Ibiza Cupra Sport 16v iTB Track Car - Aero & Engine Rebuild

Had my wheel bolts and harnesses delivered today, so thought I would start with the easiest job... the spacers!

Before the spacers


The difference between the old and new bolts


The 15mm spacer on the hub


With the spacers fitted



Next the strut brace and then if the weather holds out (no rain) strip the rear and fit the harnesses
 

 

Well went down to my mates house, Mat because I was too scared to drill holes in my car so he offered to help

Here's some pics, sorry about the quality of them, they were taken on my phone when my hands were frozen!




Next on the list is the harnesses, see how I feel tomorrow or do them in the week :blush2:
 

 

Right, finished off fitting my harnesses yesterday.... didn't bother to completely strip the rear because the blowing exhaust is doing my head in at the moment :rolleyes:

Happy with them, they hold you in well.... haven't got any bucket seats before anyone asks because I thought I would see have they look with the standard seats, think they go quite well myself




 

 

Well since its been sunny today decided to give the car a good clean and take some recent photos, as I havent took any tidy photos since having my brakes, plates, harnesses and the new hammock in the rear

Beware 56k users! :rolleyes:

 

Well been a while since I fitted anything new to the car..... so fitted a nice Raid HP rear strut brace today



Got new grooved rear discs and pagid fast road pads to be fitted before the track day to, so will update once they are fitted.
 

 

Well fitted my new rear brakes saturday. Everything that could go wrong did! First the tool to push the piston back in was the wrong one, lucky my old mans mate had the right one, then went to fit the discs (after I got RS Rob's dad to groove them) I noticed they were the wrong ones :aggressive:

The hub part of the disc was half the length than the ones I got from GSF and had grooved. Basically on the Mk2 Ibiza the disc's have a bearing housing in them.... which I didn't know about till I came to fitting them, I had the rear bearings as I was changing them the same time anyway. Managed to get the right set from the factors in bridgend but now I have no grooved rear discs As I needed them fitted this weekend for the track day on the 9th.

Also replaced the pads for Pagid Fast Road pads so it isn't all bad I guess.

Here's the pic of the pads....


And my grooved discs that wouldn't fit and a preview for PhilW..... here's your new discs mate :meeting:

 

Well after Llandow track day, I needed 4 new tyres and cracked my manifold.

Firstly the new boots.......

Goodyear Eagle F1's

My manifold after having a flexi pipe fitted to stop it from crack all the time......


I have heat wiped it and then sprayed it in this heat spray but didn't take any pics

Dan Mcd was selling his saxo dimma show cage, for a bargin price of 50... it's been rubbed back ready for a spray,



And yes they do fit the Ibiza's, just not spot on.... a new bracket needs to be made up, here's a test fit to show how much it is out by,



And this is how I want it to sit....


Gonna get a bracket made up then rub back my strut brace and get them both sprayed white.

 

The car is off the road at the moment.... having taken the gearbox and flywheel off.

I'm getting the gearbox rebuilt and fitted with this,


It's a 3.94 final drive, basically it gives a closer ratio gearbox as the ratios on the standard Ibiza 02A box is crap and after reading a lot on Club GTi they all rave about this final drive.

Here's a table comparing the standard ratio to the one fitted with this 3.94 FD,


it doesn't look like much of a gain but it's useable for everyday and makes a hell of a difference to the acceleration. The other choice would to go for a 4.25 and then that is just stupid for road use.

Also I have removed my flywheel and have sent it off to be lighten and balanced, this is one of the main problems with the ABF engine is that the flywheel weighs 22lbs and some people have timed 20 seconds to let it return it idle when rev'ed to the limiter. Once I have had it back it should be almost half that weight at 11.8lbs!!!

(Sorry phil I have nicked your pics, forgot to take my own)

This is a standard ABF flywheel


And this is how it will look when i have it back


 

 

Here's another photo of my lighten flywheel compared to the standard one. (Sorry about the pic was taken with my phone)

On the left is the lighten, on the right is the standard


And also had my Throttle Body machined.... as there is a small taper just before the butterfly and on the back of the Tb there is a little lip to.

The top Tb is my new one and the bottom is the standard one (painted blue).

The front


The rear



Thanks to Hotgolf

 

Well my gearbox finally went in today and it's much better now.... so nice being able to come out of corners actually within the power range now, instead of just below it!

The lighten flywheel is hard to notice the difference along with the gearbox but it's a bit of a pain trying to keep it below 1500rpm when trying to pull off and when changing gear normally I find myself reving when bring the clutch back up..... Guess it's just time to get the use of it all!

But well worth it I think! Specially as it's one of the cheapest mods you can do for performance (after the usual mods).

 

Haven't updated for a while!

Done two track sessions since, Castle Combe at Eurofest and then of course the sw-cc track day at llandow. Apart from the new tyres that need replacing after llandow, I finally got my **** into gear and got some nice brand new lower arms with powerflex bushes pressed into them!

The joys of Seat mix & matching VW parts.... the lower arms and bushes are the same as a mk2 Golf GTi so got them off eBay cheaper than I can get the parts alone!



The main reason for these bushes is that a few of the boys have noticed that when I brake late they can see the actualy wheel being pushed back.... this should now prevent that and a note for people fitting bigger brakes, you gotta uprated other things to!!! :cool:

And I did have my alloys booked in with Steve G60 because I am fed up of the flake-o-motives! Was going to go in last weekend but a nasty phone bill stopped me!

After I get my wheels done..... another week of overtime me thinks, as the bridgend boys know me now..... Dave No Life But it brings money in so I can finally finish the car off and get it how I have wanted it for sooo long!
 

 

Haven't updated for a while now!

For xmas I had a OMP suede steering wheel off the missus, the catch was I had to buy the boss for it.



Managed to get hold of an ex Rockingham Roll Cage made by Custom Cages for the Mk3 Ibiza Cupra R's they use to have, thats in the car now but not welded yet. Will get pics up of the cage and pics while fitting it once it's all finished and sprayed white.

Looking into getting front and rear Neuspeed Anti Roll Bars this week, basically getting the car all set up ready for our trip to "The Ring" in June.

And trying to decide what bucket seats to go for???? mmmm

More pics soon to come
 

 

Well brought myself a roll cage just after xmas, it's an ex Rockingham Roll Cage from 1 of 12 Seat Ibiza Cupra R's there use to use as pace cars and driving school cars. For the past 6 weeks it's been sitting in the car not bolted down or nothing. Bascially because I needed to wait to go down my mates garage and to see if I could live with it being in the car, i haven't got any pics of it sitting inside the car but I rather wait to get pics up when it's all sparyed and fitted!

Here's the car during stripping it on one of our sunny days we had




Forgot to take pics when everything was out so here's some before we started welding inside the car




I made some drawing took them to work and had the tin smiths to make them up for me, there we made from 3mm sheet metal. We marked up the holes for the plates and the floor and then I got to work drilling the plates and Mat drilled through the flooring.






Then he welded the plates to the floor

 

 

And then sprayed in primer


Got the work on the front plates then



And a trail fit to make sure it all lines up!



Once we were happy with how the cage fitted and with the A and B pillars in it let us see how the rear part would sit! So done some measures and then about 5 more to make sure we were happy with them and Mat went away to work his stuff on the box section that was needed for the rear. This is when we noticed that the rear feet were not the same...... one foot was lower than the other! These Rockingham cages were made by Custom Cages inside the cars when they 1st installed them so human error I guess.... not a huge problem anyway.



These are the box sections




 

 

And then welded into place




On these pics you can see that the holes are not staight but at a slight angle.

And fair play I have to give it to Mat his work is a piece of art! There are more photos to come but my battery went and the other pics are on Mat's phone.

Where it is not possible to bolt straight to the floor through the plates, capitive nuts were welded to the underneath of the plates.

The cage is now being rubbed down this week and hopefully sprayed very soon!
 

 

Got the pics off Mat’s phone so here are the other pics!




More of the rear box section:



Then before getting all the plates in primer we did a trail fit make sure it all lines up nice (and pray).







How close the hand gets to the bar when holing the steering wheel…. Drove like this for a for weeks before fitting correctly and I didn’t hit is once and now I have a little bit more of a gap when it’s all fitted right.


 

 

Front cross section


More pics of the rear






All the plates had their final coat of primer



 

 

Continued







Put some sealant on the front plates because they will get rubbed about the place from the car mats.

 

 

Week later it was time to spray up all the plates to hopefully match the floor. Mat had a go of blending in the paint and I think it matched the flooring pretty well…. Especially since the colour of the car!

It’s like when you look at the rear turrets where the flooring has very little paint and then it’s slowly blended to the rear turrets where there is the proper colour.




We didn't bother trying to blend the front plates in because mats will be covering them and it would be hard because of the sound deadening.






You can see Henry's little bruv in the background Charles..... He liked sucking ears all through the weekend!





I’m well impressed the work Mat have done, I know I wouldn’t be able to do any of that lol. And I’m especially impressed with the rear section!