newbie with a clio cup race car

[Chip-mk1]

Very trick but I must admit I'd also be nervous about the amount of expense it could run to, in terms of getting it running and keeping it fresh, single ring pistons aren't exactly designed for high miles etc.

awesome attention I detail in terms of removing parasitic losses though. Proper bit of kit.

 

[ian-speedy]

My last engine probably cost over £5k and it went 250 miles ! it will see about 1000 miles between rebuilds with the rallies I do per year

I'll have the pistons copied , Accralite made these ones , they don't have stock and would need an order of 12 pistons to do them , perhaps they would have been more helpful before being taken over by omega , there are a few piston manufacturers who will make sets of pistons up , so should be no trouble there , rebuilds don't bother me , would look at getting the engine top and tailed every year anyway.

My thinking now is to get this engine built with proper power , will probably need the cams changing to suit , but again they can be custom made so it will fit the modified head , and will look into buying a new Sadev box to cope with the extra power and torque , and then going to a paddle change as per the Citroen C3 R3 rally cars , it will make an already competitive car into something unbeatable !

 

[Chip-mk1]

Fair play then, if you have the budget for all that it will end up as a truely epic car!

I assume you will be dry sumping it? Or are you very confident it wasnt surge that killed your last one? (personally I still think its a possibility)

CP are quite good for small volume piston orders, so are Arias.

What throw is the crank by the way?

 

[Fred@BTM]

Have you seen the in car footage? No chance it was surge

 

[ian-speedy]

From what I can see no Renault works rally car has ever been dry sumped , that must mean the wet sump is up to the job , as Fred says , check out the videos , I have checked through loads and never had a drop in oil pressure , I certainly don't think it's surge with the cornering forces we see , it's not like circuit racing .

still if I can find a dry sump kit to fit , I'd probably buy one , I've searched and can't find one

the throw is 90mm and the bore is 84mm

​cheers Ian

 

[BIGASH]

If you want one Ian speak to Titan motorsport as they make one but so many mod's required to work in a clio

 

[Chip-mk1]

Were the works cars on standard pickup and no baffles in sump etc?

i agree surge seems a little unlikely but do you have a better suggestion? Off camber corners can exaggerate oil movement without needing as much corner force as a circuit car sees.

90*84 sounds ideal in one of these blocks.

 

[ian-speedy]

If you want one Ian speak to Titan motorsport as they make one but so many mod's required to work in a clio

Yeah seen the ones available for this engine , but my engine mount is in the way to the one that fits on the inlet side , and the dry sump pump that fits on the exhaust side would get in the way of the drive shaft

I might see about getting a new engine mount made that would allow the fitment of the dry sump kit on the inlet side , I'll have a good look what room I have when my engine is back in the car

 

[ian-speedy]

Were the works cars on standard pickup and no baffles in sump etc?

i agree surge seems a little unlikely but do you have a better suggestion? Off camber corners can exaggerate oil movement without needing as much corner force as a circuit car sees.

90*84 sounds ideal in one of these blocks.

The few engines I have seen for sale were fitted with standard sump , so could have the standard pick ups , the current R3 clios run standard sump pickups and baffles

 

[Chip-mk1]

Considered an accusump as a very simple bit of insurance?

 

[ian-speedy]

Considered an accusump as a very simple bit of insurance?

Yes was looking at the the other day , seems like good insurance for a few hundred pounds

 

[Chip-mk1]

Yes was looking at the the other day , seems like good insurance for a few hundred pounds

Yeah I have found them useful in the past, they serve two purposes, in that not only can they maintain pressure briefly, but also that they increase the capacity in the sump at any time the pickup goes dry, so they essentially temporarily overfill the sump for you, then when pressure returns the sump level goes back to normal.

Obviously not ideal to rely on one a lot, as it requires a low pressure situation before it gives you any assistance, and obviously the ideal world is to never get into that situation in the first place, but still a nice little bit of extra insurance just in case it does happen briefly.

 

[Porkie]

This thread just keeps getting more awesome!

 

[ian-speedy]

Took the crank out of the block today , crank is looking good , could do with a polish to make it perfect , will get it checked out to make sure all is good.

​you can see the nose of the crank needs machining to fit the oil pump drive


all the bearings are good which shows the crank should be as well , interesting that the oil squirters look removeable

 

[mark123]

That crank looks nice. Looking forward to seeing what you can get out of it all.

 

[mark123]

Any pics of how bad the head is?

I did think about buying it but now I've seen your pics it is certainly out of my budget lol!

 

[steveboyslim]

What make you believe it was not surge ?
The long sweeping bend at nearly full chat, through the artificial chicane then through the second chicane which involved a much harder left the right turn, then back on the power down hill then engine failure.
With the oil pressure dropping so low on these engines, good luck.

Steve

 

[ian-speedy]

What make you believe it was not surge ?
The long sweeping bend at nearly full chat, through the artificial chicane then through the second chicane which involved a much harder left the right turn, then back on the power down hill then engine failure.
With the oil pressure dropping so low on these engines, good luck.

Steve

you can see the oil pressure gauge on the video , there is no loss of oil pressure , if it was the engine design it would have done it back in march when I did exactly the same rally , and the 12 rallies or so I did last year with the same set up , the race cars are cornering far far harder than I do , do you see them having surge issues ? no.

I'm starting to think the issue is with the PEC rods , as the more I dig into them , the more reports i'm seeing them being out of round , a mate of mine just bought a set for a Peugeot engine , and after me mentioning it to him he had his checked and they are also out , so he's ordering Arrow rods

I think this is the cause . the engine is deteriorating until it lets go , which has taken about 250 miles to happen

 

[Chip-mk1]

Was the roundness of the rods not checked as part of the build process?

 

[ian-speedy]

Was the roundness of the rods not checked as part of the build process?

​i wasn't involved with the build so can't answer that , arrow said it wouldn't show up if someone built the engine and plastigauged it , it would show as ok , is it normal practice to check rods that way before building , I'm not an engine builder so wouldn't know

 

[Chip-mk1]

All depends on what you are bulding how long you bother to spend measuring things TBH.

For my nova engine for example I checked for ovality of the bores, ovality of the pistons, ovality of the main bearing tunnel (which I had line bored as well) and ovality of all the arrow rods etc, but thats cause I had so many thousands of pounds of parts in it.

On my turbo clio engine which the whole bottom end only costs me just over 1K to build including gaskets and pumps etc, I didnt bother I just threw it together with only a basic plastiguage check.

 

[steveboyslim]

you can see the oil pressure gauge on the video , there is no loss of oil pressure , if it was the engine design it would have done it back in march when I did exactly the same rally , and the 12 rallies or so I did last year with the same set up , the race cars are cornering far far harder than I do , do you see them having surge issues ? no.

I'm starting to think the issue is with the PEC rods , as the more I dig into them , the more reports i'm seeing them being out of round , a mate of mine just bought a set for a Peugeot engine , and after me mentioning it to him he had his checked and they are also out , so he's ordering Arrow rods

I think this is the cause . the engine is deteriorating until it lets go , which has taken about 250 miles to happen

I doubt the oil pressure gauge would react quick enough, I see where you are coming from with regards the rally, but it may just be a certain set of circumstances not duplicate from rally to rally even the same rally.
The PEC rods I put in Porkie's engine I checked for ovality with the con rod bolts torqued correctly, they were all found to be perfect, although if I had my way I would have preferred a set of Arrows, but not until any lubrication problems are sorted.
I have used many of China's finest con rods (same as PEC) in many a turbo Vauxhall/OPEL XE/LET/ZLET/LEH/LER engine without problems, again I would have preferred Arrow rods.
Some recent data logged information given to me from a circuit racing Clio showed oil pressure to drop below 1 bar during racing, under acceleration, deceleration and cornering both directions, this backed up some information I was given by a team who ran these cars for F2 rallying, they did use a baffled sump, as dry sump was not allowed due regulations.
I am part way through sorting a dry sump system for the Clio with a fabricated oil pan.
Some very nice parts you have purchased, I hope you prove me wrong and that nothing happens to you new engine.

Steve

 

[ian-speedy]

I doubt the oil pressure gauge would react quick enough, I see where you are coming from with regards the rally, but it may just be a certain set of circumstances not duplicate from rally to rally even the same rally.
The PEC rods I put in Porkie's engine I checked for ovality with the con rod bolts torqued correctly, they were all found to be perfect, although if I had my way I would have preferred a set of Arrows, but not until any lubrication problems are sorted.
I have used many of China's finest con rods (same as PEC) in many a turbo Vauxhall/OPEL XE/LET/ZLET/LEH/LER engine without problems, again I would have preferred Arrow rods.
Some recent data logged information given to me from a circuit racing Clio showed oil pressure to drop below 1 bar during racing, under acceleration, deceleration and cornering both directions, this backed up some information I was given by a team who ran these cars for F2 rallying, they did use a baffled sump, as dry sump was not allowed due regulations.
I am part way through sorting a dry sump system for the Clio with a fabricated oil pan.
Some very nice parts you have purchased, I hope you prove me wrong and that nothing happens to you new engine.

Steve

​If you are doing a dry sump kit i'll have one

 

[SharkyUK]

I'm starting to think the issue is with the PEC rods , as the more I dig into them , the more reports i'm seeing them being out of round , a mate of mine just bought a set for a Peugeot engine , and after me mentioning it to him he had his checked and they are also out , so he's ordering Arrow rods

This is concerning... Admittedly I'm not going to be running any rallies or race weekends, but there will be track days and 'fast road' (I hate that term) and PEC rods form a part of my high-comp, forged engine build. Fred's already had an issue with a set of rods he got in for me; they were incorrectly weighted (that is, outside of acceptable tolerances in terms of the weight differential between individual rods).

Anyways, I hope you are back up and running soon mate. Still a great thread despite the unfortunate setback.

 

[ian-speedy]

Well she's back together and running now , had the engine back off Fred Friday afternoon , was away in Castle Coombe Saturday so didn't have chance to work on it , did plan on coming in Sunday but after being in a neighbors house till 4am for a birthday party I suffered most of sunday with a hangover so did naff all lol.

Anyway , whipped the sump off monday morning and shimmed the pump up , bit of trial and error I guess with that but after starting it it has worked and even with tesco cheap 10/40 mineral oil with the engine up to temp I have 5.1 bar of oil pressure with it revving to 4k on the ramp , haven't driven it yet as I wanted it running first to check all seemed ok with no leaks.

Going to put some miles on it to run it in , 100 or so miles should be fine , then off to see Sandy Brown on Monday for him to check all is ok on the map , and improve if he can , so hopefully everything goes according to plan as a week sunday i'm off to Jersey to Recce up till wednesday night , then the rally on friday and saturday so fingers crossed all is ok , its sounds good.

 

[BIGASH]

Best of luck Ian

 

[EVOgone]

Well she's back together and running now , had the engine back off Fred Friday afternoon , was away in Castle Coombe Saturday so didn't have chance to work on it , did plan on coming in Sunday but after being in a neighbors house till 4am for a birthday party I suffered most of sunday with a hangover so did naff all lol.

Anyway , whipped the sump off monday morning and shimmed the pump up , bit of trial and error I guess with that but after starting it it has worked and even with tesco cheap 10/40 mineral oil with the engine up to temp I have 5.1 bar of oil pressure with it revving to 4k on the ramp , haven't driven it yet as I wanted it running first to check all seemed ok with no leaks.

Going to put some miles on it to run it in , 100 or so miles should be fine , then off to see Sandy Brown on Monday for him to check all is ok on the map , and improve if he can , so hopefully everything goes according to plan as a week sunday i'm off to Jersey to Recce up till wednesday night , then the rally on friday and saturday so fingers crossed all is ok , its sounds good.

Great news Ian best of luck getting there never mind the rally!!

 

[Tony Hunter]

 

[sk84life]

Looking forward to seeing this at the Jersey

 

[ian-speedy]

Put some miles on it today , all seems good so far , interesting to see the oil pressure is going to 5.4bar max now , so nearly 2 bar more than before and that's with crap oil , so shimming the oil pump spring does work

 

[BIGASH]

5.4 bar is just less than 80psi which is what my standard oil pump does just for your reference Ian

 

[ian-speedy]

That's odd then as everyone I have spoken to says 3.5 to 4 bar is the norm ??

even doing a quick search brings up this thread

http://www.cliosport.net/forum/showthread.php?323033-What-is-the-normal-oil-pressure-for-172

you sure your pump is standard , I can see with 10/60 fully synthetic oil mine should rise a bit more as 5.4bar was with the p1ssy tesco running in oil.

anyone else have an oil pressure gauge ? If so what's it reading

cheers Ian

 

[MG cup]

so shimming the oil pump spring does work

Cant do, Chip says otherwise. I'm going to do mine, what did you shim it? 1mm

 

[Dan@SJM]

3-4 bar hot pressure. My old 16v used to do 6-7 bar when cold.

 

[mark123]

That renault pdf knocking around says 1 bar idle, 3 bar at 3000rpm.

I've just looked at my race footage (so just reading from the gauge) from Mallory and I get just less then 5 bar at around 7500rpm. It drops to about 2.5 bar around the hairpin, but the revs do drop to about 3000rpm. The pressure is fine around Gerrards, over 4 bar.

My pump is std 140k miles old.

 

[Chip-mk1]

Cant do, Chip says otherwise. I'm going to do mine, what did you shim it? 1mm

No I said in the other thread that if you are getting oil pressure around 3 bar when the engine is revved like that OP said he was then that is already below what the standard spring attempts to maintain anyway so wouldnt be improved with a shim, Ive also said that I dont think shimming will help increase pressure at idle where the standard spring is already firmly shut, I didnt say it wont make any difference at all at times in the rev range when the pump is capable of more, so please dont misquote me!

Like James though, ive also seen that sort of pressure on a standard pump anyway.

Some of the work Steve has been doing with pumps recently though leads me to believe that comparing pressure between different pumps is going to be a very unscientific test anyway though, it would appear that the internal tolerances on these pumps arent not especially good, and its only going to take a small variation there to throw results out, so I think its going to be a while yet before we have any conclusive proof TBH.

 

[MG cup]

Only in certain parts of the rev range now, calm down and let's not spam Ian's thread.

All I'm saying is that spring rates change during compression so shimming will affect the figures.

 

[Chip-mk1]

Only in certain parts of the rev range now, calm down and let's not spam Ian's thread.

All I'm saying is that spring rates change during compression so shimming will affect the figures.

As per the other thread, it will only effect pressure at times when oil is escaping via the relief valve, as all the shim can do is encourage the spring to shut the valve, but if the valve is already firmly shut then it doesnt magically make the pump flow more and a lot of the issues with pressure (like at idle for example) are down to a lack of flow.

At 4k with the amount of pressure present, id expect a small difference as what will no doubt be happening is the valve is essentially in a shut position on the standard spring, but its marginal for being held firmly there though so will be leaking slightly.

Ie basically the more pressure you already have, the more the shim will increase it, so it tends to add most where you need it least, and add nothing where you really see low pressure like at idle.


The mods steve does though should make a real difference to low RPM flow, so thats the pump Im going to go for personally on my next build.

 

[MG cup]

But how do you know the valve is shut at idle? It could just be a metering unit rather than an open/closed operation.

The castings could be done with some deburring from what I have been told too.

 

[Chip-mk1]

But how do you know the valve is shut at idle? It could just be a metering unit rather than an open/closed operation.

Because its got a spring on it that to me feels far heavier than the 1 bar of oil pressure you have at idle to work against it.
So its only logical it will be fully shut already.

The castings could be done with some deburring from what I have been told too.

Steve has found several ways in which to improve the pump now, although they are as yet untested, but Im quite confident what he is doing will work, I dont know if he will want the details shared though, as of course he may wish to sell these modified pumps to people rather than tell them how to do it, so I wont post the details and its upto him if he wants to or not.