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Sept 28, 2011 9:44:40 GMT
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Been lurking for a while and thought I might as well introduce my current daily drive I guess some may have seen bits of this project if youre on any 306 or 205 forums in the past few years... I bought the ZX on a whim once January weekend back in 2007, as the time my 405's heater matrix was playing up and was on SORN, and I was getting ever frustrated with my 205's engine wiring issues, and I needed a car to get to work and back reliably. So what else does someone needing a reliable a-b car do than buy a £250 ZX 16v off ebay :lol: The clutch was slipping like anything and stunk, but the pedal felt stiff as anything so I gambled on it just being the cable... Which worked! for a few weeks anyway, when it finally gave up wanting to hold under any more than half throttle in all gears! Got an o.e Valeo clutch off ebay for £50, stuck it win with help from my mate Richard up the road who's a mechanic, then ran it for another few weeks before one day I saw the dreaded plummet of the oil pressure gauge whilst going round a pretty tight left hand bend at 30 mph. Not too long after a small rattle emerged, which turned into quite a knock, suffice to say I was quite annoyed, but made me get on and sort the Motronic conversion on my 205! At this point I wasnt sure what to do with it, whether to break it fix the engine or find another engine. Obviously I thought it was far too good to scrap, as I really did like driving it, theres a few subtle differences between the way a 306 and a ZX 16v handles (lighter for a start, and different rear beam geometry as has been mentioned on here plenty) My friend AdamB described it quite well after he had a quick drive of it, "like a big 205" ;D much shorter more direct feeling steering, quite a bit firmer than the 306, plus the different geometry on the beam afects the way it behaves on turn in. So I looked for a solution, I knew that a rebuild would cost at least £300 dependent on what had actually gone and how badly, and that the prices that S16/Mi16 engines go for that I should maybe got for an XU10J4RS, the GTi6 engine so I went hunting for one and found a side impact damaged car being broken on ebay, located on the Gurnos estate in Merthys Tydfil! 65k miles, £350 I got the full front end wiring loom from the car as well, but when I got home I noticed it was a little different: i47.photobucket.com/albums/f169/welshpug/ZX%2016v/29-03-07_1929.jpg306 loom goes straight on here not left! DOH!! Whilst stripping the dead lump apart I thought I might as well drop the sump off, and have a look, Took the caps off the crank and conrod bearings starting at the flywheel end, all looked fine till I went to take No4 conrod cap off, as soon as I gave it a prod it rattled about! a spun shell was what greeted me, luckily they hadnt welded themselves to the crank and they could be prised off carefully with a screwdriver. suffice to say these pair are dead! so out it came; i47.photobucket.com/albums/f169/welshpug/ZX%2016v/15-05-07_1846.jpg[/img]did the usual of painting everything in sight on the engine to make it look at least half decent, and clean 15 years of leaky RFY engine residue from the engine bay! Dropped the replacement engine in after a new belt kit, then cracked on with deciphering the wiring, wasnt particularly easy as it was classic Citroen, a small handful of colours and no numbers!
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Last Edit: Sept 28, 2011 9:45:43 GMT by welshpug
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Sept 28, 2011 9:50:20 GMT
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This was quite a slow process in the end, when I started the project I was struggling to find any work, then worked at a Haulage company for 50 hours a week on min wage so when I got home I was knackered and still fairly skint! I eventually got the car on the roar in February 2009, after some braided brake lines from Miles at pugracing, and all the solid pipes from the bottom of the bilkhead to the back of the car over the fuel tank, including the prake pressure limiters (this car uses ones like the 1.9 205 gti, but with a much higher knee point at 30 bar as opposed to 22 IIRC!) Some Koni dampers, wishbone buskes and balljoints towards the autumn of 2009. Forward to December 2009, got some C5 alloy wheels, the ones everyone wants as they're quite light and look like steel wheels New year 2010; the ever so slight HG symptoms I had been ignoring for a while suddenly become terminal My own fault really, I'd neglegted to change the watrer pump when I fitted the engine, and the heater matrix and the used radiator also decided to leak putting more strain on the headgasket. Strangely a few weeks prior to this the Rallye I had a play with also popped its HG, though that one was terminal once the head was off as it had suffered the EPIC cylinder bore wear these engines can be susceptible to, that carby then was back on the road, with an ES9J4 B) Thankfully mine wasn't too bad at all bar needing a fair but not excessive skim off the head (8 thou, 0.20mm) I got a local firm JSE to skim, pressure test, check the valves and fit a set of new stem seals for £100 all in + £16 for the seals (sourced from Peugeot) I have recently been doing a fair bit of reading up on the clearance issues these engines have and came across the possibility of increasing that clearance by machining the standard pistons to allow more valve lift at TDC (which is what happens when you try and open a valve for longer and earlier with an aftermarket camshaft) Seeing as I was still out of work at the time and didn't need transport I thought sod it I'll get them done, so I sent them off to Martin at Bridgecraft engineering (members may know the CRF 450 user name on a few peugeot forums) and for the princely sum of £80 he sorted me some larger cutouts A few weeks go by and I use my JSA to sort out some shiny bits so I can put the engine back together; timing belt kit, headbolts and a water pump from GSF and from Peugeot a set of big end bearings, a standard MLS 1.2mm XU10J4RS gasket and an exhaust manifold gasket (lost the pictures I took of these!) And a set of piston rings from South Wales pistons, these turned out to be a set for the 2.0 Mi16/S16 engine which uses a 1.75mm thick middle ring whereas the gti6 used a 1.5mm ring, thankfully they had some suitable middle rings on the shelf so swapped them for the ones I had. I took the piston oil spray jets off and honed the bores quickly to deglaze them then re-fitted the spray bars and sorted the rings and a few other bits whilst it was raining. Whilst I was at it and had it all in bits, I thought it would be rude not to fit the Newmans PH2 inet cam I'd picked up barely used on the 306gti6.com forum, I decided not to use the exhaust cam as I couldnt afford to get the map adjusted, and reckoned that the standard management would cope well enough as the cam is still fairly mild. At the same time as doing this little lot of work I managed to get some 283mm front brakes at a reasonable price, and some genuine citroen boxed brake pads, these work very very well and I've yet to want anything better Eventually got back on the road in November 2010 after oncentrating on completing and selling my 309 Goodwood, and I was really enjoying driving the car a lot. Back when I was helping adam with his 306 Rallye, he'd been involved in getting the settings sorted for AST's sportline 1 damper package using his car as a test mule so to speak, and I really liked how they performed nd though this was an area where the ZX was really good, but could be improved on even more. I couldnt afford a set at about £850 though I knew they had done some for the 205 and 309 previously, so when a set of front damper appeared on ebay at £300 unused under quite a random title I didnt hesitate in giving the seller a call to secure them!
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Sept 28, 2011 9:51:27 GMT
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More commuting till a bus decided to pull out of its stop before I was past fully :roll: Thankfully minor damage but a write off as far as the insurance companies were concerned (this was 22nd of December, and is still ongoing!!) Then 4th of January, 200 yards from home in the morning on the way to work; :cry: I think the Micra came off worst to be honest which is highly amusing, it was left there idling whilst all the coolant from it had curse word out on the road :lol: Thankfully the shell is still straight, the suspension unaffected and the leading end of the inner wing had only dropped 25mm or so, it has now been DIY straightened, the chassis leg and front lower crossmember were unaffected, so the search for new parts was on.
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Sept 28, 2011 9:52:17 GMT
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A few weeks earlier I had happened upon a new front panel on ebay for £15, so that was already in stock in my bedroom! A dealer search by the ever helpful Ed at Warners in Tewkesbury traced a Wing down to Rigbye's in Chorley, Lancashire, the system also said there was one 16v bumper in existence at the same dealer, but they couldn't find it As usual a grumpy Facebook status ensued, and an old school friend piped up "what's the part number, I'll check at work..." note I hadn't seen Richard for some 12 years though I remember he had done motor mechanics at the same college I had done Art at! Turns out he had gone on to do an apprenticeship with Citroen working on the ZX's and still worked at a small Peugeot/Citroen dealer in the small Town I went to school in in North Wales as a tech, few days later another 16v wing was found in their stores, and a short while later I figured I could use a Bumper from a Phase 2 Furio/SX model with a few small holes added for the arch trims, as it happened, they also had these and the bumper brackets on the shelf! my mate Rich doing the welding ( I can weld but I'm not confident enough to do panels!) all done! shiny new bumper allpainted up; plus the wing painted and fitted and it now looks like this a VIC followed as it had been declared a cat C by the insurers, and to this day neither incident has been resolved fully and have been with my insurance companys solicitors for the past 3 months! Future plans involve getting a DTA S40 ecu I'd picked up last christmas on ebay for a good price wired in and mapped, and most likely fit the PH2 exhaust cam, I was also recently given a Longlife exhaust from a Phase 2 xsara VTS, which turned out to be about 4" too shirt due to the longer cat they used to accomodate the twin lambda management system, so that needs some work before I can use it! Source some decent road tyres and re-fit the C5 wheels as I had picked up the Indianapolis wheels for a good price last winter and they had much better tread than what I had at the time, but they are bloody heavy! A Hybrid Anti roll bar arrived this morning as well, so that'll help sharpen things up a ittle more, and I'm looking to up the front spring rate as the AST's were specified for a 206 gravelcar, and hence only have 180 Lb springs, Adam's set ran 285 Lb! so there you have it! my daily runabout project toy thing to keep me amused and whitter my cash away whilst I should really be saving up to get my 205 fixed up, looks a bit tatty now, but its fun to drive and nobody know what the hell it is :lol:
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Sept 28, 2011 9:56:26 GMT
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i'd always wondered why it felt prone to understeer on the limit and never really did oversteer unless i was being very silly, highlighted when i fitted the ast's even though they came with quite soft 180lb springs, so i was amused to find this when i went to swap the hybrid arb for the stock 24mm item.... So I havent really had any rear anti roll bar for some time!! Also got my Citroen c5 wheels and michelin pe2's all round inc the spare so thats near 30 kilos off the kerb weight, and quite noticable as its rotational
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Sept 28, 2011 9:59:26 GMT
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been steadily racking up the miles and not having much inclination to do work on the zx the past few weeks, though i did eventually swap the matrix, its still not plumbed in ;D i went to bletchley near milton keynes for a cytech 1+2 practical on thursday, so for the first time in quite a while i gave it a brimmed tank to see what its running like, 366 miles and another 44.1 litres at either 55-60 on a roads or 75 odd on duals its returning about 37mpg!! likely to be less on my usual commute given how much is spent stationary this evening i managed to find the multiplug i cut off the mp3.1 loom a few years ago, just what i need to build a new engine loom unfortunately some wires have been trimmed a tad short and I'm unsure if i can get new terminals yet, may get a few more so i have a few tails to use, the terminals do come out fairly easily quick pinout list: 1-starter motor thick yellow 2-ignition switched+ thick yellow 3-alternator excitor blk 4-oil pressure switch brown 5-coolant temp switch beige 6-reverse light switch grey 7-reverse light switch grey 8-coolant temp sender brown 9-oil level green 10-oil level green 11-oil temp beige 12-oil pressure sensor green 13-diagnostic light grey separate brown plug 4 way: 1- 2-rev counter 3-fuel pump 4- poh and this is what it looks like now
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ZXRob
Europe
Posts: 1,193
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Sept 28, 2011 10:06:29 GMT
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I have been waiting for a build thread of this car since I saw the picture in your avatar
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nofrills
Posted a lot
my wings are made of Steeeeeeeel!!!
Posts: 1,243
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Sept 28, 2011 10:13:48 GMT
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What interesting read, i love the ZX think they are a highly capable car, i remember a guy having a td one years ago and that was quick and looked like a rally car
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Sept 28, 2011 15:57:56 GMT
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if you thought a DT Volcane was quick (and they were for the time) this has at a rough guesstimate twice as much power ;D amusingly they do have a massive amount of space hiding behind the front bumper so a chunky front mounted intercooler would be a doddle to hide
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made use of a decent condition 106 Magnetti marelli wiring loom from a multipoint engine, so most of the pugs were exactly the same as my engine and the wires were mostly long enough, a few rough measurements to get the layout vaugely right and I cracked on.... Need to whip the inlet manifold off and lay the loom in, add a few more connectors and adjust a few wires then fit the pins for the ECU.
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Nice of you to buy me a present Mei! Just in time too, 'cause my throttle pot's dying and Bosch want £360 for a new one...
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Last Edit: Oct 4, 2011 13:15:10 GMT by phillipm
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17 October 2011Done a little more on my wiring loom, also had an MOT test Wednesday which it failed; ABS Warning lamp illuminated indicating ABS system fauilt (I did ask them to see if anythign came up on the computer, but in typical fashion the computer couldnt get anythign out of it!) O/S Headlamp too low. N/S headlamp too far to the right. (both these due tothe Micra incident) O/S position lamp not working (damn bulb!) O/S/R tyre below minimum 1.6mm (was worn perfectly evenly so I didnt even notice! ideal track tyre...) Nearside Towbar attachment loose (they have now included towbars in the Test, I hadnt touched this ever or noticed anything but the bolts were indeed loose, and Seized!) and the Advisories; O/S front chassis member showing signs of corrosion (where all zx's 306's and xsara's go, where the inner wing meets the bulkhead/floor section) N/S/R tyre near 1.6mm limit (as above :blush: ) N/S/R wheelarch trim missing. O/S/F wheelarch trim missing. Rear exhaust rubber deteriorating. Got it down into my mates workshop on Thursday with my Trusty Haynes workshop manual and worked through the ABS system with a power probe and multimeter, thankfully the diagram in Haynes is brilliant, I was dreading this as it could have needed a replacement ABS ECU, but it turned out to be a dead sensor. Managed to extract a sensor undamaged from a pair of hubs I'd bought from Anthony a few weeks ago, which isnt a mean feat in itself as they typically get seized into the hole in the hub, quick bit of die grinder action on the hole to ensure a slightly looser fit and plenty of copper grease and job done there Replaced a W5W 501 bulb and chucked the spare wheel on and fitted a decent spare tyre onto another C5 wheel I'd bought from Spiky, so white wheels on the back for the time being, looks quite good actually... regarding the headlights, they were quite a long way out so wasnt worth levig the garage to sort them, so I had a look on good old google for some data on how to manually align them, and found this article which was very useful, trouble beign tis quite difficult to find anywhere perfectly level that you can place a car 25 feet away from a wall! so I did the logical thing and halved this to 12.5 feet and the drop to 1.5", seemed to do the job as there werent any comments when I picked the car up Bolts, cut one off and snapped the other off with a breaker bar, delve into the tub of bolts for a replacement, every garage should have a tub of bolts nuts and washers, saves your ass quite often! With the corrosion that was noted, thankfully simply surface rust and damaged underseal which I scraped off and waved the flappy disc around on the 4.5" rinder, and slapped on some black paint. Got it back in on Friday for a re-test which it duly passed. Interesting to note that the emissions test was no issue at all even with the inlet cam and no adjusted map, can't remember the exact figures but I'll post the up later.
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23 October 2011nearly got my wiring loom complete for the DTA, just a few plugs need fitting emissions test results were; fast idle CO - 0.04% (limit is 0.2%) HC 22ppm, (limit 200ppm) Lambda 1.01 (should be between 0.97 and 1.03) Natural idle test @ 871 rpm, CO of 0.03%, limit is 0.3%. all good Last weekend Dan (DCC) and myself went down to BensonMi's to get a gti6 engine, as it needed removing the toolbox and engine crane went in the back, and of course the engine on the way back, was quite glad of the 21mm torsion bars oh and mentioning torsion bars, I have ordered some 23mm ones :ph34r:
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Last Edit: Dec 5, 2011 11:16:28 GMT by welshpug
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not sure why, but seems this forum is breaking the image links
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Last Edit: Dec 5, 2011 11:17:40 GMT by welshpug
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13 November 2011Today's list of jobs; Change oil+filter, Total 10w40 and a genuine Oil filter. Drain weak coolant/water mix and refill with fresh. Fit torsion bars and re-set ride height. farm7.static.flickr.com/6019/6340917562_2915b6fdb5.jpgNo issues at all sorting the front end, then on to the rear, yes its VERY dirty and shows it! :ninja: The offside torsion bar as usual was pretty damn stuck, I managed to stretch and snap two old bean studs before I gave up and knocked the trailing arm off so I could persuade the torsion bar out easier. the nearside however popped out with relative ease! farm7.static.flickr.com/6097/6340058159_44bd65f79e_z.jpgThe breaker bar was wedged against the floor to prevent any rotational force going into the old bean stud, and the 30mm spanner on the nut, I used a well greased washer too. As this car uses 21mm torsion bars as standard and I had never taken one apart before, I made note of the original damper spacing which was 325mm, 5mm shorter than the 3 door 306's that use 20mm torsion bars. I wasn't sure how much effect on the height the 23mm bars would have I dropped Anthony a brief message, he suggested some 15mm shorter so 310mm (I needed to drop the height a touch to match the front as the AST's are a little shorter, so went for 305mm in the end) Here's the result farm7.static.flickr.com/6054/6340055615_0379ef0d0a_z.jpgPretty good I think, no so nose down any more, and even with a gearbox and two toolboxes and a pair of tyres in there it didn't sag much at all Unfortunately there is play in the trailing arm bearings so it will need to come apart ASAP, I have had a bearing kit on the shelf for some time, just need to sort out a pair of arm shafts and possibly a beam tube. I do have a worn set of shafts, and a friend of a friend piped up hat they have a lathe that they don't know how to use, so I need to do some reading up and I may have a crack at building the metal back up and turning it down, that'll save me a fair bit of cash now as I haven't yet seen any near what I paid about a year ago when I sorted a beam for a PSOOC member. Bastar forum breaking my links
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Last Edit: Dec 5, 2011 11:21:47 GMT by welshpug
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Arch trim clips are waiting for me at Warners Tewkesbury, after Evans Halshaw Cardiff saying they couldn't do them :lol: Fitted a lower mileage Xsara VTS box and Xsara VTS driveshafts, no more crunching or groaning! Posted Image Shafts were fine as it happens though the intermediate bearing was noisy. New seals of course, grand sum of £5.97 due to trade discount form the local motorfactor. farm8.staticflickr.com/7002/6396465581_4063de5372.jpgfarm8.staticflickr.com/7172/6395967697_3e6a3b708e.jpgHad to leave off one of my airbox pipes however due to the extra part of the casting on the front of the bellhousing that bolts to the large winged sump of later XU engines. Also got some bits to make a pot box, I'm going to have a crack at mapping. farm8.staticflickr.com/7154/6396468703_b115abb430.jpgThe knobs buttons and other socket are in the post Also have a cam seal, lower engine mount bush, a fork bush, and a pair of late Xsara picasso/berlingo/partner P-bushes on order with Lookers Peugeot, already got the 70mm dia bush fitted as it was on the shelf. Oh and its stinking dirty too as I've been taking the back roads to work a lot due to the traffic I would encounter on the main roads
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[quote:rallyeash] any reason for odd coloured wheels mate? [/url] Yeah, it did have PE2's all round but when it came to MOT time I found that the rear pair were down to 1.6mm right across the tread, I had a spare pair of tyres lying about and a pair of wheels I had bought from Spiky a few months ago, slung them on myself and stuck them on the back to get it MOT'd, haven't had them balanced yet but there's no vibrations :lol: I have these to go on soon, on another set of C5 wheels, Michelin Alpin, one pair with 4.5mm and the bottom with 7mm. farm7.staticflickr.com/6225/6396683403_23be28b5cc.jpg[quote:Paul_13] What's the difference vs std gti6 p bushes? [/quote] Alloy housing and a round solid bush, bottom bolt that threads into it is M10 IIRC not M8, will stick a pic up when I get them, they're only £20 each from a dealer, everywhere aftermarket wanted the same! Lower bush fitted - farm8.staticflickr.com/7158/6396677791_5a71abcc88.jpg
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Last Edit: Dec 5, 2011 11:26:36 GMT by welshpug
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Car could still do with a fair bit of work body wise, bonnet is still the bent one hammered flat :lol: Black box is a pot box/knobs box which enables much quicker mapping of the DTA ecu, saves tapping away at the keyboard trying to remember all the shortcuts and combinations, DTA sell them for about £200, sum of parts I will use is about £20. The schematic and spec is here on the DTA forum with a link to this page www.quantums.info/dtalead.htmI am going to use DTA as it needs mapping for the cams I have (currently only the Newmans PH2 inlet fitted) mapping the original ecu is £400 plus lots of fuel to get to Lancashire, whereas with a DTA mapping is less and if I can get Sandy to map it it's a fair bit closer, plus I can have a bash myself, not something I could do with Magnetti Marelli. Throttle bodies are in the pipeline :ph34r: I've only got 10 C5 wheels, 4 are still at a friends place in Lincoln after buying them on Ebay about a year ago :lol:
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Today's task, pick up an engine I helped rebuild for CUJ on the 306gti6 forum about 14 months back, unfortunately Jon wrote off his Rallye this time last year on black ice on the A40 so broke the car with Ash (Roland Rat) and the engine has been in a Friend of a friend's workshop since (Dan bought it and asked me to pick it up as he couldn't get over there when Anton could, also picked up a set of Cyclones for Ash, car is a bit grubby now) then dash back down to Cardiff to collect some bits from Peugeot; farm8.staticflickr.com/7167/6406388501_3bd97cd832_z.jpgfarm7.staticflickr.com/6232/6406394245_ac25802595_z.jpgDoesn't sit too bad considering that's on a 20mm ish drop before having the stuff dropped in the boot, found that a 3.0 TDI Touareg must be quite heavy as it couldn't keep up even with that lot in there :ph34r: Car didn't feel too happy though with the wind today, shot p-bushes and play in the arm shafts made it wander a little, should solve some of it with these buggers; farm8.staticflickr.com/7020/6406347189_71aa687afa_z.jpgfarm8.staticflickr.com/7157/6406667027_db647fb7f9_z.jpgMuch better than the steel P-bush I think, cost the same give or take a couple of quid, the threaded insert in them is an M10x1.25 rather than M8x1.25 so with hindsight I would have ordered a pair of bolts (I knew it was M10 but though it would have been 1.5 pitch, should have known PSA wouldnt be som simple :lol: ) I'll just rummage in the bolt bucket tomorrow, the holes in the subframe might need to be taken out a little but I'll find out then I take it apart.
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