Skoda Rally Blog

…. to finally get the engine all in, and fire it up. However, yesterday’s slow progress meant that I had a lot to do, first of which was to fix up the exhaust downpipes, which didn’t take too long, and I took the opportunity to strengthen them as well. They’ll get replaced after Rally GB, but right now I don’t have a weekend to spare getting all the bits together and making a replacement up. So they will have to do. The big upside of the new system I made is that it fits very well, and is really easy to get on and off – there is no messing about, just three mountings, all of which are positively located, and two clamps. Nice.

Next, the inlet manifold. This was one of several MPi (standard, to be Group A legal) manifolds that I have, and I’d matched it to the head for (hopefully) improved performance. The MPi inlet is clearly not going to work as well as a full-on “works” setup, but I don’t have one, so that’s that. I’ve optimised what I can, and it looks to be as good as it can be. Fitting the injectors was next, but two things needed to be done – firstly they are longer than the standard short MPi ones, and secondly I’m using an adjustable fuel pressure regulator that’s located on the bulkhead rather than the standard one (which I’ve seen alter in performance when I had a long and tedious testing session trying to find out why N158UBD ran so badly). However, I wanted to make the mod reversible and also reliable, so I opened up the stock regulator and removed the cap and diahragm meaning it’ll always be open, but won’t leak or have other issues. If I need to go back to the stock one, it’s just one bolt and pop one in. Splendid. Let’s hope it’s not needed.

Next up, assembling the rest of the manifold – throttle body (easy) throttle cable (easy really, but physically awkward, especially when there’s a rollcage in the way, and I fit the wrong type first!), various pipes and hoses, and then finally the engine management. This is the DTA E48 setup, and was running the car before. The only modification I need to make is to extend the Air Temperature sensor as it now needs to be over in the cold air box (before it was…er… just hanging out with the ECU….). The rest of it just plugged in, once it was taped up and tidy.

Driveshafts are essential in a car. And even more so if you don’t want to have a nightmare – if you turn a standard FWD car gearbox over without them in, the gears inside the diff can drop out of position, and in the case of the Skoda box break the casing. So despite us going nowhere I thought fitting them would be a good idea, so I did that, and found that the wishbone outer joint boots were split (an MOT failure) so I replaced them – handily I had lots of such spares from back in the day, they were about 30p each…

Then it was time to put some oil in, and then double-check everything. I even triple-checked everything as any kind of error now will mean (at best) a complete nightmare, but possibly a non-start. All seemed to be OK, so I turned on, and disconnected the throttle body so the ECU wouldn’t put any fuel in, as I wanted to get oil pressure before anything else. I turned the engine over.. and over some more… and over. Still nothing. So I checked that there was oil coming out of the pipe going to the cooler, and there was. Just a matter of time then? Another go put the oil light out, so I reconnected and anticipated several flat batteries before anything happened.

And it just fired up. Straight away. Rich as hell, but firing on all 4. I blatted the throttle a few times and let it die, and just checked everything over again. All seemed well so I fired it up and kept it going for a few minutes, and again checked everything. All well, so I did it once more. Excellent.

Now I did a proper check, and found that the push-on oil pipe fittings seemed to be weeping oil. Rather than have a hernia about this (it’s no problem really, as long as I sort it out before running the car properly), I called time on the day’s proceedings as I still feel rotten, and this was where I wanted to be by the end of the day. I took a picture and then spent the rest of the afternoon going through the myriad boxes of spares I have (which are spread between the garage and the large shed in the garden), and tidied up the garage which almost looks presentable. Almost. So here’s what it looks like now (the engine, not the garage, no-one’s seeing that mess!)

Due to some personal disaster (my band has split up) I now have Tuesday nights free. So looking on the bright side, I can spend that time working on the car and hopefully get everything done. This week I may make some progress on the LSD, and possibly have some gearbox developments (no, really!)