The toy, 306GTI trackday racer. *Dial-up warning: Picture heavy*

[Janne L]

I think it's time to introduce myself and the car properly, i've been hiding in the background on the forum for a while and just decided to step into the light


I got this car in 2010 as i was starting a new life after a divorce, getting pushed down for a couple of years can have that effect, when let loose you spring back with force, and for me, owning a fun car had been on the wish list for a long time!
When i bought it there was already some mods on it, namely a 2,5" supersprint Magnum exhaust, race cat and a K&N 57i filter. And a set of pretty lexus-look rear lights that i constantly get hassled for, i keep them on just to annoy others




May 2010
My first mod was to go to town on the interior


(Rear seat belts left in place for MOT reasons)


June 2010
Went to my first trackay like this, with the 17" lead (must be, they weigh a ton!) rims with Chinese tyres.
She performed nicely, and sounded great, bit on the loud side but WTH, motorsport is supposed to be a bit loud! (I'm looking at you, F1!)

A local car parts dealer had an event where you could put your car on a rolling road.
Huge pic: http://janne.levenrot.se/bilder/bilar/wheels_hk.jpg
123hp on the wheels, somethings not right, roughly 10hp missing from what others have gotten on standard cars on similar rollers.
Bought a set of 15" speedlines and matching 195/50-15 GG 888's


July 2010
Made some new shift linkages from threaded rod and cheap linkages, improved the feel quite a bit for very small effort/money
huge pic: http://levenrot.se/magnus/IMG_0026.JPG
AC stopped working, oh well, just another heavy lump of unnecessary equipment i don't really need.

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Went to my first real trackday, Gelleråsen racetrack in Karlskoga. I was very impressed with the 888's on light speedlines compared to the lead 17"s. I was still on standard brakes which limited my time on the track quite a bit. My driving skills weren't all that good either but i had a great time ant the car performed nicely


Ordered a set of brake lines from the UK and decided to put them on the car beginning on a saturday evening, in the middle of Swedens vacation period, with a boat ticket to take me and the car to Gotland and the Gotland Ring racetrack on the following Monday morning at 05:00.. Best decision ever!
Up front it went OK, no real problems at all, but on the rear, jeezus! The brake lines were seized in the nuts and would not budge! The pipe section going from the hose to the caliper was twisted and ruined, on both sides. Plans were made and my brother went to a not so local car parts store on sunday morning to get new brake lines. Fortunately this went well and we assembled the brakes, then we went on to bleed the bastards. Of course the bleed nipple on the rear right caliper was stuck and and broke of. Crap! Check the time, one hour left until "everything" closes, take a chance and drive to another not so local store to try and get a hold of a new caliper, i was in luck and they had one in stock. Back to the garage and start the replacement. Hand brake cable refuses to let go of the old caliper, hacksaw the bastard and throw the old caliper in the bin, with a lot of anger fueled force!
Got the car finished and stood in line to board the ferry with 5 minutes to spare after a few hours of sleep. Hand brake missing on one side.

After a few days of exploring the island with by brothers and a friend we arrived at Gotland Ring, Sweden's newest racetrack built in an old limestone quarry on the northern tip of Gotland in beautiful surroundings. The track was really challenging to me and i actually got seasick from driving on it, and i've been on boats my entire life!
The car worked well for a good while, then i got some baaaad brake fade that came on very quickly, turned out i'd run the front pads down to metal! And being the not so very experienced racer i never thought i'd need a spare set with me! Packed up the car quickly and drove the 50km to Visby to the only open car parts store on the island and replaced the pads on their parking lot, in pouring rain.


September 2010-July 2011
Ordered a set of Peuget sport 25,5mm torsion bars and uprated engine mount bushings when Peugeot Sport had their big sale.
The car's been in the garage since september, took it out for a spin when i was doing service on the daily driver and noticed that it was cornering very differently when turning left from when turning right. Did some tests and, yep, seized rear beam.

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October 2011
The car was finally moved to a new garage only 15 minutes from my new home instead of 30min to 2 hours depending on traffic.


November 2011
Started hacking away at the sounddeadening material (English name?) on the floor


Sleep tight little one


While the car was sleeping i started gathering fun bits:
Citroen C8 magnesium 4-pot calipers


Early December 2011
Dropped the rear beam to the floor to attempt a restoration


Mid january 2012
Finally, after a lot of attempts and help from the guys in Peugeot-Sport-Club Sweden i managed to get the beam apart.

I think i'll start searching for a new beam altogether.

March 2012
Third times a charm? Finally got a hold of a beam that was salvageable! And it's complete with 32mm piston calipers so i can replace my bad rear ones
Took the beam apart and went to town on it, removing all the old grit and paint with a wire wheel on an angle grinder, then put on some nice new paint.



April 2012
Slow night at work so i put together a fixture to use when welding up my rear beam mounts.

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July 2012
Finally started work on the beam mounts

Finished all of the welding and painting of the rear beam components, picture missing due to digital age problem (file went fubar)

August 2012 - April 2013
Bought a race seat and 6-p harness, the seat is built to fit me, with the body of a Viking and the hips of a woman with great child-birthing potential!
Other bits and bobs came in the mail.
90mm deep dish suede steering wheel + MOMO hub



April 2013
Had a bit of a James May moment while working on the rear calipers:

Calipers were sand blasted before dissasembly.


July 2013
Bought a set of 16" OZ Superturismo (thought they were Superleggeras, fail on my part), 25mm spacers and a set of pin-bolts the replace the wheel screws, all so i could fit the C8 brakes.

Replaced the drive shaft seals and assembled the rear beam, wich can be a bit of a puzzle when it's been in pieces for a little over a year!
FIRE!!

(replacing pinch bolt, old one was a bit stuck)

August 2013
Installed the engine mounts i bought back in 2011, discovered that i of course had the well known bad upper left engine mount issue, cant find the pictures but i fixed it per the usual method (welded in a reinforced plate with a new nut).
Bought some 302x26mm brake discs from a 5008 that went to heaven early in it's life.
Got the seats and steering wheel mounted. Bought a snap-off hub on ebay to get the wheel closer, it made a remarkable difference to the ergonomics!

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October 2013
First startup in a long long while!


My way of making a short-shift, still waiting the a satchell engineering kit to be released!



16'th of October 2013, Went in for an MOT, came out the other end with a car i can legally drive on the streets!!
October 2013 - April 2014 - Winter hibernation, the garage is heated with electric radiators, and keeping it above 10°C is not kind to the wallet, so i stay at home!

April 2014
Aluminium sheet with CF look wrap on the doors, saved 5kg from original.

I think my solution to the electric window/mirror buttons is unique


Got a set of CL Brakes RC5+ brake pads and assembled, both front and rear.

And some Federal 595 RS-R 205/45-16 TW120 tyres


And another visit to the MOT place, This time the guy was a bit smarter and connected the dots between my race steering wheel, and the visible Autoliv air-bag controller in front of the gear stick.. "Steering wheel not original" was the judgement(they couldn't find a good airbag related fault), fine, i'll be back after lunch with the original in place. So two visits in one day and it's legal for another year (and the race steering wheel was back in place the same afternoon)

May 2014
With the car legal i could start taking it to work and driving it around to get a feel for it and fins faults that needed adressing. One thing i found was a strange shaking in the car when driving, I got a tip that it could be the drive shafts that didn't like the now very low ride height. I raised her up a bit and the symptoms got much better. I also fixed an oil leak where oil was being pushed out through the oil filler cap, a replacement cap fixed that issue.

On my way to the cars first track day since 2010! Snow fell a few minutes after this picture was taken
This time the race was at Mantorp Park, 250km from home. The trip there went well, sure the car is Not the most comfortable thing to drive but it's still OK, when wearing hearing protection :p
I managed a 1:42,75 around the track, 2 seconds slower than my friend in a stock 208 GTI. I choose to account that to my missing power that was mentioned up top. Either that or that strange shaking.. During the day it came back and got worse and worse. On the track i didn't notice it much but on the way home, when cruising on a set RPM, it got horrible! I was forced to pull back and go slow and steady behind a lorry at 90kph to keep my teeth from falling out.

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May 2014
Time to find out what broke on the track!

I already had a suspect so i went straigt to the drive shafts, the right one seemed fine, the left one though:

(This is how it came apart, i haven't moved anything around before taking the picture)

Bought a set of cheap drive shafts from eBay (CJ anyone? ) and assembled, they have still been up to the task of heavy track abuse, it'll be interesting to see how long they manage before exploding in a big ball of fire (which should happen according to all the bad reviews they get online!)

July 2014
I'm back at Gelleråsen in Karlskoga! Car seems fine, the brakes are awesome and the driveshafts still alive
But i noticed that the front wheels were being eaten up on the outside, a sign of bad toe in, i'd been putting a wheel alignement on standby for a long time since it's so bloody expensive and i prefer buying toys with my money! So i solved the problem, by buying more toys But this time it's some stuff to measure the wheel alignement:

I'm having issues getting the photos that go here to show on this forum, working on the issue!


Before alignement i was at 0,6° camber and 15(!)mm toe in. After some tinkering i've now got it to 4mm total toe out (measured on the 16" rims) and 1,9° negative camber, wich suits the tyres better.

This alignement was tested on the track yesterday with very good results, i'm gonna shave another 2mm of the toe out but i'm very satisfied with my results

[Dum-Dum]

Looks really good, what did you need to fit the brakes

[306gtiparts]

Nice looking good :-)

[Janne L]

Looks really good, what did you need to fit the brakes

Citroën sport makes an adaptor that bolts to the calipers to make them fit, you can see it sit between the caliper and the hub on the last picture above.

[Piggy]

Great little jog for welding rear beam mounts there. Very nice.

For MOT here in GB if you dont have the seats in, you dont need the relevant seatbelt...guess the MOT is more picky in Sweden?? - actually thats obvious with the whole steering wheel thing!

Did you ever fibd out why it was down on power?...you say it made 123bhp?? Thats more like 40-45bhp lost somewhere for a GTi engine

Looks fun mind

[Janne L]

The MOT rules say that all passengers that the car is registered for (in my case 4+ driver) have to be able to use the seat belt, it does not however state that they need soft cushions to sit on [GRINNING FACE WITH SMILING EYES]
123hp on the wheels mind you, it registered 156 in the engine but I don't trust that number since it varies depending on a lot of different things, one of those being how tighty they strap the car down and what air pressure the wheels are at :-)
One cylinder is down on compression, 13,6 bar vs 15. Probably caused by a spark plug breaking and falling into the cylinder before I bought it. I'm planning to strip the engine the coming winter to check.

[Eeyore]

Looks like a good project and that car looks very clean! Miles better than when you first had it!

[RetroPug]

Nice project fellow phase 1 friend!

[Janne L]

Visited another little race event last Saturday, the temperature climbed above 30°C with zero wind, the national weather service announced a class 1 warning for extreme weather.. And my ac, that is still in the car, does not work. Great success!

The car performed reasonably well, there are two brake issues I need to deal with. Firstly the brake fluid reservoir cap leaks under extreme cornering, and the front brakes aren't really feeling the way they should, I suspect that the pads aren't sliding like they are supposed to, there was a teeny tiny gap visible between disc and pad when I had a quick look.


On a side note, anyone selling an XUD9TE or DW8 (1,9 hdi?) crankshaft?

[RetroPug]

Was it more common for Ph.1s to be fitted with A/C in Sweden? It was very uncommon for Ph.1s in the UK.

It is, however, very common that it doesn't work after all this time.
It is normally a perished pipe or damage to the condenser in front of the rad causing the refrigerant gas to escape.

[Janne L]

All GTI's came with ac as standard.

[sam]

Yes a phase 1 blaze

[RetroPug]

All GTI's came with ac as standard.

Hmm interesting, must be due to the big variations in climate. Does it have heated seats as well?

[kentiiboii]

Really interesting read! My rice crispies have gone soggy.

[Janne L]

Yes a phase 1 blaze

Like nearly all -97 GTI's in Sweden :p "You can have any color you want, as long as it's Gold"

All GTI's came with ac as standard.

Hmm interesting, must be due to the big variations in climate. Does it have heated seats as well?

Yes they do, it's extremely rare for any car to not have heated seats here. I also believe the importer made it easy for himself and only offered the GTI in one spec the first year, like mentioned above there are very few (if any) -97-98 GTI's with any other colour than Blaze.

Swedes like luxury equipment, and compared to the rest of Europe we drive very large cars, Volvo V70 and VW Passat are constantly on the top 2 spots of total cars sold. That trickles down to our smaller cars as well, i myself own 2 Peugeot Griffe models (206 and 307SW) with full leather interior.

Really interesting read! My rice crispies have gone soggy.

[Dum-Dum]

On a side note, anyone selling an XUD9TE or DW8 (1,9 hdi?) crankshaft?

2.1 conversion?

[Janne L]

On a side note, anyone selling an XUD9TE or DW8 (1,9 hdi?) crankshaft?

2.1 conversion?

High compression 2,05 :-)

[Dum-Dum]

ahh, you going larger bore as well or just longer stroke?

[Janne L]

Just longer stroke atm, but it depends on the condition of my block, might go with OD rings if I need to hone more than regular.

[Orta]

Yes a phase 1 blaze

Just what I was thinking. Only ever seen 1 before.

Yes a phase 1 blaze

Like nearly all -97 GTI's in Sweden :p "You can have any color you want, as long as it's Gold"

All GTI's came with ac as standard.

Hmm interesting, must be due to the big variations in climate. Does it have heated seats as well?

Yes they do, it's extremely rare for any car to not have heated seats here. I also believe the importer made it easy for himself and only offered the GTI in one spec the first year, like mentioned above there are very few (if any) -97-98 GTI's with any other colour than Blaze.

Swedes like luxury equipment, and compared to the rest of Europe we drive very large cars, Volvo V70 and VW Passat are constantly on the top 2 spots of total cars sold. That trickles down to our smaller cars as well, i myself own 2 Peugeot Griffe models (206 and 307SW) with full leather interior.

Really interesting read! My rice crispies have gone soggy.

Where does the heated seat controls go on the dash??

[Janne L]

In the console by the handbrake somewhere, don't remember exactly where, it's been a few years since i saw them :-P

[RetroPug]

Is the switch and little insert for the gap behind the handbrake easy to get hold of over there?
I'm interested in getting the switch assembley but they just don't exist over here.

[Janne L]

I can have a look in my pile of interior if you wish.

[Ruan]

I think I've got an XUD9TE crank somewhere! Infact I think I've got a DW10TD one (same as XUD7TE, plain steel) and an XUD9TE one (burnished steel).

Let me know if you want it...

[Janne L]

I think I've got an XUD9TE crank somewhere! Infact I think I've got a DW10TD one (same as XUD7TE, plain steel) and an XUD9TE one (burnished steel).

Let me know if you want it...

Just posted a wanted thread for one ;-)

[RetroPug]

I can have a look in my pile of interior if you wish.

That's very kind of you.
If you could do so, that would be very much appreciated!
Happy to cover costs and give you some money for it.

I think my solution to the electric window/mirror buttons is unique

Missed this the first time around, very nice!

[Janne L]

I can have a look in my pile of interior if you wish.

That's very kind of you.
If you could do so, that would be very much appreciated!
Happy to cover costs and give you some money for it.

I think my solution to the electric window/mirror buttons is unique

Missed this the first time around, very nice!

Is it this one you are looking for?

[Dum-Dum]

Ooh I want heated seats now.

[RetroPug]

Is it this one you are looking for?

Yes!

If you have no need for them, please send me a private message with how much it would cost and how much you'd like for the switch panel.

Thanks a lot!

[Eeyore]

I want heated seats