RetroPug's Ph.1 Diablo Gti-6

[RetroPug]

Thank you for the kind words.

There's still so much I want to do to this!

[Xsikid]

Thank you for the kind words.

There's still so much I want to do to this!

Have to agree with the comments on here bud she looks just about perfect

[RetroPug]

Thank you, the pictures are kind to it though; it is getting the dreaded diablo lacquer peel.

[Orta]

Don't sell the old girl short, she looks just as good in flesh. I'm missing FCS this year, but hoping to nab a passenger ride or two with you at pugfest again please!!

[Xsikid]

Thank you, the pictures are kind to it though; it is getting the dreaded diablo lacquer peel.

I have a Diablo xsi that was awful when I got it, had her sprayed up a and it lasted about 7 years, she still looks fab but am breaking it for parts now

[RetroPug]

Thank you, the pictures are kind to it though; it is getting the dreaded diablo lacquer peel.

I have a Diablo xsi that was awful when I got it, had her sprayed up a and it lasted about 7 years, she still looks fab but am breaking it for parts now

Yeah a respray is planned for the distant future, but not in the short term.

Don't sell the old girl short, she looks just as good in flesh. I'm missing FCS this year, but hoping to nab a passenger ride or two with you at pugfest again please!!

Cheers mate, it's all reacted over this winter sadly, still looks good but up close you can see the lacquer is lifting. Yeah just jump in.

[RetroPug]

A helmet and a set of these have arrived:

[RetroPug]

I had a crack welded up on my rear silencer, they charged me next to nothing so wasn't worth the hassle and expense of going and buying SS wire and gas etc. While it was there I asked them to chop off the silenced tailpipe of the scorpion silencer and weld on an outwardly rolled tip that I'd purchased.

I then polished the exhaust and refitted everything with a crushable sealing ring between the silencer and using lots of copper silicone high temp gasket maker to assemble the exhaust. It sounds so much better than before with no crack and no gas coming from any of the joints. I imagine de-silencing the tailpipe has also had an effect. At the same time I put new rear ABS sensors on the car.

The gf and I went for a spin in the sunny weather.



Tailpipe looks odd from this angle but in the metal it looks pretty good.

[ozonehostile]

Looking great as ever

[Piggy]

Nice choice of rubber

[RetroPug]

A bit of an update:

First off, a picture of the new rear beam fitted. The underside of this car will be getting a proper tidy up once I get somewhere indoors to work on it.



Once I had the new tyres fitted, it was time to do a sprint day!

Unfortunately, having removed the Uniroyal Rainsport 3s, it was absolutely chucking it down at the start of the day. This meant that for quite a lot of the morning I was sliding around all over the place and not going very quickly at all on the cold Yokohama AD08Rs on soaking wet tarmac, with various types of tarmac with varying levels of grip thrown into the mix as well:







Fortunately, towards the middle of the day the track dried up, and I'd now learned the rather confusing layout and had begun to get an idea of how to drive it. I began getting quicker times pretty much every time I went out and did a lap in the car, getting quicker and more confident all the time:





The car felt quite simply excellent. The Yokohama AD06Rs are a good tyre for sprints as they grip well even without much heat in them in the dry, and they felt very linear and predictable. The new rear beam, fitted with new mounts felt great, with the back end oversteering controllably pretty much when I wanted it to rather than catching me by surprise. I was really enjoying myself and although there were some corners I still wasn't taking as well as I hoped, there were some on which I was approaching the limits of the car and going very quickly through:



All of this enjoyment came at a price however, as my oil temperatures were getting extremely high even after just one run. Also, as the day moved into the afternoon, my car started getting louder and rougher sounding. This was because the outlet pipe on my catalyst had split again where it had been welded. This was a bit of a setback, especially as the sun had come out and the tarmac was beginning to warm up, and more importantly I was really getting into a groove and getting much quicker every lap. I decided to call it a day and go home as I didn't want the exhaust to split completely before the drive back, and because it was getting a bit frustrating waiting for the oil to cool for a long time between runs.

Overall, it was a fantastic day given that it was essentially a shakedown for the car after having a new rear beam fitted with new mounts, a new set of tyres, and it being the first time it had been driven in anger at all other than 4 runs at Pugfest last year.

Since doing this sprint day a little while ago I had ordered and taken delivery of a 12" SPAL pull fan to go on the back of the radiator, just awaiting a fitting kit now. This will allow me to fit the oil cooler setup I've had stored away for ages. I have also ordered another catalyst which I intend to modify. I've also been painting a replacement set of cam covers, and have removed a few other engine bay components in order to repaint them. This crusty pipe which has been cable-tied out of the way also got a tidy up, only got a before picture for that so far though:



I have also been refurbishing a spare set of genuine wishbones. These will have all new bushes fitted: lemforder front ones and genuine berlingo p-bushes. That's about it for now, just need to fix it before Pugfest!

[ozonehostile]

Such a great looking car from all angles, I highly rate the oil cooler on mine, it just sits at 90 now, even at pugfest last year with 4 runs in a row +queuing in the sun

[Piggy]

Looking good...shame about oil temps...what were they hitting?
Surprised you struggled with the AD08Rs in the wet...I found them to be epic in wet conditions...
What pressures did you set them at?

[Dum-Dum]

Looking gorgeous mate.

[RetroPug]

Thanks all. I love this car to bits.

I was getting 115degrees according to the gauge I have. It is worth noting that this is an aftermarket gauge, so although it is mounted in the tapped hole in the sump where the standard oil temp. gauge would be on a later gti6, it may not give precisely the same readings. It seems accurate so far though. It would have gotten even higher if I did more runs back to back, it is only a short sprint.

I have a twin oil-cooler system with a mocal thermostat waiting to go on. The fitting kit has now arrived as well.

I was running 32psi in the hope that they'd get a bit of heat in them and the pressure would raise but I didn't get enough runs in due to high temps & stopping early to really experiment with this. I don't think they were getting hot enough though due to the short track & the fact that I couldn't do lots of runs in a go because of the oil, so I'll probably increase the pressure for next time. To be fair it wasn't the grippiest of tarmac anyway, and they really weren't awful in the wet, it is just a very technical, windy course so lots of rapid direction changes and late apexes means it is very easy to break traction even in the dry!

[Piggy]

Ahhhh...
You were thinking the wrong way...need to drop the pressures...
This allows the tyre to move about more...plus science...which heats up and will increase the tyre pressure.
So for instance, I dropped the fronts on mine down to 22psi at combe...after one long run out...came in and they were at 36psi.

Need to find a sweet spot where by once they are up to temp they hit the right psi.

---

I wouldnt be aiming for much more than 32psi either for track use imho

---

(once up to temp)

[RetroPug]

Ahhhh...
You were thinking the wrong way...need to drop the pressures...
This allows the tyre to move about more...plus science...which heats up and will increase the tyre pressure.
So for instance, I dropped the fronts on mine down to 22psi at combe...after one long run out...came in and they were at 36psi.

Need to find a sweet spot where by once they are up to temp they hit the right psi.

---

I wouldnt be aiming for much more than 32psi either for track use imho

---

(once up to temp)

Yes, but if you are driving for a very short amount of time and then stopping after that run you reach a point where no matter how low the pressure is, you can't get enough heat in the tyres I'd have thought. For track use on a full circuit doing multiple laps I agree, but on point to point sprints and hillclimbs that last between 1 and 1.5 minutes max? I'm not so sure.

[Stef205]

nitrogen filling reduces pressure increase.

[Piggy]

nitrogen filling reduces pressure increase.

Yeah I've heard this too

[Stef205]

i had it in mine for ages now, was set a 26psi still bang on

[Piggy]

i had it in mine for ages now, was set a 26psi still bang on

What about after hard track use, air temps being around 24/25?

[Stef205]

not sure about track session but ill let you know after my roller session tho

[RetroPug]

I've been freshening things up in the engine bay. Eventually my plan is to have everything on the entire car refreshed and looking as new, but that will have to wait until I have somewhere indoors to store and work on the car. It's still miles away from where I want it but at least it looks alright for now.

My heatshield was in remarkably good condition given the state of some of the ones I've seen on other 306s and given that mine is a relatively old 306:



Nevertheless, it still needed to be more shiny, like this:



I've also been painting a spare set of cam covers, along with various engine compartment brackets. I fitted all of these today along with the now gold heatshield.




Finally, my exhaust has a sleeved fitting between the catalyst and the centre-section. Remebering my previous update, I said I'd snapped the outlet pipe of my catalyst on a sprint day, this had actually already been repaired once by an exhaust shop, plus this also happened on an old 306 of mine.

So, I got a spare catalyst so that I could modify this in order to simply exchange it for the broken one on the car at work where I have access to a ramp, which looked like this (picture from for sale advert):



Not only do I need a sleeve fitment, but I needed to prevent this cat from snapping in the same place as all the others. This was the solution I made:



Theoretically the flexi should have some give in it which should reduce the stresses in the rest of the catalyst assembly. The seam to the left of the flexi was a weld which was already on the flexi when I bought it. All that remains is to fit the new cat, and cut the centre section a bit shorter to match it and then I am ready for Pugfest.

[Dum-Dum]

Great idea on the cat.
I reckon group n mounts would also help as they reduce engine movement.

[RetroPug]

Yeah agreed. The engine mounts on mine are original, they are definitely on the list of things to refresh.

[RetroPug]

2-3 weeks ago I fit the cat with the flexi, shortening the centre section a little bit to compensate for the fact that the cat was now longer. This is now working great with no leaks or cracks etc. anywhere in the exhaust which is much nicer.

I now have a 12" slimline fan as my main fan which runs off of the standard wiring & relay. I have also fitted a 10" fan which I plan to wire to a manual switch (possibly through a relay?). It has a wire earthing the negative, and a positive wire which I have routed somewhere I can get to it for now. This allowed me enough room to fit a twin oil-cooler system. I've run it up to temperature, I didn't get 80c on the gauge but the oil coolers got very hot and the level sensor reads the oil level as having dropped. I have now put the car back together and all I need to do is top the oil up when the car is stone cold.



This should keep the oil temperature down when abusing this on sprint days and track days etc.

I really need to do something about the crusty PAS cooler pipes....another thing on the list!