Phil's ph2 172 trackcar (VSP)

[philtyper]

Hi, thought it was about a time to start a write up on our little Clio as we have slowly been making progress since we picked her up back end of 2014. Not really posted before however enjoy reading all the other project/build threads that have given us so many ideas and inspiration.

My brother and I decided it would be a good idea to buy a cheap little car to have some fun with and start doing trackdays. Neither of us ever having done anything like this before obviously. After discussing this in the pub where all great ideas usually begin on a Saturday night we ended up purchasing NU52VSP.

Car Info
2002 52 reg
silver
96k miles
part service history
short mot
1 women owner from new

Here are a few pictures from the day we picked her up. Apologise for the poor iphone pictures.

Car was overall in good condition had not been abused and was totally standard. Owned from new by a friend of the missus and had been parked up for around 5 months due to the purchase of a new vehicle. The brakes were in a terrible state and there was no record of belts or dephaser ever been changed. Managed to get her for a cracking price to be fair.

Next job was to drive her straight to the garage where the work would really begin. Luckily we have a very good friend who is a renault master tech and owns his own business. Deal was done and now there were three of us involved.

Arrived at her new home

on the ramps

After a quick check over on the ramps all was good and I was given a list of things to order for the Clio.
We started off with the following a major service including all belts pulleys fluids etc then on to upgrading the brakes and replacing the knackered exhaust hangers.

Thanks to g-172 for the brakes top man and superb service.

All the following parts were then ordered and fitted.
Gates cam-belt kit
Water pump
Dephaser Pulley
Aux belt kit
Hydraulic lifters/tappets
Brembo HC front discs
Brembo front pads
Brembo OEM rear discs/bearings
Brembo rear pads
Rear brake disc spacers x2
Rear Hub nuts x2
Goodridge Stainless brake lines
MOT
Engine service oil/filter
Spark plugs
Rear Wiper blade
Exhaust Bracket rear
Exhaust Bracket centre
Rear Number plate lamp

old brakes

old vs new

Uprated Brake lines

Brembo hc disc fitted

While doing the brakes we found the passenger front calliper was seized so this was replaced.

Booked our first ever trackday at Croft in march with us been based in Newcastle this is the closest track, and what a day it was. The little Clio did us proud started off really easy getting used to driving on track and learning the lines and braking points etc. By the end of the day our confidence had grown and we pushing the car harder. Our standard road tyres looked in bad shape especially the front passenger side due the large number of right hand bends at croft come home time. Good job we took a spare set. So impressed with the car it really is great on track standard loads of fun and a great feedback very raw.

Car was standard bar the brembo hc disc and racing brake fluid

Few pictures of the day

Forgot to mention we replaced the standard steering wheel with an OMP one due the usual melting and thumb grips splitting.

So after having our first taste of a trackday we all had the bug and started planning for the next one....

will update this as soon as i get some free time hopefully this weekend

thanks
Phil

 

[philtyper]

*Update*

Finally decided to update this thread I cant believe its been almost 3 years, I've still got the Clio and it looks a little different now 3 years on.

Did 3 trackdays at Croft in 2015 before the gearbox dumped all of it's oil out outside my house the following day. 5th gear didn't sound very healthy either.

Here are some pics from the last trackday we did in 2015.

Spec was pretty much Standard..
OMP Steering wheel
Stripped out rear seats
Fabia spliter
Wind deflectors
Painted the wheels gold
Federal 595 Tyres
few stickers

Oh and this happened ran a little wide touched the grass with passenger front wheel hit a hole and then drivers seat airbag deployed oops. also snapped the earth strap. 30mins later we were back out on track.

She pretty much sat for a year after this happened as I never got round to sorting it out.

By the end of 2016 finally decided to sort the box out and get her up and running. Don't have any pictures of the gearbox getting done but we had it reconditioned and a new clutch kit fitted at the same time so all good.

Had some running issues and a bad oil leak so decided to get that sorted out and fit a new dephaser pulley etc.

Had the upper dash flocked

 

[philtyper]

Then decided to upgrade the engine mounts fitted the KTEC ones.

You certainly get a lot more vibration off these over standard but its a track car not a daily so all good.

 

[philtyper]

Took out the A/C pipe work and condenser as it was knackered. Noticed my radiator had seen better days so that would be the next upgrade.

Ordered the Direnza alloy radiator for the 172 to replace the tired original got it fitted fairly easily.

Filled her up with some fresh type-D coolant and bled the system job done.

 

[philtyper]

Next job to do was replace the rotten old exhaust system decided to go for a KTEC stealth supersports system.

Off with the old system.

On with the new.

Really impressed with the KTEC system nice to have a bit more noise over the standard system few kg's lighter than the standard system also. Left the cat in as I cant be bothered with the hassle of MOT's etc. Also got some new exhaust hangers to go on.

 

[philtyper]

I use the car on the road every so often its mainly for track days with the occasional weekend blast. I couldn't decide what to do suspension wise coilovers or cup dampers plus cooksports or eibach etc. In the end I just didn't fancy coilovers and went for cup dampers front and rear with eibach sportlines. Put on some new genuine Renault strut top mounts as well.

Was working away the day the suspension started getting done so don't have many pics really just her on the ramp where she spends a lot of time.....

Found we had a snapped front drivers side spring right at the very top when we took it all to bits.

Just need some new wishbones and bushes to complete the suspension refresh and then I think I will get the pms rear stub axel spacer kit and some 15mm hubcentric front spacers. Oh yeah fancy the whiteline rear ARB too.

Finally making good progress after 3 years of ownership.

Tidied up the rear by putting in a boot mat.

Added some more stickers and drilled out the front bumper for better cooling. Moved the number plate to the corner got this made up from someone on ebay.

Other little jobs that have been done recently.
Replaced the airbag ecu due to blowing the drivers seat air bag at croft and used the clip to sort out the rest steering wheel dash etc. Also had to replace the TDC sensor as I would park it up after driving and it just refused to fire up put the modified loom and new sensor cured it.

 

[philtyper]

Booked up to do Croft on Saturday 12th May last week to give the Clio a run out. Turned out to be a cracking day car was faultless went better than she ever has done and sounded amazing with the new exhaust system on.

Ill let the pictures do the talking.

Awesome little car.
Can't wait to do it all again as soon as possible!

Thanks for reading comments welcome

Phil

 

[Twingo 1??]

Good work. Are you local to croft? I would like to do a track day later on in the year there.

 

[philtyper]

Good work. Are you local to croft? I would like to do a track day later on in the year there.

Thanks.

Yeah fairly local based in Newcastle so its not really to far. I used javelin track days website to view the available dates looks like maybe August will be my next one. They seem to do quite a few mid week days now as well but I find it hard to get the time off work and tend to go on a weekend. Croft is a good track lots of fun.

 

[Twingo 1??]

Thanks.

Yeah fairly local based in Newcastle so its not really to far. I used javelin track days website to view the available dates looks like maybe August will be my next one. They seem to do quite a few mid week days now as well but I find it hard to get the time off work and tend to go on a weekend. Croft is a good track lots of fun.

Will be looking later on in the year as will be looking to do some testing ready for the Xmas stages. Done a track day there about 4 years ago and it was good fun.