TIMELINE

Sunday 24th September 2006: Biannual has turned into annual and 11 months later we have another update!

• Wiring is complete.
• Oil System is complete and filled.
• Coolant system complete and filled
• Throttle bodies are as good as finished
• Fuel system (including home made fuel rail) is fitted.
• Gearbox filled with oil.

IT WORKS! After thoroughly checking the fuel and sparks work we turned it over today and it fired first time! Big smiles all round.

Tuesday 11th October 2005: Another one of my biannual updates. This project has taken about a squillion times longer than originally anticipated for a variety of reasons. The latest news is that the car will be run natually aspirated for the first month or so of it's working life when done. This will finally give me my own car to drive for a while, let the engine run in and also give us a bit more time to sort the charging bit. Since March we've got the following done:

• 90% of the wiring is done - A job made harder after accidentally cutting out a load of wires that were needed - whoops!
• Airbox is nearly finished.
• Throttle bodies are nearly finished.
• Temporary exhaust system has been fitted - Thanks to stew205 for lending me his manifold while I sort the turbo.
• The slam panel has been repainted in gloss black.
• The 206gti180 / 307 brakes have gone on and have been bled. The clearance between the caliper and wheel is minimal - it actually scrapes dirt off the inside off the rim! I'll have to get them rebalanced as the wheel weights hit the caliper in the standard position.

Tuesday 29th March 2005: Loads has happened since last November:

• The subframe has gone back on, all nice and clean.
• The engine has been assembled. Head and block are back together.
• The suspension turrets are back on the car with garish yellow tops.
• The gearbox (inc LSD) has gone back on the engine, with new Helix organic clutch.
• The engine bay has had a bit of a clean and some rusty bits have been treated + sprayed.
• The engine and 'box have gone back into the bay.
• Driveshafts are back on with new intermediate bearing on drivers side.
• A cardboard exhaust manifold has been made as a model for the final one.
• Pipes for exhaust have been ordered and arrived.
• New clutch cable installed (gawd that pedal's heavy now!).
• Dash has been partially removed and a quick look at the loom tells us we may have bitten off more than we can chew - not all of the wires are listed in my Haynes manual and there's an aftemarket cat1 alarm in there too. Gulp.
• Work has started on the throttle bodies.

Sunday 7th November 2004: The wishbones went back on the subframe after using a bit of force. Alex started working on the block again - liner protrusions and attaching the oil spray bars after cleaning.

Saturday 6th November 2004: I got the newly ground crank back from the engineers + over(under?)sized bearings. Al finished the valves, seals and springs on the head. We had a bit of fun sorting tappets, one of which was a royal bitch to disassamble. We finished putting them in the head at 10.20pm. The new bushes went into the wishbones - pretty easy too! Then the camshafts, caps + 24 bolts, etc went on after muchos cleaning + lubricating. Cam cover is now on until we put the head on the block.

Thursday 4th November 2004: I finished getting the old bushes out.

Sunday 31st October 2004: I spend a few hours getting old bushes out of wishbone. A real bastard of a job and I'm only halfway

Sunday 24th October: Alex started putting the head back together and gets halfway through stem seals and springs - I continued the subframe cleaning job - killing any gloves that come into contact with the large amounts of white spirit I used.

Saturday 23rd October:. Take Subframe out and dismantle for cleaning and new bushes. It's caked in 13 years of mud

Saturday 16th October:. Finish fitting little bits to the gearbox like the input driveshaft oil seal and housing plus the speedo drive housing. De-rust the battery tray and give it and the battery clamp a coating of primer ready for painting. Hack the old air-con compressor mountings off of the alloy sump to make room for the pressurised air piping from the turbo. Go to the pub, get rat-arsed, come back and update website.

Friday 15th October: Engine came out again after much (probably inaccurate) measurement for the turbo. Checked the bearing clearances on the 205GTidrivers forum as they seemed a little excessive. They were at the top end of the tolerance which we thought was fine, but a call to one of Alex's race engine building mates convinced us that not having a re-grind was something of a false economy so the crank went to Roe engineering in Fleet for this to be done. Got various bits from Pug including washers for the valve springs.........we later found the original washers which Roe's removed before they cleaned the head so they didn't get lost. Arse. Finally, at about 10pm, we begin to change the differentail for the quaife item. This goes in nicely but once again, the cleaning of all the associated parts takes an age so it actually takes about 4 or 5 hours in total :(

Thursday 14th October:Cleaned sump. Finished putting hollow engine together (sump, spacer, empty block, empty head, cam cover & gearbox). Hoisted it up and plonked it into the engine bay for measuring up inlet and exhaust piping, including intercooler. The engine went in beautifully. Cue smiley faced Stuart.

Wednesday 13th October:. Still that infernal gearbox isn't clean, but it's getting there. Alex cleaned out head bolt threads in block and oilways and cleaned up crank. Checked bearing clearences with Plastigauge. After a massive scare we found out it was ok. Phew!

Tuesday 12th October Spent hours driving round buying stuff and ordering bits. Alex started getting block ready, cleaned up bearing caps. I carried on with the stupid gearbox cleaning (grrr). Nathan very kindly increased the chamfer on the con-rod bolt holes for me (thankyou!). Engine hoist arrived. Went to the pub quiz in the evening

Monday 11th October. Alex checked cams and did valve lapping. I made a start on cleaning the gearbox, should be a quick job

Sunday 10th October. Take engine block and transmission out after much cursing

Saturday 9th October: Spend morning shopping for big ol' breaker bar, M11x1.5 tap, lapping kit and Booze and food for the week. Also picked up a load of bits from alex's house. Took auxilliary engine bits off and cylinder head too.Alex managed to get a great big scrape down his arm while taking out drivers side driveshaft

Friday 8th October: Destroy old engine (concrete powder and no oil, 3000 - 5000rpm!) and start to take out

24th September 2004: Good God! My brakes have arrived and they're HUGE! Also some bits have arrived from auto5 (speedo cable, clutch cable, thrust bearing). I've booked work off (11th - 15th October) for this project - so expect to see the project lurch forward then.

21st September 2004: Finish painting up camshaft cover.

19th September 2004: Send off large cheque to Spoox Components for brand new 206 180 brakes (calipers, discs and pads).

18th September 2004: Get diff seals and bearings from Peugeot and oil pump chain arrives too.

6th September 2004: Get headset from QEP, crank position sensor from Spoox.

3rd September 2004: Get TIM boost gauge from demon tweeks.

August 31st 2004: All QEP bits arrive (Pistons and Liners, head bolts, bottom end set, water pump, oil pump and cambelt kit).

August 28th 2004: Ordered ARP big end bolts from Rally Design. Should be pretty good!

August 26th 2004: Ordered water pump, oil pump and cambelt kit from QEP, should arrive with pistons and liners. I've got the daunting task of ordering the oil pump chain from Peugeot tomorrow. Cue a 6 month wait while they source it.

11th August 2004: Get air temp sensor and throttle pot from Emerald

July 1st 2004: Ordered set of pistons + liners from QEP.

May 29th 2004: Get my (balanced) crank and stuff back from Roe engineering. Also got bearings. Crank wasn't reground so bearings are regular size. Which saved me a few quid.

May 26th 2004: Emerald ECU arrives. Hurrah.

May 25th 2004: Flywheel bolts FINALLY arrive. I took them to Roe's today so balancing can be done. Interestingly there was a crank and flywheel there from "the phirm". I wonder what they're getting done?

April 2004: Order Emerald ecu through group buy on the 205gti drivers forum. Save myself a bit more money this way. Cheers to Daniel (Wiggs) for organising this.

March 2004: After much debating, I order a uprated helix clutch for £267 (gulp). Clutch and flywheel bolts ordered from Peugeot on 16th March. The bolts are due in on 25th May after at least 3 delays. Fucking monkeys.

February 2004: Cylinder head and crank go to Roe engineering for cleanup and check over. Head is skimmed. Water-cut exhaust flange arrives and I get MR2 recirculating dump-valve off eBay. Also get 2 bar MAP sensor for £12.50. Billy bargain.

January 2004: Alex takes away the cylinder head to measure up for the exhaust flange and throttle bodies. Pete Faulkner advertises that he can get a Quiafe Diff at reduced price so off goes a cheque for £475. Bargain - Cheers Pete!

December 26th - 30th: Alex takes the engine apart with me watching on. Bit of a learning curve for me cos I didn't know much about engines before. Everything is bagged up and labelled. Mum isn't too pleased with engine parts strewn all over the house but she put up with it. Dad's a bit annoyed with state of the garage but put up with it so long as he can get to his golf clubs.

December 9th 2003: After an hours drive over to Just Japanese near London I pick up the T25 turbo and it seems to be in good nick. It's come off a Nissan 200sx.

December 2nd 2003: My engine arrived: it's in a bit of a state and I've a feeling I paid over the top for it, but it's mine now and it'll be rebuilt before going in the car

November 2003: I get phonecall from Alex asking me if I want to buy an Mi16 engine that he'd found and start working on an Mi16 Turbo project. It sounded cool to me so I said yes. Al suggested I look into insurance before diving in. Bollocks to that, I'll deal with insurance when it's finished. (I'm very mature like that!) and by the time it's done I'll have 2 years NCB and nearly be 25.

September 2002: I buy the car I've wanted for a long time, a miami blue 1.9 205gti. It lives up to my expectations and after driving a 1.4 for five years it feels very fast.