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

[jonnygoodhand 0]

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

 

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

 

 

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:

 

 

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

 

 

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:

 

 

more to come...

[jonnygoodhand 0]

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.

 

 

 

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

 

[Ethos 0]

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

[johnnyboy666 195 1 Cars]

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

[jonnygoodhand 0]

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.

 

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! 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.

 

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.

 

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. 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.

 

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!

 

 

[Jrod 7]

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?

[jonnygoodhand 0]

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.

[jonnygoodhand 0]

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 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!

 

 

[Fox 3]

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

[jonnygoodhand 0]

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.

 

 

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.

 

[jonnygoodhand 0]

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...

[jonnygoodhand 0]

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

 

 

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.

 

 

 

 

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

 

Edited June 20, 2008 by jonnygoodhand

[dale205mills 39 7 Cars]

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

[jonnygoodhand 0]

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.

 

 

 

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.

 

 

[jonnygoodhand 0]

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.

 

 

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 June 21, 2008 by jonnygoodhand

[Sandy 191]

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.

[welshpug 1,661]

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

 

any pictures of the completed car?

[DaveW 6]

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

[jonnygoodhand 0]

Blimey you got too much money(well not now ) 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...

[Sandy 191]

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

[danpug 1]

Nice little engine! How much are the c5 alloys?

[jonnygoodhand 0]

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.

[danpug 1]

Ok thanks.

[jonnygoodhand 0]

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:

 

 

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.

 

 

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

 

 

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.

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

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

 

[danpug 1]

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