PR-Developments

11/09/2026

Get your free ticket here. Peugeot 205 and 309 owners only unless you've spoken to me,

Pugs and Mugs Sep '26

Date: 20 sept • 10:00

A meet at the workshop to chat all things Peugeot, followed by optional karting at Apex Kart (karting must be paid in advance)

11/09/2026

11/09/2026

PUGS & MUGS UPDATE

Sunday 20th September
10am–2pm
PR-Developments / Apex Karting, Deeside

Not long to go now!

Karting tickets will be going up publicly in 24 hours and there aren’t many places left.

If you want to go karting, contact me directly on WhatsApp before they’re gone.

All the usual Pugs & Mugs stuff:
Free tea, coffee & cakes
Race simulator competition
Free use of the inspection ramp
Bring parts to sell
RC cars welcome
Best Engine Bay trophy

Non-karters are completely free to attend.

See you next Sunday!

09/09/2026

Build #50, finally back on her front wheels with no supports after a good 4 years!

It’s been far too long, but it’s been great getting stuck back into some proper engineering again. White finger from the vibration and a couple of decent burns to show for it too.

Quite a few different processes have gone into the last 3 days. It started sat at the desk doing CAD, then out came the ArcDroid for some CNC plasma cutting, followed by the laser welder to join the fabricated sections together.

The mounting brackets were then MIG welded directly to the frame because, quite frankly, I couldn’t be arsed setting the laser up on the other side of the workshop for about 5 minutes of welding!

We’re not completely finished yet. Although the parts now look dressed and polished, they still need to go through the final finishing process before powder coating. There are a few little details left to address and some bolts to replace with shorter, more appropriate ones.

If you’re wondering why these are separate units bolted to the frame rather than permanently welded in, there are a few reasons.

Firstly, they need to be removable so we can install and remove the fuel tank.

Secondly, they act as a brace between the suspension mounting points and help strengthen the structure.

And finally, the whole system has been designed to be adjustable, allowing us to alter ride height and the suspension motion ratio, changing how much damper movement we get for a given amount of wheel travel.

That’s the front finally standing on its own wheels.

Now we can properly move onto the rear and finally get Build #50 turned into a rolling shell, while the customer makes the slightly important decision about what’s going behind him...

500bhp supercharged V6 or 2.0 turbo?

Decisions, decisions.

07/09/2026

Build #67 – Stage One: The Teardown

Time to start pulling Build #67 apart and see what horrors are hiding underneath.

Knowing my luck, probably every modification ever suggested on a Peugeot forum between 1995 and 2003.

We all learned by taking things apart. That bit is easy.

Putting it back together again is where things apparently got optional.

This one is a proper old-school enthusiast-built 205. Built from internet knowledge back when getting online involved a screaming modem, three hours on a forum and somebody called Mi16Dave87 telling you exactly what to do.

Instagram only allows 20 photos.

Twenty wasn't enough.

My personal favourite has to be the lengthened lower engine mount. never gets old, may the bearings be the evidence, don't do it

Then came the household electrical connectors.

Lovely.

And then the injection loom with simply the injectors cut off and then bind to the end of the mi16 loom which meant it was more than double the length needed.

Did it work?

Yes.

So does tying your exhaust up with fencing wire, but I'm not putting it on the invoice as an engineering solution.

Thankfully the customer was switched on and brought the car over at exactly the right time. The big-end bearings were right on the edge of spinning and letting go, so another few enthusiastic drives could have turned this rebuild into an archaeological dig for pieces of connecting rod.

The block actually looks saveable. There's corrosion around the cylinder walls, but I think we can repair it with some careful welding.

The cylinder head wasn't quite so lucky.

That's rotten right up to the edges of the combustion chambers, so unfortunately that's gone beyond the point where I'd be happy using it again.

So Build #67 is officially heading for an engine rebuild and full engine-bay refresh.

Engine out.

Bay stripped.

Preparing for paint.

And absolutely no household wiring connectors will be harmed during the rebuild...

Because they're going straight in the bin!

Thats 3 very unhappy mi16s in the shop atm

30/08/2026

A quick peek at the first boot-up of our new digital dash in a Peugeot 205 GTi, all the way over in Australia! 🇦🇺

It’s still in the early development stages, but the plan is to create a proper 205 GTi-inspired display while bringing in all the extra benefits of modern technology, CAN data and data logging.

And this is where it gets interesting...

Wouldn’t it be cool to keep the classic 205 look, but replace the oil temp gauge with boost, have a 9,000rpm rev counter and a 170mph speedo?

We could even have the oil temp and boost gauge switch at the press of a button, or automatically swap between the two every few seconds.

The possibilities are pretty much endless.

I’m especially excited for the Knight Rider-style stuff. That’s the 80s child in me coming straight back out. 😎

Classic Peugeot styling, modern technology underneath.

Plenty more development to come on this one.

29/08/2026

Build #64 Update

Some of you may remember this one arriving at the workshop a while back, described as a bit of a rusty sea ship. 😂

Once we actually got stuck into it, things were nowhere near as bad as expected. Underneath all that surface rust was a really solid 65k-mile shell, with no rot and thankfully no welding required. Result!

This is also the same 205 that arrived with a rather impressive hole in the engine block, so we're currently sourcing a replacement block before the engine rebuild can continue.

Meanwhile, the shell has had the underside treated in Raptor with a body-colour tint, tying it in nicely with the freshly painted engine bay.

Reassembly finally started this week, and it's beginning to look like a 205 again rather than a collection of freshly restored parts.

Plenty more to come from Build #64.

29/08/2026

Yet another 205 Mi16 Dimma has entered the workshop… and no, you’re not reading a duplicated post. 😂

It really is a very small world at the minute, because I’ve got another two Dimmas waiting to come in next as well. Stranger things have happened!

This one is in for an engine bay refresh. The engine is currently misfiring and, from the first look over it, definitely seems like it could do with some PRD love and care.

We’re just finalising the engine specification with the customer, then it’s full steam ahead.

This one will officially become Build #67.

Another Dimma added to the PRD rescue centre… 😅

27/08/2026

Designing a thermally efficient inlet manifold with – Graham Martin Racing.

This one is a little different. It’s a full-blown race head with 43mm inlet ports, so rather than spending hours designing and machining the inlet manifold to perfectly match the existing head ports, we’re doing the opposite.

We’ve opened the manifold up, found the ideal position for the inlet, then we’ll port the cylinder head to match the manifold. Much easier, far more precise, and it means we can position everything exactly where we want it rather than being dictated by the existing port location.

We ended up raising the inlet by around 1mm, which helps straighten the long side of the port and should give us a cleaner path into the head.

Mega impressed with the Bambu printer too. 33 minutes later, prototype done and ready to test fit.

26/08/2026

After speaking to the customer about the 2.0 Mi16, we’ve decided the only sensible option is to pull the engine out and completely rebuild it.

Whenever I find workmanship this poor, I immediately start questioning everything else that’s been done. After the recent 8v with missing flywheel bolts and a hole in the block, today’s findings were just the icing on the cake.

With the engine on the stand, I dropped the sump and checked the big-end bearings…

Shot.

Heavy contamination, badly marked bearings and, once again, what appears to be another polished undersized crank. The bearings pretty much speak for themselves.

Then it got worse.

I removed the water pump and found large shards of what look like pieces from an old water-pump impeller. The replacement pump, apparently fitted last year, was already leaking and had more of these pieces trapped behind the impeller.

Then I found the coolant pipe feeding the heater matrix completely blocked.

Normally there’s also a bypass pipe alongside it to maintain coolant circulation while the thermostat is closed. Except that pipe had been removed and welded shut.

So until the thermostat opened, there was effectively no proper coolant circulation through the engine.

Add that to the damaged bores, leaking cylinders, rotten head gasket, debris holding a valve open, worn-out valve guides and now destroyed bottom-end bearings, and you begin to understand why we’ve decided to start again from the ground up.

I’m genuinely running out of words for some of the things I’m finding inside these poor Mi16s at the moment.

Apparently this engine had been “fully rebuilt” and had only covered a few thousand miles.

PR-Developments Mi16 Rescue Centre seems to be becoming a full-time operation. 😳