Skoda Rally Blog

OK, yesterday I made good progress.

And today was largely the same, although as ever some issues have prevented things going 100% to plan, but that’s life, isn’t it?

Got the flywheel and clutch on the engine (having discovered finally the difference between the old and new-style clutch covers), and then for the first time ever put a gearbox on with the engine out of the car. Which was soooo easy, I’d almost take the engine out in future to change gearbox. OK, not really, but it was a piece of cake. And then get the engine/box into the car, which was easy too – and the ‘strengthened’ mounting rubbers are quite a bit stiffer now the polyurethane has gone off – much less movement than before.

And suddenly I was confronted with a very neat-looking engine bay. Which I forgot to take a photo of! But take my word for it, it looks great.

What’s not so great is that the exhaust downpipes are really cracked, so I need to fix them before refitting, or replace them – quotes are imminent, although delivery is clearly an issue. This means that I can’t fit a few other things, but I did get lots of “little” things fitted, and work out where the oil cooler is going to go (handy having another MPi Felicia in the drive to size things up on a fully built up unit as well), as well as how I’m going to make the cool air box for the new air filter (replacing the original airbox setup). The inlet manifold is properly matched to the head, and also a lip where the throttle body sits is also removed, which should help out a bit. The manifold is cleaned up and ready for the larger injectors to be fitted, and lots of other bits. I’ve made a massive list of fasteners and bits to be bought tomorrow, and have also ordered the bits I need for next weekend – the task then is to get the car running. Not drivable (as that’s probably too much), but running on the DTA management and so on. This is just about doable, I think, and then the weekend after some setting up to allow running the engine in is on the cards.

There were a lot of minor things done as well today, such as rebuilding the driveshafts, fixing various little things which took up a lot of time, but should make everything reliable.

Anyway, that’s the plan. I have a full week of work (days and evenings) so no time until Friday afternoon. Here goes…