Hello, some of you may have seen me around, and may be aware I bought a car from here not long ago.

To those that don't know, I bought this car.

I've been involved with my local motorsport club for a while now, entering (but not competing seriously) in the local road rallies and enjoying the scene. I've discovered my little Honda is a bit fragile for this sort of thing (were rallying will take you down bridle paths that most people wouldn't normally consider) and as I want to do more serious events (endurance rallying with proper offroad stages - limited to 1400cc max engine size), I decided I wanted a purpose built rally car. I looked at what options were about, and came to the conclusion that either a Rover 25/200 1.4 or a VW Polo 16v (100bhp) was the car to go for (with the polo being the preferred car - lighter, with better reliability).

Before I could start, I had to pave over an area of my back yard, so my project began turning this (on tuesday 19th may)

into this (sat 30th may)

With that chore out of the way, I organised a trailer and went down to deepest surrey and collected the future rally car...

And since I got the car, I've gutted the interior (all in the loft space of my garage) and now she looks like this inside

A few jobs to do before she's ready, including sorting the gearbox out as it whines something terrible.

Remove all sound deadening material

Engine out, new clutch and gearbox rebuild

Weld in panel where the sunroof is

Remove Fuel tank

Weld in roll cage

Refit headlining, carpet, rear seats and dashboard (as well as interior loom)

Re-route fuel lines and brake lines inside the car

Fit electrical cutout switch

Refit engine and gearbox

Fit sump and tank guard, add protection for exhaust

Fit suitable suspension (diesel shocks up front?)

Fit front seats (buckets or stocks - not decided yet) and four point harnesses

Fit fire extinguisher (Don't need to have a plumbed in type unless I also use it for circuit racing - which I may do as a stock hatch car)

Go racing!

As part of the regs, I have to retain door cards, dashboard, headlining and carpet, as well as utilising the engine as found in the car and logged in the V5, transmission has to be the one that came with the car (meaning I can't change the gearbox for another type, ie a 6 spd job from a lupo sport) exhaust is free from the cat back, suspension is free, but I have to use OEM pickup points. Front seats are free, rear seats must be retained (although they may be cut to fit around any roll cage/safety devices)

I'll probably update this as I go along with things if anyone's interested :-D

Edited 6 November, 201114 yr by majic79

I'm sure everyone will like to see how this goes.

Keep us updated.

sounds good

Looks like a pretty cool project keep us updated!

ahh... refreshing to see a 'proper' build thread! no disrespect to the low and slow crew but this is more up my street!

I want to try and keep costs below £1000 - so the car's cost me £200, roll cage is going to be around £600, leaving me with £200 to rebuild the gearbox and get some 4 point harnesses. Should be do-able, but tight!

Not too sure about the radically redesigned front bumper....must have taken some time to make....

lol...

Yesssss :) looking forward to watching this...

I love the ones where people modify their gardens to accomodate cars!

looks like a nice project mate! Not so sure about the £1k budget though, surely if you're going to enter in proper events you'll be needing a professionally fitted roll cage and a plumbed in fire extinguisher system etc...? Good luck with it though. Make sure you keep us updated with progress.

Roll cage is around £600 - I'm stripping the car's interior out so that I can get it fitted (I work with guys that have fitted these before and passed scrutineering no problem), and I don't need a plumbed in fire extinguisher, just need a hand held AFFF 1.75kg job in the cockpit for the navigator. Not sure about Stock hatch racing, that may need a plumbed in job, but I'll worry about that for the start of the next season

mate seriously, if you make that into a stock hatch car, i will not only love you but be your mechanic also, i love stock hatch and have always loved the thought a 6n in it!

Thanks mate, I appreciate the offer, I may even take you up on it!

So this weekend was pretty quiet on the car, I had other things to work on (party preparations and general drinking - I'm now an old fart at 30)

Today I had a stinking hangover, so I tried some mechanical therapy......

I got sunburn and the front fell off

are you doing tarmac rallying, the type that is often done on MOD gound? i saw a mk1 fiesta done on a budget of £1500 (including buying the car) that entered in that and that was sweeet!

i am verrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrry interested in the sump guard build...

i was thinking about doing the same.... take lotsa picks:)

good luck, you soundlike my kinda car guy... a driver.

lots of interesting bits going on here!

looks good, but can i just ask, if you're rallying it then why are you putting headlining carpets and rear seats back in?

If you read his posts you will see that the disipline he is going to enter requires him to leave them in.

looks good, but can i just ask, if you're rallying it then why are you putting headlining carpets and rear seats back in?

If you read his posts you will see that the disipline he is going to enter requires him to leave them in.

Required by technical regs for the series. I think Stock hatch requires you retain the same parts as well. Also not allowed to have sponsorship decals all over the place, must be a uniform colour all over (or the original colour scheme - so I should have gone for a Harlequin 16v!) and the only logo allowed is original badges and logo on the sun strip if I apply one

Planning on having two sets of suspension, remove the under guards and low stiff suspension for Stock hatch racing, Van or Diesel struts for rallying. Been seriously considering doing a long distance enduro as well, sounds like a right hoot!

Not been much progress recently as I've been working on a mates ex-works skoda favorit which has recently received a newer (and hopefully much more reliable) 1.6 MPI after the 1.3 carb job blew up when someone forgot to tighten a banjo bolt oil feed (not me!)

are you doing tarmac rallying, the type that is often done on MOD gound? i saw a mk1 fiesta done on a budget of £1500 (including buying the car) that entered in that and that was sweeet!

If it's on MOD ground it usually sprinting - and then it's anything goes as long as you abide by regs. I have a friend who does the Toyota sprint series in a 900cc Aygo

Endurance is part public roads navigational rallying, part offroad staged rallying (so may encompass MOD ground as it's technically private and offroad)

ohh ok, makes more sense now. sounds like a lot of fun good luck with it

does sound a right hoot. I'd be tempted to enter my bready if it werent a 1043cc

You could enter it - I went for the 1400 purely because this one was so cheap, it was as much as the regs allowed and (after been boosted around in my first project car) I want more POWA!

There's 3 classes, Sub 1000, 1000-1300 and up to 1400, I think you're just outside the 2.5% limit on the classes, so you wouldn't be able to compete in the lowest class, but you could enter in the 1000-1300 class

EDIT: Progress update - driveshafts removed, everything decoupled from engine and it's all ready to lift, but rain stopped play

Edited 4 June, 200917 yr by majic79

I need to make a decision on the roll cage - I like the look of the custom cages rollcage, but it's weld in only. The OMP cage is only an RAC homologated cage and so may not pass muster with the MSA/FIA (they do FIA certified cages, but not for the Polo it seems) and is either Bolt in (and doesn't look as robust as the Custom Cages one) or CroMo weld in (but they have a lifetime and are a pain to weld). The Sparco cage is bolt in only and looks even flimsier (but does have an FIA cert), but does meet the minimum spec for Rallying, although I'm not sure about it's use in Stock Hatch

Would anyone like to venture opinions on the cages? I'm swaying towards this one from custom cages:

http://www.customcages.co.uk/Rollcage/Load...type=Multipoint

Think I'll go for the Custom Cages Polo roll cage, it's the business - if I crash, I'd like to be able to walk away from it, and it'd have to be a serious crash to bend the car so bad it's not repairable, so weld in is the way forward (plus it's stronger)

removed the engine and gearbox today, as well as made a start on removing the bitumen crap - and with a gentle application of heatgun and gasket scraper, it all came off surprisingly easily. 5.1Kg's of crap removed so far (I'm going to weigh everything that doesn't go back in - if I can save 50kg's, then that's the weight of the rollcage!)

I also split the gearbox from the engine - it's bloody tiny! My other car's diff weighs more than that does!

Pics to come...