NEW MODS
So after Oulton, that was it for track days for 2016. We had a few plans for winter maintenance and a few mods we'd been saving up for.
Firstly we'd been thinking about updating the suspension as the standard dampers and Eibach springs were first up for the chop (not literally). I had a look into a few different coilover options but GAZ Gold's were what we went with as we could get them for a good price and I'd been told they were pretty decent by someone who used to use them. They were ordered then I realized we needed top mounts, I wanted camber adjustment ideally but the thing is with the MK2 Clio there isn't a great deal of room in those strut tops for adjusters like what KW or BC sometimes have so I was limited to KAM Racing and AST for adjustable mounts. KAM Racing's top mounts only allowed something like 1 degree of camber adjustment but they were a fraction of the price of AST top mounts. The big kicker of the AST's was the price and I've known people to buy AST products and they're broke before they're even fitted.
I spoke to a few of the lads from the group and my friend Tom works closely with Compbrake, he told me they were developing an fully adjustable top mount with the same adjustment as the AST equivilant for the Clio. He said I could be the guinepig and test the first set, ok no problem.
2 weeks later the coilovers arrived from GAZ, I was really impressed by the finish of them and I was desperate to get them fitted so I got in touch with Tom and told him they'd arrived. He had me measure the diameter of the piston and send him the details.
In the mean time, we went wild and bought a Pure Motorsport Shifter and some Powerflex Exhaust bushes. So big job breaking out, all things we could probably get done in a day so long as we shape and have no issues along the way.
Once they'd arrived the top mounts arrived with Tom and it was time to fit them.
So we headed into the garage and ripped the old suspension off and went about fitting it, then we ran into a couple of issues. It really wouldn't be a job on my car without an issue, seriously.
So once we'd fitted the front struts we noticed the spring wasn't even held in place, something you'd expect on something that's been wound all the way down but it was set quite high in all honesty. We thought well it will be fine when its sat down on the floor, fitted the new top mounts lined everything up and lowered the car... "CRACK"... "what was that?". We assumed it was just everything settling in place on the car, except when we rolled the car out of the garage we realized it wasn't what we thought. there were needle bearings now on the floor and some other bits of bearing... oh dear. Well that's a bearing bolloxed! jacked the car back up and took the top mounts off and they were shagged inside, I wish I had the photos they were all bent and mangled. So we got the strut out from under the car and put the mount on again to see what was going on and what could have caused this.
We realized at this point that GAZ should have really supplied a helper spring to avoid such issues (you can see the bearing just at an angle mid shaft), so what now happened was some serious mucking about. Me and Tom headed to a closed Compbrake and his house, luckily Tom had some GAZ helper springs that would fit my suspension (brand new) and he said I could have them and we'll get onto GAZ about another set for "me" that he would have. We got to Compbrake and got a few sets of bearings just incase same thing happened again etc and then we went and got the springs from Toms.
We then fitted the new bearings and noticed there was some up and down play in the rose joint, not even a mil but enough to make a noise. We then sussed that it was because it was missing a second circlip so time to open up
RIG UP RACING once again. We decided plastic would be a good "temp" fix but what could be strong enough but thin enough? UREKA!!! Chinese take-away tub, so we butchered a take-away tub and fitted it and you'll never guess what... fixed! We dropped the car down and took it for a spin, no crunches, no knocks, nothing.
We're so pikey at times, it's amazing.
That was the drop on the rear, no photos at the time of the front.
The following day we fitted the shifter and the exhaust mounts.
