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Chase Racing Clio Build Blog (TinTops Entry)



  Chase Racing Clio
No Clio's in the top ten ?. Must make a comeback lol.

Well, we ended up being the top finishing Clio after starting 3rd out of 5 clios. I think the 2 in front of us made a bad call with bringing their drivers in... there was a safety car at the 18 minute mark, which caused a bit of a shuffle with many getting stuck at the end of the pit lane. We didn't make that mistake!
 

Russ Rallye

ClioSport Club Member
Car looked to be going well. I was gonna come and say hello but had car issues all day so was pretty busy. I was sharing the driving of my mates clio 200, we were well off the pace but hopefully there'll be a massive improvement for oulton tintops/French trophy. When Are you next out?
​russ
 
  182cup & 172 racecar
Car looked to be going well. I was gonna come and say hello but had car issues all day so was pretty busy. I was sharing the driving of my mates clio 200, we were well off the pace but hopefully there'll be a massive improvement for oulton tintops/French trophy. When Are you next out?
​russ

Hey, don't make it too quick.;)
 

Russ Rallye

ClioSport Club Member
There's plenty of margin tony considering my fastest lap was about 4 seconds off what the 182/172's were doing. The car has got massive potential, it just has some issues and isn't quick enough currently.
Rusd
 
  Chase Racing Clio
Car looked to be going well. I was gonna come and say hello but had car issues all day so was pretty busy. I was sharing the driving of my mates clio 200, we were well off the pace but hopefully there'll be a massive improvement for oulton tintops/French trophy. When Are you next out?
​russ

We should've probably made a bit more of an effort to talk to the rest of the Clio clan to be honest, we just had quite a few people with us and went off to watch some of the racing! No excuses next time though, I'll make sure we go socialising a bit!

Annoyingly, I don't think we're going to be doing another race this year though... Ryan's off to America with work for 3 weeks of September and we want to get a diff in the car before we do another race! Then by the time we get it all sorted the season will be over. We're really struggling coming out of corners and we're only running a bog standard engine!! So, after 4 races of spinning the inside wheel, we wanna get that done before we even contemplate spending money on power. Sooooo, we're most likely not gonna make another race this year!

That 200 certainly has plenty of potential... I was a little surprised to see you a little further back, sounds like you've got it in hand though. As Tony says, don't make it too quick!
 
  Chase Racing Clio
No you wally, car 10 with front smashed in.

Haha... I was looking a picture #10!!!

That was the fastest car in the modern classics race.... he locked up trying to overtake in to redgate and just plowed straight on. It skipped across the gravel and hit the tyres at quite a speed! He got out eventually after a precautionary few minutes, walked away luckily, probably just a big brown stain in his pants.
 

Russ Rallye

ClioSport Club Member
That #10 M3 was good for nothing but the crusher after the damage, had to be lifted on the trailer. Not sure what if anything would be salvageable, such a shame as it looked a really nicely built/specced E36.
​Russ
 
  Chase Racing Clio
That #10 M3 was good for nothing but the crusher after the damage, had to be lifted on the trailer. Not sure what if anything would be salvageable, such a shame as it looked a really nicely built/specced E36.
​Russ

It was particularly quick... he was coming back through the pack after his success penalty with quite some speed. The shell and the engine are definitely scrap, probably most of the front end chassis too, he might be able to salvage some of the cage and most of the rear end though... assuming he wants to build another one!
 
  Chase Racing Clio
Highlights from last saturday's race at Donington Park


Check out the full race report on our freshly updated website too..... chaseracing.co.uk
 
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  Chase Racing Clio
Autumn Blog Entry

Since our final race of 2013 at Donington at the end of August, there’s been quite a lot happening for us all. Ryan went off to America with work, Rob bought a BMW 2002 shell for another project and I’m in the process of buying my first house! Despite all this, we’ve kept ourselves busy with various things.
The first thing we wanted to do was to get the workshop up to scratch. So, out everything came… cars and all. That’s Rob’s BMW under the sheet, and yes, it’s green! That wasn’t deliberate though.

C:\Users\dbanks\AppData\Local\Temp\msohtmlclip1\01  \clip_image001.jpg


Time to slap on the floor paint and you can really see the difference!

clip_image003.jpg


After we’d done all that, it was time for a far more important task. Over the past few months we had been chipping in together to pay for the next big modification, a limited slip differential. We decided to go with a Gripper plated diff and had lined up Dave Mac Propshafts in Coventry to fit it. We had a couple of spare standard gearboxes knocking about the garage which were a little worse for wear and the one in the car has only recently been rebuilt. In the interest of making sure we at least had a spare standard gearbox, we decided to leave the one that was in the car well alone.
Rob took the 2 spare gearboxes to Dave Mac from which they built a single good one using the better parts. We decided to keep the standard final drive which meant they had to press the crown wheel off of the open diff and weld on a plate to bolt to the LSD.

C:\Users\dbanks\AppData\Local\Temp\msohtmlclip1\01  \clip_image005.jpg


A week later and we had a fully rebuilt box with LSD. Next up, it was time to get it in the car! We’ve done this swap a few times now and with the deleted power steering, it’s even easier.

C:\Users\dbanks\AppData\Local\Temp\msohtmlclip1\01  \clip_image007.jpg


Once the car was all back together, we booked a track day at Donington. The plan was to get to grips with the diff and see how it affected the handling of the car. We were approaching the end of October and autumn was very much in the air, so the temperature had dropped a fair amount since our last visit for the Tin Tops race in August.
We each went out in the car in the morning to get a good feel for the difference. It was quite noticeable how much more traction there was mid corner, not once did any of us feel that inside wheel spinning. Clearly, we weren’t going fast enough! Here’s a clip of Rob taking the car for a spin:


After this little slide, we brought the car back in to check it over. There was no mechanical damage, but unfortunately we managed to get some serious flat spots on the front tyres. They were no good any more, definitely not safe to take round a track. We also only had 1 spare tyre with us, so the only thing we could do was go searching for some more tyres. Otherwise, we would lose the afternoon.
We managed to get hold of some road tyres from a place down the road, which we then stuck on the rear. We sent Ryan out for a run and immediately we had quite a bit of oversteer (unsurprisingly). He came back in when he got given the driving standards flag….he was sliding through almost every corner and having quite a lot of fun of course.
After this, we decided to pull the rear anti-roll bar off and soften up the dampers to try and dial out some of the oversteer. This helped quite a bit and we spent the rest of the afternoon having a bit of fun lapping the track. Overall, it wasn’t the most successful day, but we did still manage to enjoy ourselves and learnt how good the diff really is.
 
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  Chase Racing Clio
Autumn Blog Entry (attempt 2)

Since our final race of 2013 at Donington at the end of August, there’s been quite a lot happening for us all. Ryan went off to America with work, Rob bought a BMW 2002 shell for another project and I’m in the process of buying my first house! Despite all this, we’ve kept ourselves busy with various things.
The first thing we wanted to do was to get the workshop up to scratch. So, out everything came… cars and all. That’s Rob’s BMW under the sheet, and yes, it’s green! That wasn’t deliberate though.

DSC03406_zps79574b7c.jpg


Time to slap on the floor paint and you can really see the difference!

IMAG0378_zps906d0726.jpg


After we’d done all that, it was time for a far more important task. Over the past few months we had been chipping in together to pay for the next big modification, a limited slip differential. We decided to go with a Gripper plated diff and had lined up Dave Mac Propshafts in Coventry to fit it. We had a couple of spare standard gearboxes knocking about the garage which were a little worse for wear and the one in the car has only recently been rebuilt. In the interest of making sure we at least had a spare standard gearbox, we decided to leave the one that was in the car well alone.
Rob took the 2 spare gearboxes to Dave Mac from which they built a single good one using the better parts. We decided to keep the standard final drive which meant they had to press the crown wheel off of the open diff and weld on a plate to bolt to the LSD.

IMAG0391_zps70095537.jpg


A week later and we had a fully rebuilt box with LSD. Next up, it was time to get it in the car! We’ve done this swap a few times now and with the deleted power steering, it’s even easier.

IMAG0392_zps8e20edd2.jpg


Once the car was all back together, we booked a track day at Donington. The plan was to get to grips with the diff and see how it affected the handling of the car. We were approaching the end of October and autumn was very much in the air, so the temperature had dropped a fair amount since our last visit for the Tin Tops race in August.
We each went out in the car in the morning to get a good feel for the difference. It was quite noticeable how much more traction there was mid corner, not once did any of us feel that inside wheel spinning. Clearly, we weren’t going fast enough! Here’s a clip of Rob taking the car for a spin:



After this little slide, we brought the car back in to check it over. There was no mechanical damage, but unfortunately we managed to get some serious flat spots on the front tyres. They were no good any more, definitely not safe to take round a track. We also only had 1 spare tyre with us, so the only thing we could do was go searching for some more tyres. Otherwise, we would lose the afternoon.
We managed to get hold of some road tyres from a place down the road, which we then stuck on the rear. We sent Ryan out for a run and immediately we had quite a bit of oversteer (unsurprisingly). He came back in when he got given the driving standards flag….he was sliding through almost every corner and having quite a lot of fun of course.
After this, we decided to pull the rear anti-roll bar off and soften up the dampers to try and dial out some of the oversteer. This helped quite a bit and we spent the rest of the afternoon having a bit of fun lapping the track. Overall, it wasn’t the most successful day, but we did still manage to enjoy ourselves and learnt how good the diff really is.
 
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  LY FF182
Love reading these write ups! Your car makes me want to build a track car again!!! Despite not having the funds haha
 
  Chase Racing Clio
Just a quick update on what we’ve been slowly chugging away with over the last month or so:
One of the first items in our winter upgrade package is to change the bushes in the rear beam for spherical bearings. So, out comes the old and in goes the new, which has been welded in place prior to assembly.
IMAG0412_zps328ab54e.gif

The next item, which is probably the most significant change, is our decision to fit throttle bodies. Ryan has completed the fabrication of the intake and, the picture below, shows it all mocked up in place. We have also begun the tricky task of re-wiring the car to work with all the new components. We’ve done away with the standard ECU we did have in favour of an Emerald one, which along with some cams will hopefully give us a decent power increase.
IMAG0494_zpsd09d28f0.gif

As you can see in the picture, the front slam panel has now disappeared due to the size and package of the new intake setup. This has also caused a height issue under the bonnet, so we pulled out the angle grinder and as if by magic, we now have space!
IMAG0493_zps07337083.gif

You may anticipate that all this change might have a knock on affect, and it certainly has!! We’ve done away with some of the standard Renault equipment in the cockpit and have also decided to modify the dash layout to suit. Below is a snap of where we’ve got to so far. The plan is to apply some flock material over this once all the fabrication is complete.
dashpic_zps5719ab5f.gif

So that’s it for now; hopefully we’ll make some more progress on all these things pretty soon. The aim is to get the car out for some kind of testing in early/mid-March.
 
  Chase Racing Clio
Im off to oulton on the 28th feb testing.

Good progress.

Thanks T. We're aiming to be ready as soon as we can of course, but I think it'll be early march before we get it mapped. Would love to join you if we get it done by then though, not been to Oulton yet and really want to go!

Looking good guys. What's the plans for next year, tintops again?
Russ

At the moment the plan is to stick with TinTops as it makes more sense for us as a multi person team. It would be nice to have a go in French Trophy, but we'll see how we get on.
 
hi guys very good thread you got here. i first went back a page and watched the donington vids and my first impression was something is wrong with your handling! i was goin to just post asking about your geometry setup but then decided to read the whole thing before commenting.i like the inginuity of what you have done to raise roll centres.not seen it done that way before. im not convinced its made a better handling car by watching the vids though sorry.if it has helped then something else is wrong.its an understeering nightmare to watch.while you were struggling to hold the corner other cars were going inside of you with ease.notibly the focus. if it was me id go back to standard and start again.raise the ride height or if longer lower ball joints are avialable use them but still prob add some height.lower is not always better.also looks like you need more camber on front.maybe -3 to-4. and i definately would not stiffen the front to stop the rear wheel lifting. thats completley opposite to fwd tuning. 4 points of contact are better than 3 but on a car with rear independant suspension. on a rear axle its handling suicide to keep that inside wheel from lifting.

just my opinion but i do love what your doing and dont mean any offence.so keep having fun
 
  Chase Racing Clio
hi guys very good thread you got here. i first went back a page and watched the donington vids and my first impression was something is wrong with your handling! i was goin to just post asking about your geometry setup but then decided to read the whole thing before commenting.i like the inginuity of what you have done to raise roll centres.not seen it done that way before. im not convinced its made a better handling car by watching the vids though sorry.if it has helped then something else is wrong.its an understeering nightmare to watch.while you were struggling to hold the corner other cars were going inside of you with ease.notibly the focus. if it was me id go back to standard and start again.raise the ride height or if longer lower ball joints are avialable use them but still prob add some height.lower is not always better.also looks like you need more camber on front.maybe -3 to-4. and i definately would not stiffen the front to stop the rear wheel lifting. thats completley opposite to fwd tuning. 4 points of contact are better than 3 but on a car with rear independant suspension. on a rear axle its handling suicide to keep that inside wheel from lifting.

just my opinion but i do love what your doing and dont mean any offence.so keep having fun

Thanks for the feedback. All the things we've been doing have been with the aim of improving the handling and so far, based on the data it's worked..... Prior to roll centre mods we saw 1.1g lateral on the traces, but after we saw 1.3g! And, when it comes to lap times we've been able to really punch above our weight (well, power).

On the videos it may look like there's a bit of understeer in places, but this is mainly mid corner where the open diff doesn't provide us enough traction to really pull us out of the corner. We've recently purchased a Gripper plated LSD which will help this quite a bit. The car does turn in quite positively and we've really been able to throw it about. We're aware of how different aspects of the setup affect the handling and we've set the car up to cope with standard power and standard diff.... we're almost back to square one with the LSD now though, so we'll be addressing all aspects when we test the car for the first time this year.

I'm not sure I agree that we've been struggling to hold the corner whilst other cars go up the inside.... but I wasn't driving at Donington, so I can't comment on the car's behaviour on that day. As a demonstration of how we've significantly improved the lap times of the car; at the Castle Combe round, in qualifying we managed a 1.21.5 and there was another standard power, standard diff clio on the grid which could only manage a 1.24.5! I'm pretty sure that wasn't all the driver! Also, if you can find the Castle Race video, you'll see us mixing it with more powerful cars for quite a while.

And yes, it is horrendously good fun! Thanks for reading
 
Thanks for the feedback. All the things we've been doing have been with the aim of improving the handling and so far, based on the data it's worked..... Prior to roll centre mods we saw 1.1g lateral on the traces, but after we saw 1.3g! And, when it comes to lap times we've been able to really punch above our weight (well, power).

On the videos it may look like there's a bit of understeer in places, but this is mainly mid corner where the open diff doesn't provide us enough traction to really pull us out of the corner. We've recently purchased a Gripper plated LSD which will help this quite a bit. The car does turn in quite positively and we've really been able to throw it about. We're aware of how different aspects of the setup affect the handling and we've set the car up to cope with standard power and standard diff.... we're almost back to square one with the LSD now though, so we'll be addressing all aspects when we test the car for the first time this year.

I'm not sure I agree that we've been struggling to hold the corner whilst other cars go up the inside.... but I wasn't driving at Donington, so I can't comment on the car's behaviour on that day. As a demonstration of how we've significantly improved the lap times of the car; at the Castle Combe round, in qualifying we managed a 1.21.5 and there was another standard power, standard diff clio on the grid which could only manage a 1.24.5! I'm pretty sure that wasn't all the driver! Also, if you can find the Castle Race video, you'll see us mixing it with more powerful cars for quite a while.

And yes, it is horrendously good fun! Thanks for reading

maybe the footage is deceptive but your combe time is very good indeed.1.21.5 is very fast so i take it all back lol. what tyres did you use for that time?
 
  Chase Racing Clio
maybe the footage is deceptive but your combe time is very good indeed.1.21.5 is very fast so i take it all back lol. what tyres did you use for that time?

Dunlop DZ03G's .... 195/55 R15 - The 55 profiles are about 20% cheaper than the 50s!!! Winner
 
  Clio 197 F1
Love reading these write ups! Your car makes me want to build a track car again!!! Despite not having the funds haha
I've just read this from start to finish and completely agree, sounds like one hell of a hobby but you need some serious knowledge to keep it going.
Looks like you guys have made some serious progress over the last 2 years, can't wait to see what happens this season.
 


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