I Made It!

[midnight motorsport 0]

Just thought I'd tell everyone about my trip to the nurburgring

 

It has been a manic last few weeks, as not even three weeks ago, the engine was in bits on a bench!! I had my car which has not been on the road for 6 years, nearly ready for the engine, well- what I thought was nearly ready!!

 

After a mad last minute parts buy I got all the parts to finish the engine, then, trying to fit it in around work,(as we had three race cars to get out a well) I spent many late nights/ all night,! getting the engine put together, and back in the car, the final spec was :-

 

completely standard bottom end, 1.9 alloy engine

 

:balanced crank/rods, pistons

:pistons and liners were brand new genuine items

:piston cut outs were machined for valve clearance

:block was decked 5 thou for liner protrution

:all new acl bearings

:arp rod bolts

:07mm petert copper head gasket

:skimmed hiflow heads st3 cylinder head, rebuilt and ground out to except cams

:kent 1604 cams and vernier pulleys

:webber manifold and twin 45's

:dizzy adaptor and 8v dizzy

:magnecor leads

:standard re angled manifold and moded downpipe

:magnex stainless system

:ditched breather system, runs catch tank and filler

 

 

:gti 6 gearbox

:gt6 brakes

:black diamond disks and pads

:bilstien shocks all round

:all new wishbones

:bbm top mounts

:slotted top mount fixing points to give 0.5 neg camber

:poly bushed front

:309 fully rebuit rear beam

: solid mount( but only back 2)

:fully braided brake lines, with in car bias valve

 

:no cage yet!! as was not ready in time!!

 

Well all I can say is it was worth all the hard work, boy did I have a smile on my face even when it was raining and no-one else would go out on the track

 

I mananged to get the car finished about a week before we went, so I got a chance to put some miles on it and get the carbs sort of set up, we were due to leave on the monday 14th and the weekend before was spent with no sleep trying to get my mate mi205 ready as well, as doing a whole lot more to mine,

and after making a whole new throttle linkage, having the carbs apart, again, removing one side of the rear beam, trying to work out why there is still play in it after changing every serviceable part in it? (any ideas), changing another rear calipper, fitting the oil cooler, and giving the whole car a check over, we were ready to go!!!

 

Most of the way over there was spent changing jets and looking at afr meter, to get the best set up, and after a faultless drive there, we parked up

 

The next day I decided t0 have a look at why the steering felt really vaugue in a straight line and light cornering? But could not find much to point at?, I know that more neg camber can make cars realy nervous in a straight line but I am not realy running much at all, and this feels horrible,

Next was to drill out a set of mains jets, and unbelievably the last time it all came together, drilled out to 1.2 and it run slightly lean, got the the track and drilled them out to 1.3, got me dad to sit in the pasenger seat and on my very first nurburgring lap (s**t the life out of him) The car was fantastic the fueling was spot on!! It pulled really well and on the track the nervousness was forgotten, as the grip and power took over!!!

The engine was really strong, from 3500-8000 it was on fire, I could out drag all other hot hatches no problem, and even creep away from some of the bigger boys as well!! and the 130mph before changing into 6th was good

 

Oh what a laugh!!!

 

But then it rained , but who cares I still went out and had even more of a laugh, would of been better with a diff but I blew all my money on the engine, so thats to come, but I just went round again and again and again, slipping all over the place, lost it once and spun out, which my passenger and myself found quite funny/and scary all at the same time

 

The track is unbelievable, its very demanding, and the first few laps are very dawnting, but the weeks of playing gt4 on the playstation did really help!! seriously it doesnt help much for graidents, and adverse cambers etc, but it does help with blind corners and summits, and just a general track knowlege, this is one great track and we are already talking about another trip and a month or two, dont thing there will be 30 people this time though?

But the best thing was that the car did not miss a beat in the 200 miles of nurburgring abuse that I and a few others put it through!!! arart from cooking the brakes on the second lap and having to change to srf brake fluid and just to add to insult of the 6 vw golfs that went, 5 had to stop at one point or another, as they broke down, and had to go and find a german that would understand them enough to get the right part to fix there so called ultra reliable motors!!! Oh how I did laugh, and there was them telling me that I should get a decent car, funny I sware that every one of them wanted a drive in the little french beast once I had taken them round!!!

 

Peugeot 1, Volkswagen 0

 

Anyway hope you may get somthing out of reading this?.

I will just say that anyone thinking of going to nurburgring? go!!!!!!!!

anyone that has been, I now know what I've been missing,

 

I do have a lot more plans for the car now, I was still having problems with carbs but not when flat out round the track, and the dizzy was a limiting factor to the performance,

so throttle bodies and mapped ecu are the way forward,

 

And there is still these steering issue's, still very vauge and nasty in a srtaight line and light cornering, especially at high speed

Also this problem with the rear beam having very slight play in it, even though it is all new and only had done 400 miles before I noticed it?

 

Does anyone have any ideas? Does anyone else run a 309 rear beam have this vauge steering problem? As I wondered if it something to do with the wider track? It feels like there is a dead spot in the steering, what do you run the tracking at? Mine is 2mm toe in.? It is realy slow to turn in and just feels like it wants to push on, horrible, but once you are commited it does grip. Just dont feel right, I'm going to check the car over for all the basics, and may take the rear beam apart again and take it back to peugeot to get it replaced? (may be a faulty,slightly undersized part)

 

If anyone has any ideas, I would be very glad to hear them, thanks for reading, also if somone can tell me how to put pics and videos on here I will put a few on, cheers

 

And a quick thanks to petert for all your advise and help, and getting the gasket out as quick as you did, top bloke!!

 

And to stew at bbm, for his top mounts and parts for my other car. Cheers, you too are a top bloke,

 

Jay

 

edit; "CAPS LOCK" off.

Edited May 22, 2007 by pugtorque

[petert 587]

Glad to hear it all came together well. Keep an eye out in the ECU section for a post on ignition timing. You'll be surpised by my results. Caps lock - it's a bit like shouting.

[phatgti 0]

2mm toe in, thats going to be horrible, try 1mm out on each wheel - 2mm overall, should respond much better to steering wheel input.

[midnight motorsport 0]

2mm toe in, thats going to be horrible, try 1mm out on each wheel - 2mm overall, should respond much better to steering wheel input.

 

Hi mate, well thats what i thought, but when we set the car on a proper laser alighnment, because it felt funny, it was 6mm toe in!! , ( i set it by eye!!, till i got it on the gauges, as the whole car was new) so we set it too 1 mm total toe out, as this is what most front wheel cars are, but it drove even worse! then i remembered that when i set this car up years ago, peugeot always run toe in, so i checked up, and they do run toe in, 2mm, or 20 minutes,

 

and as i like the way the cars handles standard, i put it back to that, but i did file slots in the top mount holes and slid the struts in, to give more neg, but only 0.5 deg, which is nothing,

 

and the car still drove horrible, now i dont think that it is due to the neg camber, as it still drove funny before,

 

everthing else is new, apart from the rack( although the tie rods and the track rod ends are new) and the steering knuckle,

 

i may try a new rack? and knuckle,

i do have a power steering rack, may run this without the power bit?

 

im going to check the rest of the car over for any other dodgy looking bits, but i really cant see anything,

 

i will probably start a post in the correct section too?

 

cheers, jay