The Confused Track Clio MK1, MK2 & MK3 Content (01-Sep-12 DEADLINE)

[Squeak]

Re: The Confused Budget Track Clio! * Inc 197 Cup Cage Content*

Must remember to only look at this thread on wifi, it's a 3G killer!!

Lol it wouldnt be so bad if more people commented on it then it would go over to the next page quicker and have less updates on each page they would be more evenly spaced!

 

[Squeak]

Re: The Confused Budget Track Clio! * Inc 197 Cup Cage Content*

Wooohhoooooo new page lol!

 

[Z1gZa]

Re: The Confused Budget Track Clio! * Inc 197 Cup Cage Content*

It's a 3G killer but it's awesome! Going to buy some popcorn for the next episode

 

[Djw John]

Re: The Confused Budget Track Clio! * Inc 197 Cup Cage Content*

I'll start spamming it then

 

[Squeak]

Re: The Confused Budget Track Clio! * Inc 197 Cup Cage Content*

It's a 3G killer but it's awesome! Going to buy some popcorn for the next episode

Lol thanks its not that good. If you want to see a truely amazing attention to detail pop on www.clio16valver.co.uk/ sign up and look at Snowmans project thread

I'll start spamming it then

You will only get points lol


I just think noone reads it is because it has MK1 content in it lol

Thanks for the support guys,

 

[Squeak]

Re: The Confused Budget Track Clio! * Inc 197 Cup Cage Content*

Monday 2[SUP]nd[/SUP] July 2012

With only 29 days left until the insurance starts on the car and me actually wanting it on the road I really need to get my head down.

I had organised with one of the supervisors to stay on after work and use their die grinder to remove the remaining material out of the ports of the new manifold flange. I knew it was going to be difficult as this material is a right b**ch and is hard as nails (plus the fact it is 0.5” thick). Anyway finished up a few things in the office so didn’t manage to get down to the manufacturing building until about 5.45pm so most of the supervisors were sorting out their night shift guys. Anyway the long and short of it was once the supervisor saw the material he knew (like I did) that I was going to spend the next week trying to get the material out of these ports. What I had forgotten about was that they had an old mill in their department for people to jump on when they needed. So with his permission I jumped on the mill (after not being on one for 3 years lol).

Set the job up in the vice and put a reasonable cutter in and off I went.

I will let the pics do the talking.

As you can see it’s not perfect but it has removed a lot of the materials so all I need to do is clean it up with a file. You can see that a couple of the ports have weird shaped holes this is basically because I turned the x or y axis in the wrong direction. Overall not bad for someone who hasn’t been on one for 3 years!

I then cleaned down the machine packed up and went home to see the girlfriend. For some reason she thinks I’m neglecting her for the car lol can’t imagine why. TBH she is good as gold really.

Going to do a bit more work Tuesday to the car and also I have had a bit of a result. As the rain is scheduled all week long including the weekend for down in the south east I asked my Nan and granddad to see if I could put the car underneath their caravan shelter so that I can still work on the car in the crap weather. They said yes! Happy days this means there still may be a possibility of meeting the deadline. If I wasn’t allowed my car under the shelter I may as well ring up the insurance company and move it back a month.

More updates soon

Thanks for reading!

 

[Z1gZa]

Re: The Confused Budget Track Clio! * Inc 197 Cup Cage Content*

AHAHAH! Girlfriends always think we love the car more xDIt may not be perfect but that's a hell of a job mate. Keep up with the good work.

 

[Robclio98]

Re: The Confused Budget Track Clio! * Inc 197 Cup Cage Content*

Hats off to you mate, this thread is epic! cant wait to see it all done!

 

[Squeak]

Re: The Confused Budget Track Clio! * Inc 197 Cup Cage Content*

AHAHAH! Girlfriends always think we love the car more xDIt may not be perfect but that's a hell of a job mate. Keep up with the good work.

Yeah she understands really, N tbh i think she wants to drive it so i think she wants me to hurry up and finish it,

Hats off to you mate, this thread is epic! cant wait to see it all done!

Thanks mate, you and me both. I just want it done now lol

 

[Cupman29]

Re: The Confused Budget Track Clio! * Inc 197 Cup Cage Content*

You do like to punish yourself. Take it to a machine shop and they will water or laser jet cut the perfect shape for you in jig time. Spending time on jobs like that only slow the build down and are never as good anyway.

Fair play for trying though.

 

[Squeak]

Re: The Confused Budget Track Clio! * Inc 197 Cup Cage Content*

You do like to punish yourself. Take it to a machine shop and they will water or laser jet cut the perfect shape for you in jig time. Spending time on jobs like that only slow the build down and are never as good anyway.

Fair play for trying though.

Yeah its not the first time someone has said that before. Also the reason I have done it myself is because I am trying to keep costs down on the project. (This is a budget build after all lol) It doesn’t have to be perfect anyway as long as its somewhere near then we should be fine!

 

[Squeak]

Re: The Confused Budget Track Clio! * Inc 197 Cup Cage Content*

Tuesday 3[SUP]rd[/SUP] July 2012

Well I didn’t have a lot planned for this evening so this is a massive update but its all a step in the right direction.

First of all as it was raining my Nan and granddad kindly moved their caravan out of its shelter so I could work on my car in their this week to save me getting wet. This also means that I didn’t have to cancel with Luke tonight as he is coming round to do some more welding.

Car in its temporary home.

I then moved all the crap out of the front of the car and moved the main hoop out of the way so that I could sort out the protruding welds that the feet were sitting on (so it didn’t sit level).

First of all I got the grinding stone on them and then I used a electric finger sanded that Luke had lent me so I could get them nice and flat. Unfortunately didn’t take any before pics only the ones below. Now I have a main hoop that sits nicely inside the car:

That was the main thing that I wanted to get done on the car this evening so that way Luke and I can make some real progress on the cage tonight.

The other half had also got me a new alternator belt from work so I set about fitting that.

Before:

And then just as it was getting to the right tension:

The adjuster broke clean out! FML lol. I did find out from Danny @519 that these are about £29 new from Renault.........sod that.

It took me about 30 minutes to get the broken bit out because the belt I ordered was such a tight fit I could not lower the alternator enough to slip the belt off because the broken circle bit was not allowing the alternator to go any lower!

Did finally get there in the end. Not to worry it will be taken into work and ill get one of the welders to clean it up and weld it as I don’t want Luke wasting his time on silly things like that lol.

This next pic is for my reference later on encase I need to order another belt. (6pk803)

Next I turned my attention to the rear engine mount.

I still had bits of the old rubber in there so the first job was to remove them. I finally got there in the end after some heat, a knife and some sandpaper.

I fitted the mount in place (without trimming it and I noticed that it was no tall enough. I got around this by packing it out with the plastic I had removed from my front bumper the other day. SORTED.

I then trial fitted it again:

I then removed that cleaned it up with a wire brush and treated it to some silver hammerite. Once that dries I will be sticking the plastic bits in with some no nails and then fitting the exhaust rubber. At a later date when I come to fit the exhaust I will drill a hole in relation to how I want the exhaust to sit on the car but there is no point doing that just yet as I will probably get it wrong.

That was pretty much it for the night so I packed up and went home.

More updates in the next couple of days as Luke is going to be doing some more welding on the cage tonight.

Wednesday 4[SUP]th[/SUP] July 2012

I had got in contact with Lynne.Hiatt@btintern on CS as he had already fitted a 197 cup racer cage to a 172. Basically I was after advise for how to mount the rear suspension. I had a picture in my head but I was curious as to how he had done it. He kindly sent me these images over. Thanks again mate

That puts my mind at rest for that potential problem. I think the only thing I will need to do is get a couple of thick washers made up at work to accommodate the ID of the fitting tube for the cage.

 

[Squeak]

Re: The Confused Budget Track Clio! * Inc 197 Cup Cage Content*

Wednesday 4[SUP]th[/SUP] July 2012 (Continued)

Well Luke came round after work so we could continue working on the cage. Unfortunately I didn’t get a great deal of pictures but we did in fact get a lot done.

First of all we sat the main hoop in the correct position. We then got the passenger and drivers door bars in position to see where we wanted it to sit. When we figured out roughly where it was to sit. We scurfed away all of the paint and seam sealer (lovely stuff seam sealer smokes like a b**ch when scurfed lol).

We then drew round the tube so that we could try and figure out where we are going to put the feet for the cage.

Once we had that established we got the steel plate out and cut out a couple of squares. We then spent a little while profiling them so they fitted the curves of the floor pan.

Next step was to put the Passenger and Drivers door bars in position again but this time on the plates. We had already got the drivers one in a close position before so we focussed on the passenger.

We scurfed the bottom of the roll cage to the correct angle so that the top bar was horizontal and the front part of it avoided the window screen. The same was done for the drivers side.

With that all in position it was clear that the drivers diagonal bar (door impact bar) was going to have to be removed (on the main hoop side). This wasn’t a problem as we were going to have to re profile the tubes for the passenger side (on the main hoop).

It doesn’t sound like a lot but it was definitely time consuming as we had to keep lugging the cage in and out.

Also earlier in the day I had got the adjuster for the alternator welded up at work as tig welding is a lot nicer than mig.

This meant I could fit my alternator belt and tension it correctly SORTED

Thursday 5[SUP]th[/SUP] July 2012

Not a massive update just picked this up for the manifold to downpipe.

Got to love Renault prices.

Friday 6[SUP]th[/SUP] July 2012

After milling out the remaining metal for the manifold flange I hadn’t really done anymore to it.

Therefore out came the file to remove the high spot that was stopping the
tubes going into the flange.

Before:

After:

There was a lot of excess material around the manifold flange so I cut off the excess to ensure that the flange would sit nicely on the back of the engine.

Before:

After:

Quick deburr to remove all of the sharp edges and faces. The finished result.

Well the paint had dried on my rear exhaust mount so I proceeded to use the no more nails and stick the packing bits of plastic I had made to make sure that the rubber was a tight fit.

Left that to dry and then fitted the rubber itself securing it in place with 2 cable ties.

Next on the list was something that has been bothering me every time I saw the car. The bonnet alignment.

Before:

After:

Much better.

Next on the list was fitting the bonnet pins on the boot.

This is the hole I am going to use as it is already predrilled by Renault so all I had to do was opening it up a bit so that the pin fitted nicely.

Then I removed the inner boot skin so I would have a better view of what is going on.

I put one of the pins in and screwed it out so the boot skin touched it. This way I could draw around pin and cut out the bit I needed to.

Just to stop this impaling me when I was inside the car I thought I would remove it for good measure lol.

Before:

After:

Hole drilled and marked up where I need to cut.

Bit more trimmed out.

Holes drilled and the catch pop riveted in place.

Saturday 7[SUP]th[/SUP] July 2012

The first job of the day.....

Before:

After:

I am going to drill a hole in the rubber so that way I can mount the exhaust to the exact height I need it. But that wont be going on until the petrol tank is in place.

As I was at the back of the car anyway I decided to trim a bit more of the inner skin out of the boot.

Next was the job I was absolutely dreading......fitting the aerocatches!

First of all I fitted the bonnet pin to roughly see which part of the inner skin I was going to need to cut out.

Marked out the rough area I was going to cut for now.

I then took a load of measurements and got the catch roughly sitting where I wanted it to. I then plucked up the courage to cut out the square for the bonnet pin. I then put on the template in relation to the cross hatching and measured and measured and measured lol.

Marked up:

Out with the dremmel:

Cutting tool to finish the curves:

As you can see I didn’t chop enough of the inner skin out so I cut out a little bit more.

I then put the aerocatch in position and drilled the holes.

Deburred all of the surrounding metal and then fitted the aero catch and nuts and bolts.

I then decided to do the other side. To my stupidity the predrilled hole on the nearside was not copied across to the offside. I didn’t check DOH!. A lot of measurements were taken as I tried to decide what would be the best reference point. In the end I bit the bullet and drilled the hole.
I then done everything I done on the nearside to the offside of the car (but with even more measuring) and fitted the aerocatch.

The end result:

I measured them from one side to the other and the offside sat 2mm further up the bonnet than the nearside and 1mm closer to the middle of the bonnet than the nearside. I think I can live with that!

I then topped up the engine oil as I did not want to forget to do the remaining bit as it was just under the minimum as last time I ran out of oil when filling up.

The final thing for the day was to fit the front and rear number plates.......Its starting to look more like a car now! Lol

Sunday 8[SUP]th[/SUP] July 2012

One of my bug bears is that I am terrible with losing parts bolts nuts washers etc etc.

So the first order of business was to go through every box bag nut and bolt that I had at my nans and let me tell you there was a lot!.

It took me about 2 hours and a lot of boredom to go through everything. One a good note I found a lot of stuff that I had ‘lost’ and needed to be fitted to the car. For example the MK2 radiator mounts and the bolts that secure in my throttle body.

Happy days

Anyway the more interesting bits now.

After my great success fitting the aerocatches yesterday I thought I would finish the final bonnet pin and get it out of the way.

Also whilst I was there I deburred all of the inner boot skin as I don’t want to be cutting myself on that at a later date. The plan is that it will be covered with some kordex of something similar that is equally lightweight and quite smart looking.

Next up was the ECU tray I it into the scuttle to see how it would fit if mounted there. I also explored the option of running the ecu in the car as the wires would be long enough if I drilled a hole into the scuttle. I am potentially going to have to run a hole there anyway for the fuel lines to run through the car but we shall see.

Out came the main hoop of the roll cage so that I could cut the following tube off as Luke and I are going to have to re-profile it into a different position.

Bottom Cambelt/alternator cover on (as this was something else I found whilst having the clear up)

Horn wiring extended as the MK1has the horn on the offside and not the nearside:

Next was the sidelight wiring that was chopped and the MK2 plug put on it.

Engine bay earth extended.

Hole drilled and radiator mount fitted. Nearside:

Offside:

The plastic cover that hides the engine loom to interior loom put in place.

Throttle body cleaned of all the gunk on the inside.

Fitted with a new paper gasket from Renault. (£6 fricking quid for a paper gasket!)

Oil catch tank pipes hooked up and additional bolt added to secure coil pack.

Potential new home for the washer bottle inside the car by the passenger foot well.

This picture is of the fuel rail link to the 5[SUP]th[/SUP] injector. (this is just to remind me to get another copper washer!)

Final pic of the engine bay after I added another red bolt for the top mount cover and the 2 chrome bolts of the inlet cover.

P.S I know that I have a habit of going from doing one thing to another and there is no real sequence to the bits I’m putting on the car. I think this is just to keep myself amused really otherwise I would just get bored and rush it and that is something I don’t want to do.

Unfortunately I have been kicked out of the shelter again and it doesn’t look to good on the weather front either as we are expecting rain all week. Therefore progress may slow down a bit .

It’s is getting there. Comments welcome.

Thanks Dan

NOTE to self fit rubber to the boot pins so it doesn’t go too far.

 

[Z1gZa]

Re: The Confused Budget Track Clio! * Inc 197 Cup Cage Content*

This is going pretty well mate.Here's my comment to help the morale xP

 

[Squeak]

Re: The Confused Budget Track Clio! * Inc 197 Cup Cage Content*

This is going pretty well mate.Here's my comment to help the morale xP

Thanks dude.

Yeah its going well just the weather holding things up at the moment

 

[Squeak]

Re: The Confused Budget Track Clio! * Inc 197 Cup Cage Content*

Monday 9[SUP]th[/SUP] July 2012

Little update.

This arrived for me today at work

Odyssey PC680 battery

Also I started writing a list of things to do to the car on my phone. The list is not complete but that’s all I can think of at the moment.

More updates soon if then rain ever stops!

 

[Squeak]

Re: The Confused Budget Track Clio! * Inc 197 Cup Cage Content*

Monday 9[SUP]th[/SUP] July 2012 (Continued)

Ended up spending a bit of time finding a few more bits that I needed to take down to my nans . Whilst I was in the garage I also found the poverty spec lights that I was going to make a CAF out of. I have decided to use these headlights instead of the dual optics as I will not need to change the headlight wiring. The only problem is I need to take the front bumper off again to fit them. Oh well will save me some time on the wiring front.

Hopefully going to get down to the car this evening to do a bit of work on it but that is all down to the weather.

More updates soon.

 

[Squeak]

Re: The Confused Budget Track Clio! * Inc 197 Cup Cage Content*

Tuesday 10[SUP]th[/SUP] July 2012

Managed to find a couple of hours to go down to the track car and do a little bit of work on her.

First thing I had managed to source this 3 inch diameter bit of tube from work. As I am going to be running the 172 airbox I need a throttle body adaptor so hopefully this bit of tube will do the trick.

Picture of the tube.

Picture of the tube in its rough position.

I then turned my attention to the lights on the car. I had dual ptics on there but as I am running the MK1 loom that means I would have had to chop it all up to get them to work. I had bought a set of poverty spec lights to make a CAF when on track and they run H4 bulbs (same as the MK1 loom). Therefore just to keep things nice and easy I replaced the dual optics with the poverty spec lights. (the dual optics are currently up for sale if anyone interested).

Someone kindly pointed out to me that I had fitted the Throttle Body gasket the wrong way round (not that I think it would make much difference) but I changed it anyway.

I took the gasket off and then drew round it to make a template (rough one) for the plate I am going to have to make to make the throttle body adaptor.

Before:

After:

In the process of doing this I also fitted the Idle Control Valve and a new accelerator cable that I had lying around as the one I fitted to the car was not in the best condition.

The difference between the two cables.

Didn’t really know what else to do as I was running out of time as I could only spend about an hour and half at the car. So instead of starting something big I thought I would tackle something small.

The breather on the petrol tank had a huge pipe on it that I assume went to the carbon canister.

So I removed the excess tube measured the tube diameter so that I can order a breather filter to stick on the end of it. Hopefully this will be ok....cant see why it wouldn’t be.

That was pretty much it for the day nothing exciting unfortunately.

Wednesday 11[SUP]th[/SUP] July 2012

Well the plan was to do a bit of welding on the track car tonight but unfortunately because of the s**t weather and Luke had to prep his car for his race at the weekend he couldn’t afford to spend any time on mine as he had loads to do to his. So no progress unfortunately.

The only thing I did do tonight was ring my insurance company and delay the start date by a month to give myself a bit more time to finish the car, so new date to start 1[SUP]st[/SUP] September.

Looks like Struggler (aka Alex-Clio) is going to be up and running before me.

I did get a visit from _PAUL_ in his hairdressers car.....I mean lol.

Nah to be fair to him it’s a very tidy car. My only criticism is its a slosh box lol

 

[Struggler]

Re: The Confused Budget Track Clio! * Inc 197 Cup Cage Content*

bad times dude!! im aiming to tax mine on the 1st of august!

so everything needs to be sorted by then, other than maybe the cage!

progress is coming along though dude! i just blocked that pipe that goes from the tank to the cabon canister on my mk1,
and ill probs do the same on my mk2 tbh

 

[Squeak]

Re: The Confused Budget Track Clio! * Inc 197 Cup Cage Content*

bad times dude!! im aiming to tax mine on the 1st of august!

so everything needs to be sorted by then, other than maybe the cage!

progress is coming along though dude! i just blocked that pipe that goes from the tank to the cabon canister on my mk1,
and ill probs do the same on my mk2 tbh

Good Luck mate I hope you get it done so you can enjoy it a bit before uni.

Yeah that is what is holding me up is the cage. Oh well cant rush these things.

Yh I was thinking about that but I don’t really want to block it as the fumes do need to escape I would have thought. Im just going to put a cheap breather filter on there. I think I have a couple knocking about somewhere. Will have to dig them out and give them a clean.

 

[Struggler]

Re: The Confused Budget Track Clio! * Inc 197 Cup Cage Content*

well it just mean there was a turbo dump noise every time you refuel! lol
why put a breather though?! its already just fumes going down that pipe, nothing that needs to be filtered out!!

 

[Squeak]

Re: The Confused Budget Track Clio! * Inc 197 Cup Cage Content*

lol

If i put a breather on it then no crap can be sucked up through the pipe. Im not to sure if there is a filter in the top of the fuel tank to stop crap getting in there but i would rather be safe than sorry,

 

[lynne.hiatt@btintern]

Re: The Confused Budget Track Clio! * Inc 197 Cup Cage Content*

I fitted a one way valve(HALFORDS £3.00)so it can suck air in to the tank but can't blow out,just fit it some were so crap and hot air can't get in.

 

[Squeak]

Re: The Confused Budget Track Clio! * Inc 197 Cup Cage Content*

View attachment 81212I fitted a one way valve(HALFORDS £3.00)so it can suck air in to the tank but can't blow out,just fit it some were so crap and hot air can't get in.

I thought the ideal of the carbon cannistor was to enable the fumes to escape the tank....are you sure you have not fittedit round the wrong way or am i just having one of those days lol?

 

[Squeak]

Re: The Confused Budget Track Clio! * Inc 197 Cup Cage Content*

Thursday 12[SUP]th[/SUP] July 2012

Right thought I would finally finish off the manifold flange!

I trimmed the excess off of the corners so it would sit nicely on the head and enlarged the bottom fitting holes so that the studs would not scrape in the holes when fitting it. I went a bit overkill but this will not matter as I am using 172 exhanust manifold nuts which have a bigger surface area for clamping.

Picture of the manifold flange:

Few pics of the tubes in place:

I did go to try and fit the exhaust manifold in place but it did not fit! The only way that will go on is by dropping the subframe first. Oh Joy!

Didn’t fancy that job tonight so called it a night.

Friday 13[SUP]th[/SUP] July 2012

As I am going to be running a 172 airbox I need to buy/make a throttle body adaptor as on the MK1 the airbox actually bolts to the throttle body.

First of all I made a very crude template.

I then transferred this onto some 6mm aluminium plate I got from work.

Did some drilling and cutting using my dremel.

Then I got bored lol as the cutting discs kept snatching and snapping in the cuts I was making as the Aluminium is really soft!

Pretty much called it a night as had planned to spend the evening with the girlfriend.

Saturday 14[SUP]th[/SUP] July 2012

Well as nothing had been done to the cage I thought I would make a start on the manifold. As I want a gauge of how the exhaust will sit I thought it would be a good idea to fit the backbox and the centre section. This would give me some clue of how much modification I would need to do to get the manifold to fit.

Anyway First of all I marked and removed the rear rubber so I knew where I would need to cut a hole for the rear exhaust bracket to go through.

I then fitted the centre exhaust hanger and spent ages pissing around with the exhaust brackets so they sat in some logical place. ( I still don’t think they are 100% but they will do for now).

Picture of the Centre Section in position:

Picture of the backbox in position:

As this was all complete the only other thing I needed to do was attach the manifold and decat to the car so I could gauge the distances etc etc.

First of all I removed the gearbox drip tray, to find this:

Small leak (not that I am to worried)

Then I removed the polybushed dogbone, the column from the rack, the gear linkage, the oil cooler bracket, the ball joints from the wishbones, the chassis supports from the wishbone bolt to chassis and then lowered the subframe back on the deck.

I then fitted my decat to the exhaust manifold using the new Renault fitting kit I bought.

I then placed the manifold in the rough position I would expect it to go and then started looking at clearance issues with the subframe off.

Here are the clearance pictures:

Now that I had established the clearance issues with the subframe off I thought it would be best to do it with the subframe on. I forgot to take some pictures of this but the things that I had to be careful of was:

1. The gap between the subframe and the exhaust tunnel on the car
2. The Column Joint that attaches to the rack
3. The clearance from the exhaust to the starter motor
4. The distance from the driveshaft.

There was not really a lot more that I could do on my own as I could not hold the exhaust and check that I had clearance for all of those areas so I propped the exhaust in place and packed up and called it a night.

Sunday 15[SUP]th[/SUP] July 2012

Again I was busy so didn’t spend to long down at the car only a few hours. This time thought I had brought two of my mate to help me out, Lee and Beeson. With both of these guys here it made it easier to check that the exhaust was not fouling on anything in particular.

After a few amendments to the extension tubes we finally got the manifold in a position that would work. It was clear that even with drawing on the tubes etc it would be very difficult to take it back to the welder at work and get him to tack it in place. That being the case I got busy with the tack welding.

My tack welding did hold up but it definitely was a mess especially trying to get to areas of the exhaust that we clearly not accessible!

A big thanks to Beeson and Lee for their help! Couldnt have done it without you lol

The tacked up manifold:

Obviously with Lee’s little input (self portrait I think):

Happy with the days work we packed up and called it a day.

Tuesday 17[SUP]th[/SUP] July 2012

With me having to put my cat down unexpectedly on Monday I didn’t really feel like working on the car but the girlfriend told me I should go down there and get my mind off things instead of mopping about. Anyway that is what I tried to do.

Ended up borrowing a die grinder from work and trying to finish of the plate for my throttle body adaptor. Didn’t get any in process pictures but this is what it currently looks like. It’s not finished yet but it is getting there.

Got fed up with this a called it a night after a little while as really didn’t feel like working on the car!

Wednesday 18[SUP]th[/SUP] July 2012

I had given the tack welded manifold to the welder at work to tig up and make look pretty on Monday and today I got the phone call that it was all done and ready to pick up. So on my lunch break off I went to go and see the finished article. All I can say is I am absolutely chuffed with the end result!

I will let the pictures do the talking!

I believe that I am the first person to fabricate an F4R manifold to fit the F7R. I know a couple of people had started to do it but didn’t follow it through because of the amount of work involved. I hope that this is going to be a decent upgrade to the standard valver manifold and downpipe as well as the Williams item and the aftermarket Supersprint item. Also this hasn’t cost me too much money to make just a lot of my time!

Also so far so good on the weather front. I finish work in 5 minutes and Luke and I are going down to do a bit of work to the roll cage. I hope it doesn’t rain as some more progress on the roll cage is definitely needed!

More updates soon.

Comments etc welcome

 

[Z1gZa]

Re: The Confused Budget Track Clio! * Inc 197 Cup Cage Content*

Great work on the manifold! Let's hope it doesn't crack

 

[Squeak]

Re: The Confused Budget Track Clio! * Inc 197 Cup Cage Content*

Great work on the manifold! Let's hope it doesn't crack

Thanks bud and it shouldnt do.....i hope lol

 

[Squeak]

Re: The Confused Budget Track Clio! * Inc 197 Cup Cage Content*

Wednesday 18[SUP]th[/SUP] July 2012 (Continued)

Luke came over again to lend a hand with the roll cage and guess what it spat with rain the whole time we were there TYPICAL!.

He focused on fabricating the dash bar and roof bar to fit in the car whilst I got busy with the file trying to clean up the welds down the ports of the manifold.

Scurfed the flange flat:

Then continued to remove the excess weld from the ports (only the flange end so far)

Couple of snaps:

And this is how we left the roll cage:

Unfortunately we did not get the roof bar done as well but this is due to it being bent/arched whatever you want to call it. It was just a bloody nightmare.

In the end Luke got the hump with it so we called it a day so that we could come back and attack it with a clean state of mind.

Unfortunately for me Luke is off all of next week so there will be no more welding done for a while.

With any luck it’s just a matter of profiling a few more bars.

Also got home and this was there for me: It’s like marmite you either love it or hate it.

Thursday 19[SUP]th[/SUP] July 2012

Not a massive update just some paint the girlfriend had got me from work. I am planning to spray the interior and the cage matt black.

Saturday 21[SUP]st[/SUP] July 2012

A new day.

Well the aim of today was to get as much of the little jobs out of the way as possible.

First thing was to remove the nuts I used to spacer the column down and replace those with some spacers I made up at work.

Spacer length compared to the nuts length:

All fitted with the new spacers:

As I had removed the column completely to do this I thought it would be a good idea to put the column rubber back on to stop and water getting into the interior of the car (through the hole for the column)

I then spent quite a while remove the excess weld on the inside of the ports of the manifold. The areas I paid attention to was from the extended tube to the manifold itself. This was a right pain in the arse and I forgot to get pictures of it.....FAIL!

Next job on the cards was fitting the exhaust manifold!

Then the subframe!

You can actually see in this picture how much further back the decat sits so I am going to have to modify the exhaust system to suit. Another wonderful job lol!

I then connected up the bracket for the oil cooler, attached the dogbone, wishbones to ball joints, chassis leg from subframe to chassis, track rod ends etc etc. I basically got it into a position that it would be safe to drop on the floor.

Before sticking it on the floor I thought I would tape up the excess threads on my coilovers to hopefully prevent s**t going in there.

Right about this time my mate Beeson pops over to lend a hand. So before we drop the car back on all four wheel I thought it would be a good idea to take some measurements so I can chop down the centre section so it will fit the car.

We then removed the centre section and chopped a little bit off the length at the end that the centre section goes into the back box. The first cut was about 1.5”.

Offered it back up and although we could bolt it up it would sit a bit low as the system was still a bit too long. Off it cam again and I cut off another half inch to inch. Offered the system back up and was happy with the length and that everything fitted. We then spent a while playing around with the exhaust mounts and exhaust mount clamps to try and get the right positioning so that the exhaust would sit as close to the body as possible.

Removed the system for one last time, fitted the petrol tank, added the gaskets to the exhaust and some exhaust paste and slapped the system back up there and tightened everything up.

This was the final result:

Very happy with how it turned out! Thanks again Beeson for your help!

We then started looking at the wiring of the car as we were not sure what to do.

We laid it all out and then I chopped off all of the wiring that I wanted to keep off of the original engine loom that came with the car and from the interior.

I chopped off the following plugs.

Tail lights, fuel pump, window wiper and I think that was it.

We then taped the plugs that we were going to change to the main loom so that we didn’t lose them, the rest got binned.

Beeson left and I really didn’t have the energy to start anything.

I had a little tidy up and then thought it would be good to get some protection on the cage.....some paint.

Degreased them all, sanded them down degreased again and then added a few coats of primer and a couple of coats of matt black. This was the end result:

After that I packed up for good and called it a day.

 

[Squeak]

Sunday 22[SUP]nd[/SUP] July 2012

Today’s task was to tackle the interior of the car!

So I removed the pedal box assembly and steering column from inside the car (I had to disconnect the clutch cable and accelerator cable again.

On a side note on the CUP Master Cylinder what port goes to which brake. Help would be greatly appreciated!

Picture of everything removed from inside the car:

I then spent absolute hours cleaning the interior and keying the paint so that the primer would stick to it. I removed all of the excess tar residue from all areas of the car. I also tried to fill some holes with the welder. All I can say is im glad I haven’t got to do it as a profession lol.
I didn’t get any pictures of this as its pretty boring tbh.

The next horrible task was masking up the car ready for paint. This was another task that took ages!

A Few Pictures:

Nice clean interior ready for primer:

I gave the car a light dust coating of primer.

And then another:

Then a few more coats of primer and finally I started to apply the matt black:

I had got to this stage and run out of paint apparently 5 cans of matt black isn’t sufficient and in high insight it wasn’t lol.

Quick picture of the front (Sorry for crap quality of photos:

I called it a night after that as it had been such a long day and the heat was incredible!

Monday 23[SUP]rd[/SUP] July 2012

I popped down to my girlfriends work to pick up some more paint as I wanted to get the interior done as quickly as possible encase the weather turned.

I know some people will not understand why I have sprayed the interior when there is welding still to be done but tbh its simple ill just rub back the area I want to weld and then touch it in after. Plus once the cage is in place it will be extremely difficult to cover all areas of the cage and interior of the car once the cage is in situ.

Right so after another 3 or 4 cans of matt black the interior was done. Not to a professional standard but good enough for a track car that is going to get abused anyway lol.

All finished:

Masking Tape Removed (Front):

Masking Tape Removed (Rear):

I then put the seals for the boot and doors back on as well as the rear lights. Then the boot latch went on and was adjusted to suit. Then the boot pins were adjusted so they sat nicely.

Next I fitted the column and the pedal box to the car so that I could move the car as I am able to use the caravan shelter again. Happy days!

Quick picture of the stuff fitted:

Then I packed up and moved the car into its new home.....for a while anyway.

Tuesday 24[SUP]th[/SUP] July 2012

Being a complete wally I forgot to put my work clothes in the boot of the car so I couldn’t really do a great deal as I was dressed in shirt tie trousers and shoes not really car working clothes lol.

One of the things that I need to get welded up on the car is the throttle body adaptor I am making. First of all I need to finish it though. So I started filing out the shape so that it would fit on the throttle body.

Once I had that done I removed as much of the excess material as possible around the flange.

I then came up with a crafty plan for the tube......

Stick it in a vice and crush it so it’s more shaped to the throttle body

That’s it for now more updates soon!

I think I may actually meet the 1[SUP]st[/SUP] of September deadline WHOOP WHOOP!

 

[Squeak]

Wednesday 25[SUP]th[/SUP] July 2012

The first thing I did was try and sort out the throttle body so that I could get it in a position where I could take it to work and get it welded up.

Tube position marked on plate:

Some flats flied onto the tube to avoid the nut hitting the tube:

Next on the agenda was to do some spraying of the cage. I know that some of the paint shall have to be removed but I am not worried as the base coat is on and this means I will have less to do later on.

Few coats of primer:

Then a few coats of black and then fitted in the car:

I also came up with a cunning plan of where to fit the engine fusebox. In the MK1’s it is bolted underneath the scuttle panel but there are access flaps so you can gain easy access. Unfortunately the MK2’s do not have the access flaps so I am planning on running the engine fusebox inside the car.

The proposed position:

Thursday 26[SUP]th[/SUP] July 2012

This had turned up for me in the post:

A big thanks to Mat Brown for saving the day!

The first jobs where to fit the bits that Mat had sent me. So I fitted the rear circlip for the boot strut, fitted the other copper washer on the fuel rail and tightened it up.

Next on the list was the mounting of the ecu. Again on the MK1 the ecu is mounted underneath the scuttle panel. As the MK2 does not have easy access latches I didn’t really want to do this. Also I think it would be better if it was run inside the car.

First thing I done was cut the hump off of the ecu tray. I then masticed the plastic bit back on so that it sealed the hole but it was nice and flat:

As the drivers side of the cut did not have a place to run the ecu wiring and map sensor wiring I needed to chop a hole in the firewall.

Marked up:

Cut:

I then forgot to take a picture of the wiring in place oops.

This is the proposed position that I am planning to run the ECU.

On a side not what is this for its off of a MK1 Phase 1 Engine loom and bolts near the rear drivers side door card (against the chassis)

Friday 27[SUP]th[/SUP] July 2012

So the mastic had finally gone off so I removed any of the excess and gave the ECU tray a light sanding over ready for paint:

A few coats of paint later and this is the end result:

I then cut a bit away of the ECU tray as I didn’t want the wires to be under tension. I then drilled two holes in the ECU tray and then through the firewall. I then fitted two bolts, four washers and two nuts to secure it in place.

This was the end result: I am quite pleased with the positioning and think it will work well.

I managed to get this machined up at work as I wasn’t quite happy with the look of the other tube for the throttle body adaptor. Also I knew that this one is 100% weldable.
The OD has been turned down abit for about 15mm in length so that I ensure the nuts holding the TB adaptor on clear the tube..

I then squashed it in a vice to get the egg shape that I require.

This is the one I shall be using for the final throttle body adaptor now.

I had got another few cans of paint from the girlfriends work so that I could carry on painting the cage up.

I gave the passenger door bar a few more coats of primer, a quick sand down, and then a few coats of matt black. It is not a professional finish but it will do!

This is the result as the car stands currently:

Whilst I got paint from the girlfriend I also bought one of these as I shall need one to run all of the brake lines throughout the car. Won’t be doing anything until the cage is fully welded though.

Sunday 29[SUP]th[/SUP] July 2012

Well no pictures from today. Beeson had offered to lend a hand with the wiring in the car. He was trying to figure out what wires he needs to change to run the MK2 plugs for the tail lights and fuel pump. To say it was a pain in the arse was an understatement.

Whilst he played about with them I decided to strip down the Phase 1 loom but this time remembering to keep the plug for the speedo sensor! Dough.

Got quite a bit done but didn’t finish it off as I was feeling like s**t and on the verge of passing out and throwing up so we packed up and called it a day.

Thanks again for your help mate.

Monday 30[SUP]th[/SUP] July 2012

With me not finishing the wiring yesterday and Beeson struggling to figure out which wire does what I thought it may be an idea to get the car in a position so that we can attach the battery and test the wiring we need.

First of all I had to attach this terminal to the live that comes out near the main engine bay wiring connections. I also heat shrinked a bit of tube on there to make it nice and neat.

I then did the same for the main battery cable:

I then connected all of the wiring to my BMW Positive battery distribution block that was £10 off of ebay. Brilliant piece of kit as I can jump the battery (should it die) from underneath the bonnet. This means no messing about trying to get underneath the passenger seat (which is where I plan to run the battery).

Distribution block cable tied in place and the main battery cable run through the grommet. Quite a tidy install me thinks.

One last picture of where I am proposing to fit the battery and the fire extinguisher.

Tuesday 31[SUP]st[/SUP] July 2012

Not a massive amount of work done but all steps in the right direction. I have exactly one calendar month to finish the so that its ready for the insurance MOT and Tax on the 1[SUP]st[/SUP] of September,

Still lots to do but I am confident it shall get done.

First thing I done was make a plate for the throttle body adaptor to cover the bit that the tube would miss. This is what it shall be like once welded together.

That didn’t take very long so I decided to finish the interior wiring. I removed a few more plugs, excess wire and tidied up the loom a little bit making sure there are no areas that it can short circuit.

This is the final size of my interior loom (Except the back part for rear lights fuel pump etc.

I then linked up the battery plugged it all in and did a few tests. At first I thought I had fudged it but then I remembered that I hadn’t attached the two main earths! Attached them and started testing again. Fingers crossed from what I checked everything worked..... The real test will be when the engine is running.

I did crank the car over for a little while as she has been sat for nearly 6 months. Firing the car up shouldn’t be too long away.

Thanks for reading any comments always welcome!

 

[Squeak]

Forgot something for 30[SUP]th[/SUP] July

Also done the following:
I spent a good couple of hours profiling the bar that is doing across the roof of the car. I wanted to get it in a somewhere near position so that Luke would be able to just come round and weld the cage together rather than piss around doing profiling.

Also as my decat is the two lambda type I needed to bung one of the holes. So the £5 bung that I got off ebay done the trick. This is a temporary measure until I get enough money to buy an AEM gauge with its own Lambda (so I can monitor the AFR of the engine.

 

[Squeak]

I think this page has tooo many pictures in it already but im updating it anyway!

Thursday 2[SUP]nd[/SUP] August 2012

Well the plan was to weld the front part of the cage in tonight but it didn’t quite go to plan.

First of all Luke and I profiled the 3 bars that we needed to attach to the main hoop so that the door bars could be connected to the main hoop. Once this was done we cleaned the paint off of the main hoop in the areas that Luke was going to weld.

Couple of pics:

Luke then set the welder up so that we could tack the bars in place so that we could remove the main hoop and weld everything up.

Unfortunately we had no gas and at the point of realising this it was 6.30 so the local shop to get gas from was closed! Massive fail.

Luckily we had another gas bottle (all be it for mild steel application) so we used this bottle just to put a tack on the cage. We will be scurfing this tack back once we fully weld the tube in position.

With those tubes now tacked in position we wanted to tack the front feet on to the roll cage so that we could remove it and fully weld around it. So we put everything in position and tacked the two front feet into position.

As we had no gas so could do no proper welding to the roll cage we removed everything from the car. We then cleaned up all of the areas that had paint where we needed to weld on the roll cage and inside the car.

Luke had kindly agreed to come around on the Friday to weld the front part of the cage in place so that I could crack on with the car over the weekend. Obviously after I had bought a new gas bottle.

We called it a night after that so packed up and went home.

Quick picture of the cage laid out on the grass:

(don’t worry it is not still there now it was put away in a dry shed lol.)

I got home to find this waiting for me. Just a cheap silicone hose that I am going to use to connect my airfilter to my throttle body adaptor (whenever it gets done!)

Friday 3[SUP]rd[/SUP] August 2012

Well to say that I have had some bad luck with this build is a bit of an understatement !

Luke came into work on the Friday and wasn’t feeling great so promptly went home at about 9am so he could go to the doctors. He went to the doctors who told him to go straight to the hospital with suspected appendicitis. Later the same night he had them removed so he is now out of action for 2 weeks minimum.

Kick in the balls for the project and the schedule but tbh I am just glad he is ok. I feel a bit bad as I told him to stop being a pussy that morning when he said he didn’t feel right.......but what are friends for lol. P.S I can now report he is on the mend and doing ok!

So with no Luke and not a great deal of motivation I decided to start wrapping my interior loom in self amalgamating tape. Brilliant stuff as its oil water resistant and it doesn’t leave a sticky residue should you need to remove the tape at a later date. Did the majority of the front part of the interior loom before running out of tape. Unfortunately no before and after pictures just yet. Once the new tape arrives I shall do.

Another mate Luke popped round to lend a hand as I made a start on wiring up the rear lights, fuel pump. I am taking a bit of a gamble as I have decided to use a PH1 interior loom (front part) and the back part I am planning on using a ph2. Not too sure how that will work out but we shall see.

So I cut all of the tape off of the rear loom and set about getting the Haynes and figuring out which wire goes to what plug. Pretty straight forward.....or so I thought.

Connected up what I thought would work but unfortunately it didn’t. It was as if I had completely wired everything up wrong. I checked it and checked it and checked it but still could not figure out where I went wrong.

I called it a night after that as I was getting a headache from reading the bloody wiring diagrams.

Went round to the girlfriends and she had these waiting for me. Another thing to cross off of the list!

Sunday 5[SUP]th[/SUP] August 2012

Did a couple of hours work on the car as my Nan was having a BBQ so I didn’t want to be too rude and just sit down tinkering with the car all day.

I continued with the wiring and all I managed to do was drain the brand new Odyssey battery I bought and the standard one that I got with the car. The standard one I don’t really care about I can trickle charge that but I am sure that the odyssey battery cannot be trickle charged as it is a dry cell. Does anyone have any idea without causing damage to the battery. Should I just try jumping it when the car is complete>?

Anyway after the batteries died I sacked it off for the night.

Sorry about the no pictures but wiring isn’t exactly interesting is it? Plus recently I have just had a habit of not stopping and forgetting to take pictures.

Monday 6[SUP]th[/SUP] August 2012

Got round to my Nan and granddads and first thing was first.....trickle charge the standard battery. Whilst I left that on I thought I would fill the car with coolant as I had finally remembered to bring a jug with me to my nans.

Spent ages filling the coolant up with a 50/50 mixture. I had to walk the length of the garden to get the water and the jug was only 2L FAIL. I got underneath to check for leaks and sure enough a pin drop every few seconds was coming off of the bottom rad hose! Wiped it clean and felt for any tear s in the hose. Couldn’t feel anything so tried to tighten the jubilee clip. It still leaked so I opted for removing the hose (and wasting a load of coolant!).

Removed the hose and bunged one end with and angle grinder handle, the other one with my hands and then the last port I blew down whilst the hose was submerged under water. I built up the pressure (as much as my lungs could do) and I could not replicate the leak. I examined the hose and it was fine. I then refitted the hose making sure that everything was fitted properly.

I then topped up the coolant and the pin prick leak came back. Tightened the jubilee and wiped it clean and touch wood it has been fine since. I think that I just didn’t have the jubilee clip sitting nicely. Oh well its working now!

I had found out earlier in the day that the positioning of the wires for the PH2 lights is different to the PH1. THANK YOU RENAULT! So armed with this new information I swapped the wires around in the plug and then re connected the MK1 loom to the MK2 plug. Tested it as the battery had been on long enough to use it for a few minutes. EVERYTHING WORKED.....apart from the MK2 brake switch. I still cannot get that to work with the MK1 loom. I wanted to check to see if it worked with he MK1 switch back on it and sure enough it did! Absolutely over the moon. So I can either fabricate the pedal box to accept the MK1 switch or I can get a new pedal box. If anyone has a pic of how the brake switch fits into the pedal box on a mk1 that would be greatly appreciated.

Quick pic of the front part of the loom and how the car is sitting (haven’t got a pic of the back loom yet)

Tuesday 7[SUP]th[/SUP] August 2012

I had thought about the fuel pump long and hard and I could not be bothered to try and get the MK2 pump to work with the MK1 loom. So I decided to fit the MK1 fuel pump.

Unfortunately it was not as straight forward as remove one and refit the other.

The hole in the MK2 tank is considerably smaller that the holes in the tank for the MK1 fuel pump so therefore I had to open out the hole. It took me quite a while to do this as I did not want to go to mad and have a massive hole where fuel vapour could escape from the tank (which is not good).

A few pictures:

Before:

After:

Fuel pump in place with the rubber seal:

Lovely job.

Also when I had found the wiring for the PH1 and PH2 light difference I had come across a wiring diagram done by foxy and matteh. It showed the difference between the PH1 and PH2 brown plug. Where the wires are and what they are. With this in mind I didn’t think that I would be able to use the PH1 main interior loom and the PH2 rear part of the loom.

I then decided to start stripping down the Phase 1 loom of the tape and the unnecessary wiring. The plan now is to use the PH1 rear part of the loom and splice in the PH2 fuel pump plug in. The problem is I need a PH2 fuel pump plug.....can anyone help me out? Obviously I will need to splice in the MK2 rear lights as well but that easy now I know how lol.

I am hoping this will still be done for the September deadline but that will all be dependent on how Luke feels and when he will be up for the remaining welding. There is still a lot to do.

Weld Front part of cage,
Repair sills where we chopped for the cage to fit
Profile and fit the bars that go to the suspension pick up
Make and fit a harness bar
Finish fuel pump wiring
Check wiper wiring
Tape the entire loom
Touch up interior and cage where welding has to be done (matt Black)
Mount clocks
Make switch panel
Fit top dash
Fit indicator and wiper stalks
Install Fire Extinguisher
Install battery
Install isolator switch
Weld passenger seat subframe
Plate holes in car
Run fuel lines
Make and run brake lines
Bleed brakes

And probably still more things to do.......

More updates soon.

Thanks for reading and as always comments always welcome.

 

[Z1gZa]

I don't get tired of following this project.
Do not stop now

 

[Jordanb29]

Just took me about an hour or so to go through this thread, absolutely loads of effort has been put into this! cant wait to see when its finished! Bet this project has been a pain in the arse but at the same time fun? Keep it up!!

 

[Djw John]

Getting closer now!

 

[dmallett]

This is one my favourite projects, work so far looks good!

 

[Squeak]

I don't get tired of following this project.
Do not stop now

I think the girlfriend would kill me if i stopped now the amount of agg she has had to put up with is unreal lol

 

[Squeak]

Just took me about an hour or so to go through this thread, absolutely loads of effort has been put into this! cant wait to see when its finished! Bet this project has been a pain in the arse but at the same time fun? Keep it up!!

Lol yeah it takes a while to read lol. Yeah loads of effort and time more than anything the build itself has been quite resonible cost wise. Still gone over the 2k budget (inc buying the car) lol. Yeah the cage has been the biggest ballache. I wouldnt do it again but ill be glad to say that i have done a cage (not from scratch sod that)

Its getting there

 

[Squeak]

Getting closer now!

It certainly is! looking forward to the break im going to have!

 

[Squeak]

This is one my favourite projects, work so far looks good!

Thanks mate means alot! Dont worry the work quality will remain the same im not going to cut corners this close to the end!