bit painful to look at (sorry ), BUT the new result really pleases my eye, and there is so much more to come... 

[Steve205 15 1 Cars]

The colour-toned bumpers and body trim look gorgeous.  Was expecting an abomination.  Well done. Really, really nice.

Stephen 

[Wallby 39]

That is lovely, what a project! Keep us updated

[Kobayashi 35 2 Cars]

Time to prepare the interior, which is also something that can be done in a heated living room rather than a cold garage.

I am aware that I am required to get homologated seats and harnesses later on, but for the first stage of this project, I felt that I needed something that looks remotely period-correct AND isn't too expensive. That's where some used parts came in.
The car already had one older, but barely used Sparco Evo seat when I got it, and I managed to source a cheap Pro 2000 that I hoped would look similar.
It actually turned out to be in pretty bad shape. Still, I put all the seat covers into the washing machine, just hoping for the best, and I even found some spare parts at a german dealer. 

In the end, it was quite some work, but I generally like how it turned out. That's 2 classic Sparco racing seats that will blend in nicely, at relatively low cost 

For the harness, it just HAD to be red Sabelts, and I found some used ones locally 

Coincidentally, I also came across a new Sabelt steering wheel, that I prefer over the deep-dish OMP that came with the car 

Well, that, and a reproduction Grp. A gear shift knob from France that I just could not resist 

Can't wait to get all of this stuff bolted into the car...
 

Edited December 22, 2022 by Kobayashi

[205freak 7 1 Cars]

How much does it cost that exhaust system or where can i source one??

[jj007205 0]

Looks awesome @Kobayashi, await more updates 

[Kobayashi 35 2 Cars]

On 3/11/2023 at 10:48 AM, jj007205 said:

Looks awesome @Kobayashi, await more updates 

Thanks. All right then, BRACE FOR UPDATE, 3 - 2 - 1 

 

The Body

... is not finished yet, BUT it's becoming increasingly easy to imagine what it will look like when finished 

The second 205 GTI on the last shot features the current restoration project of a friend who is helping me greatly on this project.

Not visible on those pics: A "reproduction PTS" strut brace that another great supporter did for me after nothing but some photos in an old catalogue 

The Engine
... was serviced including a new timing belt. It's running and, together with the exhaust, making quite some agreeable noise 
You will need to turn up the volume to really expirience it in this little video here:

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pSkYdJ8EX-k&ab_channel=Koba 

 

Additional work recently done includes new fuel lines, one new wheel bearing, gearbox oil change and some oil leakages found and cured.

The Interior
... will receive some nice ingredients that I still have to find the time to install.

Current state, including some Rallye doorcards:


Additional stuff that will go in, soon:

MOMO C35 steering wheel from 11/87 that I think is the same as featured by the PTS catalogue and a T16 at the Sochaux museum 

(Which meens that the Sabelt wheel will probably have to go again).

Custom, yet historically inspired "Sabelt" rollcage padding, done with my Mum 

Peltor Intercom, quite similar to back in the day - don't you think, Timo? 

I can barely wait to see all of this finally going into the car!

Edited April 15, 2023 by Kobayashi

[309jazzpanda 41]

Really beautiful build. What management is it running on? I noticed a blanking plug on the head where the dizzy should sit. Weren't group A cars on jetronic?. 

[Kobayashi 35 2 Cars]

Thanks. 

 

Current management is a so-called Trijekt Tri-X, which should be one of the earliest freely map-able ECUs that there was, as early as in the late nineties:

https://trijekt.de/ueber-uns/ 

 

It seems to be still fully functional (yet running very rich in it's current setup), there is some documentation and support available and it would in theory still be programmable via serial port.

 

But you are right, it's neither homologated, nor period correct, so it will have to go in a later stage of this build: Then I will go back to L-Jetronic and try to modify it according to some piece of 1988 Peugeot Talbot Sport documentation. 

 

The goal of the current project stage is "just" to get everything mechanically right, including period looks, and to be able to run the car on trackdays, oldtimer events, and the likes. 

 

Edited April 18, 2023 by Kobayashi

[Kobayashi 35 2 Cars]

New video, this one's actually a lot nicer than the first one:  

 

Strut brace mounted and totally looking the part:

 

 

 

 

[petert 586]

Beautiful, but looks a tad low at back. You need to have approx. 20mm of rake, measured front and rear of sill, if you want it to handle.

 

 

[309jazzpanda 41]

On 4/18/2023 at 7:50 PM, Kobayashi said:

Thanks. 

 

Current management is a so-called Trijekt Tri-X, which should be one of the earliest freely map-able ECUs that there was, as early as in the late nineties:

https://trijekt.de/ueber-uns/ 

 

It seems to be still fully functional (yet running very rich in it's current setup), there is some documentation and support available and it would in theory still be programmable via serial port.

 

But you are right, it's neither homologated, nor period correct, so it will have to go in a later stage of this build: Then I will go back to L-Jetronic and try to modify it according to some piece of 1988 Peugeot Talbot Sport documentation. 

 

The goal of the current project stage is "just" to get everything mechanically right, including period looks, and to be able to run the car on trackdays, oldtimer events, and the likes. 

 

Yes it will be interesting how it runs on jetronic, I have always wondered what PTS did to allow it to run on that management with such a big cam. 

[Thijs_Rallye 87 4 Cars]

On 4/30/2023 at 1:10 PM, 309jazzpanda said:

I have always wondered what PTS did to allow it to run on that management with such a big cam. 

Why wonder if the information is available :)?

 

 

1) Modify the intake and exhaust.

2) Modify the air flow meter. (page 53 in PDF)

3) Remove the rev limiter from the stock ECU.
 

For the exact details refer to the attached PDF :). From what I read the head work and intake manifold work are key to the performance.

I think the re-curving (aka resetting the clock spring) of the AFM is related to the ram-air. Also there was a specific PTS distributor with the following curve:

205 Gti 1900 GrA (01-88).pdf

[petert 586]

I had a Grp A ecu, but sold it. I opened it up and it had some different resistors but I didn't think at the time to record it, as I had access to aftermarket ecu's which did a much better job. My bad. It really was a bit of a dog though and ditching the AFM and changing the ecu transformed it.

[309jazzpanda 41]

On 5/4/2023 at 7:57 AM, Thijs_Rallye said:

Why wonder if the information is available :)?

 

 

1) Modify the intake and exhaust.

2) Modify the air flow meter. (page 53 in PDF)

3) Remove the rev limiter from the stock ECU.
 

For the exact details refer to the attached PDF :). From what I read the head work and intake manifold work are key to the performance.

I think the re-curving (aka resetting the clock spring) of the AFM is related to the ram-air. Also there was a specific PTS distributor with the following curve:

205 Gti 1900 GrA (01-88).pdf

I never even knew that document existed, thank you very much. Looks like a long night with google translate one day for me.