hi

Hi from the co-owner of a '02 Xsara VTS, I say co-owner because the car as been bought as a road rally / trackday project so me and my navigator are sharing the costs, the first part of the project was to find a suitable car, budget is tight so the cheaper the better.
TBH the Xsara wasn't even on our short list which consisted of stuff like Nissan primera GT, almera Gti , proton GTi, rover ZR, Clio 172 etc (road rally regs allow only non turbos up to 2.0litre hence the shortlist) we were looking for a cheap straight 150-170 bhp car, but nothing was really catching our eye till we stumbled upon this Xsara on a well know auction site, '02 VTS 12months test, just had new dics & pads , new rear caliper and handbrake cable, only bad bit is a knock on the O/S front wing but that's nothing to worry about given our intentions for the car. Also I discovered that the VTS has nearly 170bhp and shares much of it's running gear with the 306 GTi which surprised me because it's a very understated car, anyway with a starting price of just £300 it seemed worth a punt and I'm pleased to say there was only one bid (mine) so it sold for £300 which appeares to be a bit of a bargain, we're off to collect it tonight and see what we've bought, update and pics to follow

Hello and welcome

Get some pics up when you get a chance, bear with the site as its going threw a facelift

welcome along mate get some pics up

a few pics as requested,
this it,



'02 Xsara VTS, full MOT although it has a few issues but for £300 I'm not complaining



it needs a a front wing and the bumper painting




rear bumper is loose and also needs paint



interior looks ok on the pic but there's a few bit of trim loose and it stinks of dog!! really bad, drivers seat back was broken and needed welding up.



so I valeted it and found this when I removed the seat to repair it , that's dog hair under the seat, somene must have hoovered it out prior to sale but not done a very good jo, anyway it's cleaned out now although there's still a wiff of mut




seat now repaired I welded some box section in to stiffen it up



I've been busy on the car it now looks like this


jobs completed so far

cambelt changed along with crank pulley which had spun the outer section
aux belt changed
A/C removed
air bags removed
brakes sreipped and re-built with new dics and EBC yellowstuff pads allround + Motul RB660 fluid
Engine and gearbox oil changed
coolant changed
Koni ajustable dampers fitted with lowered springs at the front
Air box modded to remove the resonator and K&N fitted

jobs still to do
fit guards to the sump and fuel tank
fit some big driving lights and uprate the main beam bulbs
fit some harrnesses
replace front wing paint wing and both bumpers
sort out the MIL which comes on every now and again (I'm hoping my anroid phone app will find the problem I'm just waiting for the OBD2 bluetooth thingy to arrive)
change plugs (may solve above issue)
just about is for now, I'm new to french cars so the mods I've made are largely aim at reliability untill I learn more about what's worth doing and what isn't but any conmments on what else I should be doing to improve it most welcome. Cheers Mark















a few pics as requested,
this it,



'02 Xsara VTS, full MOT although it has a few issues but for £300 I'm not complaining



it needs a a front wing and the bumper painting




rear bumper is loose and also needs paint



interior looks ok on the pic but there's a few bit of trim loose and it stinks of dog!! really bad, drivers seat back was broken and needed welding up.



so I valeted it and found this when I removed the seat to repair it , that's dog hair under the seat, somene must have hoovered it out prior to sale but not done a very good jo, anyway it's cleaned out now although there's still a wiff of mut




seat now repaired I welded some box section in to stiffen it up



I've been busy on the car it now looks like this


jobs completed so far

cambelt changed along with crank pulley which had spun the outer section
aux belt changed
A/C removed
air bags removed
brakes sreipped and re-built with new dics and EBC yellowstuff pads allround + Motul RB660 fluid
Engine and gearbox oil changed
coolant changed
Koni ajustable dampers fitted with lowered springs at the front
Air box modded to remove the resonator and K&N fitted

jobs still to do
fit guards to the sump and fuel tank
fit some big driving lights and uprate the main beam bulbs
fit some harrnesses
replace front wing paint wing and both bumpers
sort out the MIL which comes on every now and again (I'm hoping my anroid phone app will find the problem I'm just waiting for the OBD2 bluetooth thingy to arrive)
change plugs (may solve above issue)
just about is for now, I'm new to french cars so the mods I've made are largely aim at reliability untill I learn more about what's worth doing and what isn't but any conmments on what else I should be doing to improve it most welcome. Cheers Mark















a few pics as requested,
this it,



'02 Xsara VTS, full MOT although it has a few issues but for £300 I'm not complaining



it needs a a front wing and the bumper painting




rear bumper is loose and also needs paint



interior looks ok on the pic but there's a few bit of trim loose and it stinks of dog!! really bad, drivers seat back was broken and needed welding up.



so I valeted it and found this when I removed the seat to repair it , that's dog hair under the seat, somene must have hoovered it out prior to sale but not done a very good jo, anyway it's cleaned out now although there's still a wiff of mut




seat now repaired I welded some box section in to stiffen it up



I've been busy on the car it now looks like this


jobs completed so far

cambelt changed along with crank pulley which had spun the outer section
aux belt changed
A/C removed
air bags removed
brakes sreipped and re-built with new dics and EBC yellowstuff pads allround + Motul RB660 fluid
Engine and gearbox oil changed
coolant changed
Koni ajustable dampers fitted with lowered springs at the front
Air box modded to remove the resonator and K&N fitted

jobs still to do
fit guards to the sump and fuel tank
fit some big driving lights and uprate the main beam bulbs
fit some harrnesses
replace front wing paint wing and both bumpers
sort out the MIL which comes on every now and again (I'm hoping my anroid phone app will find the problem I'm just waiting for the OBD2 bluetooth thingy to arrive)
change plugs (may solve above issue)
just about is for now, I'm new to french cars so the mods I've made are largely aim at reliability untill I learn more about what's worth doing and what isn't but any conmments on what else I should be doing to improve it most welcome. Cheers Mark

god knows why it's duplicated the info in the post but if won't let me edit to correct so it'll have to stay as is, just ingore the repeat info

Looks like a total bargain!!

I have a lot of time for these, in many ways a better car than the ever popular 306, for half the price!!

Yeah i used afew parts from these when i build me Rallye come as standard with a few upgrades for a 306

_Mike_ wrote:Looks like a total bargain!!

I have a lot of time for these, in many ways a better car than the ever popular 306, for half the price!!

the problem with the Xsara is it's not a pretty car, it's not exactly ugly but there's something not quite right about it plus it's hard to tell a VTS from a 1.4 LX , where as the 306 is more attractive and it's easy to spot a Rallye or a GTi-6 compared to the lesser models, this leads to the relatively unloved Xsara been good value particularly in VTS guise, after all it’s almost the exact same car as the GTi-6 but without the sharp suit and 6 speed box, it’s tough to argue against a near 170bhp car with an excellent chassis for £300, OK it does need a bit of fettling but even then I’m estimating it’ll end up costing less than £1K all prep’d with a choice of wheels (slick/semi slicks for trackdays and tarmac plus gravel tyres for loose surface road rallies ) you’d be lucky to get a tidy 306 for that money plus it would then need servicing and the brakes, suspension etc sorting to bring it up to where I want to be with my Xsara.

Project Kennel?

well spotted

Well the 'kennel' is all legal, ins'd, MOT'd and as of Feb 1st taxed I fitted the K&N replacement filter into the modded airbox and it was all ready to go O0

[img width=800 height=600]https://2img.net/h/i235.photobucket.com/albums/ee300/budd_album/2013-02-05120348_zpsb2bd09e4.jpg[/img]

well that was the idea anywhy the 'kennel' had other ideas, on it's first legal run out over the weekend once it started to get up to running temp the MIL came on and it dropped on to 3 cyls, bugger so much for a late night blast !! anyway I ran the Torque diagnostic with the bluetooth adapter and found PO351 -powertrain - ignition coil 'A primary / seconary circuit which I'd guess is a coil pack I've read they can appear to be OK then start to fail as they get warmed trough, anyway I've ot a set of used ones on they're way (ebay) so I'm hoping they will sort it.

It's now looking quite good, spot lights are fitted 130watt Ring rally sport bulbs, should be quite bright up front as it's got Osram 55w nightbreakers in the dips, 100w Ring Rally sport bulbs in the main beam plus 100w fog light bulbs

[img width=800 height=600]https://2img.net/h/i235.photobucket.com/albums/ee300/budd_album/2013-02-03154036_zps03c1d057.jpg[/img]

[img width=800 height=487]https://2img.net/h/i235.photobucket.com/albums/ee300/budd_album/2013-02-03154022_zps9e84d93d.jpg[/img]
so if the replacement coil packs sort the running issues we we should be ready to go, fitting the harnesses, tow hooks, bonnet pins etc but if the coil packs solve the problem and it's nothing more sinister then these remaining jobs are easy and I can do them during the week leading up to our first event, the only other thing that could cause a problem is Ken's race licence both driver and navigator need a MSA licence I've not mine but he's only just applied for his so I hope they get their act together at the MSA and get in the post ASAP.

UPDATE
Well project ‘kennel’ is up and running despite a few teething problems, first problem was the mysterious misfire which had a plagued car since we got it in Nov, OBD said coil packs so these were changed and at first I thought it was cured but then it started to misfire again bugger !! this time the OBD said injector failure so after much head scratching and wire testing with the old multimeter it was just the same but the next day it fires up and miraculously the misfire is gone don’t really know why maybe it was a loose dirty connection or maybe the liberal dose of circuit cleaner that we sprayed on every connector did the trick either way it’s been running without issue ever since so I’m happy.
We had hoped to run it in the ‘Lummies’ rally on the 17th Feb and while the car was ready and we were entered with all our race licences and competition insurance in place the rally was cancelled at the eleventh hour, they are hoping to reschedule it but no date as yet been fixed, so we are currently waiting for the regs to come out for the VK Rally on Apr 6th hopefully that will be our first competitive outing.

Although I haven’t driven the car competitively yet we have been out for some ‘testing’ on the twisty lanes of West Yorks, it’s the first time I’ve driven a Xsara and overall I’m quite impressed there are some issues but considering the amount of money that as been spent it’s unfair to be to critical.

Things I like:

excellent turn in and front end feel

brakes, despite only been able to strip and rebuild the fronts due to the locking wheel nut key going AWOL before I could get the rears off, the EBC yellowstuff pads in the front have so proved a pleasant surprise, like a lot of people I’ve had poor experiences with EBC in the past and was reluctant to give them another chance but given our limited budget and with the opportunity to obtain front and rear yellowstuff pads and goodridge hoses for well under £100 it was a bit of a no brainer and so far I’m very pleased with them and I'm confident that once the rears are fitted with new discs and matching EBC pads the brakes should be superb.

strong free revving engine, with only a K&N element in the OE air box I wasn’t expecting much from the little 2 litre lump but it’s a surprisingly pleasant little unit running gamely up to it’s 7K limit

Things I'm less happy with

Slightly wayward rear and poor balance, while the front feels pretty planted the rear is a bit nervous / twitchy, it was moving about quite a bit on some sections of our ‘roadtest’, I think Kevin Schwantz coined the phrase ‘squirrelly’ to describe this type trait.
This loose feeling contributes to a poor overall balance, strong front twitchy rear so as a whole it’s not as confidence inspiring as it could and probably should be, I think some research and same tinkering with the torsion bars will help but for the moment it’s not bad enough to worry about and I think I can learn to live with it for the time been.

Traction out of bends is a bit poor, it spins up the un-weighted front wheel a bit to easily for my liking a LSD would be fantastic but at the moment funds don’t allow it so I’ll have to be lighter on the loud peddle

The other main gripe are the seats which are bloody awful, the drivers seat as been fixed but is still slightly twisted and not very supportive ultimately we’ll be fitting some buckets but as a decent composite shell seat is £200 upwards this will have to wait a while so I’m looking at fitting some seats from my old MR2 which are more like the old style Recaros from Ford RSs etc and more importantly are free
I’m convinced they’ll be a worthwhile improvement over the Citroen things.

So next job is to trial fit the MR2 seats see if they are going to be worth the effort of fitting, also ready to fit is the sump guard which is pretty much essential as some of the roads in road rallying are quite challenging, know as whites these sections are often unmade roads and farm tracks and make up a small percentage of the overall course usually only a few miles in total but when driven at speed the risk of ‘bashing’ the sump is very real and it’s simply not worth the risk of loosing the oil up some farmers track, also to fit are the harnesses we’ve got hold of some Sparco belts which are out of homologation but with 3” straps and aircraft buckle are perfect for road rallying, I haven’t decided whether to use eye bolts to mount the shoulder straps or to weld in a harness bar come rear brace between the rear wheel arches, using eye bolts is obviously a simpler solution but I’m wandering if the benefit of a rear ‘strutbrace’ makes fitting one worth while, I know there are no rear strut turrets but I’m thinking a chassis brace as got to have some benefit to overall shell rigidity.
Then finally I’ve got the rear brakes to sort, stripping and rebuilding the old ones and fitting new dics and the EBC pads, the only fly in the ointment is the loss of the locking wheel nut key which annoyingly as vanished, I’ve tried driving it up and down with the wheel nuts loosened off hoping the wheel would work the locker loose but to no avail I can’t get near it with a hammer and chisel so at the moment I’ve no way of removing the bloody things, however there’s a firm local to me that make a tool / system for removing locking wheel nuts apparently this is a proper piece of kit and not a reverse threaded socket so I’m thinking a trip over there for a demo is on the cards I might even buy one if they are as good as described.
That’s it for now, more soon when I get the seats sorted and wheels removed.