Bajan Pug

[X2Board]

http://www.bajanboost.com/articledetail.php?id=7



August 31st, 2005
Article by: Gaby Abed - [email protected]
Peugeot is a major French car manufacturer whose roots go back to bicycle manufacturing at the end of the 19th century. Who would have thought that years down the line, a little ingenuity and cleverness could create a unique demon known as Simba? We all know that "Simba" was a lion-cub, from Walt Disney Company's 32nd animated film, The Lion King. In the animation, Simba starts out as a defenseless cub and by the end of the movie; he is the King of the Jungle. Well just like in the movies, Simba (the car) started out as a standard 1996 Peugeot S16 .

The journey for Simba began in June of 1999, when Wallace Thompson purchased the car from a local car dealership. The goal for Simba was to become King of the roads in Barbados, and to do this, Wallace knew you have to look tough and back it up. One of the things that Wallace likes to do is make his cars unique. To stand out in a crowd requires the use of hard-to-find parts that most people lack the resources to obtain. Parts don't get much rarer in Barbados than a Genuine DIMMA Maxi wide arch kit for a Peugeot so it was a natural choice. The kit included genuine metal front fenders and back arches, fiberglass front and rear bumper, door sills, fiberglass fenders and guards. Since work had started on the car, Wallace decided to go a bit further and add wider lower front arms, steering rack extensions, front shock tower extension plates, Peugeotsport suspension, and 17" Compomotive wheels wrapped on Goodyear Eagle F1 tyres. The car was coming together and with some help, everything seemed to drop in place. Gowan Thompson offered the stainless steel arch welding and technical advice, Harold Nielsen fitted the body kit, and Gregory "Cheese" Atkins did the paint job on the pug.



One could only guess that just wasn't enough, Simba, was not complete for Thompson. It had the all the looks, but where was the performance? That question was later answered in 2001 when a SDS standalone programmable ECU was installed to monitor and control the changes within the beast, of course with the help from David "Bally" Balgobin.


...In 2003, Wallace decided it was time to unleash Simba's true potential and beef up the standard 2.0 litre twin cam 16 valve engine. It was not just some ricer modifications that were done, or more out spoken; the car was not rinsed out on the streets and put against every other 20 valve 4A-GE. Instead, the engine was completely picked down and rebuilt from the bottom up, but this time, with a few extras; like a Turbonetics T3/T4 hair dryer. Other turbo goodies included a Tial Wastegate, HKS Super SQV blowoff valve, BLITZ boost controller, BLITZ turbo timer and a patent exhaust manifold. The engine management, monitoring and control was covered with the reuse of the SDS standalone programmable ECU and Auto Meter Boost, A/F and a fuel pressure gauge. The sad thing is, that not everything could have been purchased off the shelf; a custom adaptor plate from manifold to turbocharger was built along with a custom exhaust down pipe. The intercooler and the piping where also custom built, and once again, with the help of Bally, a M16 Intake manifold was adapted. All in all, the project was coming along great, with Wallace doing majority of the work himself and getting advice from his brother, Steve Thompson, every step of the way.



Before the French vehicle could even smell some decent mileage, it was fitted Peugeot 306 GTi 6 six speed gearbox and the brake lines where uprated to all round steel braided, and seeing as the stopping power was satisfactory, there was no need to upgrade the standard ABS system. There was two more modifications to be made in order to handle the car appetite for fuel, four 190cc injectors and four 440cc injectors, a total of eight ( injectors where installed and a wideband oxygen sensor in March 2005.


When I met up with Wallace Thompson, I was under the impression that the car was just for show. You know, your everyday cruise machine, that you only take out only to impress the ladies or taught the gas station limers. Yeah right.... Peugeot may not be everyone's cup of tea, but it sure as hell impressed me, especially when we went for a spin around the block. At the time the car was running at 1.16 bar (16 PSI), which was more than enough to pass all the cars like Super Mario on crack. During the ride, I wasn't really checking how well Wallace drove the car, or even how the engine?s notes sang like a church choir on a Sunday morning. My attentions where focused on the way the car decelerated at a corner, with enough speed to still make me create skid marks in my pants, yet still maintain full traction on the road, and then in the blink of an eye, regain its full momentum as the corner peaked. This brute of a car has been dyno tested at 223 WHP @ 12psi and intake temp 133�F (on pump gas and standard 2.25 inch exhaust). Apparently, once the exhaust is upgraded to, from its standard 2.25 inch diameter, to 3 inches, it is would be capable of running at maximum boost of 25psi. I later questioned Simba's master about his future plans for the vehicle, I received a smirk, but it was quite obvious that he had something up his sleeve.

So there you have it folks, Wallace Thompson's 306 Maxi. Mad Pug 306 with an insane makeover.


more pics at www.bajanboost.com
_________________

[Plex]

welcome to the site and nice infor..keep it coming...