Citroen AX Sport 1989 Rally car - m4a/TU24

[ragginar]

Hello everyone!

This summer I obtained my Citroen AX. It has been used for rallying here in Iceland but has not run for 10 years because of a blown headgasket. Fortunately it was inside for a big chunk of that time, but for the past 4-5 years it was sitting outside. For a car that spent time like that in snow and rain, its in a pretty good condition.

Some notable things about it:
Has a Race exhaust manifold (I don´t know the proper english term for this). It´s very rusty.
An 8mm aluminum skid plate
A bolted-in OMP roll cage (Definitely illegal for racing with today´s standards)
A locking differential
Only around 87.000km driven
Some old pacenotes were still under the co-drivers seat. Fun to look at.



It´s been sitting outside my house since I got it this summer. I took a week off work this week to work on it.
My plan for the car is to get it running and drive it for fun. I don´t want to race it here in Iceland as we don´t have tarmac rally and our gravel roads are very rough on the cars. I would be very sad if I rolled this pocket rocket and destroyed it.
I´m pretty sure it´s the only roadworthy Citroen AX here in iceland.




These first pics are taken on the day I got the car. The car was very dirty when I got it and I spent a day cleaning it on the outside, and I took out the seats and seatbelts and powerwashed it on the inside.










Here come some pics from this weeks engine disassembly:



I was relieved that the exhaust manifold bolts came out easily after I heated them for a few minutes.


The red liquid is transmission fluid, a friend advised me to pour some in the cylinders.


The carburator repair kit I bought



The new headgasket, new headbolts, rubber gasket for the oil sump, exhaust manifold gaskets etc.


I took the cylinder head to a workshop and had it compression tested (I hope that´s the right term) and they shaved about 0.2mm from it.
This weekend´s project includes grinding the valves.


One of the Twin 40mm Solex ADDHE carburators in the process of being cleaned and getting new gaskets and O-rings.



The camshaft is destroyed. It´s simply too worn out and there are some pools of rust in it that can´t be treated.


Which brings me to the main reason I made this post;

I need to buy a new camshaft. I am just an amateur and this is the first time I do an engine overhaul like this. I have some options for a new cam, ofcourse I would like a little more race performance, but I don´t know what is ok for an engine with original pistons etc. I don´t know if anything in the engine has been upgraded, it does look like it has the original valve springs. I don´t know if the flywheel is original or not, it looks small compared to other flywheels I´ve seen.

Here are the options I am looking at;




What do you guys think I can put in my Citroen without endangering the otherwise standard engine?

[EarlOfHazard]

I can't answer your question, but that definitely looks likes cool project!
The AX is great fun to hoon about...yours, more so!
Good luck with it !

Edited by EarlOfHazard on Friday 7th December 13:04

Edited by EarlOfHazard on Friday 7th December 16:55

[anonymous-user]

Was there really any need to quote the entire post, including images, in the first response?

[EarlOfHazard]

Mac. said:

Was there really any need to quote the entire post, including images, in the first response?

Don't know what you're on about, pal.

[seiben]

Where's Kitchski when you need him?

[QuartzDad]

ragginar said:

and I took out the seats and seatbelts and powerwashed it on the inside.

With French electrics?

Balls. Of. Steel.

[LanceRS]

Good luck with this, a great fun little car. Nice to see some good old fashioned work being done on it, like we used to before everything was electronic and covered in bits of plastic.
Cannot help but wonder why it has BMW front wheels?

[ragginar]

QuartzDad said:

With French electrics?

Balls. Of. Steel.

Hahaha! I immediately put it inside with a heater running inside the car, all windows open for 3 days. Let´s hope it doesn´t blow up when I put in the battery :P

[ragginar]

LanceRS said:

Cannot help but wonder why it has BMW front wheels?

Good question. I think that originally these cars only have 3 wheel nuts. This one has 4 so the previous owner probably put in a new suspension with another wheel hub? Then possibly did a mix and match with the wheels to be able to fit the standard rally tires on the car. The car has on 4 unused rally tires, the problem is that they are a decade old and probably no good

[cheesesliceking]

Probably has Saxo hubs, that used to be a popular thing, unless it’s an AX GTI, they had 4 bolt hubs.
www.axoc.co.uk is a useful site

[ragginar]

cheesesliceking said:

Probably has Saxo hubs, that used to be a popular thing, unless it’s an AX GTI, they had 4 bolt hubs.
www.axoc.co.uk is a useful site

That might be. It´s an AX Sport.

axoc.co.uk is down

[rallycross]

ragginar said:

That might be. It´s an AX Sport.

axoc.co.uk is down

Interesting little car (my first rallycross car was an Ax Gt it always surprised people how well it went for a 1360 cc).

For a standard car/standard pistons there is not much you can do before you need to make notches in the pistons for the valves clearances. I had a piper bp27013 cam which was a mild improvement over standard, with standard pistons.

We had a more developed TU3S 1360 race engine that had a Catcams 4901137 which produced over 140 bhp with a big valve head and arias pistons and twin carbs - but the pistons will need cut outs if you run a high lift cam like that.

There are a couple of AX forums on Facebook, these have replaced axoc, you might be lucky to get a 2nd hand one off someone for your car

https://www.facebook.com/groups/5316115066/

https://www.facebook.com/groups/384290475097160/

also worth asking on here as some really knowledgeable folk on that forum about these engines

http://www.106rallyeforum.com/forum2008/forum.php


Keep us updated with progress looks interesting. Here's one of my old GT's.

Edited by rallycross on Saturday 8th December 13:03

[ragginar]

rallycross said:

There are a couple of AX forums on Facebook, these have replaced axoc, you might be lucky to get a 2nd hand one off someone for your car




Keep us updated with progress looks interesting. Here's one of my old GT's.

Edited by rallycross on Saturday 8th December 13:03

Thanks so much! I have asked to join these groups and will check out the forum. Your GT looks cool, I like the headlights!

I will definitely keep updating this thread

[cheesesliceking]

rallycross said:

ragginar said:

That might be. It´s an AX Sport.

axoc.co.uk is down

Interesting little car (my first rallycross car was an Ax Gt it always surprised people how well it went for a 1360 cc).

For a standard car/standard pistons there is not much you can do before you need to make notches in the pistons for the valves clearances. I had a piper bp27013 cam which was a mild improvement over standard, with standard pistons.

We had a more developed TU3S 1360 race engine that had a Catcams 4901137 which produced over 140 bhp with a big valve head and arias pistons and twin carbs - but the pistons will need cut outs if you run a high lift cam like that.

There are a couple of AX forums on Facebook, these have replaced axoc, you might be lucky to get a 2nd hand one off someone for your car

https://www.facebook.com/groups/5316115066/

https://www.facebook.com/groups/384290475097160/

also worth asking on here as some really knowledgeable folk on that forum about these engines

http://www.106rallyeforum.com/forum2008/forum.php


Keep us updated with progress looks interesting. Here's one of my old GT's.

Edited by rallycross on Saturday 8th December 13:03

That GT sounds fun, what did it weigh with the cage in?
I seem to remember they’re around 750kg ish in standard form. I assume with 140bhp it was rather rapid!

I think my two weighed around 700 after most of the rusty bits fell off!

[anonymous-user]

Great wee project you have got going on there OP!

Best of luck with it

[avenger286]

Really good little project. Keep us informed with the build and any events you do. Good luck from one small French rally car owner/driver to another.

[ragginar]

After a long (too long) period of thought, laziness and business with other things, I finally decided to assemble the cylinder head using the original camshaft. I put in the new head gasket and tightened everything to specs and am just gonna get this beast on the road instead of overthinking everything too much. I can then save up for a more aggressive cam and the pistons to go with it as I drive it around and see how long it goes with this setup.

So the cylinder head is back on the engine and now I have no excuse not to assemble the rest.

[darkyoung1000]

Excellent, please keep the updates coming - I do like A Citroën AX (especially one that has been breathed on)!

[thiscocks]

Hi o.p. I had a camshaft re made for my ax sport using the old one for measurements by Newman cams: http://www.newman-cams.com/

I'm sure if you contacted them they will be able to help. As they specialise in one off manufacturing the prices are normally cheaper than a new cat cam product. If you did go down the cat cam route then the 1105 is quite commonly used by the French owners of ax sports on an otherwise standard engine. The carb will just need a bit of a tune up and they say a bit more power can be had. From memory it has about the same lift but more duration.

Your build looks good!

[ragginar]

I wish I´d done a better job of updating this post, but the car has gone through a massive transformation and is now ready for his MOT and is actually on the way to a carshow this weekend!