Another Mk1 coming out of the woodwork

[16v_paddy]

I thought I had a thread on here but it seems I was wrong :S

I've got hopelessly addicted to trackdays so decided to build something proper to do them in

At the end of 2012 I got myself an ex-works rally shell already caged up etc, not quite a works shell per-se, but was owned & ran by aguy called Mark Carson & competed in the Irish Rally Championship, AFAIK he wasn't a fully works backed driver but his points contributed to the constructors championship for Renault.

Stripped down

Sandblasted

Primered up

Painted inside & out

Lots of underseal applied everywhere, only pic I've got but you get the idea

Coming together nicely now

Now onto the engine I've built for it, brief spec is:
Clio Williams block
bored to 2.1 with wossner high comp pistons and catcams forged con rods
Worked Megane cylinder head with catcams 213 cams & pullies
45mm Jenvey itb's & adjustable trumpets
172 gearbox
Volvo T5 injectors
Supersprint manifold
Canems ecu

Other stuff:

Wilwood dynalite 4 pots with DS2500 pads (for now)
Poly bushed williams widetrack
Manual steering
Spax Coilovers
Pressed in group A or N (can never remember which) stud & nut conversion

It's now up & running and ready to be mapped, then out on track at Bedford on the 19th to see if it all works & find any faults so they can be sorted then drive it as much as possible & have fun

 

[Djw John]

That's fully awesome mate!

 

[Chip-mk1]

Brilliant stuff. Ex-competition shell makes so much sense as a starting point.

 

[Djw Dave]

Love my Mk1's and that's properly nice.

Engine looks excellent.

 

[Coops Mk1]

needs a diff

and that's a very polite thread you massive bell end, where's all the swearing and abuse?

 

[16v_paddy]

needs a diff

and that's a very polite thread you massive bell end, where's all the swearing and abuse?

I'll get a diff once I've un-raped my credit card you massive gay engined fcuking fcuk faced fcuk cnut............better? :rasp:

Brilliant stuff. Ex-competition shell makes so much sense as a starting point.

You'd think so but this 1 has had it's fair share of ballache lol, this shell was bought new in 1997 after the owner had a massive smash & by the looks of it everything from the wrecked car was transferred into this 1 in a hurry so he could be back out competing, which is understandable.
Lots of really messy welding & bent bits but taking it mostly back to bare metal again made it easier to find & rectify all of the mess

 

[16v_paddy]

Pics speak for themselves I think :approve:

237bhp 181 ft/lb :rasp:

 

[Djw John]

Wooft!!

 

[imprezaworks]

That is awesome

 

[Chi]

Brilliant. ..

 

[jon_r]

Great to see another MK1 on the site. I've been folowing progress on Dan's FB page.

 

[Martin_172]

excellent figures!!! that torque graph!

 

[16v_paddy]

Day before Bedford & we had some difficulties fitting the suspension

Almost ready

Comedy camber y0!

Ride height set

Made it to Bedford, successful day of testing & fettling and had a bit of fun in the process

The modified rear beam has exceeded all expectations, if anything it's given the back of the car almost too much grip, it's just absolutely planted & wouldn't step out at all despite deliberately provoking it, so a few more tweaks to the suspension setup are needed to liven the back end up a bit more.


Found a few ways to make significant improvements to the car and address a couple of faults that we found, so 2 days after Bedford we've got this

Got to fit a new clutch as we overfilled the box & through the breather gave the clutch a bit of a golden shower of box oil So got a Sachs Racing clutch that failboay jaykay isn't using

Main reason for engine removal is to facilitate fitting of these beauties

We're mounting the engine to the subframe using these R5 competition mounts after seeng them fitted on an R5 that's got a valver engine & ITB's at 519 Automotive. Which also allows for stuff to be removed or chopped out to shed some weight.


This little lot here comes in at 28kg & there's still a bit more stuff to be chopped out which should bring it up to 30kg removed from the car in total

We've also got a few clearance issues to sort out so we can fit a proper air filter & backing plate, 1st 1 to do was drop the alternator using a 800mm belt instead of an 815mm which has given us an extra 35mm of room underneath the trumpets


A not very good before pic

after

Next job to do is address this clearance problem, will be making adjustments to the subframe to lower the rad

Another issue we had was that the car didn't feel like it was making 237bhp, it wasn't slow by any means but it should be batshit fast & it just wasn't. A case of results on a dyno not equating to real world performance as it was mapped with the bonnet off & a big fcuk off fan blowing at it so we're putting down to crap airflow to the trumpets.
To remedy this we're cutting a big hole in the bonnet, also benefits the weight saving as well


Talk to me Goose 8) Mongoose cat back exhaust, turns out it's not 2.5 inch but 2.25 inch, it's still significantly bigger than the Magnex we had on so a definite improvement and once we've had the downpipe fettled with & decat made up to match, it should free up a few more horses

Adisport Big Dick Bitches solid subframe bush fitted

Biggest issue - but not exactly unexpected tbh - was the brakes, they simply wasn't up to the job. A combination of old discs & pads and the car being quite a lot faster than the car they were previously fitted to meant that we were really struggling to scrub off the speed in places and on a few too many occasions had to abandon attempting to turn in & take the safer option of using the ample runoffs at Bedford instead.


So new Mintex discs and some proper many pads, Carbotech XP8's

Here's the current state of the workshop whilst waiting for the new mounts to arrive, both cars here will be at Castle Combe on the 20th June

 

[rctempire]

Excellent thread paddy.

Well done on the progress. So glad the Clio16valver filter isn't on this site. CSWE

 

[Ali]

Awesome! I do love a mk1!

 

[16v_paddy]

Small update, finally got the engine back in the car, fully mounted to the subframe & I'm genuinely impressed with how solidly it's in there

With the addition of a carbon fibre bonnet, we've managed to get somewhere close to 40kg removed from the front of the car and do something about the issue of restricted airflow to the itb's

 

[Coops Mk1]

still cant believe you chopped that bonnet

 

[16v_paddy]

still cant believe you chopped that bonnet

It's called having balls, not that I'd expect you to understand

 

[rctempire]

Oh you ended up cutting a hole in it.
Interesting.

Looks good though Paddy

 

[m4tt274]

Very nice build, keep us all updated on your progress.

 

[Matt@codered]

Nice one paddy, use a renault 19 16v cambelt cover (fully plastic/lighter and no engine mount) I did this to an R 5 gt turbo with an F7P.

 

[16v_paddy]

Nice one paddy, use a renault 19 16v cambelt cover (fully plastic/lighter and no engine mount) I did this to an R 5 gt turbo with an F7P.

I've bought 1 about 2 weeks ago but the cretin I've bought it off hasn't sent the bloody thing yet

 

[Leeshez]

Wow amazing .

 

[Andyrg@ ClioTurbo]

Aesome work paddy mate.

 

[16v_paddy]

Finishing touches done at 519 today

and sat waiting for a day at Castle Combe tomorrow

 

[16v_paddy]

Was an epic day at Combe, the changes made since Bedford have completely transformed the car, it was genuinely fast & I'm happy as a pig in s**t with it :approve:

Things didn't quite go according to plan though

Exhaust cam decided to seize up whilst going flat out around Folly - circa 100mph

The cam locked up and the force of the engine still spinning ripped the pulley right off then bending a load of valves

Plus a bit of backfiring through the cylinders with bent inlet valves

But new parts have been ordered so will be cracking on with building up a replacement head and back out on track very soon as the pistons weren't damaged in any way

 

[Matt@codered]

:dapprove:

 

[16v_paddy]

Suppose having to re-do this will teach me not to use facebook for image hosting

Was an epic day at Combe, the changes made since Bedford have completely transformed the car, it was genuinely fast & I'm happy as a pig in s**t with it :up:

Things didn't quite go according to plan though

Exhaust cam decided to seize up whilst going flat out around Folly - circa 100mph

The cam locked up and the force of the engine still spinning ripped the pulley right off then bending a load of valves

Plus a bit of backfiring through the cylinders with bent inlet valves

But new parts have been ordered so will be cracking on with building up a replacement head and back out on track very soon as the pistons weren't damaged in any way :smiley:

 

[16v_paddy]

A short while after the disaster the car was booked in for a full custom exhaust to be made & as the guy doing it had a 6-8 week waiting list to get in we went ahead with it anyway.

1.75 inch primaries into 2 inch secondaries then 2.5 inches all the way to the back

After the exhaust, I sold my MX5 & bought Beanies old gearbox with Gripper diff

Unfortunately after that lot I ended up buying an Accord Type R which then cost me a fortune in bits & bobs so the Valver has been on hold since then.
But I managed to source another head, with matching cam carriers from a friend which has prompted digging the car out of the dirty garage for a bit of a scrub up

Also got round to fixing a tiny fuel leak from a crack in the bottom of the filler neck by replacing the filler neck & aux tank with a poverty spec filler neck

And now is where we really get down to business with the new parts, solid lifters, uprated valve springs & retainers and a set of Piper 300 cams

The head is currently at an engineering place in Warrington having all the necessary bits & bobs done to rebuild it sorted out & checked thoroughly. Next step when the head is ready is to make room in the workshop, get the car in & the engine removed so we can take it to the engineering place & see if the pistons need to be machined because of the mega lairy cams then reassemble the b*****d thing

 

[Bluebeard]

Awesome work!

 

[rctempire]

Paddy thats some working going into this.
Hope to see this soon.

 

[Scrooge]

Proper car!

 

[16v_paddy]

Paddy thats some working going into this.
Hope to see this soon.

I wouldn't call it work, the bloody thing has been dumped in the garage & not been touched for 8 months & buying a Honda stopped me from doing anything to it lol!

 

[16v_paddy]

She's in the workshop now

A couple of pics of the sexy as fcuk manifold

and a pic of the ride height with no engine in

 

[p@blo]

This is awesome. Loving the new exhaust and manifold setup.

 

[16v_paddy]

Here's a better pic of the manifold now it's off the car, 1st time I've actually been able to see it properly lol

 

[p@blo]

Manifold is real nice. Guessing a lot less restricitive than the oem item paddy?

 

[16v_paddy]

It's massively less restrictive than the supersprint that used to be on it nevermind the OEM one lol!

 

[16v_paddy]

This is due an update

Just for the lolz, hovercar y0!

Super dooper new & better fitting radiator made by Radtec

8 week delay courtesy of Piper being useless, sending wrong lifters then telling porkies that the correct replacements had been made & sent

but head fully rebuilt, 16 new guides, valve seats, weird angle stuff cut into the seats & valves, tolerances meticulously checked to make sure we don't have a repeat of the cam locking up & destroying the head, solid lifters correctly setup & shimmed

3 hours later, rebuilt head being disassembled for porting to begin

Porting start & work in progress

Also got new brakes, Flans old setup consisting of 2 piece 298.5mm rotors & massive Wilwood Superlite calipers. Just awaiting delivery of new discs & Carbotech XP10 pads

Think I need to get the wheels rebalanced though

Should have some more updates in the next few days as we're hoping to have the car back up & running in time for a trackday on friday

 

[16v_paddy]

I thought I'd updated this a hell of a lot less than 4 years ago 😳

Made a few changes to the car since the last update & tested them all out at Bedford last week............................current power from when it was mapped at EFI Parts in 2017 is 225bhp 171 ft/lb but it needs to go back for more work as it was sent up on a truck & we forgot to tell Chris it had solid lifters so he's been rather conservative with it

1 inch wider front arches for better clearance and the ability to fit wider wheels & tyres later on

Some Morettes as the car was very briefly road legal & normal headlights no longer fitted because of where the bonnet pins are

Managed an evening session at Donington Park & the only issues were a broken harness and a slipping clutch but that eventually stopped as the clutch bedded itself into the new flywheel.
It's next outing was a full day at Bedford which nearly ended up in smoke as 1 of the exhaust rubbers popped off & made the exhaust rest on the fuel tank putting a hole in it.

Turns out I was missing a metal heatshield on the fuel tank & the stick-on material I used wasn't up to the job, you can see the metal heatshield on the replacement tank, this then caused a new problem of the exhaust no longer fitting properly

After some bodging we managed to make the exhaust sort of fit so we could do a full day at Donington but it's days were numbered

The day was mostly fine & got massively better when we switched over to Michelin Race wets, unfortunately the rear main oil seal failed & soaked the clutch and this is where the most recent bout of lunacy started, with the engine coming back out