Double trouble! Monaco 172 shed & Budget track 197

Hello! Long time lurker coming out of the woodwork here...

First up is the old faithful, I bought my 197 at the end of 2016 for a mere £3295. It was a bit rough around the edges (you'll get used to that around here...) but mechanically pretty good, it had some dealer special budget tyres all round and more interior dressing than you could shake a stick at.

It had spacers and H&R springs when I got it, that was it. First thing was decent tyres and then it was all downhill from there, the need to modify and ruin the car was all too great. I'll spare you the details but in the 7 and a half years of ownership it's gone from a basically stock car, to a budget (but not bodged) built track car that never sees the road.

Interior - gone. SW half cage and a pair of buckets later and it's awful on the road. However it never goes there so it's not so bad. Spec as it stands;

Engine & gearbox:
KTR intake
Engine Dynamics map (201bhp@7800rpm)
Decat, Milltek stainless system, Toyo stainless manifold
Blackline LSD was fitted after 3rd gear synchro left the chat

Suspension:
Yellowspeed coilovers with Compbrake top mounts, Shorter 8kg springs + helper springs up front to get the ride height correct, shorter 10kg springs on the rear.

Bodywork has stayed the same, only things I've added are a Renaultsport lip and a Maxton bootlid lip.
Interior has an SW half cage, Corbeau Pro Series X seat with a Sabelt GT090 passenger seat, Sabelt deep dish wheel and an SW footplate for me.

I had planned to get this back on the road, but decided against it in the end when a cheap and cheerful 172 popped up for sale locally...


After a cheeky little offer, I went to collect this 2003 Monaco Blue 172 with 112k on the clock, basically standard. I hadn't realised at the time but it'd been off the road since 2021. The guy that I bought it from said it had electrical issues and wouldn't start if it had been raining. As I mentioned earlier, it's a little rough around the edges, with faded/damaged paint on the drivers side, slight crusty bits on the rear arches and the bonnet was replaced with a black one as it had rotten through at the front apparently. It's sat on a set of 7 year old Toyo T1Rs which are... Interesting... Very hard and moderately plasticy, the standard wheels seem to have met every curb in East Anglia and the front bumper is cracked where it had an argument with some local wildlife.

It joined the fleet of Frenchies parked round the side of my house. The 306 is a targa/nav rally project that I owned as a standard car over 10 years ago and bought back last year. The aforementioned 197 that has been to hell and back and the new kid on the block, the "looksgoodfrom20ft" 172.

This is certainly the better side...

There's a few little bits on the 172, it has a BMC CDA filter for that intake honk and a Ninja catback exhaust which sounds quite nice. Interior smells funky but I guess that's what 21 years of arse and ball sweat weill do.

Needs some work, it's got an airbag light on, there's a knock from the OSF suspension which I think is the top mount and the engine/box mounts are genuinely the worst I've ever experienced. Headlights are hazier than my memory and there seems to be a factory installed angry bee in the interior light (some kind of temperature fan? Very odd). The handbrake only works on one side so how it got through an MOT is anybody's guess.
However... All this considered, I can genuinely say hand on heart, this thing is an absolute riot and I love it already.

(If anyone on here used to own this shed, let me know, hopefully there's a project thread somewhere in the archives. It looks as if it was well cared for and it has a Cliosport folder for all the service history!)

I've decided over the past 7 years that Clio ownership can be summed up in 2 photos.


Thanks for coming to my TED talk

So the NSR caliper hasn't been doing much...

Replaced and now working. I'd normally avoid MTEC discs but these were a steal, front and rear discs with bearings and a full set of Mintex pads for £200. Bargain.

NSF caliper has been mauled by an incompetent ham-fisted mong at some point in its life. New one in the garage ready to be fitted at the mo but this one thankfully was free and didn't NEED bleeding to be used.

While fitting this one I found...

Joy. More spending needed.

Eibach Sportline springs from Larkspeed and a set of new 172 Cup dampers, spring caps and top mounts ordered from Kam Racing later after buying a set of "good" used cup shocks (which were shagged).


An image to strike fear into the hearts of anyone that's compressed springs before...


Done and back on daily duties!

Next up... Wheels and tyres (any nice 15s for sale?) because these 16s are gross and the Toyos are about 10 years old now so really lacking in the grip department...

It's a 15 footer at best

Several updates to be summed up in a few photos. The 172 was sold to fund a new engine for the 197, the mk2 was fun but it was only going to end up being another car that I'd make miserable to drive on the road, so I did a trackday at Snetterton in it when the 197 was making noises I didn't like, then it was sold.


Picked up an engine off a bloke from Facebook, took a chance on it over a lower miles engine as this was last run a few months before I bought it. The lower miles engine was bought as a spare and it was unknown when it was last used. This one had done ~107k I believe.

Front end was stripped in about 90 minutes, the bit that took the longest was fighting with a coolant hose to drain the radiator.

I'd enlisted the help of a mate of mine, once he'd turned up it only took about an hour to free the engine and gearbox, it took almost 2 hours to free the O/S driveshaft as it was stuck in the hub, since fitting a Blackline LSD, the N/S shaft has never wanted to come out so it all got pulled as one. We got the gearbox swapped over and then set about fighting with the driveshafts again, this wasn't much fun but we got there eventually. After about 5 hours of casual spannering we had the new engine in place.

Another half and hour or so it was fully bolted in ready to go.

Spent another hour or 2 getting everything connected up again ready for first fire. Once it got fuel pressure it actually fired into life and sounded pretty good. By this point it was 8pm and dark so I called it a night there.

Day 2 and it was mostly back together, filled with coolant and gearbox oil, it was run up to temperature, coolant was bled and it felt amazing to have just completed my first engine swap!

Front end back together and ready to hit the track.

Went to Snetterton and had a few minor issues, once the car was being pushed hard the temp went through the roof, I think it had an air bubble that finally made it's way through the system and caused it to get rather warm rather quickly. Dived into the pits and bled it off. All good. Next thing to sort is the clutch, I think there's air in the slave so the bite point is super low, I bled it at the track and it got a bit better but not perfect. This is a job I'll be revisiting next weekend ready to go and batter the car at Blyton on the 23rd.

I saw an onboard of my car being chased and it was puffing a little, it also felt a bit off with power delivery so I booked it with Andy at Engine Dynamics in Essex. By this point the car was MOT'd, taxed and insured so I decided to drive it down.

New engine made 209.7bhp and 165.8ftlb torque. Once it was done the difference was clear to see on the drive back.

Since fitting the engine it's done a trackday (130ish miles on track) and 2 trips down to Essex and back, in all it's done around 500 miles and hasn't put a foot wrong.


All in all a happy boy!