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My 172 Cup Story



Sir_Dave

ClioSport Trader
Just a little overview of my cups life so far, not as modified as most peoples on here tbh, but probably used far more!!

Picked up from Martins Renault, Basingstoke on 12th Feb 2008, with 52k on the clock. Somehow managed to get the price down to £4,995 inc. 2 new tyres, aux belt change, service, new discs/pads all round & 12 months mot/tax/warranty. Bargain as it was pretty much trade price at the time :D

First proper wash with my girlfriends brother's new toy (although i'd already fitted my Original B2, Pioneer CD player & ipod link, hard-wired my TomTom and bought some Silvervisions by then lol). The clean consisted of a good pressure wash to remove mud & dung from a trip to Cornwall, followed by the 1 bucket method of Halfords car shampoo & yellow sponge. After this i dryed it with my chamois & gave it a good claying. 2 layers of Autoglym Super Resin polish were then applyed and it was sealed with a nice coating of wax from the same people. The tyres were then dressed with Turtle's wax's finest tyre dressing. Clean :cool:
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After this, i decided that 4 x ContiSport's were required (a bargain at £270 fitted at Kwik-fit of all places) and that the melted steering wheel was really letting the side down.
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So i purchased a new 182 one from a chap on here; at £30 it was the bargain of the century!! After removing the cruise buttons and swopping my blue cup badge onto it, i was left with this.
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Much nicer!!

A few weeks later, the baffles went on the back box, so i ended up fitting a Ktec stealth i purchased on here for £200. I then read D4ve's guide to the 'do it yourself Maxogen'. Having decided that £300 was way to expensive for an induction kit and that the BMC/Viper were probably pants, i got onto the scrappy and purchased a Espace V6 airbox, this was followed by some silicon tube off ebay and an ITG ph1 172 filter from Merlin Motorsport:
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After removing varous standard gubbins, inc the fairly pointless 'acoustic valve', and putting it all together, i was left with this:
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No more 4k kick, but a nice smooth power curve & a roar to die for :approve:

Next up, and to avoid the 'lack of brakes after one lap' that i experienced in my 206 derv at the ring, i ordered some more new toys from Yozzasport inc. DS2500 pads, Brembo HC discs, braided lines & some Castrol Super Response Dot 4.
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No pics of them fitted, but they look exactly the same as normal. Braking wise, much improved with much less fade after prolonged use, bedding them in properly was a bit of a pain though lol ...

Then, after feeding it with Silkolene & a new oil filter, in July i visited Mecca with some mates:
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The car performed faultlessly, the brakes were great and i had an absolute wail of a time. Limited myself to 11 laps to avoid over confidence, but could have simply lapped for hours, the car really was fantastic. Really surprised all else in the group as well tbh, left everyone else standing around the 'ring except the Evo ... back in England and it time to visit Rentech for a cambelt change at an almost unbelievable £290 in parts. Unfortunately, whilst i was waiting i went to Gunwharf and spent £400 on 2 new suits - maybe not soo cheap then lol.

August brought holidays & the cup ferried Sarah (my girlfriend) and I around the north, west & south coast of France , along with the Pyrennes, Andorra & northern Spain. As per usual, it performed faultlessly and was a real hoot around the mountains, despite being rather heavily loaded (see pics haha) - again the uprated breaks probably stopped me fading off the side of a mountain.
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Back home and it was time i started going to the Cliosport Meets, so in October Sarah, myself & the cup found ourselves at the Surrey Rolling Road. After watching numerous 'normal' 172's reaching 160bhp and 182's getting 170 or so, i feared that my clio may reach less than the 'original' 172 ..
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No worrys there at 177.1bhp:approve::
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So thats it so far, its now on 71k (19k in 9 months) and needs another oil change & 2 more ContiSports for the front. I'm currently in a state of flux on where to go next though, i was going to fit Konigsports & some Trendlines, then de-cat, matched inlets & remap in Feb (after the MOT), but im not sure whether thats £1500 well spent tbh. It would make the perfect cup imho ....

As it stands, after giving mine & Sarah's fleet a little spit & polish
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:)
 
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  e92 + E46 M3 + Cup
Nice read dave ;), look forward to getting on the ring next year!


followed by the 1 bucket method of Halfords car shampoo & yellow sponge

Your lucky your not in arms reach as that my friend earns a back hander!









:rasp:
 

riz

ClioSport Club Member
  Jaguar XFR
i would go for AST coilovers tbh, rather than konigsports
 

Sir_Dave

ClioSport Trader
Quote:
followed by the 1 bucket method of Halfords car shampoo & yellow sponge
Your lucky your not in arms reach as that my friend earns a back hander!

You love it lol :rasp:

Re: the AST's, waay too expensive for a car worth less than £4k lol, better off buying an evo and spending a grand on fuel tbh.

Been contemplating selling up and getting something else this week, ie test drove an FN2 CTR on Sat, but thinking im too attached to the clio now ... missed out on some bargaintastic Cobra Daytona's on ebay a moment ago which im gutted about :( I've decided its much cheaper to buy new seats and make me love it again properly than buy a new car ... ;)
 
  Golf GT TDI
good write up dave will chat more when i am not typing this on my playstation 3 lol do you still miss the old rallye? i do the gti6 but these are much better
 

Gally

Formerly Mashed up egg in a cup
ClioSport Club Member
lovely read mate.
awesome trip by the sounds of it.
 

Sir_Dave

ClioSport Trader
Picked the seats up tonight and they have literally have never been sat in lol, the ladies son bought them for his 3 series, then emmigrated to the sunshine of Australia ... mucho mintness. Also have the optional pump-up lumbar support! Oh and the small matter of some 3 series subframes lol - for sale if anone whats them ;)

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Will get more pics up once they're in the car, prob wont be for a few weeks tbh, need to order some clio subframes now i suppose ...
 

Sir_Dave

ClioSport Trader
Well, this Saturday the ‘project’ moved forwards a little more when the Daytona’s found there way into the car. After the subframes only took 3 days to arrive from Sixonetwo (£135 delivered) it was rude not to fit them tbh! Rimstyle would have got the business but claimed that Cobra now charge them an additional £25 delivery fee, bringing the total to £160 … riiight :rolleyes:

After a nice Frostie based breakfast and a good cup of coffee, I got to work and was faced with this disgusting sight. Standard seats, yuk! :dead:
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So I ‘prepared’ my working area, essentially making a mess of Sarah’s drive & putting cardboard all over the floor to avoid getting a wet arse:
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Then got reading http://www.cliomods.com/styling/fittingrecaros - small world tbh, that page was created by a chap called Adrian, who owns www.fiestatubo.com, ie the first forum I joined when I discovered the internet at uni. I was 17, driving a fiesta 1.6 Si and it really was a wealth of information. Pointless information I know, but a very helpful guide!

The next step was to jack the car up. It can be done without, but tbh it just makes the process easier and hurts your back less. I then removed some rubber plugs from under the car.
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With these off, you then have access to the 2 outer seat subframe nuts (the red arrows point to the inner 2 nuts are). I suggest having a cool car when this work is done; the cat obscures these 2 bolts and generally tends to get in the way at this stage. Warmth would not help in the slightest!

After undoing these 4 bolts, by tilting the seatbacks I was faced by two connectors, one can be pulled off the bottom of the seat, with the other sensor requiring a screwdriver to prise the yellow part apart:
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After a little help from Sarah, I was faced with a slightly lighter clio. :D
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Having already attached the clio Cobra subframes to the seats (I took the supplied EK9 ones off if anyone wants them?), I then took off the seat belt anchoring point from the standard seat and bolted it onto the new subframe like so:
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Depending on how short you are, you may also wish to remove the 15mm washer that is fitted to the Cobra subframe from the factory. The only reason I can se it being on there is to raise the seat high enough so that you can use the slider on its furthest setting, but as I wont be going that far back, I chose to having a lower driving position. I’m not overly tall and I can still see over the dashboard with this removed – so all is good. Im sure someone will now inform me that this bolt is a very important part of the design and will now fall apart when i hit a speedbump ;)
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With a little more help from Sarah, I got the seats in place and tightened up the bolts nicely (M8 cap bolts; grade 12.9, 50mm length, readily available from ebay). This is a 2 person job, as unless you have very long arms, the bolts will turn when you try to do them up lol. After applying the same principles to the passenger seat (although it took literally a fifth of the time to do!), I was left me with a considerably comfier/nicer looking interior. Even Sarah thinks they are better. :cool: Just need to make up some covering for the seatbelt pretensioners, but Cobra wrapped the subframes in some grey/black material so ill probably just bodge something together using that...
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So im now a very happy Dave, and certainly looking forwards to fitting my latest eBay purchase, some Phoenix Gold Components. Although, at 72k, i've just ordered 2 more ContiSports (they lasted 16k inc. 11 laps of the ring, so not bad) and it does need another oil change first really! Priorities hmmm ...
 
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  e92 + E46 M3 + Cup
Looking good mate, nice seats those, had a sit in olie's at the last staines meet & they felt really good ;)
 

Sir_Dave

ClioSport Trader
Looking good mate, nice seats those, had a sit in olie's at the last staines meet & they felt really good ;)

His seats were my weakness im afriad ... wouldnt have them if i hadnt sat in them at the Staines meet! Its Ollie's fault i just spent 300 quid. damn him lol

Best not have a go in a cup with coilovers then ;)
 
  e92 + E46 M3 + Cup
Ok mate, erm.. should do the re-map before de-cat though - Flat spots :dead:.. give me a bell or will speek to you about it @ the staines meet on the 11th ;) PIZZAAAAA!
 

Sir_Dave

ClioSport Trader
Right, no coilovers yet lol, but i had to buy a new speed camera detector this week as my Origin B2's display decided to pack in yet again ... luckily enough Origin had an upgrade offer on.

So £145 + old broken B2 = New Pogo Alert. I decided against any other brand as the database is brilliant, no false alarms & tbh im used to it :)

Old, broken B2
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As you can see though, the B2 is very narrow, allowing me to stick it on the front of the dash as you can see. The Pogo on the other hand is shaped like a cube, so i needed a new place. After much faffing about, i decided that i should mount it just in front of the instrument binnacle - i originally wanted it in the middle but it obscured all the warning lights:dapprove: as far as im aware, there isnt any lights on the rev counter, so all is good!
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I hate having anything that obstructs my view out of the windscreen, so my new digital (cheapo new shape civic styley lol) is perfect. Tbh, its far clearer than the normal speedo & i can pick up current speed in my peripheral vision perfectly :cool: saves me spending £60k on an M6 to get a headsup display as well ;)
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After that little lot, it was time to do the latest oil change, after much umming and ahhing i had settled on the Motul 8100 X-Cess 5w-40 and Purolator oil filter combo from Opie Oils. Yes i would have prefered some Silkolene, but as i also had to purchase 4 litres of Fuchs Sintofluid 75W-80 gearbox oil, funds were tight ... so now, my little cup is ready for the next 10k miles.
 
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Sir_Dave

ClioSport Trader
Not related to this specific car, but my Clio project actually stared in 2005 with a 6 month old Cup-Packed 182 in Racing Blue (with stripes) - i absolutely loved it, but after 19k miles in 4 months, it simply wasnt sensible lol. I replaced it with a remapped 206 hdi until i could have another clio ...

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Tbh, for the miles i do, it was better than the 172 Cup, if only due to the cruise control! Ultimately though, the cup is more fun, purely as there are no electronics to fall back on, keeps you a bit more on your toes tbh ;)

Would have loved to dump it on coilovers & fit some anthacite turinis :eek:
 


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