Zero's k4j clio project

[Z3RO]

Thank you! hope you'll like the finished exhaust manifold too!
not big progress 'cause I'm waiting for the flange being laser cutted and.. for week end time!

anyway a bit of teaser .. today I got theese!

fresh renault parts...yumm!!

P.S.
A little chat the other day with the guy at renault shop:
Him: "tell me the truth..are you building up a 172 bit after bit??"
Me: "hehehe"
Him: "I bet one day you'll came here, I'll pop the hood and I'll found a full 172 engine!"
Me: "hehehe"
Him: "Hehehe"

 

[Z3RO]

Hi there!
little update of the day!
My exhaust manifold flange is finished! isn't beautiful??

so I'm ready for a week end of welding and cutting to fit the 172 mani and the 182 cat!




Due to the good weather I go to work by motorbike so I've taken apart the rear bumper to fix an old exhaust cut.
In the beginning was a nice oval cut then the hot exhaust melted a bit on the side..

anyway.. cleaned, dremeled the edges and a bit of sanding.. (sorry I haven't made a pic of the missing part! ..yes when i cutted it i keeped the part! )

and a couple of fiberglass layers to join the parts and a bit more to reconstruct where plastic was missing (due to melting)

now it's curing.. tomorrow I'll post pics of the result!

P.s. the black inside it's not dirt it's a spray deposit when they painted it black outside XD it's squeaky clean

 

[Cw Tuning.]

i like this straight into mechine work and 'bigger' jobs no carbon raps right in at the deep end, be sure to post a vid of the finished exhuast!

 

[Z3RO]

Thank you mate! Think you got the point!
For the exhaust vid..yes for sure! maybe tomorrow after work I'll dismantle some parts to get her ready for saturday morning! Hope it will come out nice!

 

[Z3RO]

Hi there! update of the day..

Today I've worked hard..not so much pics but I hope to put here some tasty ones!

Update on the bumper repair, that's the fiberglass cured!

and after a bit of sanding..that's nice!

then i've used a bit of body filler to get a smooth surface ready for paint!

And for the Mechanical side.. (the 90% of todays work)
This is the stainless steel pipe I'll use for building my cat (182 one) neck to join the manifolds (172)

So I started flaring it a bit with a steel cone made with lathe (and getting the pipe red hot with a torch) to make a perfet fit and good flow

then i cutted the flange off the cat. So tomorrow I only have to cut the pipe to make the neck, flare another end and join them with a nice tig weld

....but those were quick works... the "heavy" work was the one bringing me this!!

hope you liked this sneaky pic of the 172 manifold fitted to my k4j.. it was a test fit.. so i got to finish the weldings but fits nice!!
Tomorrow I hope to finish everything up and post some more pics (of the manifold also).

 

[Mexicano]

Impressive...like all the work Yu have done to Your Clio, very nice....keep up the nice work!

 

[Z3RO]

Thank you Mexicano! i like your work too!

these days i'm very busy.. and got too many things to do taken only few pics.. anyway.. the bumper is nearly finished (hehe i worked on it only 15 min at day, and only when i got some spare time)
this evening i've sanded the primer (forgot to take a pic) and give it 2 light hands of paint... i think it's starting to look good! seems like new isn't it?

and a pic of the finished cat! 182 cat + a brand new neck made of stainless steel and tigwelded by myself! i've cutted many parts so the bend is not harsh but smooth.

hope you like

 

[david_]

Nice work! Which aux belt did you use with your AC delete? Can you post a picture of your "new" setup now?

Cheers

David

 

[Z3RO]

Thanks, I use a Gates 955 4v. Yes, I'll take a pic this evening!

 

[Wayne-G]

Really like what you've done so far

 

[Oliver_K4M]

Hey,

the cat looks very good! Do you have also a pic of the finished, but unmounted manifold?

best regards
Oliver

 

[Cw Tuning.]

your welding doesnt seem to be to shabby! looking forward to seeing what else your ganna suprise us with

 

[Z3RO]

Thank you guys!

tbh on the cat I made welds a bit bigger to make stronger joints. Nice thing about TIG is that if you want you could do a full flat weld which is gorgeous to look at! and is a must on 2t exhausts where you got to keep em ligth and allow the metal to vibrate correctly.

for now I don't know how I'll surprise in the future, but hope to do so!

Yes Oliver! I havent made any pic till now because it's temporarily fitted for finishing some things.. I think to remove it this evening to fit permanently and I'll take a pic for sure!

 

[Cw Tuning.]

haha well hopefully there will be something

 

[Z3RO]

there will be something mate... there will be!

I also accept advices on what i've done or what would be nice to do!

 

[Z3RO]

as requested.. here is a pic of the exhaust manifold and the cat i've made.

 

[mr.pink87]

Why didn't you weld the pre cat lambda boss to the "downpipe"? Oxygen sensor will now only read the emissions from one cylindre, signal might fluctuate a bit too much!?

 

[Z3RO]

I placed it in about the same position as the standard manifold, in the downpipe there is not so much room for the lambda (182 cat is huge compared to my stock one) so i decided to try this way! maybe being not fitted yet I can weld another boss in the downpipe and plug it shut, if lambda gives errors I can change place..
anyway thank you for the interesting post you made. I appreciate

 

[Oliver_K4M]

Looks nice. Regarding position of the lambda sensor I think give it a try. I think there is enough turbolence to get also the "information" of the other cylinders.

 

[david_]

Do you notice any significant change since you fitted 172 manifold? I'm in the process of making one to fit my K4M too, can you give me some details? Any problems with port spacing? How much from the flange did you cut?

Thank you very much in advance.

 

[Mexicano]

Good Job, mate!...It's looking so neat...keep it up.

Regards

 

[guysy]

Modifications and workmanship look really good.

Will be following this.

 

[n2hearse]

No more news?

Another one here trying to put a 172 exhaust manifold on my k4m

 

[Z3RO]

hiiiiii there!
Had to stop developing the car for some reasons for some time.
But some months ago the works on the car restarted!

The manifold with the cat is now fitted, you can actually feel the difference.. seems more torquy.. nice improvement.. and nice raspy sound too!
then more lightness added removing about 15kg of sound deadening things! more news and pics to come!

 

[levaz]

looking forward to more updates!

Lelouch, is your name in honour of Claude Le Louch?

 

[Z3RO]

Hi there,
some pics of what I was talking about earlier today..

After finishing mods and welds to the exhaust.. I got this heat wrap!

then wrapped the manifold with stainless ties to hold tight the wraps..

and then finally fitted to the engine!!!

Then fitted a bmc airbox I had laying around... with a fiberglass/carbon air intake made by myself for the clio.

Then some random pics about my sound deadening removal! (sorry for pics quality..but got this shots taken with my phone during the removal job)

As stated before.. all the tar inside, plus the rubber under the carpet, and some other useless parts.. about 15kg.
:smiley: sorry for the muddy carpet but rained for about a decade heheh, cleaned after the job was done.
About 3 more tar strips to remove (in the wipers motor bay).

One last pic.. is about what has to come...

Thinks is all for now... Bye

Lelouch, is your name in honour of Claude Le Louch?

Nope sorry

looking forward to more updates!

You've been served!

 

[savan]

Good Job...:hearteyes:

 

[Z3RO]

Ok, it's quite a bit of time since the last update.. but worked hard on some things and to this project too! So guess it's time for a godzilla update.

Part 1.

Finished the tar removal job..

Removed the HUGE stock battery for a racing one from Spark.. so I've made a bracket, new connections and fitted a switch on the dash for not killing the battery when not using the car.

With the special charger there was (missing in the pics) also a thing for quick connecting it to the battery for maintaining the voltage when not in use.. so handful!! (it's got a RC Tamiya connector LOL)


For protecting a bit the underside I've fitted a OEM underbody protection.. here in italy is pretty rare so bought from ebay and came from UK! heavily cleaned and voila'!

Managed to find some used bucket seats.. they were a bargain. Full fiberglass construction, only 6 kg each (+hardware)

For buckets seats you got to use the right harness.. so I've found this lovely 4 point harness from sabelt!

I'll use them only on trackdays... but wow, driving the car with them is awesome. You literally can feel everything.
Love them so much.

end of part 1

 

[Z3RO]

Part 2.

The day I've received some brake goodies (for me and a mate) but I love pics like this so..

The new master cylinder with 24mm piston.

Restored some rear 172 hubs..turned out pretty good!

There has been a time when my clio used to have front brembos but they were loud as hell so for now I've fitted some 206 RC calipers which have a bigger piston than 172 ones and fit my hubs perfectly. But before fitting.. a full overhaul and a nice touch of yellow paint.

Was also time for new tires so... went with NS2R semi to try them and they seem to perform very well.

oh and also changed my alloys with these self refurbished sparco cromodora (15x7j) but for them I'll post pictures on another post.

end of part 2.

 

[Z3RO]

Part 3.

Part 3 is heavy work.. because here I was again into the weight saving thing!
The point is removing all the sound deadening beside the dashboard and near the floor.. so that huge heavy brown thing and some other heavy rubber friends of it.
But since this is not a job you do everyday I've took the opportunity of derusting and painting the dashboard frame, and... no. tell you later.

So let's start destroying my loved car interiors undoing everything.

aaaaaaand here are some parts temporarily (some forever) removed from inside.

Ok the bail out point here is well over.

Pretty much a mess huh? so.. why not take apart the WHOLE loom to make it more light removing all no more used wires?
All stereo cables, all airbag cables and so on.. why not? why so serious?

and i got here.. holy... well..

But after some more cutting, joining, cloth taping and cursing the whole hell....
The car interiors went together in the end

The car starts again so.. guess everything went good!
I also fitted a EPAS regulator (forgot to take pics..my bad) so now I can also set my steering aid with a dial near the steering wheel in place of the radio commands.

hope you liked part 1/2/3.. for today is over.. but soon I'll post some more updates.. I've got some other things.. only need time to upload!

..oh I was about to forgot, and for who saw that 182 dash clocks... (in miles, from uk too) it's here because I'm about to need some extra rpm scale... but I've already told too much stay tuned

 

[Z3RO]

Treat of the day.. new pedals and footrest all by OMP!

I think I'll fit this weekend! yea

 

[Z3RO]

Don't know if anyone is interested ...but I'll drop another update.

Tired of crawling under the car everytime I got to remove the seats or shifting from oem to racing... I've decided to mod the oem rails to accept bolts and welded nuts under the chassis !

Bolting the seats from inside the car without having to jack up and crawl under....wow now it's a breeze.

I've also decided to give a new life to the OEM steering wheel.. so I've got it leather wrapped. I like it so much! I really love it.

and in the end, yesterday I've fitted the OMP pedals. Still got to test them but seems to feel good

 

[k_Leo]

Do you have any more photos of the actual car itself ?

 

[k_Leo]

Do you have any more photos of the actual car itself ?

???