GTIR Ownership and Modifications

Joe, gearboxes on a 25 year old 4 wheel drive car can be hit or miss if you get a good one they can handle 400hp if you get an abused one they can fail at stock power and no amount of shotpeen, micro polishing ,cryo treatment will cure the fact if it's weak from abuse...the only way to see issues in gears is x-Ray and magna flux crack testing...if you can get a quaife (circa 2k second hand) then your fine for track use (providing your not a ham fisted moron) for upto and beyond 500hp as has been proven many times, again any dog engagement gearbox will be fine as long as you know how to drive ( dog gearboxes fail from not being able to change gear properly and generally being a poor driver as they have better and faster gear change ability and stronger engagement dogs and less parts to fail or wear out),

engine wise a good standard engine with a good oil cooler and good coolent system will handle 400hp and is much the same as the s14 sr20det but stronger in certain areas, and if you want to run more power they need very little to be able to do so internally (I.e pistons,steel mls headgasket, arp rod bolts)

weight wise you you should be able to get the car down to 1080-1100kg by stripping the car out and fitting Perspex windows etc...to go further there are members on here who have or produce carbon and fibreglass parts in which you can take a further 60kg just by changing the doors ,

handling wise, if you can read and use some tools you can do a lot of modifications to make the car castor and camber adjustable, as well as adjustable wheel base, track width and more, there are two members on here that have really worked this out and can supply you with good base settings and a how too on that. People have used and still do use the gtir in competition and it still holds the production car record on a fair few hill climbs and abroad is used extensively and wins ...

so all in all it depends on what you want to do, I would start with a car that is known and proven to be good and have a few sensible things then expand from there, be careful who you buy from as there has been many shady traders and people over the years and if your unsure about a car then get someone to have a look who knows what they are looking at.

I'm not sure that the reputation of the gearbox is really deserved. - They don't seem any more fragile than newer cars when used without mechanical sympathy.
I was talking to someone with one of those "special" Clios (I can't remember which one) and he has been through four or five boxes... but they're all off eBay so who know what state they were in.
I suggested a Quaife or similar gearset, but cheap was more appealing (and he's got the hang of changing them now).

I've never had a particular problem with mine. - The synchro on 5th isn't great, but Danny suggested that probably meant the box had been filled with the wrong grade of oil at some point. Having said that, mine is normally driven on the road with the odd bit of spirited driving.

So, yeah; hit and miss given that you don't know how the previous owner(s) treated it.

I don't think there's much else that goes wrong; clutches need to be replaced when the power goes up. On the basis that I don't see many threads about it, there aren't any common problems with the differentials or the drive shafts. Wishbones bend when you hit something hard.

You'll only get around 30-40kg off by changing the doors. Standard ones vary on whether they have a side impact bar (5kg more) or not, but they're roughly 20-25kg ish as a bare door. A lightweight one is about 5-6kg bare. Bonnet can save you 10-12kg at most and tailgate maybe another 7 or 8 I think if you included a plastic rear screen. 1060kg is a reasonable weight doing the sensible lightweight stuff. If you want to go stupid - cutting metal out , ripping dashboards out etc you can go lower.