Building a 900 for hillclimbs

[KPAero]

I just posted this in the introductions forum, but figured Id move it over here. Ill update it as I make progress and Im sure Ill have some questions along the way. Any ideas on things I should think about are also appreciated.



(One of my two brothers who bought the car with me.)

I dont have a lot of pictures yet, but Im planning on using my winter break to actually get a real start on this thing. As far as future plans, I had hopped to spend this upcoming weekend going over the car and making a good list of its needs, so I could compare that with my wants and come up with a doable list for the near future. Unfortunately, I broke my Aero at the Ascutney hillclimb a couple weeks ago, so Ill be fixing that instead.

Things I know need fixing include the wiring throughout the car, I just don't like how the PO hacked some of it together. In a way its a good excuse to go through all the wiring and make it reliable and easier to work on during events. I was also planning on doing a T5 swap. The engine and tranny will have to come out to replace a noisy pinion bearing. While thats out Ill look to replace wear items and any seals as needed on the engine. Once the transmission is apart Ill decide how much I want to do with that. It has a phantom grip that Im going to leave, and Ill be adding one of Luke's steel diff covers. It currently has a T3/T4, 3in exhaust and FMIC.

For suspension it has Koni adjustable shocks and SD springs. Does anyone know what the swedish dynamics springs actually are? Just new bushings where needed and I might just leave it at that for now. It does have the vented front disks, so down the road I would like to go for the wilwood calipers, but the stock brakes should be adequate for hillclimbs until that happens.

One nice thing is that the shell is very solid, and is in need of no real rust repair. While the thought of doing a cage myself did cross my mind, I just don't have the equipment and skills do be comfortable doing it. Someday.... For this car though I think Im going to bring it to Dentsport garage, who use Chris Howard for their cage building.

Im hoping to eventually end up with a class competitive car. Regulars in this class include a volvo 240 and a Peugeot 505 that Im looking forward to competing with.

[KPAero]

Does anyone know why the embedded images are not showing up? They are from picasa if that makes a difference.

[DrewP]

All my hosted images are on Picasa.

You need to get the actual image location URL - from the Picasa pane with your desired image opened up. It should end in in the image extension, like *.jpg.

**Right click** --> 'Copy Image Location' and past that into the tag

or

**Right click** --> 'Properties' --> copy the image 'Location' line.

In order for the link to work you need to look at the image and it should be the only thing displayed on the page.

Like this:

*clicky click* ----> http://lh5.ggpht.com/_JNlhJgnxXHk/TKdwz ... /9_5_2.jpg



You will see in the image URL a section that modifies the image size (sets it's vertical size, I think), it's the section in brackets with 'S' for 'size' and the pixel number, here it's '/s640/'


http://lh5.ggpht.com/_JNlhJgnxXHk/TKdwz ... yxs0OpagOg/s640/9_5_2.jpg



If you clip this section out, you get the image at full hosted size, which can be quite large. You can also modify it to shrink the image as it's displayed in the forum so it's not so big.




For example:


This is:

[img] http://lh5.ggpht.com/_JNlhJgnxXHk/TKdwz ... yxs0OpagOg/s100//9_5_2.jpg









This is:

[img]http://lh5.ggpht.com/_JNlhJgnxXHk/TKdwz-0CPEI/AAAAAAAAGpw/Oyxs0OpagOg/%20%20/s500/%20%20%20%20/9_5_2.jpg[/img]

[Jordan]

Drew , you must be feeling better – Your book-long posts are returning

[SwedeSport]

Looks like you have a good start. Get your safety equipment completed before you get carried away modifying the car. Your biggest improvements will come from polishing your driving. Make sure the car is in good mechanical shape and runs right. You'll have a great time in a relatively stock car. But could frustrate yourself with an overcomplicated car.

[DrewP]

Drew , you must be feeling better – Your book-long posts are returning

Im'a get mah grooooove back!



KP, saw your thread about the Aero, looks like you're having all kinds of fun. Should be a fun build, someone else on here what wants to add more electron funnels to their car rather than those grey-hair-side-draft-venturi jobbies!



Peugeot 505 driven in anger should be pretty amusing to watch, friend of ours down the road just sold a mint 505 Turbo wagon - very strange machine.



Drew

[Jordan]

[
KP, saw your thread about the Aero, looks like you're having all kinds of fun. Should be a fun build, someone else on here what wants to add more electron funnels to their car rather than those grey-hair-side-draft-venturi jobbies!

Drew

OOOOOOoooo.........sick burn.

[airsweden]

Peugeot 505 driven in anger should be pretty amusing to watch, friend of ours down the road just sold a mint 505 Turbo wagon - very strange machine.

Yeah, there are a coupla well tuned 505 turbos in the hillclimb mix here in VT that I love to see in the pits. Its hard to "see" them in action as they disappear into the woods pretty quick. I need to find a way to get behind the wheel to truly appreciate the quoted 30 psi Arlo's white car is said to have.

As for our friend Pascal, he's already put down some pretty solid times in his stock 900t over the last coupla years. It will be fun to see what transpires in a dedicated hillclimb car next season. I might be able to hit next weeks race at Mt. Philo. If so I'm hoping to defend my title as 59th out of 60 in my stock N/A '86 912. Anybody else gonna be there?

[DrewP]

OOOOOOoooo.........sick burn.

Don't worry, I'm just trying to hide that I don't know the first thing about tuning carbs..... I might be able to find the idle adjust, .... might..... ... Them's surrrre is purty tho....

[KPAero]

KP, saw your thread about the Aero, looks like you're having all kinds of fun. Should be a fun build, someone else on here what wants to add more electron funnels to their car rather than those grey-hair-side-draft-venturi jobbies!

Peugeot 505 driven in anger should be pretty amusing to watch, friend of ours down the road just sold a mint 505 Turbo wagon - very strange machine.

Electron funnels!

Heres a video of the Peugeot from this year, probably very angry after this run.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JYdORN_xUXc&feature=player_embedded

Also, I have really enjoyed the reliability that a well sorted stock 900T can provide and will be doing my best to make this car equally as reliable.

[KPAero]

Josh, hopefully you can make it to philo. Ill be there to hang out, but wont be driving.

[airsweden]

Ouch, can almost feel that one. For anybody who doesn't know that hill, from about 1:00 min on to the second corner before the "end" of the film the road is to be treated as a straightaway. Most fast cars are 100+/- mph at that piont and you're really still moving through that last set of turns in the video. Funny, lots of times they have a speed trap there and everybody can see just how fast (or not so fast) they are. My 99 used to be able to get in the neighborhood of triple digits but last time I was there in my daily driver, 86 notchback...... a fierce 67 they told me.

[Crazyswede]

Peugeot 505 driven in anger should be pretty amusing to watch, friend of ours down the road just sold a mint 505 Turbo wagon - very strange machine.

Electron funnels!

Heres a video of the Peugeot from this year, probably very angry after this run.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JYdORN_xUXc&feature=player_embedded

Well that was odd....that must be a very misleading camera angle because it looks like the car clears that right hander just fine and then it looks like the car just turns into the bank to the left for no reason. I'm guessing things were a lot squirrelier through that corner then it looked like.

[KPAero]

So I have been making some progress recently. Right now the engine bay and wheel wells are ready for paint, I just need some warmer weather. The overall lack of rust was nice. The interior is stripped out. Scraping the sound deadening out was really fun, if anyone needs this done Id be happy to help.* I also got the control arms out and boxed with new bushings pressed in. Trans is apart and waiting to go back together.

Box I made up for battery cut-off, ignition switch etc. (Missing a couple screws):



Little brother did some seam welding:



Love the wire nuts!

[squaab99t]

Love the wire nuts!

Wire nuts? Dude, wire nuts are made for house electrical where they live in a junction box and not subject to vibration, water or oil.
Just trying to help, so I suggest using quality butt splices that are heat shrink, glue lined and use a good set of crimpers.

You can take or leave my suggestion, but one loose wire could leave your car dead on the side of the road, or worst start a fire.