Re: The life of... SharkyUK's Trophy [& Fred's V6]
June 2014 - Update (continued)...
So yeah - today was a bit of an emotional rollercoaster!
I finally had to end the dream that was
ragging the s**t out of Fred's V6. I gave it a quick clean before leaving the house...
...and made my way towards BTM Towers. I won't lie, it was actually quite gutting to hand the keys back. How he managed to prise them from my fingers I don't know. (How I managed to park the Vee in the small-ish gap first time I'll never know, either...) Anyways, my life has been enriched by a year (as good as) driving this wonderful machine everyday. I am determined to enjoy one again in the future. In the meantime I will have to turn my attention to the Trophy (damn shame)
and the small matter of finding somewhere else to live!
So yes, I arrived at BTM and was greeted by the pink b*tch - affectionately referred to as CBR by those fortunate enough to work on it (Le
Clio
Bastard
Rouge). It was good to see it again as I hadn't laid eyes on it since January 2013! It was exactly how I remembered it; pink and with Aerocatches.
With the V6 keys safely in his pocket, Fred invited me to take a look at the Trophy and opened up the bonnet. Yes, it looks absolutely fantastic under there. I might be biased, I admit that, but it looked the nuts. Purposeful and with shiny bits. With key in ignition he turned over the engine and it kicked into life; no dramas whatsoever. In fact, it was running really nicely considering it hasn't yet been mapped. With a few miles already on the new engine (courtesy of a few laps around the block) Fred what pleasantly surprised at how well it appeared to be running (having expected it to run like a dog). It also sounded fantastic. With a brief injection of a few extra revs the ITB's barked into life and sounded so much nicer than my previous setup. A hell of a lot nicer! :evil: Naturally I jumped at the opportunity to take it for a spin around the industrial estate (steadily). Even at steady speeds it felt great (ignoring the fact that the Sachs need a few turns one way or another to restore the balance) and I instantly remembered why I love this car and have persevered with it. It felt nimble, light and ultra-responsive on the throttle pedal (even at low speeds) but I guess it would after driving the Vee for a year solid! I'm quite excited (more than excited) as I think it will be a very nicely sorted Clio once the mapping has been done. Here's hoping the mapping is trouble-free and no major dramas are encountered along the way.
Here are a few pics. I'll get some more with my proper camera once it's home. Sadly I was a knobhead and didn't video the engine running. Oops
The reworked wiring loom just looks so much tidier and that fuel rail is tidy, too.
The plan now is to run it in a little more and then to get it to Paul at RS Tuning asap. He will then run it in and map it for me. From there it will then need to be MOT'd by a friendly test station
Especially considering the fact that it would appear I have the world's smallest sport cat ever... No wonder passing emissions testing in the past has been difficult.
The final point to address will be the radiator as the polo rad that is in there is.. not the best. But this was known and it was decided to go with the polo rad as a temporary measure. Thankfully I don't have too much trouble in terms of standing traffic and jams to cause overheating over here in Wales, but - even so - on a hot day (like today in fact) it does creep up the temperature scale when standing. The upshot of this being that the fans are pretty much on constantly. Hopefully, after a bookface chat earlier, there may well be a good solution to this in terms of getting a custom radiator fabricated and fitted.
Happy days! Fingers crossed for the forthcoming mapping. And I guess I'd better hit a few banks as I need to pay for it soon I would imagine. S**t.
