newbie from northern ireland

[jameskfg]

hi everyone, 

i joined this forum so i could share my 306 with other members and to get ideas, opinions and advice on different mods and jobs that i will be carrying out on my car. i have a kingfisher green 1996 dturbo's which i bought in england and brought back to northern ireland during january of 2017. The car had 120k on her when i bought it and it was mechanically sound, FSH and tax book came with the car, not one problem with the engine and a year on i still havent had one bit of bother. although it had no front bumper, and almost every panel was dented. i spent nearly 6 months of work, sourcing the correct parts, fixing panels which could be fixed and giving the full car a fresh new coat of paint, as well as changing oil, oil filter, air filter,  diesel filter and timing belt etc just for peace of mind. 

since its mot at the start of july 2017, i have done quite a bit to it including;

• orange side indicator covers to new clear ones
  
• HID's 
  
• 60mm lowering springs
  
• torsion bar 3 nicks
  
• laguna vented splitter
  
• 3 leg spoiler
  
• full tints apart from windscreen, which has 30cm sunstrip 
  
• sticker on front windscreen and 2 on the back window
  
• rear wiper delete
  
• decat, dummy box and 3.5" angled tip
  
• metro plates
  
• set of volcanes on low profile hankook tires
  
• k&n induction kit with cone air filter
  

i still have a few things in the garage that i need to put on such as an oil catch can, a front mount intercooler, a quickshifter and a td04 from a scubby. however with some of these i will need help and advice from this forum, such as whats the best way to pipe the intercooler and is it better to go with a 406/xantia manifold or just weld together an adaptor...

anyways im sure i will find the answers to my questions on here, so ill share with use a few pictures of my car.. 
                                       

[Mighty306]

Welcome along.  Respray really does looks very nice & seems you've put in a fair bit of work to the rest of the car.

It does look waaay too low at the back though, even if that is your thing.  I'm sure I've seen others comment on here that if anything you want the back slightly higher than the front for the handling to be OK.

Just a warning to keep an eye on the rear axle now too.  The 'nick' method of lowering the rear suspension is often blamed on various forums for the early demise of the tube bearings, but maybe you knew that & were prepared to take the risk.

[jameskfg]

Welcome along.  Respray really does looks very nice & seems you've put in a fair bit of work to the rest of the car.

It does look waaay too low at the back though, even if that is your thing.  I'm sure I've seen others comment on here that if anything you want the back slightly higher than the front for the handling to be OK.

Just a warning to keep an eye on the rear axle now too.  The 'nick' method of lowering the rear suspension is often blamed on various forums for the early demise of the tube bearings, but maybe you knew that & were prepared to take the risk.

Thanks for taking the time to respond, i appreciate it Mighty306! 

yeah i know it does sit quite low at the back, as it is the look im going for, although i just need to get the front slightly lower (without cutting springs). handling seems decent enough even though it is so low, apart from the continuous bumping up and down and hard ride it isnt too bad. im not one for really horsing these cars on the roads as i know that they can be quite unstable when so low, although one thing i have noticed when i do put the foot down, is that it does understeer in tight corners. 

i was aware of doing the 'nick' method, by myself could be potentially destroying the back axle over time, i weighed up my options before lowering it and i decide just to go ahead and do it because when i got the car it was completely standard and by the looks of the axle and comments made my an mot inspector when she was up for her years ticket it had never been lowered before, which is why i went ahead and did it as i assumed it would be able to withstand the strain put on it when it was lowered.

[joshtorrens5455]

Unreal car [emoji85], from NI myself


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[jameskfg]

Unreal car [emoji85], from NI myself


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Cheers lad! Any pictures of your car? Will you be for the cruise in Antrim on Saturday night?

[joshtorrens5455]

Unreal car [emoji85], from NI myself


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Cheers lad! Any pictures of your car? Will you be for the cruise in Antrim on Saturday night?

Nile blue 98 ph2

No license yet so won't be near it unfortunately



Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Mighty306]

Well, seems like you know what you're doing James.  Having lowered it I'm sure you are capable of stripping the beam down if you need to.  If you ever need advice for that or anything else it won't be far away on this site.  It's been a bit quiet on since Xmas but I'm sure it'll pick up again soon enough.

Did you do the respray yourself btw? The paintwork on my car is looking pretty shabby these days so needs attention.  Any knowledge/experience you have would be much appreciated.

[jameskfg]

Well, seems like you know what you're doing James.  Having lowered it I'm sure you are capable of stripping the beam down if you need to.  If you ever need advice for that or anything else it won't be far away on this site.  It's been a bit quiet on since Xmas but I'm sure it'll pick up again soon enough.

Did you do the respray yourself btw? The paintwork on my car is looking pretty shabby these days so needs attention.  Any knowledge/experience you have would be much appreciated.

Yeah , i am coming up to installing an intercooler very soon. Have the intercooler bought, i am waiting on silicone hoses and pipework to arrive although i think i will need a bit of advice on what is the best way to route the pipe work and if it is better to go the cheaper way of getting an adaptor made up for where the old TMIC sits or should i go with an xantia/405 inlet manifold? 

I unfortunately cant help you with this one, as i didn't do the respray myself. A good friend of mine was able to do all the work regarding fixing the bodywork and paint. Looking back now, it was a great job, although if i were to go back and do it again i would have done the respray myself and saved the money even though it would have taking me longer to do. 

A friend of mine had a silver ph3 hdi and he decided to go for a respray himself, in all it took him nearly a month due to working and other commitments. He spent around a week and a half preparing the car; stripping it down, removing parts, tapping up and sanding etc. I am sure there will be forums and guides online which will be able to help you with the preparation side of things.

As far as the actual spraying side of things goes, you will need a good enclosed space like a garage or shed which is dust free. my mate put sheets up everywhere so that it would reduce dust etc as much as possible. I guess you would need a good source of heat for the paint to settle properly. If you know anyone who has a compressor that you could lend would probably be your best bet if you didn't have one yourself and didn't want to spend the money on one. If you got your hands on one, you will need a spray gun and then go to a local motorfactors and they should be able to make you up paint depending of whatever paint code your looking for. 

I don't know exactly everything that is involved in this process but if you were going to go ahead and do it i would make sure you do your research and try get as much information, advice and guides on how to do it incase the car ends up in a worse way than it did when you started. Hopefully this helped a bit, i know its not very detailed but im not really experienced with doing this sort of thing.