Niall's 2000 306 XS A.K.A Craig

[Atterz]

As above, the pistons from what ive been told should be fine regardless, compression should be dropped by shortening the rods, again from what ive been told and should be H-beam/I-beam and thicker due to boost being used.

[Niall]

I did have a chat with Ruan about it in another 1.8 slating thread and he reckons you should be able to get about 10psi out of it on the original internals but tbh I haven't done any serious research into it. First thing is finding a insurer! (although iirc AF do it on a bhp basis and not mod basis).
After fcs when I've got more funds I will start seriously looking into if it's worth doing for the cost.

[Niall]

Payday has arrived
Will be going to pick up all new discs and pads and a water pump this evening and new lowering springs have been ordered so hopefully next weekend my car will no longer be tractor height!

[Ruan]

Just FYI - Stock everything I would expect 250hp... The rods are shorter, so less purchase to bend them... Pistons might be a problem, but I doubt they'll be too bad - just keep an eye on AFRs and it'll be fine... They have cooling jets so they aren't too bad anyway...

You'll probably find you might have to drop the compression... Decomp plates are fine as long as you use 2 decent head gaskets either side... If you're keeping stock compression, drop that to about 6-7psi of boost and 200hp... I would however seriously recommend you look into decomping it, however...

I don't know how well the stock liners will cope, I'm going to assume fairly OK, Honda boys don't have problems 'till way past 400hp and their liners aren't exactly the most impressive... Volvo whiteblocks are also liner'd and don't really have many problems... So just keep an eye basically...

[Niall]

f*cking ECP have messed me about again! Went to pick up my discs, pads and water pump and they didn't have the water pump even though I ordered it on Wednesday. Apparently someone canceled the order! Got to go there first thing tomorrow to get it so car will still hopefully be running by lunch assuming all goes well.

[Niall]

Right it's all ready for its first start....again.
Got it all back together and started filling it with water. All started pissing out the back.
Turns out the head bolts actually stick out the bottom of there castings by about a few mm. Any other bolt would of been fine but the one that I bolted in with no spacer went out of its casting and broke into the water pump housing leaving a nice hole for the water to pour from.

Thankfully, when I broke through, the old bolt threaded the casting so I've bunged a core plug in there and liquid metal'd it in. Shouldn't go anywhere or leak but just waiting for the liquid metal to dry before I start it as I don't know what the heat will do to it when it's still wet.



You can see on the left how the head bolts come through. If you look on the right, you can see the liquid metal on the top of the water pump housing.

[Niall]

IT LIVES!!!!!!

Filled it up with water, started first time (after I remembered to put the fuel relay back on!) and runs as sweet as. Still smoky but it's getting better and better and you won't believe how much oil there was in the exhaust and manifold to burn off!

Off out for a drive now with the RAC card in hand.

[Matt]

Sweeeet!!!! Good thing pal. Glad to hear its now starting up. Hopefully it will stay together this time

[samass]

Success! Nice one dude!

[Ed Doe]

WEll done mate!! The best feeling in the world when you get it all back together and it works *touches wood*!!!

Hope all goes well Keep the updates coming!!! Weee want Pics & Videos!!!

[Jonny b]

Bout fuckin time bitch ha ha

Good on you for tackling that job though bud

[4WayDiablo]

Nice one niall :-) glad to hear it works! Now get burning the oil out!

[C.A.R.]

Glad it's finally sorted dude.

So far as turbo-ing is concerned, I'd expect at minimum 250ish reliable bhp from it. When you think the old Mazda BP engines were 1.8 and there are many of them running around on 300bhp with standard internals it makes sense that a slightly newer engine should make similar gains!

Can't beat the power delivery of a NA though...dreamy...

[Ruan]

It's just that Mazda engines are made properly in the first place!!!

[Eeyore]

so another 1.8 springs to into life and another becomes poorly

[Poodle]

Hey hey, looking good! Crossed my toes as well now lol.

[Niall]

Right the fucker is still smoking! It can't be valve guide seals as these are now brand new original pug ones so it can only be piston rings

Good news is I've been quoted 200 quid for new piston rings (fitted), new head gasket, head bolts and all bearings for a bottom end rebuild.
Going to do that so then I have a completely rebuilt engine. Just don't Know if I should do it before fcs. Will only take me a weekend but then the head rebuild should of only taken a weekend

[Grant]

Mate, cheapest fix would be slam this sticker on top of the engine....

[mark_airey]

LMAO ^^ not sure if it would work but its sure as hell worth a shout

[Niall]

Hmmm worth a try I suppose.
Going to do it before fcs I think. Still god a month and a half till fcs lol

[mark_airey]

Hmmm worth a try I suppose.
Going to do it before fcs I think. Still god a month and a half till fcs lol

I have to admire your optimism, I also have an engine to build, a bumper and boot to lacquer, wheels to paint and front wishbones to swap so I know how you feel, if mine has got the new engine in before FCS it will be a fecking miracle

[Niall]

Hmmm worth a try I suppose.
Going to do it before fcs I think. Still god a month and a half till fcs lol

I have to admire your optimism, I also have an engine to build, a bumper and boot to lacquer, wheels to paint and front wishbones to swap so I know how you feel, if mine has got the new engine in before FCS it will be a fecking miracle

Tbh the worst thing is fitting the rings and I'm doing that so not worried. As long as its not raining all bloody week lol

[C.A.R.]

Right the fucker is still smoking! It can't be valve guide seals as these are now brand new original pug ones so it can only be piston rings

[ginge191]

Good news is I've been quoted 200 quid for new piston rings (fitted), new head gasket, head bolts and all bearings for a bottom end rebuild.
Going to do that so then I have a completely rebuilt engine. Just don't Know if I should do it before fcs. Will only take me a weekend but then the head rebuild should of only taken a weekend

Sorry... am i missing something.

Why don't you start building the forged iternals now, whilst replacing it if your adament about getting a 1.8T on the go

[Ed Doe]

CAR. that is all

[Niall]

Money is why!

Oh and ed, FYC! Seems to be a bottomless pit of money at the moment

[Niall]

Been quite productive today

First of all, ripped my head lining out and started sound deadening that





Got that all back together but haven't taken it out for a drive so don't know how much of a difference it's made but it's one less thing to rattle!

Also replaced my MAP sensor and FPR to try and sort my weird power loss problem. The FPR I removed wasn't in a good way at all do hopefully that was the cause!

After cwspellowe mentioned in his thread about putting the rubber boot on the quick shift, I thought I had best do mine. I had noticed quite a big increase in exhaust noise after fitting the quick shift so hopefully this will sort it.



(ignore my pikey bodge of fitting the top collar)

Oh and a pic of how the car decided to leave my drive after starting it this morning and a few blips of the throttle

[Scott]

Wow mate that's a lot of oil! :?

I'm interested to see how the sound deadening affects things...how much was that stuff by the way?

[Niall]

Wow mate that's a lot of oil! :?

I'm interested to see how the sound deadening affects things...how much was that stuff by the way?

20 quid for the silent coat and 70 for the cloud 9 but there's enough in that roll to do two whole cars. Will take you for a quick spin tomorrow if you like?

[4WayDiablo]

Should feel like quite a modern car inside with all that sound deadening. Nice silent ride
Top work :-)