Project_5AXO - Reliving my youth!

[Evo Sean]

Car is ready for collection now. I've asked the body shop to get a screen dropped in for me. Saves me the hassle of doing it at home.
My poly rear window will arrive today, surprisingly cheap at £100 delivered.

Bodyshop have dropped on the doors and boot, transporting them without scratching them is near impossible so it made sense to get them hung on the car.

Probably the final pictures i'll get before it comes home on Friday lunch time. Weather looks dry too.





The eagle eyed among you will notice the tail gate has been debadged, annoyingly on Saxo's Citroen drill holes into the boot lid and the badges have pins to locate them. Those have been welded up. Additionally, because I don't have a rear wiper or washer the jet hole has been welded up. Also got rid of the aerial hole on the roof too as I won't run any audio in the car at all. I wouldn't say it's been smoothed as such, just tidied up!

How she sits today waiting for the screen to go in:







Again, the bodyshop have been epic! I sent them a mess, a car that has sat in the murder tent for 2 years, in the garage for another year, never washed, rusty patches, dented, high spots, low spots, you name it, this car had it! They've done an amazing job! Highly recommended and the price I've paid wasn't as bad as you might think.

[Robb F]

Looks great.

Won't be long until the first onboard video of it in action I expect?

[Evo Sean]

Yeah won't be long. Will take me a week to put it back together.
Will have a little look at the firing on 3 cylinders, i suspect it's a fouled plug
The only tricky bit to overcome will be insurance valuation.

[Jake899]

As someone with a S2 Rallye bare shell just gone up on my rotisserie, i really appreciated reading this thread, thanks a ton.

[MrBig]

Looks awesome, always liked Saxos, such a shame theres hardly any left now.

Great choice of wheel too, are they Compomotive MOs?

[Evo Sean]

MrBig said:

Looks awesome, always liked Saxos, such a shame theres hardly any left now.

Great choice of wheel too, are they Compomotive MOs?

Yes, Comp MO1675. 16" x 7J.

Have never seen another set for sale in 4x108 fitment in 16". As soon as I saw these i grabbed em. Really rare.

Right....reassembly has begun. Firstly, car on the way back from the body shop. Just used a local guy, not bad at £60 for a 30min drive.



Back on the drive. I'd arranged for a Friday lunch collection allowing my the afternoon and 2 days over the weekend to make a good dent into it;



Made short work of getting the rear end put together:



Then onto some of the front end, wings, bonnet, grill etc







And then the tricky front bumper, its such a tight fit with the intercooler and exhaust.



Moved the car inside to get the rear screen started:



Just waiting on my black hardware to arrive for the screen to get bolted down. I've blacked the edge as it comes 100% clear. Using damming tape on the inside to seal.

Also got my arch trims all sorted. Had to rebind on the metal clips then used new plastic trim clips to attach to the vehicle.



Only a few bits left to do now:

Indicators and bulbs
Wiper blades
Refit door cards x4
Rear windows back in
Fill screen fluid
Find a new clip for my bonnet stay

Then it's pretty much done. However.....I've hit a major hurdle and I'm now regretting some choices. As you'll be aware, the exhaust I made isn't road legal. As I've explained before, it got me running and to the dyno. Plus it sounds epic! However, I always hoped an MOT would be achievable if the right person was engaged. Sadly, it seems everyone "knows a guy" apart from me and no-one is willing to do it. Fair enough.

So it looks like my road legal system is going to have to happen much sooner than planned. The reason for the time sensitive aspect is a house move. I need to drive the car to the new house in around 4weeks time. I really don't want to pay for another transport.

To speed up this progress I'm going to cut up my bumper exit system as the tricky top half is all present and correct and it's ceramic coated where it matters. What that does mean is a gaping hole in the bumper. So at some point i'll have to patch that or replace the bumper. Not great but with hindsight I wish I'd done a proper exhaust months ago. Plus I'll need to hit the dyno again to check the maps are ok on a different exhaust. Hoping this is minimal if the first 2feet are carry over.

More to follow...

[Evo Sean]

Next episode, for some reason this was a really popular one! I still haven't figured out how to YouTube properly and get consistent view numbers!

[Evo Sean]

This is it then....after 3 years and 4 months of hard work, sweat, actual blood (scars to prove) it's time to drive it for the first time.
Car is insured through Adrian Flux, all mods declared, Just waiting on the agreed valuation stuff.
I can legally drive to the MOT station without an MOT and tax so that's what Im gonna do.

But before that, it needs to be MOT ready. I need a catalyst and an MOT friendly tune. To that end i've build myself a full exhaust system, 3", single silencer at the back, centre exit, downturned tip:



I also had an hour with Emerald support to fine tune the idle lambda to get closer to lambda 1 for the emissions test.

Anyway....proof is in the pudding, here's the video of the first ever drive since I bought the car!



Plenty of work to do now;

Chassis tags - easy
Clutch adjustment - Looks like I've set it up all wrong
Brake bedding in, maybe a bleed. Worst case strip the calipers apart.
Real world based calibration improvements - booked in.
Dial in some toe out to remove some torque steer 0.5mm perhaps
Find out why I have neutral camber on one side and fix that.