Renault Laguna BTCC Super Touring Track Car Project

[Optimista]

What engine is in it now?

 

[getikte]

I had considered a megane engine but i much prefer NA for the track and the ITB noise is hard to argue against. and its a 2.0 at the moment

 

[RSRowe]

Looking forward to seeing what Sam comes up with. He's an absolute wizard when it comes to cages!

 

[Williamspaul]

So tomorrow the laguna is being collected and delivered up to me. The car is near Bristol and I am in Newcastle so thought it best to send a trailer for it.

Im seriously excited to set eyes on it and I'm currently trying to find somewhere to send it ideally local to the north east of England to get a cage sorted.

oh and ive just purchased these seats, I will only be using one so the other will be up for sale.

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Size? price?

 

[massiveCoRbyn]

NA is totally the right choice. It wouldn't be a super touring rep if it was turbocharged. Get it to circa 200bhp and then remove every gram possible. Should be plenty quick enough then.

 

[McGherkin]

Imagine a supertourer that didn’t rev TO THE MOON

Plus angry ITB-in-carbon-airbox noises

 

[Crybert]

Surely a v6 of some sort would be more suited? I just feel like the 182 engine wouldn’t be suited?

 

[Adey.]

lazy heavy v6..... nooooooo, screaming itb f4r in a stripped out laguna makes the right noises to give most here a hard on 😁

 

[andybond]

How hard is it to relocate the block further back like the touring cars?

 

[Kev@KAM]

How hard is it to relocate the block further back like the touring cars?

very. You need to have a totally different gearbox as they ran the driveshafts in front of the block and tilted the engines forwards so they could run the air to the valves in as straight a line as possible. Very clever bits of packaging to effectively make a mid engined chassis.

 

[JamesBryan]

very. You need to have a totally different gearbox as they ran the driveshafts in front of the block and tilted the engines forwards so they could run the air to the valves in as straight a line as possible. Very clever bits of packaging to effectively make a mid engined chassis.

Hewland sequential box iirc.

 

[Kev@KAM]

This will test my flaky memory but I think the later cars were all Xtrac 406.
Early cars before development went mental used the Hewland HP2000 and used standard engine positioning. I used to have a few of those due to a silly moment where money and stupid aspirations peaked. Never did build a car to use it lol

 

[JamesBryan]

This will test my flaky memory but I think the later cars were all Xtrac 406.
Early cars before development went mental used the Hewland HP2000 and used standard engine positioning. I used to have a few of those due to a silly moment where money and stupid aspirations peaked. Never did build a car to use it lol

Think you might be right.

Seen a 1994 Laguna up for sale recently for £140k and that had a Hewland in.

Was probably 1996>On they started using the Xtrac.

 

[massiveCoRbyn]

I think things started to go really mental from 1997. I took some photos of a Mondeo for a mag feature a couple of years ago and the engine was in a semi-sane position. Ride height was still mental though:

 

[massiveCoRbyn]

Certainly nothing like the drive shaft going through the V of the engine like it did on the Prodrive-built Mondeo at the turn of the century

Or the Primera, where the steering column was basically horizontal, with a 90-degree joint to get down to the rack...

 

[Brigsy]

Seen this up for sale, will be a great project.

Engine wise, what about a dressed up Honda k20 on bodies?

 

[frayz]

Seen this up for sale, will be a great project.

Engine wise, what about a dressed up Honda k20 on bodies?

The purists would get all minty but id 100% go K20 too.

 

[Coops Mk1]

No, every man and his dog are banging bloody k20's into everything. If you must go Honda at least man up with the k24. But ideally for me it wants a Renault derived v6 on bodies

 

[Usr117063]

Renault v6 rwd conversion IMO

 

[RSRowe]

Rwd

 

[McGherkin]

Some of you godless b******s didn't have a deep and endless love for late 90s supertourers, and it shows.

 

[getikte]

I've had to talk myself out of a K20.....

I've even got a spare engine sat there after my EP3 shat itself at croft last year

But I keep edging more to the F4R simply because renualt. 🤷‍♂️

 

[JamesBryan]

Depending how deep your pockets are, a PMS 240+ engine package would be good.

 

[scotiamr2t]

Seen this up for sale, will be a great project.

Engine wise, what about a dressed up Honda k20 on bodies?

I've had to talk myself out of a K20.....

I've even got a spare engine sat there after my EP3 shat itself at croft last year

But I keep edging more to the F4R simply because renualt. 🤷‍♂️

I would be fitting the K20

 

[Ol’ Tarby]

Do not fit a K20

 

[frayz]

Depending how deep your pockets are, a PMS 240+ engine package would be good.

Big £££ for a 240bhp motor and supporting mods though and a fragile F4R at that level. Oncost of rebuilds wouldn't be cheap either, not to mention being a pain in the arse.
I totally get why someone would want to keep it Renault, but given the amount of work already required, a K20 will be chucking out 240 in its sleep.

 

[JamesBryan]

Big £££ for a 240bhp motor and supporting mods though and a fragile F4R at that level. Oncost of rebuilds wouldn't be cheap either, not to mention being a pain in the arse.
I totally get why someone would want to keep it Renault, but given the amount of work already required, a K20 will be chucking out 240 in its sleep.

As would I... Well K24/27

But I don't think he's going to do that.

 

[Adey.]

tough call, id be going Renault as i bet 99% of it will bolt in with Renault parts. 200bhp can be had without too much trouble (depending, some engine's are dogs) If i wanted power as well as a high revving sound track k24 frank would be a very good shout, would need everything custom though.

 

[scotiamr2t]

I just don’t see an F4R cutting it in a car that will be 150-200kg+ heavier than a race/track Clio. Unless you get very happy with the grinder.

Either way it’ll be an epic project and I look forward to its progress

 

[Brigsy]

Depending how deep your pockets are, a PMS 240+ engine package would be good.

That mated up to a sadev sequential would be pretty awesome. Would seriously hurt the wallet though.

 

[getikte]

To be honest its 100% going to be a renault F4R engine. I really want to stay away from a boosted set up so that ruled out the megane conversion.

I do like a K20 but the work involved in fitting and what not really put me off along with the fact that I'd really like to keep it a renault engine.

To me pulling the engine out of the 182 I have makes the most sense. I'm not after a big power build so low 200s will do me fine. Plus who doesn't love the noise of a cammed up F4R on bodies.

The laguna will be going on an extensive diet, combine with the AST suspension, final drive and diff im pretty confident it will hold its own on track at that spec

 

[JamesBryan]

As I mentioned on a previous page, the 1994 touring car was 950-975kg.

So if you can get yours down to that, it'll be just like having a Clio.

 

[Big Toe]

Those pictures of the BTCC car show just how much work was done suspension wise. You can see how much of the front wing is cut away to accommodate the wheels and ride height

 

[Danith]

Okay okay arm twisted I put both in.
There was a reason for wanting 1 seat which was this photo.

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The seats i picked up today were actually in better condition than I expected.

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Really looking forward to the car being delivered tomorrow.

Look snug them there goes my passenger ride

 

[JAParker]

Am I being a turd here but how does that Mondeo turn without touching the arch?

 

[Robbie Corbett]

Such a sick project.

lazy heavy v6..... nooooooo, screaming itb f4r in a stripped out laguna makes the right noises to give most here a hard on 😁

The Renault Peugeot V6 is a very decent wet liner ali block, ali head V6. They are probably a lot lighter than you would think.

And even if they were 200Kg more than an F4r on ITB's they sound like this:

 

[massiveCoRbyn]

Am I being a turd here but how does that Mondeo turn without touching the arch?

It doesn't. Wings are cheap lol

 

[Robbie Corbett]

As I mentioned on a previous page, the 1994 touring car was 950-975kg.

So if you can get yours down to that, it'll be just like having a Clio.

I think within the realms of reason you would get that down to 1050-1100 Kg without going to the mental extremes a BTCC dev team would have.

 

[Robbie Corbett]

Certainly nothing like the drive shaft going through the V of the engine like it did on the Prodrive-built Mondeo at the turn of the century

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Or the Primera, where the steering column was basically horizontal, with a 90-degree joint to get down to the rack...

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Thats mental, they got the engine so low they needed to put the driveshaft through the V?

Were these duratec derived?

 

[massiveCoRbyn]

Thats mental, they got the engine so low they needed to put the driveshaft through the V?

Were these duratec derived?

Yeah. It was based around the Mazda V6 used in the Probe and MX-6 I think, as you could use any engine from the group at the time. Apparently it was completely reengineered though, and the heads were ridiculously heavily modified. That's what a £10m annual budget does for you though