Very budget track build

[Clarkj93]

Thanks @rex mate, that's really helpful

[Clarkj93]

Been busy moving so neglected the build a bit, back to it though! Reality is looking like it won't be ready for another track day maybe until the end of year/next year annoyingly due to the unforseen massive outgoings of a first home purchase.

Current list of things to do until she's track ready again is:
- Sort out surface rust on sills and bent/slightly rusty jacking points
- Install bucket seat and subframe
- Install stud and nut conversion
- Install coilovers and drop links (bc racing br I'm thinking), uprated top mounts and dog bone insert
- remove all dust shields for cooling
- change Cam follower
- oil/ air filter and brake fluid change
- fix misfire on Cylinder 1 (fuel injector seems most likely!)
- alignment ( maybe corner weighting? Not sure whether to figure out the height that's ideal first via trial and error and also the rake to find a balance I like first rather than pay 200/250 for corner weighting only to have to sort it again a month or 2 later because I've adjusted the height or rake?)

As per recent posts I ended up just routing the ducting to the wheel arch for better air flow, done a fair few miles on the road without front dust shields and no issues. Easy Install just cut a hole in the arch liner and get some inlets and outlets, drill holes in them so you can zip tie to them to the arch liner and rhe front grilles.







Ignore that extra random hole! Will re route them go via the fogs at some point and do a fog light delete for ease of access and disassembling and also because it allows me to add another duct to a cold air induction kit via the fog grille in future!

Bought some silicone hoses to replace the badly fitting and oil weeping boost pipes:



Buggers to get on mind, I gave up in 30 degree heat so will have to try again soon.

N80 valve change for a suspected evap fault along with silicone charcoal cannister hoses:



Currently examing the rust on the sills and jack points, seems to be all surface rust though which is good so plan is to straighten the damaged under body seam, cut off loose seam sealer and paint in por-15 Anti rust paint. I may give the sills and behind wheel arch area a gentle sanding first to get most of rust off and then apply por-15 followed by a rattle can touch up in the oem colour, pretty ghetto job but as long as its not rusting I'm happy.









I've seen pics of people having rust issues due to the side skirts Letting moisture in and it sitting there forever, I've taken mine off and tempted to just fills these screw holes with something and go side-skirtless as they're a pain to take on and off and just cause issues anyway... need to mull that one over



Also anyone know what this silver box is on drivers side behind wing?

[bobby_fodge]

isn't the horn in there?

[Clarkj93]

isn't the horn in there?

Well spotted. Forget to mention that if you remove the horn, you can beat the top of it pretty easily until its flat, this will allow you to rotate it to a position you are happy with and then tighten it up.

Not the best picture, but simple enough and easy to execute:

[Shoduchi]

The silver box is the alarm horn. It fails frequently with age.

[Eighteen88]

The silver box is the alarm horn. It fails frequently with age.

Yeah this what it is, recently had to replace mine and it was a twat of a job removing it!!

[Clarkj93]

So been tackling the rust. Decided to just sand away some of what I could easily and cover the rest a rust converter, and paint any areas that will be exposed to sunlight. It did not look too pretty to be fair but all surface rust anyway, only serious rust I found was on some of the crash bar but in a pretty insignificant place to the structure so it's  no concern to me.



















if it protects some vulnerable areas for a bit longer and slows down some corrosion I'm happy.

Also been tackling a misfire due to system running lean, mainly cylinder 1. Been scratching my head a bit with it so thought I'd do a bit of a overhaul. New intake, carbon cannister hoses and silicone coolant hoses, along with some silicone boost pipes.





Everything is from creation motorsport. Been happy with the quality but the throttle body hose I've had to leave off the car, I just simply cannot get it to fit onto the throttle body even with heating it up and using lubrication. It's just about 1 or 2mm too narrow. I've even tried taking the throttle body off the car just to check if I can get it on off the car but still no. Got a forge one in the post to check if its creation motorsport short coming or me being a wimp.

After doing a few hoses as mentioned I noticed this vacuum leak...




Looking around I noticed this brake booster vacuum section is quite hard to come by, autodoc sell it for about 25 quid, ebay specials sell it for about 45 quid. I have not check but I heard from vw it's over 100 quid... I ultimately decided to very carefully cut the cracked and hardened hose off the ribbed connectors and place a 9mm samco silicone vacuum hose on instead from Merlin motorsports, fits perfect and no chance of it popping off and in total cost me 9 quid so il take that as a win.



Just waiting on some new jubilee clips for some hoses, pop in the new coolant, stick the intake back on and hopefully we will be running reliably again! Got lots of orders arriving in the next month, so should be some cool updates to follow shortly.

[LC5F]

Looking around I noticed this brake booster vacuum section is quite hard to come by, autodoc sell it for about 25 quid, ebay specials sell it for about 45 quid. I have not check but I heard from vw it's over 100 quid... I ultimately decided to very carefully cut the cracked and hardened hose off the ribbed connectors and place a 9mm samco silicone vacuum hose on instead from Merlin motorsports, fits perfect and no chance of it popping off and in total cost me 9 quid so il take that as a win.

Just checking that the pipe you fitted has has webbing inside the silicone?
If its a basic silicone hose with no reinforcement is will flatten itself under vacuum - leaving you with no vacuum assist

Nice work on the rust - that was a task I wanted to do this summer, but other things got in the way - whats the black paint you used before undercoat?

[Clarkj93]

@LC5F I used por-15 as the rust converter/underseal, sticks very well as long as you use rhe metal prep stuff as instructed and apply in thin coats.

The hose is this https://www.merlinmotorsport.co.uk/p/samco-9mm-silicone-vacuum-hose-per-metre-vt9b3w
It's advertised a vacuum hose solution so I assumed it would be fine? But yeah from memory it is a albeit quite thick but basic silicone hose.

[LC5F]

That looks like it should be up to the task

[Clarkj93]

So the hunt to solve the misfire means I've ended up doing the following:
New intake
New genuine pcv
New pcv hoses
Checked and re gapped spark plugs
Replaced some vacuum tubing
New genuine DV
New silicone coolant hoses
New carbon cannister silicone hoses and n80 valve
New silicone boost hoses
New fuel filter

None of this fixed the issue but it means she has had a bloody good service! It's got to be an injector playing up so booked in with r tech for 27th Jan for inlet valve blasting, injector cleaning (replace if necessary) and stage 1 tune. Would have liked to go stage 2 but after all the bits I've bought lately and a wedding to plan/pay for I don't know if I can justify getting a sports cat downpipe and intercooler as well... unless someone has some cheap spares knocking about

Here's some shiny stuff:

Racing line stud and nut conversion kit
034 motorsport top mounts and bearings
Ecs tuning rear top mounts
Powerflex black dogbone mount insert
Braided lines
Silicone pcv hoses
Forge silicone TB hose
Cam follower kit
R8 coils


Whiteline adjustable roll bars and drop links. Rear was simple to get on really, I've not even attempted the front, looks like a disaster about to happen, will get it fitted at some point.


Big 1mm sheet of aluminum, the plan here is to make a sunroof delete panel when I find the balls to drill holes in my roof!


Last things on my shoping list before tracking again now are bucket seat, coilovers and tyres.

 Keep toying between keeping a full interior now with a bucket and then chuck it all out when I hopefully get a cage next winter or just take it all out now...

Coilovers will go on after r tech session in Jan so to make sure no issues getting on the dyno. Always changing my mind on these but narrowing it down to (for now at least):
B14 - some say too soft and b16 is quite a bit more but excellent quality
Bc racing - I hear some genuinely fast guys who are happy with the BR setup, I also hear some other fast guys who say the valving is generic and so they're poor, the DS setup is a bit more and a lot less info on them but this sounds like a possibly good track option for not much more money.
Gaz gold - hear very good things for performance and lots of race cars running these that do well in championships and it can be tailored for your needs also when built, I also hear they don't tend to last very long... my father in laws scooby had these, not sure how old they were but the rears were knocking like he'll and the damping adjustable knobs had siezed on some of them.

Tyres will be nankang ns2r as I only have 1 set of wheels and these supposedly will do OK in wet and decent in dry.

[JoshB]

It’s coming on to be fair!
I want to strip my arches and skirts at some point to clean them up so enjoyed those pics, cheers.
I had Gaz Gold and Nankang NS2R’s on my old Mk1 MX5. Completely different style of car but on a dry day on smooth tarmac it was like being dragged round corners by Spider-Man. On wet days on bumpy B roads, it was like Bambi on ice... and yes I did soften up the damping before hand. They’re good quality though Gaz. Had some on a Saxo for 5 years and they looked as good as new when the car got stripped.

[LC5F]

Used to run the basic Gaz's on my Mk3 valver.
Great shocks and (at the time) cheap to get serviced/rebuilt by Gaz themselves.

[pudding]

Nice work!  I initially thought your car is way too clean to be used on track, and then I saw your rust pics    All the same areas as mine.  Everyone needs to do it before they fall apart!

That strange brake stabbing feeling at the back most likely is the ESP kicking in.  Mine's done it loads of times.....and actually got me out of a few pickles over winter, so I leave it on.  Not that you can disable it anyway 

I wouldn't recommend Gaz unless they've improved their build quality.  Yeah they work well because the head honcho is ex-Leda and a damper guru, but the quality was awful on my 'Gold' coilovers.  Mine rusted out super fast (first winter!) and then the chrome plating started flaking off the damper rods shortly after    They were genuinely shocked and apologetic by that, but the damage was done, I lost faith.  They did work extremely well though, thanks to getting assistance from Julian at Balance Motorsport to help me choose spring rates etc.

I wouldn't describe B14s as too soft, the exact opposite in fact, on the road at least.

The advantage of brands like BC Racing is you can specify spring rates, but if the valving is generic across 1.4 through R32, that isn't much use.

This is exactly the problem with suspension, no one kit ticks all the boxes unless you triple, or even quadruple the budget.....and then it's no longer a budget track car 

Anyway, keep up the good work and get those injectors replaced 

[shannon-ob]

Coming along well man!

Glad you’ve sorted the rust before it gets too bad (like mine was)

Front ARB is a pain to fit subframe down job!

Keep up the good work man


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