Martin's Track Clio 182 Project Thread

[Martin.]

Nice one buddy, was wondering when you were going to get a project thread up!

I was always adamant that I wouldn't haha.

But trying to sit on my hands today over the ECB announcements and sorted this out instead.

 

[GrahamS]

I was always adamant that I wouldn't haha.

But trying to sit on my hands today over the ECB announcements and sorted this out instead.

I was like that too until I got bored one day!

Bund was good, my long eur/usd not so good. Lesson learnt!!

 

[sonny172cup]

About time Martin... :tonguewink:

 

[JonC219]

Damn I wanted those seats haha
Glad you got a thread up, good to see it from the start to what it's become

 

[Adam93]

Great thread so far, really enjoyed reading that. I like the route you have taken with the car, it looks close to a factory spec Cup car rather than some cheap project littered with ebay parts.

 

[Martin.]

About time Martin... :tonguewink:

Tell me about it!!!

Damn I wanted those seats haha
Glad you got a thread up, good to see it from the start to what it's become

They've gone to a good home now though and will be part of an proper mint build once it's done. Aye @Ant_Smiggy

Great thread so far, really enjoyed reading that. I like the route you have taken with the car, it looks close to a factory spec Cup car rather than some cheap project littered with ebay parts.

Thanks for having a look. There's plenty more improvent pics still to come.

I've tried to modify the car in stages. So I could feel first hand what each upgrade did in terms of feel on the track.

 

[smiffyboy]

Great progress mate! :smile: give me some ideas for my own Clio. That picture at Nurburgring looks good. I have just booked for go there in May for my first time, You any tips :smile:

 

[Martin.]

Great progress mate! :smile: give me some ideas for my own Clio. That picture at Nurburgring looks good. I have just booked for go there in May for my first time, You any tips :smile:

Best tip I can give you is to go easy and treat it like a B road. Especially on your first couple of trips. And buy a learners mirror so your passenger can help you keep an eye out for seriously fast race cars coming up behind you.

 

[smiffyboy]

Best tip I can give you is to go easy and treat it like a B road. Especially on your first couple of trips. And buy a learners mirror so your passenger can help you keep an eye out for seriously fast race cars coming up behind you.

Yeah, Not going for be fast just the experience. didn't think of another mirror to be honest good shout. keep the work up with your Clio looks great.

 

[Telboi_Clio_182]

Looks epic!

 

[George@RTR_Parts]

Looking good Martin :up:

 

[Stefan.]

Great thread

With lots of pics, thumbs up!!

What is the miltek like with the cat in?

Keep the updates coming

 

[Jekyll]

Enjoyed reading your cars progress Martin

 

[Keith185]

Car looks great Martin, didn't realise you had throttle bodies fitted.

 

[Martin.]

Yeah, Not going for be fast just the experience. didn't think of another mirror to be honest good shout. keep the work up with your Clio looks great.

That's the right attitude to have mate just enjoy the experience. The mirror was very helpful for me, there are some seriously fast sections of the track and the Porsches come up behind you in a split second. So having my passenger help keep an eye on cars behind me was very helpful.

Looks epic!

Cheers man.

Looking good Martin :up:

Thanks mate. Forgot to give your name a mention with the rear brakes photo sorry :blush: I'll make up for it.

Great thread

With lots of pics, thumbs up!!

What is the miltek like with the cat in?

Keep the updates coming

I've got so many more photos to come. Trying to sift through some of the boring/crap ones though.

The standard cat or the Milltek sports cat? The standard one was pretty tame, lovely sound but quiet on motorways. The sports cat made it a little louder and then the decat did the same again on top.

Enjoyed reading your cars progress Martin :smile:

Thanks man stay tuned :tonguewink:

Car looks great Martin, didn't realise you had throttle bodies fitted.

Looks a lot better now than it does in some of these photos :smile:

Had the bodies for over a year now, but the map was never finished so I've not been able to fully enjoy them. Taking the car to Engine Dynamics this weekend though so all should be sweet soon enough!

 

[Stefan.]

Standard cat, looking to change my exhaust soon as i still have the standard one

Dont want anything droney on the motorway or stupidly loud lol

Looking at the miltek or scorpion rs192

 

[Martin.]

Standard cat, looking to change my exhaust soon as i still have the standard one

Dont want anything droney on the motorway or stupidly loud lol

Looking at the miltek or scorpion rs192

You'll be fine with both of them systems mate.

Even with the sports cat the Milltek was very reasonable. But I do have a centre section (resonator) too.

 

[George@RTR_Parts]

Thanks mate. Forgot to give your name a mention with the rear brakes photo sorry :blush: I'll make up for it.

No worries mate! Keep up the good work

 

[Jekyll]

I will stay tuned. I also like fact that your a little ocd even on a track car!

 

[Cub.]

Great car! Be good to see it end of Feb

 

[Martin.]

I will stay tuned. I also like fact that your a little ocd even on a track car!

A lot more OCD to come :blush:

When I touch or change things, I always think, "well I might as well tidy that up at the same time," and little jobs turn into much bigger jobs but it's all good fun.

Great car! Be good to see it end of Feb :smile:

When you fly past me you mean :tonguewink:

 

[Cub.]

A lot more OCD to come :blush:

When I touch or change things, I always think, "well I might as well tidy that up at the same time," and little jobs turn into much bigger jobs but it's all good fun.



When you fly past me you mean :tonguewink:

Not if it's wet. I have a set of road tyres and a set of DZ03gs. The road tyres have to get me home again aswell.... so if it is wet, I'll be pottering along enjoying the view 😂

 

[Martin.]

Right time for another big update. Ever since having the ITBs fitted there was a nasty smell of fuel drifting into the cabin. So as winter was now approaching it was time to sort out a mild engine refresh. I took the car down to Matt again, for the engine work to commence.

I decided that I didn't want anything punchy, and just a mild freshen up with reliability in mind.

Straight away he noticed a fuel leak. I think I was very lucky that it was noticed when it was and that nothing caught fire.



Anyway, Matt got on with taking the engine out and stripping it, whilst I was still deciding what parts to buy.

Omex loom:

The loom through the bulk head was also rubbing and chaffing a bit so he sorted this out too.

The @pure-motorsport bracket on the AC delete kit fell apart when it was removed. But as it was still within a year and had very little use they generously agreed to send me another one free of charge. Thanks for that chaps.

My rad was a bit of a mess so Matt advised me that I should consider replacing this at some point. It's still on the list to do, but it works fine for now.

Crank sensor (I think)

The cylinder head bench in the workshop

The gearbox bench

My engine on the stand

The oil being drained

This nasty surprise appeared. Another bit of luck for me. The
engine could have died from oil starvation at any point, so I'm lucky I had it apart when I did.

Nasty stuff!!

The old big end bearings. Didn't look too bad to me, but what do I know.

Some of my plug threads weren't the best so I had some timeserts fitted

New Renault bearings

Quick check over of the pistons

And the cylinders

Time to fit the new bearings

All four were just within tolerance

New oil pump

Some mild head work

Quick lick of paint on the block

Sump tidy up

 

[Mr R.]

Good you got it sorted mate before it blocked the oil pick up pipe.
Far to much sealant used.

 

[Martin.]

Next he fitted the new light weight alternator pulley from Pure Motorsport.

Another PMS light weight pulley ready to go on

New head botls and head gasket

Supertech valves going in

Cylinder head bolted on to the block

Jenvey ITBs on with new 120mm trumpets

Pipercross filter fitted

CatCam 438s fitted back in

Rocker cover ready to be fitted

Getting there

 

[Martin.]

Good you got it sorted mate before it blocked the oil pick up pipe.
Far to much sealant used.

I know mate. Very lucky. Sometimes I think I wasted my money doing this mild refresh, but then I think, what if I hadn't done it, the engine could have been dead by now.

Matt said he hates silicone being used on engines.

 

[Martin.]

Next up was to get the new cam belt fitted

New light weight crank pulley, again from Pure Motorsport.

Cam cover back on

Some Nimbus heat shield fitted

There was some heat shield left over so Matt made some wind deflector plates for the front brakes out of it rather than throwing it away. Nice touch in my opinion.

Engine was then almost ready to go back in

Engine sitting ready for a new standard clutch and sexy billet flywheel

Light weight KTR billet flywheel. When Matt saw this he said it was 'pure p**n'

ARP flywheel bolts

Flywheel on

Valeo Clutch being fitted. Thanks @GW200 for the mates rate price on this :tongueout:

Clutch now fitted

Gearbox back on

Engine back in

New Pure Motorsport light weight aux pulleys ready to be fitted

Pulleys fitted

New aux belt

Alternator and new Pure Motorsport AC delete kit fitted

All in place

Quick compression test before start up. Same pressure across all four cylinders.

New coolant

New gearbox oil

The OMEX ECU was remounted tidily in the dash, rather than handing loose beneath it.

Air deflector plates fitted. It also covers the exposed aux belt a little bit, which can't be a bad thing.

The bumper was put back on and all was now done. I basically did a reliability refresh (well Matt did) replacing anything along the way which Matt thought would be wise. The only things we didn’t change and maybe could have, were the valve springs & guides and the piston rings. But Matt said this wasn’t really necessary for a car with miles this low and said all looked fine upon inspection, so we left it at that.

Massive thanks to @Matt@codered for all his work on the car, for updating me at every step along the way and for taking loads of photos for me. It's a real shame he has now relocated to France. I already miss his OCD touch.

Engine bay shot when I got it home

Gave it a quick clean up, nothing special. I had also decided by now that I was going to put it on a serious diet. So I sold the leather Renault Sport seats to my good friend Anthony Smith and purchased some lighter Recaro SPG fiberglass seats from a member on here.

Then got the tracking checked

Took a cheeky under body shot whilst it was being done

 

[Cub.]

Excuse my ignorance, but who is Matt?

Whoever he is, top notch work!

 

[Martin.]

Excuse my ignorance, but who is Matt?

Whoever he is, top notch work!

Top bloke. He did keep under the radar which was a shame. He was a Master Tech at Renault and then worked at Quaife before starting his own business.

@sonny172cup used him with his race car so can also vouch for the quality of his work.

 

[Cub.]

So is he no longer trading?

 

[Mr R.]

So is he no longer trading?

Hes moved to France i believe mate.

Im sure Mat is the guy who did the work to Ricardos SC 182.

 

[Martin.]

That's right he has moved to France unfortunately.

 

[JamesBryan]

Awesome rebuild Martin!

 

[Martin.]

Awesome rebuild Martin!

I can't take credit for it. But thanks for the comment :smile:

 

[JamesBryan]

How much did the rebuild cost you, if you don't mind me asking?

PM me if you don't want it public.

 

[Martin.]

How much did the rebuild cost you, if you don't mind me asking?

PM me if you don't want it public.

I'll PM you now mate.

 

[Martin.]

I took the car back up to Mike for a quick tweak to the map. He said it was getting a lot more air with the longer trumpets and it needed more fuel, which ultimately meant more power. But unfortunately he couldn't get any dyno time again to finish the top end off, or to do a power run, so I took it back home for an upcoming track day at Bedford.

I then bought these

Stripped it out some more. Removing the sun visors, which meant I needed one of these

I lost a fuel rail bolt at Bedford, thanks for noticing it Dom. So when I got home I fitted some nice shiny stainless items

I then put the car on stands to start with the full suspension refresh and some more tidying up. The rusty parts under the wheel arches were bothering me so I had to do something about it all.

I also bought another set of OZ F1s from @Coops Turbo because I like wheels

@Kelv then came over one sunny weekend and helped me remove all the old suspension components and brakes. I had never done anything like this before so it was good to have someone to show me what to do.

I gave my hubs to good old @GW200 for a refurb. He bead blasted them and sent me these photos whilst I set about ordering some new bearings.

 

[Martin.]

By this point I had all the suspension components taken off and the car sat dead for a good month whilst I got everything refurbed.

I then started to get bits back from the powder coaters and was over the moon with how they all looked. I probably went far too over board for a track car, but f**k it, I enjoyed doing it all.

Once everything was received I started to do some reading on how to refit it all. It was a slow process at first but I'm glad I cracked on with it myself as I now know how easy it all was. Well apart from refitting the front ARB which was a right ball ache.

Front ARB

Subframe support brackets

Wishbones. Thanks @GW200 for pressing in the bushes for me

Wishbone supports

I painted the rear beam, stub axles and calipers. Also cleaned up the bearing surfaces

I fitted new discs and pads. Thanks @G 172. Wouldn't go anywhere else for my brakes now

Whiteline ARB

I stuck this back on the car and fitted the rear coilovers whilst I was at it

I got my front hubs back with the new bearings in. I spent ages rubbing these down with a chisel, George then very kindly bead blasted them for me and sprayed them with some rust prevention and a quick lick of paint. I then spent a long time making the paint perfect and rubbing down the mating surfaces. I think they look awesome

I refitted everything to the front

Stuck the new discs on, painted the calipers and stuck them back on too

 

[imprezaworks]

Awesome work

 

[Martin.]

Awesome work :smile:

Thanks mate. I actually really enjoyed doing it all too which is the best thing.