Monaco 172 Track Car

[S-JM]

The only way this situation could be made better was if it was painted to look like a BMW art car

 

[Flat Eric]

You don't have much luck do ya! 🤣🤣🤣
It makes for good reading though and I love reading how you overcome these problems
Fair play mate
Sone serious perseverance

 

[RSRowe]

Assuming you’re liking the gripper @Krarl ? 😂😂

 

[Krarl]

I thought I'd have a really relaxed day today, since it was raining again and I didn't wanna be out getting piss wet through

I started out running the car in gear, making sure it goes through them all. Everything went fine and dandy. I remembered to drop the passenger window this time too🤪

But my brain got the better of me after running the car up. Since it was already warm I decided to change the oil and filter

New oil and Purflux filter

Been 1 year since the last service

Marked the filter up

At this point the oil was flowing out and I had no issues. I couldn't find any dowty washers in my filter box... s**t

I was in luck that I hoard everything. I had 2 copper washers in my engine build box... You know, that engine I've been saying I'll build for the last 3 years🙃

Copper washer found I was back on track. It's a good job I had them too because the copper washer assortment pack only went up to M14, looks like I'll be buying in some M16 ones

Oil filter off, this was a doddle. But then as soon as I went to remove my oil filter pliers I knocked them into the the oil pressure sensor and it gave up. You can see just how crusty the 23 year old sensor is

Not to bother. I had a Clio 200 engine in the back of the garage so I pilfered the sensor out of the bag of parts

Except that didn't go too well since Renault decided to change the connector from the F4R736 to the F4R830. t***s

Gonna get a sensor from one of the engines at work tomorrow. If not they're only £7 so it's not the end of the world. The eagle eyed viewer at home will notice the date mark isn't on the filter, it smudged so I wiped it off and rewrote it whilst the filter was on the car.

I've re-written my list now so I've got some stuff to work on. Now we're getting to the finer details

 

[Krarl]

Last night @Louis came over to give me a hand and to bring me some parts

Before he turned up I got the oil pressure switch swapped out. Managed to steal one from one of the engines I have at work

After that we were off to a flyer as you can see... Got the upper rad support bolted in, it fitted perfectly

One of the bonnet latch bolts went from slightly tight, to slightly loose, to 'get the tap and die set out chief'

The metal is piss thin so I opted just to drill through and send a pair of M6 rivnuts into it instead

Whilst I was f**king about sorting that balls up Louis had got the new to me EVOL dogbone mount in, the gearbox drip tray, cleaned up the spare discs he brought over, fitted those and started fitting the BYC Brembo ducts

It was at this point I asked him to try the shifter and see if it felt right. It was a bit s**t to go into reverse, which meant the PMS shifter magician had to get his cloak on and we he set about adjusting it. Took us about 15 mins to get it spot on

It actually looks like a car again now, the bonnet shuts too (doesn't line up though🥴)

Tonight I'll be tackling the jobs in red. I ordered some 50mm bass ports for the BYC ducting. The Ali ones that came with them look a bit naff

 

[Krarl]

Started the evening by removing the bottom grille

My hole saw arbour was MIA. So had to improvise and make my own arbour for the drill. The 13mm nut centres on the bolt. Precision engineering

I bought some different bass ports on Amazon last night too. These ones that came with the BYC ducts were shite

Marked out the grille, drilled 2 holes and popped the bass ports in, slapped some mastic on the back of them to keep them in position.

Got the grille fitted back up and it looks decent

Moved onto cleaning up the rear brakes. I got a set of discs from @SharpyClio just incase mine were too far gone from being sat. Thankfully, all the corrosion cleaned off and they came up decent, even just using a wire cup on the grinder. I'll keep the others as spares

Finally. The car is back down on all 4 wheels

Moved it from that position and I can already tell the gripper is mega even from just moving it with the wheels turned🤣

Onto the last push. If all goes well, I'll pick the 5 series up tomorrow, grab my trailer, load the Clio up and take it to work for storage

Then I can work on the last few bits, clean it and give it a road test on our private road/car park

I just hope it stays working. I'm absolutely f**king shattered and mentally gone

 

[leeds2592]

I’m gonna pull them awful Elf stickers off

 

[Krarl]

I’m gonna pull them awful Elf stickers off

I'm gonna pull that 4 day rind straight off your chopper

 

[Krarl]

Loaded on the trailer yesterday

Set out today to swap over my pads to the DS1.11, put my track wheels on and load the car up for tomorrow

New track wheels. Genuine X65 Cup racer speedlines, quite a bit different to the 2118 you can buy anywhere

Swapped the pads over, fitted my Titanium shims. Pulled it forward, noticed a tapping/knocking

The wheel weights were catching the nuts for the Brembo brackets. I thought they'd self clearance but after driving it I had to knock them all off

I gave it a run up and down the private road near work to bed the pads in. Pulling out of the car park I could already feel the difference in the diff🤣

Gave it a good wash

Gave the trailer a scrub down, had a few cars on it since and there was oil and fuel on the buffalo boards

Locked, loaded and lusting to have it's head kicked in

Really looking forwards to Saturday now. I was honestly thinking I might not make it in time and I'd be still crawling around it fixing it... There is still time for that like

 

[Krarl]

Gonna be more of a writeup. Once all the pics have come out from this weekend I'll follow up with them

Drove down Friday, 7 hours driving time coupled with retards that can't drive. This Aygo being one of them, if you know this person, tell them to promptly die

The 5 series pulled the trailer without fault, I had @leeds2592 as a copilot. It made me realise how boring the drive usually is, it was nice to have some company

I was mega nervous about the Clio, I'd done less than half a mile in it since it's yearly gearbox removal🙃

7am arrival after a lovely stay inside of a chicken nugget caravan

Went out for the sighting laps, car felt good, I needed to bed my brakes in but couldn't really hammer them with it being sighting laps. So with that I let the mad rush happen and opted to go out 15 mins later. I got 1 lap in and started to bed everything in, as soon as I came out of turn 1 the car started spluttering with a flashing eml. I limped back to the pits and read for codes, the only ones I had were for both lambdas

I haven't slept particularly well for the past 3 weeks, 4 maybe 5 hours of broken sleep each night had really drained my brain. Any other time I'd have just assumed injector from the flashing EML. Thank f**k my mate was on hand and he stopped me farting about with the lambdas, he got me to start the car and unplugged injector #4. That made no difference so immediately we knew that was the culprit

Or so we thought

I got my spare injectors and rail and set about swapping the 'duff' injector. That then lead me to snapping the bolt that holds the fuel rail down. Thanks to @Scrooge for the positive words of encouragement at the time "I'm not leaving until it comes out or snaps, if it was me it'd be snapped already", no less than 4 seconds later I snapped the bolt so he could depart🤣🤣

With that snapped I swapped the injector, just as I was putting the connector back on I noticed copper from the plug end. Then I barely touched the wiring and I snapped🙃 So now I was left head scratching again on how to fix a wiring issue when the plug had 3mm of wire hanging out

Again, big thanks to Ryan and Ryan (or DannyDC2), his car was fully stripped so he cut out his speaker wiring which had 2 spade connectors on. So now I had a pigtail I could use and bodge fix my car with

Which resulted in this🤣

I fired it up and everything was spot on. I took it around the paddock and it seemed fine, so the helmet went on and I went out to really f**king give it some. And it was, everything was working well

I then took @OEM Battery Nonce @SunglassesStan and Ryan out and kept f**king up 2nd gear. I blame @Louis for f**king up the shifter position 👀

I mentioned I was struggling with 2nd to @Myfanwyi and his reaction was "why the f**k are you using 2nd anyway"

So with that I took Andy out for a few laps. Straight away he changed some things with my driving and said to leave it in 3rd. Lap after lap I was getting quicker, and quicker, and quicker. Apex and exit speed I was miles ahead and so much more confident

The brakes still had more in them, I was being told I was working the car too hard on the tyres and I need to let it go straight out of a corner. But my brain is actively programmed to avoid the green stuff

After a proper good session I had finally worked the front AR1s too hard and they started to go off. I can't thank Andy enough for the pointers, because after that I had the pleasure of @Sunglasses_Ron in the passenger seat. His son witnessed some horrific driving but at least his dad could call him a bullshitter because I never missed 2nd once with him in the car👀🤣

Big thanks to everyone coming and saying hello, it was amazing to put some new faces to names. I look forward to the next 12 months of online bullying, sexual harassment, name changes and outright spastication

Thanks for reading. Pics to follow

Here's one of the chicken nugget beige autism caravan

 

[Louis]

I'm gonna smear grease on your brake pads next time you ungrateful c**t

 

[Krarl]

I'm gonna smear grease on your brake pads next time you ungrateful c**t

I'll smear a load right up your bum crack 🥴

 

[OEM Battery Nonce]

Gonna be more of a writeup. Once all the pics have come out from this weekend I'll follow up with them

Drove down Friday, 7 hours driving time coupled with retards that can't drive. This Aygo being one of them, if you know this person, tell them to promptly die

View attachment 1753707

The 5 series pulled the trailer without fault, I had @leeds2592 as a copilot. It made me realise how boring the drive usually is, it was nice to have some company

I was mega nervous about the Clio, I'd done less than half a mile in it since it's yearly gearbox removal🙃

7am arrival after a lovely stay inside of a chicken nugget caravan

View attachment 1753681

Went out for the sighting laps, car felt good, I needed to bed my brakes in but couldn't really hammer them with it being sighting laps. So with that I let the mad rush happen and opted to go out 15 mins later. I got 1 lap in and started to bed everything in, as soon as I came out of turn 1 the car started spluttering with a flashing eml. I limped back to the pits and read for codes, the only ones I had were for both lambdas

I haven't slept particularly well for the past 3 weeks, 4 maybe 5 hours of broken sleep each night had really drained my brain. Any other time I'd have just assumed injector from the flashing EML. Thank f**k my mate was on hand and he stopped me farting about with the lambdas, he got me to start the car and unplugged injector #4. That made no difference so immediately we knew that was the culprit

Or so we thought

I got my spare injectors and rail and set about swapping the 'duff' injector. That then lead me to snapping the bolt that holds the fuel rail down. Thanks to @Scrooge for the positive words of encouragement at the time "I'm not leaving until it comes out or snaps, if it was me it'd be snapped already", no less than 4 seconds later I snapped the bolt so he could depart🤣🤣

With that snapped I swapped the injector, just as I was putting the connector back on I noticed copper from the plug end. Then I barely touched the wiring and I snapped🙃 So now I was left head scratching again on how to fix a wiring issue when the plug had 3mm of wire hanging out

Again, big thanks to Ryan and Ryan (or DannyDC2), his car was fully stripped so he cut out his speaker wiring which had 2 spade connectors on. So now I had a pigtail I could use and bodge fix my car with

Which resulted in this🤣

View attachment 1753682View attachment 1753683

I fired it up and everything was spot on. I took it around the paddock and it seemed fine, so the helmet went on and I went out to really f**king give it some. And it was, everything was working well

I then took @OEM Battery Nonce @SunglassesStan and Ryan out and kept f**king up 2nd gear. I blame @Louis for f**king up the shifter position 👀

I mentioned I was struggling with 2nd to @Myfanwyi and his reaction was "why the f**k are you using 2nd anyway"

So with that I took Andy out for a few laps. Straight away he changed some things with my driving and said to leave it in 3rd. Lap after lap I was getting quicker, and quicker, and quicker. Apex and exit speed I was miles ahead and so much more confident

The brakes still had more in them, I was being told I was working the car too hard on the tyres and I need to let it go straight out of a corner. But my brain is actively programmed to avoid the green stuff

After a proper good session I had finally worked the front AR1s too hard and they started to go off. I can't thank Andy enough for the pointers, because after that I had the pleasure of @Sunglasses_Ron in the passenger seat. His son witnessed some horrific driving but at least his dad could call him a bullshitter because I never missed 2nd once with him in the car👀🤣

Big thanks to everyone coming and saying hello, it was amazing to put some new faces to names. I look forward to the next 12 months of online bullying, sexual harassment, name changes and outright spastication

Thanks for reading. Pics to follow

Here's one of the chicken nugget beige autism caravan

View attachment 1753710

Jesus, that ronnie croleman is massive!

 

[Krarl]

Jesus, that ronnie croleman is massive!

I've heard that it's insulated to minus 1 of whatever a Makita toolbox does

 

[Mr Trailer Man]

Never realised you had all those issues.

I had some wiring bits with me as well if I'd have known 🙄

 

[Krarl]

Never realised you had all those issues.

I had some wiring bits with me as well if I'd have known 🙄

@Brigsy had a plug with him too🤣

I think I'm gonna keep crimps and connectors with me from now on ffs

 

[Mr Trailer Man]

@Brigsy had a plug with him too🤣

I think I'm gonna keep crimps and connectors with me from now on ffs

It soon starts getting out of hand with the amount of spares you end up taking 😅

I had everything with me apart from a spare coilpack, which turned out to be the exact thing my mates Cup needed 😖

 

[Krarl]

It soon starts getting out of hand with the amount of spares you end up taking 😅

I had everything with me apart from a spare coilpack, which turned out to be the exact thing my mates Cup needed 😖

Aye I didn't have a coil pack either, one of them will be going in the box too🤣

 

[Djw John]

It soon starts getting out of hand with the amount of spares you end up taking 😅

I had everything with me apart from a spare coilpack, which turned out to be the exact thing my mates Cup needed 😖

You actually can't win unless you take another fully working car with you.

Between @Djw Dave and I we had all the spares you could possibly need for a FCS trip, we thought.
Then my fuel pump died and his gearbox sanded itself internally.

 

[Myfanwyi]

Most people make small improvements mate. Where as, you took chunks out of your lap times with each lap. Prime example - turn 3 entry, apex and exit speed. The last flyer we did you were up by 10mph on entry, 14mph at the apex and 17-19mph on exit.

The only criticism - let it run out on exit by opening up the steering earlier 👍 For me to have one thing to point out at the end of a run is rare.
VERY rare. Kudos my man.

 

[Brigsy]

@Brigsy had a plug with him too🤣

I think I'm gonna keep crimps and connectors with me from now on ffs

Ive had a pre wired ev1 injector plug in the trackday box for years, you would have been welcome to it mate.

Need a CSF whatsapp group for stuff like this next time to shout out for parts if needed 👌

 

[RMDavis]

Currently editing photos I took at CSF, I bloody loved your car bud!

My first Clio was a Monaco, and always have a soft spot for them. 👍🏻

 

[Krarl]

Currently editing photos I took at CSF, I bloody loved your car bud!

My first Clio was a Monaco, and always have a soft spot for them. 👍🏻

View attachment 1753821

Thanks mate, I'm glad you got a few with the bonnet down🤣🤣