SEAT Ibiza - rwd turbo
Discussion
king Christ! That is a monster of a machine.
I've also got to finish my custom trailer designed to carry the 'Bitza. Because the car is very wide across the wheel centres, it needs a wide trailer to get onto, but then that wide trailer is too wide to go into my garage (and leaving trailers outside in full view is asking for trouble) so i have designed a trailer that expands hydraulically width wise when being towed, but narrows itself to be stored!
I will also be using the car to develop my race ABS system (see thread in Engines & Drivetrains) so a bit of looming needs to go in for that too. If i am feeling really keen, i'd also like to swap to a hand clutch (only used to get moving, then fully clutchless) and a floor mounted pedal box to get some of the mass down lower.
I will also be using the car to develop my race ABS system (see thread in Engines & Drivetrains) so a bit of looming needs to go in for that too. If i am feeling really keen, i'd also like to swap to a hand clutch (only used to get moving, then fully clutchless) and a floor mounted pedal box to get some of the mass down lower.
Outstanding work OP!
A couple of questions, if you don't mind?
Was the choice of Ibiza deliberate, or was it a part finished project you picked up? If it was deliberate, what was the reasoning behind it?
On a similar note, were the components used chosen specifically for particular reasons or were there bits and pieces lying around in your line of work and you thought "they'd work in my Ibiza!"?
Builds like this, mwstewart's, andygtt's and certain others fascinate me. Any chance of a full build write-up?!
A couple of questions, if you don't mind?
Was the choice of Ibiza deliberate, or was it a part finished project you picked up? If it was deliberate, what was the reasoning behind it?
On a similar note, were the components used chosen specifically for particular reasons or were there bits and pieces lying around in your line of work and you thought "they'd work in my Ibiza!"?
Builds like this, mwstewart's, andygtt's and certain others fascinate me. Any chance of a full build write-up?!
Back in 2000, i was looking for a new tarmac spec rally car to replace my Volvo: (which was destroyed in a multiple roll)
And pretty much just the engine was all that was left! I wanted something a bit more forgiving to drive than a mid engined car, and thought that front mid engine, rear transmission was a decent compromise. With a higher polar moment of inertia than a mid engined car for stability, but still enough mass on the back axle to get good accel from low vehicle speeds (critical in the tight twisty UK tarmac stage rallying). At the time, there were plenty of non-homologated classes for "homebuilt" specials, and several people had been doing very well up against the heavier GrpA 4x4 cars on tarmac.
As such, i wanted a compact car, that had short overhangs but a decently long wheelbase, and of course SEAT had some success with the FWD 2.0 Cupra in the 'Kitcar' class. So the search started for a suitable donor car.
I found a stolen recovered Ibiza 1.4 SXE 3 door, that had been a motability car, which the owner had unfortunately left the keys in the ignition at a petrol station, and some chancers had just driven it away! They had eventually run out of fuel, driven it into a field, broken a cigarette lighter over the rear seats, chucked in a match, slammed the door and done a runner. Unfortunately for them, and luckily for me, cars are pretty air tight these days, so after a few mins smouldering, the fire when out! The interior was heavily smoke damaged, hence the car was written off, but i knew all the interior was going in the bin, so for the princely sum of £1800 i had a 2 yo car, with less than 12k on the clock, and in perfect mechanical condition!
I immediately stripped the interior out, stuck in some bucket seats, and put on some big wheels to see how the car worked with more rubber on the road:
And the answer was of course, it was terrible! With std sized wheel houses and a narrow(ish) track, the car simply couldn't deal with any bumps at all, and had no wheel travel really. So i immediately knew that some serious surgery would be required. I actually drove the car for about a year like that, and weighing just 760kg even with 80hp it actually went reasonably well. During that time i formulated plans and started collecting parts for the grand design!
And pretty much just the engine was all that was left! I wanted something a bit more forgiving to drive than a mid engined car, and thought that front mid engine, rear transmission was a decent compromise. With a higher polar moment of inertia than a mid engined car for stability, but still enough mass on the back axle to get good accel from low vehicle speeds (critical in the tight twisty UK tarmac stage rallying). At the time, there were plenty of non-homologated classes for "homebuilt" specials, and several people had been doing very well up against the heavier GrpA 4x4 cars on tarmac.
As such, i wanted a compact car, that had short overhangs but a decently long wheelbase, and of course SEAT had some success with the FWD 2.0 Cupra in the 'Kitcar' class. So the search started for a suitable donor car.
I found a stolen recovered Ibiza 1.4 SXE 3 door, that had been a motability car, which the owner had unfortunately left the keys in the ignition at a petrol station, and some chancers had just driven it away! They had eventually run out of fuel, driven it into a field, broken a cigarette lighter over the rear seats, chucked in a match, slammed the door and done a runner. Unfortunately for them, and luckily for me, cars are pretty air tight these days, so after a few mins smouldering, the fire when out! The interior was heavily smoke damaged, hence the car was written off, but i knew all the interior was going in the bin, so for the princely sum of £1800 i had a 2 yo car, with less than 12k on the clock, and in perfect mechanical condition!
I immediately stripped the interior out, stuck in some bucket seats, and put on some big wheels to see how the car worked with more rubber on the road:
And the answer was of course, it was terrible! With std sized wheel houses and a narrow(ish) track, the car simply couldn't deal with any bumps at all, and had no wheel travel really. So i immediately knew that some serious surgery would be required. I actually drove the car for about a year like that, and weighing just 760kg even with 80hp it actually went reasonably well. During that time i formulated plans and started collecting parts for the grand design!
Max_Torque said:
Back in 2000, i was looking for a new tarmac spec rally car to replace my Volvo: (which was destroyed in a multiple roll)
And pretty much just the engine was all that was left! I wanted something a bit more forgiving to drive than a mid engined car, and thought that front mid engine, rear transmission was a decent compromise. With a higher polar moment of inertia than a mid engined car for stability, but still enough mass on the back axle to get good accel from low vehicle speeds (critical in the tight twisty UK tarmac stage rallying). At the time, there were plenty of non-homologated classes for "homebuilt" specials, and several people had been doing very well up against the heavier GrpA 4x4 cars on tarmac.
As such, i wanted a compact car, that had short overhangs but a decently long wheelbase, and of course SEAT had some success with the FWD 2.0 Cupra in the 'Kitcar' class. So the search started for a suitable donor car.
I found a stolen recovered Ibiza 1.4 SXE 3 door, that had been a motability car, which the owner had unfortunately left the keys in the ignition at a petrol station, and some chancers had just driven it away! They had eventually run out of fuel, driven it into a field, broken a cigarette lighter over the rear seats, chucked in a match, slammed the door and done a runner. Unfortunately for them, and luckily for me, cars are pretty air tight these days, so after a few mins smouldering, the fire when out! The interior was heavily smoke damaged, hence the car was written off, but i knew all the interior was going in the bin, so for the princely sum of £1800 i had a 2 yo car, with less than 12k on the clock, and in perfect mechanical condition!
I immediately stripped the interior out, stuck in some bucket seats, and put on some big wheels to see how the car worked with more rubber on the road:
And the answer was of course, it was terrible! With std sized wheel houses and a narrow(ish) track, the car simply couldn't deal with any bumps at all, and had no wheel travel really. So i immediately knew that some serious surgery would be required. I actually drove the car for about a year like that, and weighing just 760kg even with 80hp it actually went reasonably well. During that time i formulated plans and started collecting parts for the grand design!
I suspected that you started with an F2000/Kitcar Ibiza that already had the cage etc... building it from the ground up is hugely impressive! Superb.And pretty much just the engine was all that was left! I wanted something a bit more forgiving to drive than a mid engined car, and thought that front mid engine, rear transmission was a decent compromise. With a higher polar moment of inertia than a mid engined car for stability, but still enough mass on the back axle to get good accel from low vehicle speeds (critical in the tight twisty UK tarmac stage rallying). At the time, there were plenty of non-homologated classes for "homebuilt" specials, and several people had been doing very well up against the heavier GrpA 4x4 cars on tarmac.
As such, i wanted a compact car, that had short overhangs but a decently long wheelbase, and of course SEAT had some success with the FWD 2.0 Cupra in the 'Kitcar' class. So the search started for a suitable donor car.
I found a stolen recovered Ibiza 1.4 SXE 3 door, that had been a motability car, which the owner had unfortunately left the keys in the ignition at a petrol station, and some chancers had just driven it away! They had eventually run out of fuel, driven it into a field, broken a cigarette lighter over the rear seats, chucked in a match, slammed the door and done a runner. Unfortunately for them, and luckily for me, cars are pretty air tight these days, so after a few mins smouldering, the fire when out! The interior was heavily smoke damaged, hence the car was written off, but i knew all the interior was going in the bin, so for the princely sum of £1800 i had a 2 yo car, with less than 12k on the clock, and in perfect mechanical condition!
I immediately stripped the interior out, stuck in some bucket seats, and put on some big wheels to see how the car worked with more rubber on the road:
And the answer was of course, it was terrible! With std sized wheel houses and a narrow(ish) track, the car simply couldn't deal with any bumps at all, and had no wheel travel really. So i immediately knew that some serious surgery would be required. I actually drove the car for about a year like that, and weighing just 760kg even with 80hp it actually went reasonably well. During that time i formulated plans and started collecting parts for the grand design!
The main aim was to make one of these:
But with about twice the power!
As the regs stood in 2001/2, the min class weight (2wd) was 1060kg, so that gave a target to aim for, ideally being under 1000kg, so i could use the position of the MSA ballast as a handling trim. The engine, being forced induction attracted a 1.4x capacity multiplier, so 2.0 litres was the largest i could run, and a 38mm inlet restrictor was mandatory pre-compressor. This relatively large restrictor mean't just about 400bhp was possible, giving the turbo engines the edge over the high rpm N/A engines (Millingtons, NA YB's, XE's etc), and the potential for a much wider torque band. The problem with my current Renault engine is that it was difficult to make good top end power, without the mid range torque becoming so enormous and "sudden" that a 2wd car struggled to put it down.
Often, my previous rally car would wheelspin early, needing a throttle lift right at the moment peak power arrived, where a more progressive delivery would have resulted in an earlier higher longitudinal accel, and hence the rear tyres could have transmitted the peak power number to the ground. As such, i knew major engine revisions would be required, with a focus on moving the torque peak up the rev range, and developing a "driveable" engine. Key to this would be turbo, intake and EMS systems chosen, taking into account advances in electronic control for things like AntiLag and reduced gearshift duration.
Transmission wise, there was really only 1 architecture that would work, a sequential dog box. The problem with that was simply the cost of such a gearbox!
The plan to use genuine SEAT Kitcar parts came to nothing when costs were investigated. As the F2 regs required panels to be made from "original materials" the Kitcars used pressed steel wide arches, and SEAT sport wanted £1200 per corner..... (they had massive press tooling costs to recover!). Whilst that was just affordable once, given that rally cars spend quite a bit of time getting dented, it would not be a sustainable expense. This lead to a cheap, but time consuming process of doing my own Kevlar arches and panels!
Likewise, the F2 roll cage simply didn't work with my car, due to the positioning of things like the transmission tunnel, suspension turrets and engine orientation. As such, the cage in my car uses the genuine Safety Devices main cage "hoops" from the F2 cage, but all other tubes are custom to suit
Suspension wise, i knew the car needed good quality damping, but that ultimate cornering loads would be relatively low (heavy car, high CofG, Often low friction of "tarmac" surface), and that it would need to be very robust to withstand the rigures of rallying (kerbs, potholes, jumps, ditch hooking etc). This meant a simple Strut and wishbone style system at each corner was a good compromise, giving decent control of wheel paths without excessive complexity. It did mean that a high dynamic roll stiffness would be required however, as with struts, bodyroll is very nearly 1:1 with tyre camber change. As such, tuning the initial camber setting and the front rear ARB stiffness would be critical. At the time, there were a lot of people chopping in GrpA cars for the first of the hand-me-down WRC cars, and hence using suspension from those was a sensible move, FORD Escort GrpA/WRC uprights and dampers effectively. Whilst i wanted a low car to reduce the lateral mass transfer and that critical bodyroll, i wanted long wheel travel to "swallow" potholes, and drop into the bottoms of ditches/cambers etc. The aim was maximum traction at all times, even at the slight expense to pure handling. Hence the original Ibiza's wheel houses and damper turrets would need extensive revision to accommodate those movements. The final piece in the puzzle was to make the car as wide across the track as possible. This is a compromise between roll stiffness / low lateral mass transfer and agility. The typical UK tarmac stage rally can be quite tight in places, especially the artificial "bale" chicanes the organisers loved to put in to try slow us down a bit! As a purely tarmac car however, there were less concerns of "fitting into the ruts left by others" as in gravel rallying, so i knew i could go to a wider track then the dual surface F2 kitcars. To restore some low speed agility, a high ratio steering system would be required, and the hunt was on for a steering rack and system to deliver this with sufficient lateral stiffness / robustness.
So in summary the plan became:
Under 1 tonne, all the mass low and between the wheels, low ride height, but with lots of travel, ultra wide track, quick steering, high power at high rpm, sequential transmission.
Sounds easy doesn't it............ ;-)
Next - Get that angle grinder out !
But with about twice the power!
As the regs stood in 2001/2, the min class weight (2wd) was 1060kg, so that gave a target to aim for, ideally being under 1000kg, so i could use the position of the MSA ballast as a handling trim. The engine, being forced induction attracted a 1.4x capacity multiplier, so 2.0 litres was the largest i could run, and a 38mm inlet restrictor was mandatory pre-compressor. This relatively large restrictor mean't just about 400bhp was possible, giving the turbo engines the edge over the high rpm N/A engines (Millingtons, NA YB's, XE's etc), and the potential for a much wider torque band. The problem with my current Renault engine is that it was difficult to make good top end power, without the mid range torque becoming so enormous and "sudden" that a 2wd car struggled to put it down.
Often, my previous rally car would wheelspin early, needing a throttle lift right at the moment peak power arrived, where a more progressive delivery would have resulted in an earlier higher longitudinal accel, and hence the rear tyres could have transmitted the peak power number to the ground. As such, i knew major engine revisions would be required, with a focus on moving the torque peak up the rev range, and developing a "driveable" engine. Key to this would be turbo, intake and EMS systems chosen, taking into account advances in electronic control for things like AntiLag and reduced gearshift duration.
Transmission wise, there was really only 1 architecture that would work, a sequential dog box. The problem with that was simply the cost of such a gearbox!
The plan to use genuine SEAT Kitcar parts came to nothing when costs were investigated. As the F2 regs required panels to be made from "original materials" the Kitcars used pressed steel wide arches, and SEAT sport wanted £1200 per corner..... (they had massive press tooling costs to recover!). Whilst that was just affordable once, given that rally cars spend quite a bit of time getting dented, it would not be a sustainable expense. This lead to a cheap, but time consuming process of doing my own Kevlar arches and panels!
Likewise, the F2 roll cage simply didn't work with my car, due to the positioning of things like the transmission tunnel, suspension turrets and engine orientation. As such, the cage in my car uses the genuine Safety Devices main cage "hoops" from the F2 cage, but all other tubes are custom to suit
Suspension wise, i knew the car needed good quality damping, but that ultimate cornering loads would be relatively low (heavy car, high CofG, Often low friction of "tarmac" surface), and that it would need to be very robust to withstand the rigures of rallying (kerbs, potholes, jumps, ditch hooking etc). This meant a simple Strut and wishbone style system at each corner was a good compromise, giving decent control of wheel paths without excessive complexity. It did mean that a high dynamic roll stiffness would be required however, as with struts, bodyroll is very nearly 1:1 with tyre camber change. As such, tuning the initial camber setting and the front rear ARB stiffness would be critical. At the time, there were a lot of people chopping in GrpA cars for the first of the hand-me-down WRC cars, and hence using suspension from those was a sensible move, FORD Escort GrpA/WRC uprights and dampers effectively. Whilst i wanted a low car to reduce the lateral mass transfer and that critical bodyroll, i wanted long wheel travel to "swallow" potholes, and drop into the bottoms of ditches/cambers etc. The aim was maximum traction at all times, even at the slight expense to pure handling. Hence the original Ibiza's wheel houses and damper turrets would need extensive revision to accommodate those movements. The final piece in the puzzle was to make the car as wide across the track as possible. This is a compromise between roll stiffness / low lateral mass transfer and agility. The typical UK tarmac stage rally can be quite tight in places, especially the artificial "bale" chicanes the organisers loved to put in to try slow us down a bit! As a purely tarmac car however, there were less concerns of "fitting into the ruts left by others" as in gravel rallying, so i knew i could go to a wider track then the dual surface F2 kitcars. To restore some low speed agility, a high ratio steering system would be required, and the hunt was on for a steering rack and system to deliver this with sufficient lateral stiffness / robustness.
So in summary the plan became:
Under 1 tonne, all the mass low and between the wheels, low ride height, but with lots of travel, ultra wide track, quick steering, high power at high rpm, sequential transmission.
Sounds easy doesn't it............ ;-)
Next - Get that angle grinder out !
Edited by anonymous-user on Sunday 29th September 13:20
Zmaster2k said:
Where did you get some of the parts?! Want for my f7r!
Unfortunately, most of it is custom to my car.....Head gasket and Wills rings are from a Megane Ice Racer, Intake & exhaust valves / springing from the PeugeotSport Pikes peak Mi16 turbo, Con rods are "off the shelf" Arrow, throttle bodies are from Jenvey, Cam vernier wheels from KentCams.
Everything else is custom to my engine!
We have hugely different ideas of "easy", but this is more impressive everytime it's updated. 
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