I've had this for a while but not put a thread up til now, because who wants to see a "nearly standard, rough 106"? not me! It's worth looking at now though!
I bought it to replace the mini of doom, off a mate who was using it as his second/third car for track days and road rallying, but he realised he'd not driven it in about 8 months so I snapped it up.
I bought it like this:
With buckets, harnesses and whatnot. I hated them so bought the first interior I could find and swapped the seats and belts.
Initially I was going to just "leave it as a cheap, but nippy runabout" but it was running a 1.6 Saxo VTR engine on the 1.4 XSi management, which was great for power but the idle was anywhere between "none" or "2000rpm" which quickly got annoying. I briefly looked into putting the proper VTR management on, but as soon as I hit £150 I thought sod it and sourced a 106 GTi 1.6 16v engine and slapped that in.
The front was on coilovers, and knocking it's sack off (brand new balljoints, bushes and inner+outer track rod ends killed in 1000 miles!) so I decided to swap new bottom arms on and lower it while I was at it.
After that, it looked like this:
I was happy with this for about 2 weeks. When I'd been my local friendly french car breakers for the wishbones etc, I took them off a 2003 Saxo VTR which had a lovely interior. By now I was gettign fed up of the seats I'd bought (3 different patterns, plus different doorcards and the worlds filthyest red rallye seatbelts) so I inquired about taking the interior out of the saxo. I was given a good price (£80) for anything I wanted from inside the car, so I decided I'd have the lot - Doorcards, dash, seats, dashboard, clocks, everything.
A few days later I set about stripping the 106 so that we could just drive it to the scrappers and basically unbolt the saxo and bolt it into the 106.
An interesting drive to the scrapyard:
Followed by the morning stripping bits out of the saxo (bluey/silver one on the right)
It was supported as safe as you like on a pile of steelies off mid-70s motors:
Got back to my mates and swapped the lot in, and shazam:
Around this time I'd had an idea, and sent a set of wheels off to JamesP for some inches adding in. Some time later they arrived after a bit of drama with DHL
Shortly before this, came my arches (I couldnt resist sticking them to my mums Ka):
And I think you can see where this is going!
After getting the wheels blasted then spending ages sanding, painting, sanding, painting followed by lots of painting and then some tyres (225/40s and 195/45s) I threw the wheels on with the stock arches. I knew it wouldn't end well, but I was curious.
The result was comedy, curse word looking poke (like the usual mk2 golf with 8 inch ATS classics and big cheap baloon tyres kind of curse word) which made me question the whole thing.
I drove up to my mates (where the spraying kit is) and we got the arches fitted - they needed a bit of trimming to fit over the bumpers, and I cut the hell out of the stock arches underneath!
Once cut to size, we prepped them and sprayed them (Note the professional 2k ready spray booth, or "12 foot shed" as it is commonly known)
The paint turned out as well as I could have hoped (good work jon!) with a few bits of dust in (Spraying them in a shed that 10 minutes before I was sanding them in, no real alternative) but a good solid few coats of 2k jet black that should last a while.
I got them home and fitted them today. Heres the results!
I'm bloody happy with how it's turned out. It's still very much a work in progress - I'll be fitting a pair of new doors (without holes or dints), filling all the trim holes down the side and then giving it a full respray in the same grey as the wheels (similar to the original colour, but not metallic)
I bought it to replace the mini of doom, off a mate who was using it as his second/third car for track days and road rallying, but he realised he'd not driven it in about 8 months so I snapped it up.
I bought it like this:
With buckets, harnesses and whatnot. I hated them so bought the first interior I could find and swapped the seats and belts.
Initially I was going to just "leave it as a cheap, but nippy runabout" but it was running a 1.6 Saxo VTR engine on the 1.4 XSi management, which was great for power but the idle was anywhere between "none" or "2000rpm" which quickly got annoying. I briefly looked into putting the proper VTR management on, but as soon as I hit £150 I thought sod it and sourced a 106 GTi 1.6 16v engine and slapped that in.
The front was on coilovers, and knocking it's sack off (brand new balljoints, bushes and inner+outer track rod ends killed in 1000 miles!) so I decided to swap new bottom arms on and lower it while I was at it.
After that, it looked like this:
I was happy with this for about 2 weeks. When I'd been my local friendly french car breakers for the wishbones etc, I took them off a 2003 Saxo VTR which had a lovely interior. By now I was gettign fed up of the seats I'd bought (3 different patterns, plus different doorcards and the worlds filthyest red rallye seatbelts) so I inquired about taking the interior out of the saxo. I was given a good price (£80) for anything I wanted from inside the car, so I decided I'd have the lot - Doorcards, dash, seats, dashboard, clocks, everything.
A few days later I set about stripping the 106 so that we could just drive it to the scrappers and basically unbolt the saxo and bolt it into the 106.
An interesting drive to the scrapyard:
Followed by the morning stripping bits out of the saxo (bluey/silver one on the right)
It was supported as safe as you like on a pile of steelies off mid-70s motors:
Got back to my mates and swapped the lot in, and shazam:
Around this time I'd had an idea, and sent a set of wheels off to JamesP for some inches adding in. Some time later they arrived after a bit of drama with DHL
Shortly before this, came my arches (I couldnt resist sticking them to my mums Ka):
And I think you can see where this is going!
After getting the wheels blasted then spending ages sanding, painting, sanding, painting followed by lots of painting and then some tyres (225/40s and 195/45s) I threw the wheels on with the stock arches. I knew it wouldn't end well, but I was curious.
The result was comedy, curse word looking poke (like the usual mk2 golf with 8 inch ATS classics and big cheap baloon tyres kind of curse word) which made me question the whole thing.
I drove up to my mates (where the spraying kit is) and we got the arches fitted - they needed a bit of trimming to fit over the bumpers, and I cut the hell out of the stock arches underneath!
Once cut to size, we prepped them and sprayed them (Note the professional 2k ready spray booth, or "12 foot shed" as it is commonly known)
The paint turned out as well as I could have hoped (good work jon!) with a few bits of dust in (Spraying them in a shed that 10 minutes before I was sanding them in, no real alternative) but a good solid few coats of 2k jet black that should last a while.
I got them home and fitted them today. Heres the results!
I'm bloody happy with how it's turned out. It's still very much a work in progress - I'll be fitting a pair of new doors (without holes or dints), filling all the trim holes down the side and then giving it a full respray in the same grey as the wheels (similar to the original colour, but not metallic)
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Win some lose some I suppose!
Ax GTi Turbo
