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172 trackday / weekend toy



oVerboost.

South West
ClioSport Area Rep
  Clio 182 LY
I'd advertised the Megane on a few forums and facebook groups and had a fair bit of interest, one of the cars I was offered without me travelling up the country to possibly be greeted with a shed of a car, was the Clio 172 below. The car is fairly well known amongst Cliosport members as was owned by a specialist who used the car to develop maps / ECU testing etc.

197 cams, custom ECU, ITG panel filter inside a modified airbox, Yozza stainless exhaust system with de-cat, H&R coilovers, raised rev limiter and a few other bits.

So he turned up, we looked around each vehicle and then completed the relevant paperwork. Sadly, the next day when I went to use the vehicle for work I had an accident.

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It turns out the nuts on the Pure Motorsport stud conversion had been overtightened, and they snapped on the drivers side! Thankfully it happened as I had just pulled off a busy dual carriageway in the wet, but still left me stranded and feeling gutted! I got the car recovered home thanks to an over inflated recovery charge but I just wanted it home at the time. The next day, I removed the spacers and stud conversion from the passenger side - and that was literally moments from the same fate! Stress cracks across the studs confirming that the nuts had been over-tightened. I'm not going to bad mouth anyone, as accidents happen and he did drive to me in the car so I'm 100% sure he wasn't aware of anything that was about to happen, and he seemed a decent guy when I met him to to the deal. That's used cars for you I guess...

Anyway I managed to fix the damage thanks to the local breakers and a few other places and the car was working again.

I then set about giving the car a detailing session as the paint was very flat (even for silver) and rain was literally collecting on the bodywork meaning it hadn't seen any polish or wax in a long, long time! Poor car! :(

2 stage 3M machine polish, paint sealant, white diamond and two coats of my newly acquired WaxAddict Vitreo wax I bought a few weeks back when they had it on offer for half price (£30 instead of £60) and it's looking so much better! Also wet sanded and machine polished the headlights as they'd gone all hazy, although they still need a more dedicated treatment so I've ordered the Meguiars headlight restoration kit to try. Interior was very grubby, but underneath it turned out to be pretty good - and the seats and carpets are all in excellent condition. In fact the drivers seat looks almost like new considering the car is on 100k.

Anyway, here's some pictures...

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  Clio 182
I'm keen to see more on the wheel failure and spacers.
Did the spacers have a lip on them or was the entire weight of the wheel on the bolts?
 

oVerboost.

South West
ClioSport Area Rep
  Clio 182 LY
I'm keen to see more on the wheel failure and spacers.
Did the spacers have a lip on them or was the entire weight of the wheel on the bolts?

This was the one that caused the accident... All 4 studs sheered clean off but if you look at the metal where it's snapped you can see where it was stressed.
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oVerboost.

South West
ClioSport Area Rep
  Clio 182 LY
I've no idea what they were tightened up too but to get the passenger side to undo I had to stand on the breaker bar, and I'm not small lol.

I replaced all the bolts in all wheels and checked the hubs for any damage, all seemed fine and tightened them up by hand how I've done wheels on every car I've owned, and there's been a fair few of them over the years lol, torque wrenches unless fairly new or calibrated and checked can't be trusted IMO.
 

cs_dave

West Midlands
ClioSport Area Rep
I've no idea what they were tightened up too but to get the passenger side to undo I had to stand on the breaker bar, and I'm not small lol.

I replaced all the bolts in all wheels and checked the hubs for any damage, all seemed fine and tightened them up by hand how I've done wheels on every car I've owned, and there's been a fair few of them over the years lol, torque wrenches unless fairly new or calibrated and checked can't be trusted IMO.
Same mate its not hard to know the diffrence between tight and f**king not getting these f*****s off like EVER!
 

oVerboost.

South West
ClioSport Area Rep
  Clio 182 LY
My hub centric spacers arrived today, sadly I forgot to take any photos of anything but they are on (albeit not as easily as they should have) - previous owner had the wheels refurbed recently and the centre bore hole was actually smaller than 60.1 due to the thickness of paint. This is probably one of the issues with the failure of the old studs/nuts when they snapped as the wheel probably didn't sit flush with the spacer/hub so were then tightened up as much as they could be to get the wheel to sit flush (and in turn stressing the studs). After some sanding and filing of the centre bore on the wheel the spacers now sit inside as they should nice and snug but not so snug that they need to be hammered in! :(

Also adjusted the front coilovers down a little as the front always sat higher than the rear which seems to be quite common on clios, however the joys of coilovers mean I could wind them down an inch to bring the front in line with the rear.

So for now all I have to post is my favourite I took the other night with with a different lens... :)
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oVerboost.

South West
ClioSport Area Rep
  Clio 182 LY
After a test drive this evening I am actually going to remove the spacers as I'm still not 100% happy.
 

oVerboost.

South West
ClioSport Area Rep
  Clio 182 LY
Going to change the steering wheel for a smaller omp one I think, buckets, cage and just enjoy it really Had a few "show" and "stanced" cars so will be nice to have a car I can just drive and not worry too much about it being too low or anything.

The spacers are being returned as the hub was too long to sit correctly inside of them! so no more spacers for me lol.
 

chris blue

ClioSport Area Rep
  172 Ph1 2001
The silver Clios do look nice in photos, especially when wet. Mine cost £600, and it looks real good in photos, but not as fab in real life
20mm for me on rears, makes it look nice n chunky, havent pushed it yet to notice a change in handling

Have fun tracking yours, must meet up somewhere on a track :)
 

oVerboost.

South West
ClioSport Area Rep
  Clio 182 LY
It's clean... but it's not 100% and isn't a dedicated track car so don't worry it's not a showroom example going to get abuse. It's been neglected previously (as in parked up and not used much) judging by the amount of sludge/green mildew that was in all the cracks and gaps on the bodywork. All removed now.

Also fixed the upper brake light on the cup spoiler which has never worked, due to the fact it wasn't even plugged in! Thankfully plugged it in and all the LED's work as they should. Also replaced the front side light bulbs for LED's to go with the Xenon headlights (one sidelight bulb had blow and the other one had the end burnt somehow so wasn't giving off enough light anyway. Nice and simple jobs that were easily fixed - this I like! :)
 
Nice easy fixes then, and fairly common what you've mentioned tbh.

One thing you need to do is get some number plates that don't have the characters all pushed to the left lol. Reminds of when people have GB number plates but without the GB and it's all pushed over to one side!
 

Stay Puft

ClioSport Club Member
  Clio 172
One thing you need to do is get some number plates that don't have the characters all pushed to the left lol. Reminds of when people have GB number plates but without the GB and it's all pushed over to one side!

This and a splitter!
 

oVerboost.

South West
ClioSport Area Rep
  Clio 182 LY
Not too much of an update, however for Christmas I got some headlamp washer blanks so I painted them myself and fitted them over the weekend, along with my private plate.

Had a few issues with the car last week, came home from work and it wouldn't start again in the evening. Long story short, the earth strap going to the gearbox was mounted incorrectly, wasn't making a good contact and was stretched. Cleaned up the mounting surface, the bolt and the strap mounting and everything was good to go.

Also cleaned out the throttle body, although it wasn't really that bad which was good. Fitted my new Ram Air induction kit, however I've also ordered a new pipe to extend the filter down behind the passenger headlight rather than next to the block, will get pictures once that's arrived and fitted.

Removed the carbon fog light surrounds as they weren't really my thing, and fitted the standard ones back. Also fitted a new standard front badge to replace the carbon wrapped one that was fitted and was peeling anyway. I also fitted a Skoda Fabia front splitter whilst the bumper was off that is a really nice subtle mod that I'd recommend to anyone, especially compared to the price of the Cup splitter!

Also fitted my new Momo 280mm steering wheel and Momo boss kit - massive improvement over the standard wheel that is simply too big. The new wheel allows you to drive it so much harder, turn in quicker and just feels a lot nicer (especially as the standard wheel was also falling apart).

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This evening I went out to do a few photos with my new light rig for my photography, this was my favourite photo...
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That is it for now. But any progress, is progress... :wink:
 


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