172 Track Car

[Muzzman]

Well the track season is nearly upon us. I bought a 172 Cup in August and have subsequently done 1.5 tanks of petrol so just been sitting there. The car is about to go into Mark Fish Motorsport. I'm having the following fitted

Full Mark Fish Cage
AST Sport line II's with adjustable top mounts
2 x Cobra Imola Pro seats
2118 Wheels
R888's
Steering wheel
Harnesses
Brembo hc's
Braided hoses
Racing brake pads
Geo

Have i forgotten anything or any suggestions at this initial stage? Got to do something about the dodgy sparco airfilter

Thanks

 

[Russ Rallye]

Pretty much all there Ian for a nice trackday car i'd think. Get some pics up so we can see progress.
Russ

 

[chris_p]

How much is all that setting you back?
Sounds good

 

[Fletcher]

Sounds good to me.

No engine work planned then?

 

[jack_kemp]

Pretty much all there Ian for a nice trackday car i'd think. Get some pics up so we can see progress.
Russ

Definitely says 'full Mark fish cage' lol.
Sounds great mate, will see you in Alot of fun!

 

[Muzzman]

Definitely says 'full Mark fish cage' lol.
Sounds great mate, will see you in Alot of fun!

 

[Muzzman]

Sounds good to me.

No engine work planned then?

Well i thought i'd start with handling and stopping first then perhaps tackle engine. Got any easy gains? I've got to draw the line somewhere and i was thinking these mods were the best to start off with. I'm trying to be midly sensible here as the car wasn't that expensive to start with. I have a habit of going over the top.

 

[Muzzman]

Pretty much all there Ian for a nice trackday car i'd think. Get some pics up so we can see progress.
Russ

Will do! Thanks for the AST's

 

[Russ Rallye]

Note cheeky edit about the cage that i deleted!
As for engine mods, couple of little things for small gains, v6 airbox and matched inlets maybe?
Russ

 

[Muzzman]

Just read the second part of jack_kemps post

Fun is the key here, my last car could pretty much keep with most things on track and i actually found it a bit boring and found myself held up a lot, and that had nothing to do with my very average driving skills

 

[Nick172Cup]

Sounds like a good spec in the making, must be minted taking it to Mark Fish!

 

[TheEvilGiraffe]

Hi from Billericay !!

As for engine mods, couple of little things for small gains, v6 airbox and matched inlets maybe?
Russ

^ This is a very good / cheap way to get a bit of extra grunt !

 

[Muzzman]

How much is all that setting you back?
Sounds good

I'm keeping the cost down by trying to source unused or very lightly used parts second hand. the seats I got off a mate for £400 Inc all the extra bits and are as new, AST's are off of Russ, cage is new £1250 fitted, disks I got off of a deal here £50. Wheels are new and boxed £400. The rest list price

If I wasn't a mechanical numpty I'd have a go fitting myself but that would cause a lot of shouting and swearing and I wouldn't put my poor missus through that. I had to build a flat pack a while back and that ended up with a hammer being launched into the wall and her old man coming round to finish building it.

 

[Muzzman]

Sounds like a good spec in the making, must be minted taking it to Mark Fish!

I'm overworked and underpaid I'll have you know

 

[Nick172Cup]

No no dont take it the wrong way it wasn't about you. Having spoken to a couple of people that have had work done by Mark Fish, his work may be good and he's no doubt very good at what he does but anything done by him is mega expensive! Far cheaper places that provide just the same quality service.

 

[TheEvilGiraffe]

Mark Fish = stuff of legends.

993 + a 172 track car + a wife ? How do you get away with such things ?!

:approve:

 

[TheEvilGiraffe]

Mark Fish = stuff of legends.

993 + a 172 track car + a wife ? How do you get away with such things ?!

:approve:

 

[Muzzman]

No no dont take it the wrong way it wasn't about you. Having spoken to a couple of people that have had work done by Mark Fish, his work may be good and he's no doubt very good at what he does but anything done by him is mega expensive! Far cheaper places that provide just the same quality service.

Ha, sorry I'm rubbish at this Internet lark, never took it the wrong way I should have put a smiley or something.

Mark was recommended to me by Porkie who posts on here so i went and had a chat with him and he seemed a top bloke, plus he's not too far away. I got him to look over the car and thankfully a good starting point. maybe if I sell the car the fact he's done all the work may be a selling point

 

[Muzzman]

Mark Fish = stuff of legends.

993 + a 172 track car + a wife ? How do you get away with such things ?!

:approve:

She does all right mate, believe me. She has no access to my account and as long as she's kept in the manner she's used to she's fine

 

[TheEvilGiraffe]

Ha ! Good man.

Bring the Porker* to a meet sometime soon.



* Clearly, I mean the 993, not your lady!

 

[Muzzman]

Ha ! Good man.

Bring the Porker* to a meet sometime soon.



* Clearly, I mean the 993, not your lady!

I have had to have a word recently she is certainly bigger than when I first met her, how dare she entrap me, there should be a false advertising get out clause

Are you in Billericay? More than welcome to have a ride in the 993, I only got the docs through from the dvla yesterday so haven't driven it more than 50 miles myself, originally a uk car, then Rep of Ireland, now back here on original plate

 

[TheEvilGiraffe]

Yeah, near as makes no difference. Address says Billericay.

A 993 is THE Porsche I want to own one day. A little ride would be fantastico !

We're veering heavily off topic here .. so I'll speak to Vickyx - the Essex area rep, and get a meet sorted soon hopefully !!

Will be very interested to see the Clio once it's done. Housemate had his ph1 coilovers fitted/set up by Mark and it handled like a go-kart. Ridiculously good feedback through the wheel. (What steering wheel are you having fitted?) .. He was so OTT with things, one of the wheels was 0.25 degrees off where he wanted the camber, so he took it all off to adjust once again.

You should be impressed !

 

[Tom@JMS]

He was so OTT with things, one of the wheels was 0.25 degrees off where he wanted the camber, so he took it all off to adjust once again.

That's not OTT, that's how it should be!

 

[TheEvilGiraffe]

That's not OTT, that's how it should be!

Apologies .. Brain asleep. OTT in a good way....

OCD a better acronym perhaps.

 

[Tom@JMS]

Pride of Workmanship

 

[Muzzman]

For a steering wheel i quite fancy the Sabelt Renault Sport steering wheel, but my mates got a wheel that is as new i was going to have off him, may change the plan though if i can locate a Sabelt one.

 

[scottiebhoy]

Sounds like a decent starting point, need to keep us updated. Might need to take some inspiration for my car, n maybe rob a bank or 2!

 

[Muzzman]

Well i took the car to Mark on Saturday, i've noticed that when the engine was warm and at idle there was a rattling noise and asked him to investigate before commencing any other work, i also asked him to give the car another once over and anything that needs doing get done, seems little point starting the build unless the car is in tip top condition. He emailed me today the rattling turns out to be the cam phase pulley which he's going to replace and at the same time change the cam belt etc. It also turns out that theres an oil leak from the camshaft cover to the head joint which could be left, but better to remove cover and reseal now etc as to do it later will take more time and mean another cam belt replace. Rear disks are worn and rusty and need replacing too, so thats where we are at the moment.

I haven't posted ant pictures of the car as is, well because its a Blue Cup like you've seen a million times, hopefully Mark will send me some pictures as it's being done and i'll post.

 

[Toms_clio]

Woo you better get a Morgage lol
My mate alexs works there Gets me some discount and I still can't afford to get anything done there lol.
Where abouts I'n Harlow are you. I live I'n a little village called sheering 3 miles away..

 

[Muzzman]

Hi Tom i'm in Billericay, Essex.

Well the car is nearly complete apart from buying the Yoyo R1R's for everyday driving/ wet track and the ITG induction so i'll probably pick it up in the next couple of weeks. To be honest it's been a nightmare, the car cost me £2200 and including car it stands me in at over £10k and that's with Mark being very generous on his time, it's been one complication after another. I wanted the car to be mechanically perfect before we started so i got it fully serviced, cambelt changed and a tricky leak fixed. The seats i got were tricky to be fitted and had to have parts fabricated.

The biggest disaster was buying the second hand AST's with 200 miles on them, turns out they were Rally Spec not circuit spec, the 200 miles were all offroad so i had to get them rebuilt, and new springs fitted, it then turns out that the Rally spec ones are 15-20mm longer (or it might be 15-20mm more droop) so we then had to get specially specced springs and then the helpers at the rear were no good so more parts fabricated, they're absolutely fine now but by the time we realised i should have bought new ones the labour spent on them mean't we had to carry on, the £1100 i paid so ~£900 saved turned into far more than a new set.

Next problem was when the Geo was done they just couldn't get it set up right, after lots of investigation turns out the wishbone has been replaced with one that wasn't correct for the car so that had to be replaced.

Rear brakes needed changing too.

The car is nigh on perfect now and built to Marks high standard so either i'm going to enjoy it for years or someone will benefit from a well built car and a lot of money saved. I can't wait to get it on track, hopefully it'll be fun as i'm sure a Clio Cup will be and the money will be forgotten.

I've got the invoice through today broken down but i'm going to have a proper look when the missus isn't around, she might actually have an opinion on this, although compared to the Lotus which cost me £25k in 3 years it isn't that bad.

Mark Fish highly recommended, i don't think either of us realised what this would turn into. I'm going to get a website up and running, the build has been photographed so i'll get that sorted out for you all to see.

Ian

 

[chrispy.clio]

Oooo dear you've had a bit of bad luck.

You'll deffently forgett all your problems when you get out on track they are great cars when on the limit.