205 GTI Rebuild

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Tadpole
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The SI project is now complete and on the road. I love it!
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205Sis.jpg
205Sie.jpg
 
So now for project two. This car was in an accident many years ago and has parts from different series. I stripped the car down and have handed it over to the paint shop...as luck would have it only a bit of filler and some surface rust.

So I am looking at something like https://www.205gtidrivers.com/articles/articles-guides/engine-related/mi16-19-conversion-r21/ or http://www.pug1off.com/peugeot205gti6.html for inspiration, a street legal car but with a track pedigree. I have a XU9 16V from a 405 for the rebuild. Any suggestions?

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Tell us more about the first car !!! It looks like you could tell us how to do things rather than the other way around !

Cheers

Justin
 
I bought the car from djvu205 in Ballarat. djvu205 did a brilliant job, so all that was required for street legal NSW was the carburetor box, new exhaust and then the engineering tests. A vacuum was run over the car to pull out all the little dings, cut and polished and a touch of decal bling. A British D6B GTI motor fed by 4 Mikuni carburetors makes for a fun vehicle; which I can not prise from my wife's hands.
 
My car may be similar to what you are talking about, though it has been built purely for road rather than track.

Dyno results and photos of the finished car are on this and the following page: https://www.aussiefrogs.com/forum/index.php?threads/richards-205-gti6-project.113489/page-10

Since the last update to that thread I've swapped the Eibach front springs for reset Xsara VTS springs - works much better around town and I don't think I've lost much on turn in.
 
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On Peter's note about the liner seats, you only have to look at my concurrent thread to see what you might be faced with just as a start. Hopefully you are lucky when you strip it down and its cancer free, but these are becoming rarer as people hold on to them or scrap them. You already have a running 205 with the light alloy block and those sweet carbs so I wouldn't go feeling like you're missing out on anything by going for the heavier XU10 lump.
 
PeterT said:
The XU9J4 can be expensive to rebuild. There are basically two paths:

1. Standard pistons. This assumes the standard pistons can be reused and you buy new liners and rings. Then it's a relatively easy process to rebuild back to standard, along with possibly reground cams and a serviced head.

2. New forged pistons. This is where it becomes expensive and tricky. The std pistons centre and control the conrods. It's a great idea, except aftermarket pistons don't. Thus you either modify aftermarket pistons to match the standard rods, or buy new rods as well, which will be wider and centred/controlled by the crankshaft (the same as most engines). Fitting the narrower Mi16 rod to an aftermarket forged piston will result in excessive rod clearance/thrust and probably piston boss cracking.

Your first course of action should be to strip the XU9J4 and assess the pistons and liners. Also look for the cancer around the liner seats of the block. Sometimes it's easier (cheaper) just to use a 2L XU10 block.
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schlitzaugen said:
What wheels are those?
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I am still trying to find out...
 
PeterT said:
The XU9J4 can be expensive to rebuild. There are basically two paths:

1. Standard pistons. This assumes the standard pistons can be reused and you buy new liners and rings. Then it's a relatively easy process to rebuild back to standard, along with possibly reground cams and a serviced head.

2. New forged pistons. This is where it becomes expensive and tricky. The std pistons centre and control the conrods. It's a great idea, except aftermarket pistons don't. Thus you either modify aftermarket pistons to match the standard rods, or buy new rods as well, which will be wider and centred/controlled by the crankshaft (the same as most engines). Fitting the narrower Mi16 rod to an aftermarket forged piston will result in excessive rod clearance/thrust and probably piston boss cracking.

Your first course of action should be to strip the XU9J4 and assess the pistons and liners. Also look for the cancer around the liner seats of the block. Sometimes it's easier (cheaper) just to use a 2L XU10 block.
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Thanks PeterT, I still have options if I run into problems. (1 GTI long motor, 1 GTI short motor and the 405 Long motor) I shall take it slow and steady.
 
Budgie said:
Thanks PeterT, I still have options if I run into problems. (1 GTI long motor, 1 GTI short motor and the 405 Long motor) I shall take it slow and steady.
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PeterT what are your thoughts about after market ECU's? Haltech compliant in particular.
 
Haltech, Emtron, Motec, they’re all good. Entry level would be the Elite 550 but the 1000 gives a lot more options. Which you may or may not need. The KV8 is hidden value as it also includes a built-in O2 wideband controller. Motec is most expensive but as the old saying in IT goes, nobody ever got fired for buying Cisco.
 
I can not tell from the picture if that is freshly sandblasted or primer coated.

If it were my car I would inspect very closely the seams at the top of the B pillar for cracks and the ones at the bottom inside the rear quarter panel for rust. Right after blasting these areas should be easier to inspect. Even if there are no cracks, I would seriously consider some strengthening of the shell at the B pillar and perhaps in some other points. not sure how I'd go about it, but from my experience, these shells are not exactly rigid. In fact far from it.

There are also many other areas where rust can hide but these are a common problem pretty much on all cars.

Another area where I even fear to think of what lurks inside are the sills but you can't know unless you inspect them, perhaps with a scope through the drainage holes (one at the bottom of the front wheel well, another two on the inside (under the car) wall of the sill, one at the front, one at the back). Water can stay there for a long, long, long time. In fact I would hazard a guess it would never completely dry out. Grrrr.

Nice work.
 
schlitzaugen said:
I can not tell from the picture if that is freshly sandblasted or primer coated.

If it were my car I would inspect very closely the seams at the top of the B pillar for cracks and the ones at the bottom inside the rear quarter panel for rust. Right after blasting these areas should be easier to inspect. Even if there are no cracks, I would seriously consider some strengthening of the shell at the B pillar and perhaps in some other points. not sure how I'd go about it, but from my experience, these shells are not exactly rigid. In fact far from it.

There are also many other areas where rust can hide but these are a common problem pretty much on all cars.

Another area where I even fear to think of what lurks inside are the sills but you can't know unless you inspect them, perhaps with a scope through the drainage holes (one at the bottom of the front wheel well, another two on the inside (under the car) wall of the sill, one at the front, one at the back). Water can stay there for a long, long, long time. In fact I would hazard a guess it would never completely dry out. Grrrr.

Nice work.
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I concur. In 1996, when my S3 205GTI was 3 years old, there were visible cracks at the base of the 'B' pillar. The body flexed so much that the door would move in the frame when driving over a driveway and once jammed my finger between the body and the door frame. These things are quite bendy.

Cheers

Justin
 
As I were writing the post above, I was thinking about the body shell of the R12 (Renault 12) and I remembered how stiff they were by comparison. You could jack one wheel up and the door didn't change the sound it made when closing. And the car weighed pretty much the same as the 205. In fact I remember the Renault instructions for rallying the R12 did not have any recommendation for strengthening the body (they did for the R8 for instance). No idea how this was achieved, but there you go.
 
If you plan to track the car forget the 1.9mi16 motor. It will blow up unless you spend lots on dry sump etc even then they are prone to fail.

The Gti6 motor is much better for what your looking at and can get almost 200hp without going to throttle bodies.
 
Cameron is correct. XU9J4 is ok for street cars, but for track cars you need XU10J4 varieties. The increase in weight is more than made up by the increase in hp and torque.
 
So would an xu10j4rs be ok for surge on a racetrack, fitted to a Citroen Xsara vts with Yokohama ad08r
 
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