Skoda Rally Blog

So, the ?70 coil pack didn’t work. And neither did new plugs, or anything else. So I bought another car to break. 1 owner from new, 120k miles, ?112.99 on eBay! Drove like a rocket, so I knew I’d be able to fix the car. In addition, it would mean that I’ve got most of the spares I’ll need – a decent gearbox, running engine (which I may rebuild), and I managed to strip the car down to a bare shell in all of 5 hours.

Replaced the throttle body, manifold sensor, Crank Sensor, Temperature sensor, Lambda Probe, injectors, basically everything. Nothing made any difference. Bought a gauge to measure the fuel pressure. No dice there – absolutely spot on there too. Gave up, having thrown my toys out of the pram, and all across the garage floor.

So today I grew up, and after a brief chat with Mother Teresa (well, Steve Colville), decided I’d change the exhaust – after all, there wasn’t a lot else to change. Fortunately when I fitted the exhaust I’d used copper grease on the sliding joint to the tailpipe, so it actually came off without any real effort. Put the new pipe on, but didn’t bother with the tailpipe as I didn’t have a spare. It sounded quite nice – not hideously loud, just with a bit of bite to the sound. And off down the road, and instantly knew it was OK, ‘cos for the first time in ages pulling away led to some wheelspin. The ‘usual’ speed tests showed that it was nearly as quick as the car I broke, which isn’t bad considering the taller gearing because of the 80 profile tyres compared to 70s on the scrapper.

Sorted!

Now I just need to get another tailpipe and rip the guts out of it, ‘cos that’s Group N legal. And I know it won’t be too loud either.