K-Tec Racing at the Tuner GP

[K-Tec Racing]

Again this year we entered our Clio 172 turbo into the annual Tuner GP at Snetterton race circuit. The classes this year were better arranged and we were in the hot hatch group against Astras, Golfs, Seats etc.

A big surprise for us was the lack of other French cars/tuners despite some planning to attend and enter cars. In the end we were the only Franch car at the entire event. The Tuner GP is a good show ground for companies to show what they can do and we would have liked to have a bit of French competetion, maybe next year?

We were pleased with the way our car performed and were mightily impressed by its reliability and outright pace since it was put together well over a year ago. We gave the factory backed Vauxhaul Astra VXR a good run on the track but we had to settle for second place in the end. I am not one for excuses but we could not quite compete with a factory backed team who had a full time Touring Car driver driving for them. In the end they beat us on the track by just over 2 seconds in their stripped out, well set up car. For next year we hope to tame a bit more of the wheelspin our car suffers from as well as set the suspension up to work well with the Quaife diff we are now using/testing.

One class we did win was the hot hatch 0-60 test with our car laying down a 4.73 second run. We also ran a 5.23 and 5.48, but only had 3 runs, and felt the 4.73 run was a adifficult time for us to beat so we stopped there to concentrate on the track time.

I hope we managed to do the French boys proud and we plan to be back next year with an even quicker car.

David.

 

[Tom]

Thats a great story.
(well done)

 

[Graham Gooch]

Thats a great story.
(well done)

hehe lmfao

 

[zek&katie]

well done mate... gutted we couldnt make it, saw loads of cars on the way that morning, glad to hear the reno did well.... now wot about another project 5gtt.....

 

[DH_GTI]

well done Ktec sounds like a good day

 

[gazcaddy]

Well done, it would be good to see all the tuners for the 172/182 put there tuned cars up against each other.

 

[jonnyboy]

4.73 is a VERY impressive time for a FWD car hats off!

Now get working on the megane 225s you guys

 

[jayxx83]

4.73 is an excellent 0-60 time for any car let alone a RSC. Well done guys!

 

[edde]

Superb result that.
I did wonder what the rules about profeshional drivcer entering tunners GP was as that would make a big difference.

I take it then Yozzasport weren't there after they said they would be?

 

[Fred@BTM]

yeah we didn't go because our sister company's car wasn't ready (supercharged/turbochraged mini cooper S)

plus we didn't want to embarass those k-tec boys

when are we going to see you at a Renaultsport Trackday David???

 

[Liquidcool]

Well done K-tec on your results! Any pics of the days event?

 

[K-Tec Racing]

Fred, I am afraid I have heard all this before from you before last years event. Now your starting again and you did not even turn up. I think the phrase I am looking for is "put up or shut up".

How can another car not being ready prevent you from taking your car?

The Tuner GP is a timed event, are the Renault Sport days?

Sorry if this sounds a bit harsh but you have to earn respect by proving yourself and sitting behind a keyboard telling everyone how fast your car is does not cut it.

David.

 

[K-Tec Racing]

Liquidcool, we hope to have some video clips on our website in the next couple of weeks including the one of the 4.73 0-60.

David.

 

[Neil G]

Very impressive 0-60 time

 

[Martin_172]

very impressive! that reminds me i need to take pics of my leaking apex dampers to send you guys lol

 

[K-Tec Racing]

Martin, send me the pics to info@k-tecracing.com and I will forward them to Apex and get them sorted for you.

David.

 

[Ian_182]

Well done k-tec.Very good times...

ian

 

[TheCake]

4.73 is pretty Dave. I guess with less wheelspin (as per your earlier comments) you'll beat that at some point.

How many gearboxes/clutches have you been through with that much grunt?!

 

[K-Tec Racing]

So far we have only got through 1 paddle clutch and we have had to get the gearbox rebuilt with a couple of new bearings and shot peened internals. This was done at the same time as fitting the first Quaife diff, which we snapped in half. A new diff has now been fitted with a revised output shaft and it is working very well.

We were running a standard box out of a Trophy for a few months and we did not have any problems with it at all.

David.

 

[Fred@BTM]

Fred, I am afraid I have heard all this before from you before last years event. Now your starting again and you did not even turn up. I think the phrase I am looking for is "put up or shut up".

How can another car not being ready prevent you from taking your car?

The Tuner GP is a timed event, are the Renault Sport days?

Sorry if this sounds a bit harsh but you have to earn respect by proving yourself and sitting behind a keyboard telling everyone how fast your car is does not cut it.

David.

yeah no need to be harsh David!! Blimey!

we proved ourself at FCS and every R-sport trackday we go to, last year we had no powersteering and had to shortshift to 4th past the tower for noise, and we were "only" 1.5sec slower than your fastest lap!

shame you weren't in the clio group at FCS, maybe that would've shown you the light

i think everyone knows our car would seriously annoy your car round track, and i really want that to happen, anytime any place!!!

consider gauntlet thrown down!

 

[richlawson]

i want one of ur turbo cons k-tec

whats the diff between urs and bb tunings (power,price)

can the gearbox take it

ps i own a 172 cup

 

[MATT BLACK]

lol

 

[K-Tec Racing]

yeah no need to be harsh David!! Blimey!

we proved ourself at FCS and every R-sport trackday we go to, last year we had no powersteering and had to shortshift to 4th past the tower for noise, and we were "only" 1.5sec slower than your fastest lap!

shame you weren't in the clio group at FCS, maybe that would've shown you the light

i think everyone knows our car would seriously annoy your car round track, and i really want that to happen, anytime any place!!!

consider gauntlet thrown down!

Fred, you had the chance to "annoy" us on the track at the weekend but didn't turn up.

I have heard all the tales of no power steering but correct me if I am wrong when I say the car was driven, on the road, to the event last year without power steering so that was not really an issue. I could go on to say how our car had only been on a track once, the week before, and was not well set up for last years event and your car had done dozens of track days (many at the Donnington cicuit) so was obviously well set up. If we had an equally well set up car who knows how what times we could have got.

At the end of the day an excuse is an excuse no matter how you say it. I just get fed up of the little digs and comments you keep churning out about how you would embarrass/beat us when you don't even bother to turn up at an event you had said you would enter.

I would deeply respect your car if you were to better our times as it would take a very quick and well set up front wheel drive car to do so (see Vauxhauls Astra VXR at this years Tuner GP). I am not on here to start an argument so plase do not take what I am saying out of context. I know you have a great car which is well set up for track use and I hope we will meet on a track one day soon. For us it is difficult to get to other track days as most are a very long way for us and we are always busy with work commitments.

As for a gauntlet being thrown down, you still havn't picked the one up I laid down before the Tuner GP so I am still waiting to be "shown the light"

David.

 

[K-Tec Racing]

Richard, our kit uses an intercooler and not a charge cooler which is probably the biggest difference. Other than that I do not know too much about their kit.

I know our car has covered alot of track miles now and over 4,000 road miles without the need to take the engine apart for any reason so we know we have a reliable package.

The standard gearbox does seem to be able to handle the power very well and if it can handle the abuse we give it on the track it should have not problems with day to day road driving. We have a couple of custoemrs running the turbo kit now and their cars are also running very well.

David.

 

[edde]

David what psi/hp level were you running at? Just thinking you could be running up 300hp plus and as "low" as 260hp which isn't far of what Yozzasport run. Do you have any torible running the high hp level on track with intake temps causing trouble or do you run specical fuels?

Out of pure interest what sort of warently does your turbo kit cover?

Have you tkaen the interier out of the car?
Any idea on lap times any better than last year if so/ now what has chnaged brakes/tyres etc?

 

[haitch]

nice times, any pics of the event?

 

[K-Tec Racing]

On the track we are running around 275bhp at 11psi. We d have the option to run more power but even at 11psi we are getting alot of wheelspin. Speaking to one of the head guys in the Vauxhall team he said how the experiment with front spring rates to dial out wheelspin but still maintain grip. This is one area we need to oput some time into as we lose alot of time coming out of tight corners due to the tyres lighting up.

We run normal pump fuel (usually optimax) and we do not have a problem with temperatures on te track. Having said that we are going to fit a new oil cooler kit to our car soon as well as a new fuel tank and swirl pot as we do suffer from fuel starvation in the tight corners.

We have only remved the back seats in our car as we want the car to appear quite standard when taking customers out for demo rides. I do sometimes use the car daily so we want a few creature comforts for now.

I think our lap times will have improved as the car is handling better due to smaller wheels, stiffer springs and adjusted geometry. We have also changed the front brakes to a standard sized set up but we are eating pads at the moment. Pagid blues seem to be doing the trick at the moment though.

We put a 12 month guarantee on the parts we supply/fit but we cannot guarantee other standard parts already fitted such as drive shafts, gearboxes etc even though we have not yet had any problems.

David.

 

[richlawson]

Richard, our kit uses an intercooler and not a charge cooler which is probably the biggest difference. Other than that I do not know too much about their kit.

I know our car has covered alot of track miles now and over 4,000 road miles without the need to take the engine apart for any reason so we know we have a reliable package.

The standard gearbox does seem to be able to handle the power very well and if it can handle the abuse we give it on the track it should have not problems with day to day road driving. We have a couple of custoemrs running the turbo kit now and their cars are also running very well.

David.

cheers mate very intrested if i dont sell my car was going to sell it to get something faster but this would solve it shame the kit is neary what my car is worth

would be fun would love to go in a clio turbo

 

[K-Tec Racing]

cheers mate very intrested if i dont sell my car was going to sell it to get something faster but this would solve it shame the kit is neary what my car is worth

would be fun would love to go in a clio turbo

If you want a go in the car give me a call and we can arrange go for you.

David.

 

[Englebert]

It would be cool if the Tuner GP visited different circuits, Snetterton is no Tsukuba that's for sure.

 

[Graham Gooch]

We put a 12 month guarantee on the parts we supply/fit but we cannot guarantee other standard parts already fitted such as drive shafts, gearboxes etc even though we have not yet had any problems.

David.

I wouldnt pay 6k to turn my car into a wheelspinning beast, especially as theres not come back if it breaks.

Ill wait till its done 60-70k on the shaft and boxes and see how it goes lol

but fair play to you for building it

 

[Ali]

lol...

Well done david top effort.

And Fred/Andrew get the helmets on son!!!

 

[K-Tec Racing]

I wouldnt pay 6k to turn my car into a wheelspinning beast, especially as theres not come back if it breaks.

Ill wait till its done 60-70k on the shaft and boxes and see how it goes lol

but fair play to you for building it

It is a case of each to their own, we have customers who love their cars but want more speed and see the turbo kit as an ideal solution. The last one we did also looks standard as the customer wanted to be able to surprise a few people and he called today saying how pleased he was with the conversion.

We also delayed releasing the conversion until we had a chance to test the parts under extreme conditions and to be honest we have been very impressed with the way the car and its standard parts have handled the extra grunt.

It is a lot of money to spend on a car but it is also one hell of a rush when the turbo cuts in, the tyres grip and you fire off down the road

David.

 

[Graham Gooch]

It is a case of each to their own, we have customers who love their cars but want more speed and see the turbo kit as an ideal solution. The last one we did also looks standard as the customer wanted to be able to surprise a few people and he called today saying how pleased he was with the conversion.

We also delayed releasing the conversion until we had a chance to test the parts under extreme conditions and to be honest we have been very impressed with the way the car and its standard parts have handled the extra grunt.

It is a lot of money to spend on a car but it is also one hell of a rush when the turbo cuts in, the tyres grip and you fire off down the road

David.

oh of course,

Id be too worried about it upsetting the natural balance of the chassis, I used to be of the ilk of POWER POWER POWER, now I'm all about HANDLING HANDLING HANDLING, not saying your car handles bad, just I seriously doubt the car is as fluid as the std car

linking together a nice piece of driving on tricky bends is such a massive massive high, higher than any of my much higher powered cars gave me, when going fast. I decided that when it comes to straight line speed, something will always be faster and its also a way of wasting alot of money LOL

 

[richlawson]

If you want a go in the car give me a call and we can arrange go for you.

David.

cheers mate i will have to travel up would be coming from folkestone kent so bit of a drive but worth it i think

 

[Graham Gooch]

cheers mate i will have to travel up would be coming from folkestone kent so bit of a drive but worth it i think

fecking hell folkestone to verwood!!! lol

 

[K-Tec Racing]

cheers mate i will have to travel up would be coming from folkestone kent so bit of a drive but worth it i think

No problem, just let me know when.

David.

 

[Fred@BTM]

Fred, you had the chance to "annoy" us on the track at the weekend but didn't turn up.

I have heard all the tales of no power steering but correct me if I am wrong when I say the car was driven, on the road, to the event last year without power steering so that was not really an issue. I could go on to say how our car had only been on a track once, the week before, and was not well set up for last years event and your car had done dozens of track days (many at the Donnington cicuit) so was obviously well set up. If we had an equally well set up car who knows how what times we could have got.

At the end of the day an excuse is an excuse no matter how you say it. I just get fed up of the little digs and comments you keep churning out about how you would embarrass/beat us when you don't even bother to turn up at an event you had said you would enter.

I would deeply respect your car if you were to better our times as it would take a very quick and well set up front wheel drive car to do so (see Vauxhauls Astra VXR at this years Tuner GP). I am not on here to start an argument so plase do not take what I am saying out of context. I know you have a great car which is well set up for track use and I hope we will meet on a track one day soon. For us it is difficult to get to other track days as most are a very long way for us and we are always busy with work commitments.

As for a gauntlet being thrown down, you still havn't picked the one up I laid down before the Tuner GP so I am still waiting to be "shown the light"

David.

we'll leave it at that....

see you in the CLIO group next year at FCS

 

[K-Tec Racing]

we'll leave it at that....

see you in the CLIO group next year at FCS

Alright Fred, see you there

David.

 

[Fred@BTM]

sweet!