So after the demise of the cinq i went looking for a metro gti, realised they was out of my budget and brought a mk1 punto sporting, after finishing the landrover selling the punto and using the landrover daily for a few years i decided on getting another daily, walked into dads work and this was in the show room
brought it and instatntly took it to longbride
wanted abit more sound so fitted a cheap hornet bomb
picked up some mpi gti wheels needed a refurb
cheeky picture of the landrover and the metro together
got my hands on a gti spoiler
first wash in my ownership after droping the wheels off to city wheel refurbs
got the wheels back and made sure to get some poorboys on them to keep them nice
got them wrapped in some toyo cf2s and fitted
got myself gti front splitter and gti skirts
got an updated longbride picture
fitted a sub
and a colour coded fuel cap insert
some mats
noticed when i was fitting the wheels it needed some lower ball joints found some genuine rover ones for less then what i'd pay at euro in trade also fitted upper ball joints while the hubs were off
The pads were low so dicided with the future plans i'd do a brake upgrade to mgf brakes (same as metro gti)
decided to buy a private plate so the engine swap was set in stone
picked up a doner for its engine and gearbox
found a very cheap gti steering wheel on ebay
got the vvc on the stand and started cleaning and painting the block an gearbox
brought a metro gti engine loom and sent that along with the vvc engine loom off to mike a klooms to convert them to work togehter
big box of genuine parts inc'd timing belt oil filter and a few other bits
got some nice stainless rocker cover bolts
fitted my vibe slick 6 6.5 in the front doors
picked up some harder to find MPI metro bits to make the vvc fit easier in my spi heater matrix pipes throttle cable and ecu bracket
picked up a zr 160 airbox with k&n panel filter already in also got a lead cover to finish off the engine
got some black 8mm leads off mr retro leads
zr/zs pg1 gear linkage
road trip to the lakes
1.1 did me well but it was time to start puilling it apart, also fitted some polly bushes in the lower stabiler mount
engine bay cleaned up really well
picked up a 2.5" exhaust and vv160 6bolt exhaust mani of an ex metro cup car gave the dowpipe a quick coat of vht
pulled out the pedal box to make a start on coverting to hydro clutch could of stayed cable but that meant buying more thing and i wanted to use what i had so modifed the servo plate of the mgf to fit the metro servo as it was stamped for it but wasnt cut out, this also meant that the clutch master was in the right place i then fitted the f pedal to the metro pedal box the padle landed in the wrong place i could if welded a mount for the clutch master on the metro pedal for wanted to make sure the padal ratio was right so i choped the end of the f pedal off done the same to the metro one and welded it back on in the right place
gave the subframe a paint
it was raining but i wanted to get the engine in so made a canopy and got it done
found out the zr airbox wouldn't work with the mg hydro slave but i wasn't fitting a cone filter as i wanted it to look fairly factory so the grinder came out to chop the box up
with the vvc they tend to run hotter then the 1.1 and with the metro rads starting to get hard to find it was best to fit the mg f rad with some small mods it fits without to much hassle
with the fitment off the pg1 gearbox you need to move the lower stabaliser theres two ways of doing this one is to fit the mg f subframe i could of done this but didn't fancy doing that so we chopped the mount off and welded it to the metro subframe
fitted the orginal mg f in the metro hanger just like a 16v swap in a cento the orignal metro spi fuel pump is 1bar and the mg f fuel pump runs at 3 bar
made a servo pipe as i forgot to pull it off the mpi i pulled all the bits off
silicone 90 to the airbox just flashy enought but not in yout face
starting fiting the freshly painted gti splitter to the bumper
custom cluch pipe from hel and rover 25 upper water hose fits nicelly with a little bit of trimming
needed a way of switching on the fan as the metro orignally had the switch in the rad
pg1 linkaged shortend to fit the metro along with fitting the downpipe to the center
got the front bumper refitted
had to modify the bango on the cluch pipe slightly think i order m10 banjos but it was m11
first drive! probs the quickest car i've ever driven but it was an unprodictable thing due to me doing nothing to the suspention
first drive to work, if you followed my cinq build back in the day it didn't do that
gearstick was abit low imo so added a cheap extention along with a standard mx5 knob i had kicking about
got rid of the chrome strips was struggaling to find red in the size i needed or original gti bumpers so black it was
first proper run out to weston to make sure everyting was ok
then onto the suspention this included gti arbs and some valves
found some gti seatbelts
then off to the metro and mini show at gayden
picked up a gti interior and 1.4 si black carpet
then thought it can't be to hard to swap carpets at 7 on the night
then it was time to spend a weekend at work sorting the suspention out fitted mg f cans as they're 10mm shorted then metro ones already so no need to cut them
then cut 10mm off the rear this is so when i pump the hydrogas up to its proper pressure the cars then lower by 40mm but will be as stiff as orignally intended as before it was low on pressure also fitted the arbs the front front one hit the gearlinkage so made some minor adjustments to that
got some gti 130mph clocks
also fitted a vibe micro amp
couple more pictures now the everythings sat
engine mount wasnt looking very happy zr gearbox mount sorted it
shock mounts and gaz shocks
had no dipped headlights to find an earth come off the stalk
then it was on to upgrading the likes this led everything
then it was onto usc at pod were the metro done a thing the beautiful person @jatkinson towed me in after my pals pushed it into pod, ended up bypassing the matrix with a round metal powerbank with the internals gutted to get me all the way back to birmingham
annoyed with a 20year old pipe i made something better in silicone
fixed just before retro ride on the metropower stand
fitted some gti rear spats (theyre like little mudflaps behing the rear bumper)
this was a rare fine towing cover for the gti spillter its one of them things that get lost over time
dark ice short shifter fitted along with rebuilding the bushes on the front of the linkage
otherhlaf got me some replica dealer plates in pre 2001 font for chrismas took us ages to find our who the supplying dealer was and thats when we found out its been a birmingham car all its life but would recomend retro plates of any one that needs replica plates
and that brings us to this weekend were i noticed someones hit the metro while its been parked up pushing in the back panel and doing damage to the bumper and tailgate that put me on the hunt for parts so if anyones got any friends hiding old metro parts in NAL white dimond ill defo be intrested in buying them i'm looking for
a pair of front wings
tailgate ideally a proper gti one
rear bumper colour coded bottom ideally (changing the look up)
gti/gta door rubbing strips
Attachment only display on the update they are attached to, so I've modified that for you now
Cheers for sorting that Ben it popped up with a iirc 10000 word limit at the time so copied and pasted into 3 different updatesFantastic update! And thank you for actually using the update system
Ah gotcha! I've removed the limit now, so shouldn't be any issues in the future
