172 Track Car - Work carried out.

[Muzzman]

I bought a 52 plate 172 Cup back in July last year for £2200, it had 72k on the clock, the service book had been lost but it had receipts (inc cam belt) and a host of old MoTs, the HPI came up clear, the intention was to have it as a basic run around and use my other car as the track car. At the beginning of the year i had a change of plans and decided i wanted a nice garage queen and something that i would be happy to throw round the track and if i had an 'off' then i wouldn't be crying about it.

So a coupe of months back i dropped the car over to Mark Fish, i'm picking it up at the weekend, at which time i'll take a load of pictures but i thought you may find it interesting to hear whats been done. I said to him that the first thing was to make the car in A1 condition mechanically.

I've received the invoice and here is the breakdown. In addition to this i'm having 4 x Toyo R1R's fitted to the 16" Turini's and Dunlop track tyres fitted to the 15" 2118's along with an ITG airfilter and bushes replaced.

- Carry out full service and vehicle inspection. Secured exhaust heat shield. Replaced centre exhaust mounting and centre pipe exhaust clamp. Changed Antifreeze coolant. Repaired offside front arch shield to protect belt area. clean out throttle body. Secure lambda sensor wiring loom. Replace driveshaft outer clips.

- Replace cambelt and all idler/tensioner pulleys. Aux belt replaced.

- Trace engine oil leaks. Extensive degrease, run up engine, trace leaks to to cam cover areas and camshaft seals. Removed cam cover, extensive preparation to gasket faces. Slight pick up marks to cambelt bearing areas. Hand polish bearing areas. Extensive clean to al parts. Replace camshaft seals. Replace phaser valve seal. Reassembled with special sealer.

- Remove all dampers and springs. Check supplied AST dampers. Clean up damaged threads and replace missing bolts etc. Strip apart and add bump stop material to fronts. Re-spec springs and platforms for road/track use (was set up for Rally/Stage). Refit to vehicle and check for suspension travel to determine bump stop length etc.

- Set up ride height for cambers, track alignment and steering wheel centre point. Found Geometry to nearside front not consistent to initial settings. After some checks found nearside front lower ball joint to wishbone not to the correct spec for this vehicle. This was causing the wheel to be set back in the wheel arch by 18mm. Modified bolt hole alignment in wishbone and weld secured. Fault corrected.

- To remove front and rear brake discs and hubs. Fitted supplied new Front discs. Fitted rear disc/bearing assemblies. Fitted Motorsport spec brake pads front adn rear. Free off seized rear brake balance valve lever. replaced front and rear brake hoses with motorsport spec. Drain and bleed brake fluid with motorsport spec AP600.

- Strip down suppled seats and side mounts. Cut down steel side mounts to allow a low seat position. Make modifications to standard subframes to allow correct position and a low seat height. Welded steel plates to subframes to allow for seat adjustment and fitting.

- Strip out interior and fit full roll cage, weld in floor plate towers. Underseal and paint protect bare metal areas. Seal off plates to rear arches. Fit and shape roll cage foam to the cage.

- Fit new steering wheel and boss. Fit two five point seat belts with three eye bolt reinforcement plates each side of the car. Fit new belts to harness bar and adjust to fit.

I'm picking it up at the weekend, can't wait to get it on track, especially Spa.

 

[Muzzman]

Well i picked the car up last night a couple of days earlier than planed it's the first time i've seen it since dropping off. I'm very happy, it's certainly given the old girl a new lease of life.

I had to drive back from Harlow to Billericay and decided to use the A414 and country lanes which was a good mix of roads. The engine work has made a huge improvement, before it was very rattly due to the engine phaser pulley being shagged, i can't particularly tell a huge amount of difference in performance but it doesn't sound like a bucket of bolts now which is good.

Having the momo wheel put in and the bucket seats has made a huge improvement, i hated the big wheel and driving positon in the car, it felt just so uncomfortable and on top of things, i think it was a pain in the arse to get the seats low but defintely worth the time taken.

It's the first time i've had a caged car and it certainly feels like you're in a proper mini racer now. Not sure it was a good idea having the seat belts removed, bit of a nightmare being at a junction with 5 point harneses.

I was amazed on the drive home at the handling, i didn't give it huge amount of spirited driving what with the car being new to me and having brand new uncrubbed Toyo R1R's on, so i was doing say 60 in a 60 but wasn't particularly slowing down for bends, boy can this little pocket rocket take them at speed with the AST II's fitted, i was really amazed at just how comfortable teh ride is though, i really expected B roads to be a disaster, getting thrown all over the place and horrible crashing noises and it's just not like that.

Brakes i haven't realy tested but i'll book an afternoon at Brands Hatch and get a real feel of the car.

All in all very please.


Total cost including car, parts and everything above and a few extra bits including 2 sets of tyres etc £10900. i suppose the big question is have i done the right thing or should i either have bought a Clio 197/200 or an already built supercharged track monster, there is something nice about having a car built to your spec.

Here's some really rubbish Gen 1 iphone photos i took last night with bad lighting, i'll replace them at the weekend with some decent SLR shots.

 

[Muzzman]

I forgot to mention, the only bit i'm not happy about at the moment is there is alot of play when you're in gear, quite a sloppy gearbox, i might look at one of those short shift kits.

 

[Craig.H]

looking good mate!

Get out and enjoy it now! :approve:

 

[Sir_Dave]

Sounds like a decent amount of works been put in to that!!

Only thing that amazes me is the 8 grand its cost you on top of the car

My Trophy's entire build, including the car, is a third of that lol ...

 

[Muzzman]

Aye it hasn't been cheap, i'd better not dwell on the cost. Good job i won't have to sell it any time soon

At least this is going on me rather than house, holidays, wife etc. My little indulgence.

 

[Gray]

alot of money for seemingly not alot of work?

 

[mr.valver]

You wife and kids must be very forgiven lol

Super impressed with the effort you've gone to though. I have a little desktop sticky note with a list for car parts just under 15k, but am just dreaming lol.

 

[Muzzman]

alot of money for seemingly not alot of work?

There were a few niggles along the way which required quite a lot of labour cost. One of the downsides of being mechanically inept. there was 100hrs labour, thank god Mark was very generous on this front or it could have been a lot bigger bill.

 

[Conlon]

good stuff, need some better pics!

 

[TheEvilGiraffe]

Holy freakin' potatoes.









*gets up off floor*

Busy tomorrow ? Pop by and get some pics somewhere if you like ?

 

[Dunn]

alot of money for seemingly not alot of work?

this.

8 k gets alot of scrummy parts

i would of built a supercharged track monster instead

but at least its to your spec i suppose

 

[Curtis!]

Easy to see how it mounted up so quick to be honest. You would have definately been better off just trying stuff yourself though! Only one way to learn. Plus if it's only your track car/second car, there's no hassle to get to work etc if it's still in pieces.

Will no doubt be excellent fun to drive!

 

[Bluebeard]

Eight?

Thousand??

POUNDS??!!!

 

[p@blo]

Eight?

Thousand??

POUNDS??!!!

Seconded. Cor blimey guvnah

Nice looking car all the same though pal.

 

[Matt W]

Good effort. I would have got 10900 worth of elise TBH.

 

[MarkCup]

It's not about the final figure, or what else that money would/could have got for you though.

If I had the budget I'd give mine to Mark Fish with a shopping list just like yours in a heartbeat! To have something, so professionally prepared and to my very own spec (rather than modded according to whatever bargains I can find) makes me moist.

As it is, mine just keeps plodding on, refusing to die, and performing better with every outing so it'll have to do.

 

[Muzzman]

Good effort. I would have got 10900 worth of elise TBH.

I just got rid of 360hp / 812kg worth of elise, fancied a change

my plan with this is to keep it and use it to improve my track skills, I'll be modding at a slow pace now, I thought this would be a nice starting point.

I didn't want to do too much to the engine straight away, I wanted handling etc sorted.

This stops me turning the 993 into a full blow RS rep, stripped out, cagged etc and upgraded to 3.8 by ninemeister which was my other plan so really it's saved me a whole heap!

The thing about doing it myself is lack of confidence. I tried to find an evening course to learn a bit but they just don't seem to exist anymore.

The point is that by getting Mark to do all this I have full confidence in the car, I wouldn't want to drive to Spa and hurtle round the track in something I built! I once put up a pair of shelves and that ended very badly!!

 

[Bluebeard]

I just got rid of 360hp / 812kg worth of elise, fancied a change

my plan with this is to keep it and use it to improve my track skills, I'll be modding at a slow pace now, I thought this would be a nice starting point.

I didn't want to do too much to the engine straight away, I wanted handling etc sorted.

This stops me turning the 993 into a full blow RS rep, stripped out, cagged etc and upgraded to 3.8 by ninemeister which was my other plan so really it's saved me a whole heap!

The thing about doing it myself is lack of confidence. I tried to find an evening course to learn a bit but they just don't seem to exist anymore.

The point is that by getting Mark to do all this I have full confidence in the car, I wouldn't want to drive to Spa and hurtle round the track in something I built! I once put up a pair of shelves and that ended very badly!!

LOL!!! Hahahaha.

I know what you mean mate.

 

[Muzzman]

Holy freakin' potatoe


Busy tomorrow ? Pop by and get some pics somewhere if you like ?

Hello mate. You got up off the floor yet

I don't think I can, dropping it down at Philip Birds fo an MoT, they're having it 8-1pm then going to see 'True Grit' at the cinema then I'll be pissed from that point. Sunday it's yer muvvers b'day if I remember righly so have to be another day.

I've got a funky SLR I've never really got out the box so I can try and use that for some snaps. Be good to see your new motor too.

 

[TheEvilGiraffe]

No worries dude.

Well remembered !!!

Good luck with the MOT.

 

[Muzzman]

172 Cup Track Car

Well it sailed through the MoT, the guy did say that for that it was a grey area witht he top of the roll cage above the screen falling under the top sweep of the window wiper, anyway here's some semi decent snaps.

Dunlop Direzza 02's on 2118's for the track

 

[Muzzman]

Apologies not sure what happened with my English there, i meant to say....

"the guy did say that it was a grey area, the roll cage being under the top sweep of the window wiper, some people might fail it. Anyway here's some semi decent snaps."

How do i edit a post?.... err just seen the edit button, sure that wasn't there before

 

[bugracer]

BTW - love the car - but I am biased as we have almost exactly the same - thanks to Mark Fish. Well worth the money.

Apologies not sure what happened with my English there, i meant to say...

"the guy did say that it was a grey area, the roll cage being under the top sweep of the window wiper, some people might fail it. Anyway here's some semi decent snaps."

How do i edit a post?.... err just seen the edit button, sure that wasn't there before

 

[chrispy.clio]

Lots of money but sometimes i wish i could afford to give my car to someone to prep for me.

So now you've got the car all sorted get out on track and give it some punishment

I want yours seats Bugracer ^ I like them

 

[Fletcher]

What subframes are you running with your Corbeau Revolutions bugracer?

 

[bugracer]

The subframes are Cobra extra low ones. Fit perfectly and seating height feels right.

 

[bugracer]

Thanks.

Out for my first session of the year @ Brands in a few weeks.

Lots of money but sometimes i wish i could afford to give my car to someone to prep for me.

So now you've got the car all sorted get out on track and give it some punishment

I want yours seats Bugracer ^ I like them

 

[Fletcher]

The subframes are Cobra extra low ones. Fit perfectly and seating height feels right.

Can you still buy these? If so where from

 

[bugracer]

Mark Fish sourced and installed them for me. This was January 2010, so not sure if they are still available.

Can you still buy these? If so where from

 

[Fletcher]

^^^^Cheers fella.