New 172 Owner. Suspension mods for the Nurburgring next weekend??

[edz]

Hi All, 1st Post. Ive been a clio 172 owner for 6 days now

I'm off to the Nurburgring next weekend for some fun and need to make sure car is bulletproof as normally do 30+ laps a trip. Had 4 Yoko A539's fitted (used these on other cars and found em good compromise road/track tyres). K&N Panel Filter. Ive got the car being serviced with new standard front discs, uprated pads all round and braided hoses being fitted.

I would like to get the suspension sorted (by next friday!) and make the car more chuckable with less body roll/understeer. What experiences have people had with aftermarket stuff, any good sping/shock combos to recommend. I dont care about ride height, just want best height for best handling. The clio is my daily car so coilovers would be overkill. Car will probably do ring service 2/3 times a year and maybe a few trackdays.

 

[Big Iain]

eibach sportlines and koni adjustables?

 

[edde]

H and R coilovers but there not cheap.

I'd stick with stock or H and R.

 

[edz]

Do you know how much the eibach's lower the car? Are the konis top adjustable front and rear?

Coilovers would be overkill on daily car. Do you think I am going to make the handling worse then edde?

Cheers

 

[edde]

Do you know how much the eibach's lower the car? Are the konis top adjustable front and rear?

Coilovers would be overkill on daily car. Do you think I am going to make the handling worse then edde?

Depends what you want from the car but IMO anyone who's after a good car for most stuff should stick with stock or spend a lot i.e. H and R Leda etc. You never make things worse (Gaz and Spax might be an excpetion here) but you can change them for somehting which is less well suited to what you want from a car

Konis are adjustable fornt and rear but they only work at one setting wack them up hard and the cars doesn't hande as well.

 

[edz]

Gaz definately make things worse, made that mistake. Ive only got a till friday to get it sorted out so I think i'll just try some springs probably eibachs and see what its like. It will be intersting to compare this car to the other ive driven around the ring, ive seen a lot of clios crashed their this year.

 

[edz]

eibach sportlines ordered. All parts being fitted tomorrow....

Wonder wht laptimes it will do??

 

[Gaz_]

good choice, look on the ktec website, i'd also reccomend some bilstien shocks too, not that pricey either. be well sorted then

http://www.k-tecracing.com/show_product.asp?id=2042

 

[edz]

My "new" car didnt make it as far as the Nurburgring. It made it Liege in Belgium and its still their

Broke down on the E40 motorway saturday afternoon. Had Direct Line/Green Flag Euro Recovery who after 6 hours (and me having to tell the local recovery where I was as they repeatedly failed to do this ) got car recovered. Had to hang around until monday to get it to a Renault dealer who then said cambelt had gone. I then arranged my own way back (eurostar which was delayed too :dapprove as didnt have any faith in direct libe/greenflag by then. Not the best of weekends, this is the very short version of all hassle ive had too

I have spent most of the day today on the phone to the dealer I bought the car from (helpful but judgement resereved until I see how this goes) and renault uk (useless) to see how to get this fixed and how much I am going to have to pay (hopefully nothing).

Direct line/Greenflag are still being useless and will hopefully be recovering the car with "14" working days. If they dont up their game I may go collect the car at the weekend and try and claim costs back from them.

Car is just over 4 years old and just gone over 28000 miles. Cambelt is due 5 years or 72000. I have now owned the car 15 days...

 

[Fred@BTM]

hum, i belt £1 that the aux belt went which took the cambelt with it, oh dear

 

[Big Iain]

when is the aux belt due replacement this just put the shitters up me and makin me wana replace mine now its the same age and roundabout the same miles

 

[Fred@BTM]

36K or 2-2.5yrs IMO

 

[Sib]

scared me too, how much to get it replaced

 

[Fred@BTM]

on a FF 172 its a b*****d

on a real 172 proper cup its a 10min job

 

[Big Iain]

^^ air con?

 

[edde]

^^ air con?

Yep.

 

[edz]

Need to wait until car is back to confirm cause. Didnt get any dodgy noises or warning signs.

Aux belt due 5 Years/36000 in my service book. Anybody had any experience of Renault UK?

 

[Fred@BTM]

i've seen aux belts and pulleys fail at 18K causing the engine to go bang

aux belt defo isn't a 5yr interval even if it does say so in your book

 

[Martin_172]

your out of waranty, wonder where you stand with this as the useless renault dealers will want to put a new engine in it likely...

 

[edz]

Car is now being recovered. Due back mon/tues.

Will get it taken to guy that looks after my cars to find out what actually went wrong and take it from their.

I am sure I have 100% comeback on the dealer that supplied. He reckons Renault UK will pay after arguing the case. Also have 3rd party warranty supplied by dealer.

Car will be fixed one way or another not sure if I will keep it havnt got the confidence in it being reliable now. Already owes me a grand over the purchase price with servicing/modifying for the ring that I didnt get to. This was gonna be the last trip of the year too, now I must go again...