306 GTi-6 China Blue

[eliotrw]

Heres a few photos of my car.
Had it over two years now and still loving it.
Not much to bring up to speed with but heres the details.
Photo of it when I got it home and cleaned it
Note I have since refurbed the lights which i will upload a photo of soon.


I bought it at 88k from Carl Grimsley (CGCars of leicester) He'd given it a lot of tlc after it was off the road for a year. Anyway on the 12th September 2010 I drove it home from Leicester and loved it since its really is a true drivers car and there is so much feel to the steering you know exactly what is going on with the front end and can point it and it just digs in, Still puts a huge smile on my face.
However since ive had it the suspension has now seen much better days, and now im no longer a student I can treat it a bit.
It gave me 26k of trouble free motoring nearly but a bit of past neglect from previous owners has start to catch up with it so mechanically it needs a little work.

Since then its had new gti6 badges on the doors and some had new (albeit depo) fogs.

I've done quite a few little jobs to it,
New fuel 90 degree pipe (My least favourite 3-4 hours of my life),
Attempted and failed fitting the hybrid arb as the tear shape part of the beam was properly fused to the old arb. More on that later...
Fitted a Billet crank pulley
The new fogs as said (WHICH WAS A PAIN)
New aerial and base
Bought a new 6 speed gear nob to freshen up the interior
Made myself steel chocks for the upper engine mount and replaced the rubber bush with a new one too (now much nicer to drive with zero play in the engine bay)
New injector seals
Serviced it several times with Fuchs motorsport oil
New radiator mounts
A few new sensors and electrical bits
RetroFitted very late Peugeot 306 hdi tweeters in the mirror blanks (now so much better audio wise!!!)

However now im starting to accumulate the stuff I need to completely rebuild the suspension front and back.

As it stands its only going to be left with the hub uprights and front arb and arb bushes (those are poly as standard)

The set up will be as follows and is all purchased.
Bits i've got:
New peugeot Top Mounts and bearings
New 79mm bumpstops (these are from a 206 gti and are about 25mm shorter than gti6 ones to account for the drop in ride height )
New dustcovers for shocks
New Peugeot 306 estate/xsara vts torsion bars 21mm (only 1mm thicker but 20% stiffer.)
Hybrid arb (the biggest you can fit without beamtube machining)
Baker BM mounts Solid ones (to remove rear steer)
Phillip M lower strut brace (twice as thick as other aftermarket ones. with more ground clearance)
Peugeot 205 forest spec challenge Bilstein Rear dampers

Secret weapon
C2R2 Brake adaptors and bolts
Magnesium 4pot brembo calipers from a Citroen C2R2 Rally car.
These calipers weigh 2.8kg each versus the standsrd calipers at 6kg.
So a 6kg reduction in unsprung weight (and thats before you count for the gains from alloy bells and rotors)
Lemforder droplinks
New track rod ends and rods (Lemforder)
New wishbones

Bits I need still:
Most likely a Bilstein B12 pro kit (Inculdes front B8 shocks with eibach -30mm springs)
A Refurbed beam built with the above TB's, Rear shocks mounts and ARB

I hope to fit all of this at once after christmas which will certainly help.

Thought I would freshen up the spoiler with the plastidip I bought the other day,
while i was there I coated the mounts a few times too as well as the hybrid arb.

Before:


After:


Mounts upclose:



Some bits for my new Struts

Edited by eliotrw on Tuesday 27th November 23:21

[eliotrw]

So further bringing this up to date i fitted some group n gear rods which have made the changesooo direct and to coin a over used phrase "riflebolt"

And then this happened....
So i noticed since moving to london in the summer the heat and traffic highlighted an issue with the fan operation.
They were intermittent and also they full speed would kick in very late on occasion.
I managed to work around this for a while but eventually it developed early head gasket signs.
Pressurised coolant
Bit of mayo
Etc etc
So I wanted to nip this in the but and enlisted the help of a guy on the owners club

After a chat I discussed the issues with him and we decided that as i wanted to charge the car i might as well get the head off fit it with a better gasket. Give it a new belt and refurb all the seals and tappets etc.
So i dropped it off to him for a few weeks for all the above and also..
A new aluminium rad and thermostat.
And Mot..

WOW!
Lets just say all 167hp are present and accounted for.
It runs far cooler, he's sorted out the timing and now there is way more power everywhere well worth everypenny.

Now the engine is set, its on to the brakes and suspension fitting.
All so that we have the ideal base for a Low boost (8psi supercharged Gti6)
Should be good for 0-60 in 5.5
0-100 in high 12s
250-270 horses.

[Ordinary_Chap]

Awesome work! It's good to see such a great car being restored and upgraded.

I had a Rallye and loved it and prior to that I had a DTS.

Lee

[FELIX_5]

Nice car, good thread, but we need more pics.......!

[C.A.R.]

Have you read the turbocharged GTi6 thread here on our club forum? (OK it's a Mi16 block but nevertheless)

I had a China Blue '6, bought from the same chap. I know what a pain it is to replace fogs, did you take the bumper off? It makes life a lot easier and is worth the hassle.

Unfortunately I wrote mine off in the wet after being cut-up by a van driver, promptly followed by an argument with the armco which I lost. I'm now on my 4th 306 though, albeit a diesel model. I just love how they steer and they're now so incredibly cheap!