Brian's 172 Cup Turbo

[Briank_]

Hi all!

My name is Brian, 25 years old, living in the Netherlands. General petrolhead, and love going fast and visiting trackdays. My girlfriend likes the same stuff, so when I go out driving, she wants to go too!

I got a good history of previously owned cars if I can speak for myself, the list at this moment contains;
-Honda civic (2x EG and 1 EK)
- Toyota MR2
- E46 318i (winter car)
- Subaru Impreza 2.0GTT
- Audi A3 3.2 V6
- Mitsubishi EVO 6 RS2 Left Hand Drive
- E46 M3 phoenix yellow
- Renault Clio 3 RS Cup
- Audi S4 B6
- E46 M3 Carbon black

Some photo's;

The last E46M3 was my car just up to 3 weeks ago. I've driven it across Europe trough Germany, Belgium, Austria, Italia, Hungary, Slovenia and Croatia. Car was great! Performs very very well as a daily driver, but also gets you the performance when needed.

But, this became just to expensive for me to drive on track. It got a lot of work carried out in the time I owned it, including a new engine, but the risk of hitting a barrier and writing it off just got in the back of my head when I took it out. So, it had to go!
Also bought a house in the meantime with a garage wich meant things could change a bit.

Decided to buy a decent car for everyday driving and towing, and a tracktoy! The daily driver became an Audi A6 2.7tdi;

And you can guess what my new track car is! A Renault Clio 172 Cup, fitted with the Engine Dynamics 230 kit. Got 230.5bhp and 237.5 lb/ft of torque. Pictures from the advert;

The reason I searched one in the UK is that you guys usually do alot of modifications, the Cup is never actually delivered in the Netherlands, and prices are better! Just meant one thing, I needed to get myself to the UK to pick it up.

So, my dad came in to help since I haven't got my towing license yet, and off we whent! Train is much cheaper than the boat, so we took that route - got going at 05.00 on a drive to Calais, got on the train in time!

Got there around 14.00 I think. Picked the car up around London, very friendly people! Everything was all good. Only some trouble with getting the cash in since you can only get 500 pounds a time from the ATM with 10's and 20's bills!? What's with that!? This gave some troubles since I was limited in my withdrawels as the card is foreign. Got round a few banks and post offices, eventually Barclay's got an ATM I could get money from a few times. Full stacks since the whole amount was cashed in 20 pounds. Got to withdrawl a few times with the chap I bought it from recounting everything, got a waiting line behind us, must've been a bit weird by the looks of it. Me cashing 500 pounds, giving it away, guy counting it, and me getting even more of it! But, glad I could get to the money, otherwise it would have been an interesting deal of 'I swear I get you the money when I get home'!

Other than that, haven't got any troubles, just expected the roads to be a bit better in the UK! :smile:

The car on the trailer, heading to it's new home!

Got home at 01.30 in the morning, so had a long day. Glad everything worked out in the end without major issues.
Car on the driveway at home;

So, what are the plans? I like working on cars as well as driving them, but I'm not a trained mechanic. Work with cars everyday though, but electrical stuff more than anything mechanical. On this I will be doing most of the work by myself, just to learn new stuff and to really get to know the car in and out!
The car will not be registered here, so will need to get myself a trailer and license to get it from A to B when needed.
This also means I don't have to worry about MOT and taxes, wich saves money and will allow me to do more on the car.

The target is just to drive trackdays, myself and my girlfriend will both be driving it. A rollcage, good seats and harnesses are on the list to get. Also I need a good suspension set up, and some good brakes. Performance is not an issue, altough the boost kicks in real hard at the moment, so need to see if that can be achieved a bit more smoothly across the rev range!

Plans for now - stripping the entire interior, see what I can get out of the wiring without messing things up. And a general check up on the car to see what needs to be carried out first before I start to do any modifications. Spotted some rust already so we'll see. Hope to be updating anytime soon.

Hope you enjoyed reading this, if anything can be done better or if I mess something up, please let me know !

Gr,
Brian

 

[Jme34]

Seriously cool car history and an awesome start to the clio's story. I will be interested to follow your progress [emoji1303][emoji5]

 

[Jekyll]

Nice little write up there Brian :smile: Glad the trip was pretty effortless and all went well, barring the slight money withdrawal issues.

Car looks clean and will make a great track day car, especially with the added power.

Who was the previous owner and have you got a spec list?

Also, its the mandatory rules to post pics of the missus. Its a possible ban otherwise!

 

[imprezaworks]

Great post. Will follow with interest

 

[Iain C]

Nice work fella. Looks like a goodun

 

[Briank_]

Update!

Hi,

Made some progress over the last week! Decided to strip the interior so I could get on with the wiring. Already came across alot of nonsense I don't need and a shady false alarm system that only went to the hazard switch and general locking switch, and a red bulb, but nothing more than that.

So, first up, removing the seats! Who came up with removing seats from the underside of the car? Typical french design I guess.. Glad I don't need to do that at work everyday. The pictures could be a bit dark, I haven't got that good lighting in my garage, but it works for doing the job.

And out came the roof lining too!

Got everything out in the back-end by now. Also removed things like the boot locking mechanism, rear wiper, and other stuff.
On to the front!;

Dashboard out;

Put up a few posters my girlfriend came home with;

And now pretty much everything is out, except the drivers door card, but that will be done tomorrow.

Little start on wiring;

Will be removing all the tape first since I can't find any good wiring diagrams, and this is already been worked on as it runs an AEM management for the turbo mapping. So I will get everything out the tape and see from there, just going to trace wires back and removing them all the way up to the fusebox. In the best case scenario I can refit a few new fuse holders wich I can then put in nicely and numbered in a different order, and easy to reach/replace. Got a few lying around here so will see about that. This will take up my time for now, so not to many exciting updates just yet!

Am looking at replacing the bonnet and bootlid for lightweight ones, as i'm surprised at the weight of these. And removing weight is easier then getting more power at this moment. But we'll see, might just take out the engine when this is done, but all future plans.

Also a picture from the missus, still car related though! A lot of nicer pictures according to her, bet hey, can't beat this moment anymore. Is already from a few years back now but still gold to me!

So, will try to get things going so I can update again soon! In the meantime I will be enjoying everybody elses nice projects on here !

Cheers,
Brian

 

[K_McDermott]

Car looks ace and you've had some epic cars in the past, will keep an eye on this [emoji108]


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[SmokeyTheBandit]

Nice too see another proper 172 in the netherlands.
Will this car be purely for track use or are you also going to use it on the road and get it registered ?

Welkom op ClioSport -> absoluut de beste locatie voor unieke aanpassingen en een gigantische community voor deze auto's :smile:

 

[Briank_]

Car will only see track indeed, so no registration. Also to keep costs down and get more options without thinking about MOT.

Ja bedankt! Heb ook een lidmaatschap genomen om wat meer toegang te krijgen tot de howto's en dergelijke!
Jou Clio ziet er goed uit ook!

About the car - still busy with the wiring, and made a start on removing the sound deadening that is in the car! So not much picture worthy yet!

 

[182_steve]

Great thread and that was quite a road trip you made to get it!! But looks a great car and with the turbo conversion too, obviously well worth the trip. Keep up the updates :up::up:

 

[Briank_]

Update!

Been a while since the last update! Car is on jacks at the moment. Had messed up the wiring so doing that again!
Also made a nice plan on how to approach this project since I don't really know where to start sometimes. So should be some updates every few weeks!:smile:

Since my birthday was a few weeks back, my better half wanted to buy me something I actually wanted, and car parts are always on that list! Since I was struggling with my wheel bolts, I got a key (wich turned out to fit also) and a stud conversion kit from Pure Motorsport.
As I was looking trough the parts section here I saw he was selling his Time Attack car in parts, and I had lightweight doors/windows on my shopping list. Since I wanted to buy from him anyway, decided to buy the GRP doors, lexan windows and stud conversion at the same time!

The money was transferred and a few days later this huge package was standing in the living room!

Since this is at my parents (yeah can't accept the package at work so have to get everything shipped to their adres), I needed to unpack it as this would definately not fit my Audi A6!

Doors look very nice, as do the windows! Very happy with them. The doors with windows did 8kg on the scales, wich I'm also pleased with, haven't had the original doors on scales but they weigh a ton!

Had to fit them on the car ofcourse, will not be painted in the near future, but will be eventually!:smile:

And as can be seen here, they do fit nicely!

So, that's that for now. Not really sure if I'm going to fit my own electric mirrors, it will make driving on/off the trailer easier I guess since the car has no license. But on the other hand I'm trying to get it as light as possible with the turbo kit mounted. So not sure about that.
Also going to order some RS doorcards tomorrow to finish the doors of nicely! :up:

And in the next few weeks the wiring and dashboard need to be sorted. So will redo the wiring again, and see how to make the dash lighter and put it back in for now. Also need to order some switches and make a nice panel for them in the upcoming weeks!

Thanks for reading!:blush:

Brian

 

[scullyg40]

Welkom, leuk om nog een Nederlandse trackday auto te zien.

Looks like you had a good base to start with, and I am sure the car will be allright. :wink:
Which trackday willen you be attending mostly?

 

[20vKarlos]

Ah!!!! So it was you that stole the doors 😂😂
I came back on the site and they'd sold! I was rather upset!

Look forward to all the updates. As for the wiring... all I can say is good luck! I've been there already

:up:

 

[Briank_]

Welkom, leuk om nog een Nederlandse trackday auto te zien.

Looks like you had a good base to start with, and I am sure the car will be allright. :wink:
Which trackday willen you be attending mostly?

Ah, ontdek steeds meer medelanders hier!
Car will be built following the Time Attack regulations and stuff, but following the complete budget layout the car isn't finished anytime soon. Car will be getting full cage, lsd, suspension renewal, etc.. I like building just as much as driving tough!

Ah!!!! So it was you that stole the doors 😂😂
I came back on the site and they'd sold! I was rather upset!

Ha, sorry about that!😅 Couldn't resist mate!

 

[20vKarlos]

Ha, sorry about that!😅 Couldn't resist mate!

Good job you couldn't resist pal! Saved me some money 😂

 

[182_steve]

Those doors look a great fit! Can't believe how light they are!!

 

[scullyg40]

Ah, ontdek steeds meer medelanders hier!
Car will be built following the Time Attack regulations and stuff, but following the complete budget layout the car isn't finished anytime soon. Car will be getting full cage, lsd, suspension renewal, etc.. I like building just as much as driving tough

Same here, but mine is already a couple of months in the garage, and nog I feel the urge to take it out on track.
Did you get to weigh the standard door already? I'm interested in the weight difference.

 

[Briank_]

Update!

Well, again this has been a while. I read on here every single day, daydreaming about my own car, but in the meantime a ton of things seem to change except just that! So time to get things into priority and get working on it.

The Turbo'd Clio 172 Cup is still standing in the garage, with the poly doors, good working engine, and fully stripped out. But from the beginning, the suspension etc. were still stock. So, I made a full list of things I wanted and ofcourse this got the prices trough the roof. This led me to search a car with some modifications done to it, but a work in progress, or without engine perhaps, to get a headstart on my build.
Looking a bit sorry for itself here;

Last weekend I went to the UK once again! This time I got a 172 cup ex-hillclimb car from Neil who was a really, really, helpful guy and sent me tons of pictures from the beginning and included many spares with the car aswel for a very decent price. The car was located near Ammanford so quit a journey all the way from the Netherlands, but who doesn't love a challenge! Car had a real struggle getting uphill by the way, highway was constant 4th gear and uphill even 3rd sometimes! Loaded too with the engine and spares in the back of the car, and then the trailer behind;

The car has got a Quaife differential fitted, full welded rollcage, PMS shifter, Gaz Gold (older type it seems) adjustable suspension, PMS strut brace and top mounts, is converted to EPAS with controller, black powerflex bushings, and some other bits ofcourse. The car runs, it came with a spare engine and gearbox, spare driveshafts, and loads of other stuff! So I basically got 2 172 Cup's and a 3rd engine and gearbox and some spares. Great for me, my girlfriend thinks otherwise tough! Her reaction;

I also got a chat with Chris from CMComposites who was a pleasure to work with. Shipping over parts to the Netherlands was actually a tad expensive, so ideally I could ship them to the adress where I was picking up the Clio. This could all be arranged (thanks to both parties for that!), but it was a bit short notice, as I was planning on going in 2 weeks. Chris got his wip out from what I heard and put some hard work into it to get everything sorted in what already was a busy time! It worked out just great as Neil got to collect the parts on saturday morning, while I arrived later that day!
Got myself a lightweight bonnet, bootlid and the splitter! Together with the doors and poly windows which I also have somewhere the car should get light enough?! Will get some decent pictures later when they get fitted etc.!

Plans for now; remove front hubs and sent these over to Northloopcup for a nice roll centre correction kit. And a Sabelt steering wheel is on it's way. Also got a set of very neat lightweight door cards lying for almost a year from track-car-doorcards with the sabelt pulls. Will have the interior stripped out, paint it, get it all back and then hopefully I should make progress every other week or so to get this ready by the end of the year!


Will keep it updated now! Thanks for everyone who took the time to read all of this!?

 

[Daz...]

This is brilliant. Work is going slow on the turbo cup so you go out and buy another with a spare engine, makes perfect sense.

That’s also a very generously sized garage you have yourself!

 

[Briank_]

Update!

So I got round doing some more work in this car today. It wasn't as hot as the last couple of days so that made things a bit easier!

First I took the boot of and started fitting the CMComposites one. Needs some more work as you need to figure out where to drill / make holes for mounting it etc, and it isn't completely spot on yet. But works for now;

Actually the Cup spoiler weighs more than the bootlid as it seems. Haven't got them on a scale but pretty sure it can't be lighter.

Then got to the bonnet; this was easy as it comes with mounting points fitted. Fits very good after adjusting it a bit on the mounts;

Now I wanted the doors off, as I have some polycarbonate ones and another set from my other 172Cup in the same colour. No need for 3 sets. Got the windows out, doorpanels off, took the rubbers out as they might come in usefull one day, and then to removing them!
This was a bit of a pain as one pin that goes trough the mounting points just didn't wanted to come out! Being the bottom one, it had to go out upwards, with very little space for hitting it with a hammer. also not really a good screwdriver or something to get on it because of the tapered end. But after hammering and since it was the last one I got a bit grumpy and bent the top so I could just hammer it out! Job done!

Doors will not be fitted again as this makes moving the car and working on the interior easier. First things first!

Took the rear window from my old bootlid at work so I can place it on the CMComposites one in the future, but decided to remove the quarter panels now as my dad was here. Bit of a pain as an one man job tbh. Rear quarters out (I don't need them if someone wants them);

Back in the garage for now with the lexan quarters taped on as I hadn't even seem these since they came last year.

Oh exchanged the wheels too, liked the Turini's more on the 'racecar'. Got working on removing the front hubs from the 'donor' after this, got one side of, but got interrupted and will have to continue later this week. Then those will be sent out to the UK again for the bump steer correction kit, looking forward to that. And waiting for a Sabelt steering wheel to arrive this week!

Next up hoping to do swap and test the wiring from my other cup, then crack on with the dashboard and fitting it all nicely. Out with the sound deadening stuff which I do with a heater gun, works perfect. Painting the rollcage and interior when that's done!

Thanks for reading,

Brian

 

[Briank_]

Update!

Got round doing some more work on the Cup! With the weather getting better and some sunshine in the evenings there's more time and motivation to get some work done ofcourse. Been busy getting a new job too so that will take up some time in the upcoming months.

First up, got the wiring loom done for now, the fuse box will be switched out for another one tough, but will do that when it's in the car according to lenghts of the wires. Note: the stereo wiring, airbag wiring, heater wiring, wiring for electric windows and interior lights etc is removed. Just electric mirrors remained, and the basics like lights, wipers, you name it. These will be re-routed later to the switch panel but for now this works.

Steering wheel came in from R-sport! Very happy, looks nice and feels great already.

Decided to go with the lower dash section too, it adds some weight, but for me it makes the car just a bit more neat insinde. And easy to get rid of too ofcourse. So mocked up the lower dash section and top dash to fit a bit nicer around the cage.

Then got round making some sort of bracket for the ECU, fuses and UCH. I wanted them easily accessible. Also found a nice location for the EPAS Ecu in front of the shifter.

Then all out again and mocking up for painting the cage! As the plan is to wrap the car in white with red decals, the cage had to be red aswell. Painted the headlight covers first to get a preview of the color. Oh and decided to get all the windows out for good access, front window was cracked anyway.

After paint!

Quite happy how it turned out, I didn't completely sand down the black, just a little bit, so while painting I noticed there where some drips in the old paint. Ofcourse these are way more visible now. Doesn't matter much to me as it isn't a beauty contest, it just needs to move! And parts of the cage will be covered in foam around the driver anyway.

Next I need to get to painting the inside of the car in white. Need to place one order for some things like lightweight battery, electrical heater, a proper seat and some small stuff to get the inside as completed as possible.
Just one more order to Pure Motorsport aswell for the final suspension parts, along with the hubs coming in by then, will make that part completed too! Progress is made!

Thanks for reading,

Brian

 

[White16valver]

Lovely build! That should be very lightweight!

I thought all you dutch types liked to bicycle everywhere? Your neighbours must think you are strange lol

 

[bloke]

you've painted the headlights you daft sod ?

 

[Briank_]

you've painted the headlights you daft sod ?

Christ, couldn’t figure out why it became dark all of the sudden!?

@White16valver, thanks, hope it will be!
Yeah all of us dutchies cycle or have one I guess! Got a few, but with 5 cars for 2 persons they absolutely think we’re crazy..!

 

[White16valver]

Yeah all of us dutchies cycle or have one I guess! Got a few, but with 5 cars for 2 persons they absolutely think we’re crazy..!

haha Nice - I like your style

 

[Briank_]

I’m terrible at keeping this thread up to date. Progress is slow, but steady though.

Got loads of things that come between me and having time or money to work on the car, new job, new cars, stuff around the house, you name it!

How the car is standing at this very moment;

One happy family (The Evo and Jaguar are my gf’s, the M5 is my daily);

Car now has;
Gaz gold suspension with unknown springs (temporary, but has to do for now)
Northloopcup roll centre / bump steer hubs
Pure motorsport top mounts and strut brace
PMS stub axle spacers and camber shims
PMS anti roll bar 22mm
Front spacers 16mm
All kinds of powerflex bushes
Brembo HC discs and DS1.11 pads front
Stock discs with ds2500 rear
Goodrigde braided lines front / back
PMS shifter
Quaife LSD

And just need to swap engine now. But will also do belts and basic stuff when its out ofcourse so that will be just a bit further down the road for now!
I will keep the engine low boost for now at 230hp, main goal is to get the car driving early in June and hope to do some trackdays this summer!

Engine bay pic of engine that needs to be swapped, just because!

Got the poly doors on now so starts to look like a car again. Dash and wiring is all ready to mount but need to paint inside first, as the goal is to get it ready asap I think I’ll paint it mondial blue for now and do the bonnet and boot also.

Front CMC splitter, jon foz seat frame and some other stuff is also in house and just need to be mounted!

So, again, hope to get this up to date from now on as I will keep working on it every weekend from now on!

Thanks for reading,
Brian