Diablo 306 HDi Project

[dhdcdarchy]

Yo!
Not long since joined, I thought it was time I added a project thread for my current Diablo HDi & a little history on myself.

Previous car was a stage one HDi in silver @ 11 owners and 165k on the clock. As my first car it got more than its fair share of abuse from me and its previous owner (a mate who I’d had it off).

Picture of her in her 'prime':


I was in love with this car and my original plan was to engine swap for a 2.0 16v Derv - DW10-RHR but I never pulled the trigger due to limited experience.
After owning the car a year the clutch finally gave out from the relentless ragging and I decided to park it on my mums front garden indefinitely.

As she looks today, being used as a shed:


Shortly after this I spotted a cheeky little Diablo Red HDi for sale via Facebook reasonably local, at 100k miles and really clean it seemed like it had been looked after I decided to view it and despite it sounding like a tractor (Aux tensioner) and a scratch on the front wing it was perfect, needless to say I bought it.


I found the car had previously had a shitty aftermarket alarm fitted so whilst fitting a new DAB head unit and dash trim I decided to rip all the remnants out.
(I would later regret this as ironically the Sub I was wiring in would get stolen in the future due to lack of alarm)


The car was lowered, front lights swapped, dewipered the rear, pressed plates, wind deflectors and headlight protectors added then other than spraying the front badge black, giving it a much needed clay, wax and polish this is how I ran it for around a month:


Only notable additions after this time was a decat and Sportex 3” outward rolled tip backbox and despite how good 306’s look with cyclones I wanted to make it look a little different; cue the 106 rallye steels…



It was shortly after this that I went a little bit mental and decided to purchase a MK1 Volvo S40 T4 because it came up at a nice price having had 2 very OCD owners from new, it came with a massive folder full of receipts including its delivery note from when it was purchased brand new in 1998 (24K!) and despite looking a bit tired on the outside I knew mechanically it was bang on.


This 250bhp ‘toy’ no doubt hindered my progress with the pug…it sat parked up with my silver HDi on my mums driveway


Over the next 3 months I neglected both beloved 306s while the Volvo set about emptying my wallet via 99RON. Every time I visited I fell in love all over again… (Ignore the pink hoover)


With about 3 weeks to go before French Car Show I decided she’d been mistreated enough and rescued her from (I'm really trying not to say my mother’s overgrown bush) ..yeah


I re-insured her and set about spending the best part of 5 hours cleaning her up.


With such little time to go before FCS14 I figured that would be that but then fueled by what I can only assume was going from 250bhp > 90 I decided to make a ‘to-do’ list and it was very Ambitious .


I began gathering parts for this endeavour:


And got to work mere days before FCS bestowing upon my poor 306 some of the pikeiest pipework – bumper/engine cover cutting the world has ever seen…



This seemed to hold, for now. Time for a map!

I decided to use a fairly new local company ‘Pullin Power’ due to hearing good things from a few of my friends as well as the fact that they were cheap and nice guys! They took the standard map off my car and matched it to a stage 2 one, then added values for my intercooler capacity and boom! Ever since then I've been chasing an annoying leak when on full boost.


The rest of the work was literally done the night before FCS, me and my friend Tom finished work the Friday before at 4pm, we started the finishing touches at around 5pm and while he was polishing and waxing, reapplying number plates and general bits and bobs I was mutilating the base of my tanned full leather front cabriolet seats (which I thought were a straight swap) The last bolt in the driver’s seat at 9.00pm (don’t ask me what I’m going to do about the back seats because I didn't think that far ahead, all I know is the fronts look cool as f*ck) and we set off on a 160mile journey to the hotel.


Back home after the show, without a hitch all weekend, only used £45 worth of diesel too.


Thanks for reading !