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Project Lightweight, Trackday Clio 172



Interior is painted. ?

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Last monday, it was time to start with the Scrapmetalrally.

We didn't know this when we entered this, but the start was just 2,3 km's from my home. :ROFLMAO:

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The first day was from Zwartemeer Netherlands to Fulda Germany. We drove on the highway, to cover some distance, but also on very narrow roads like this.

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We camped up south of Fulda, and met some nice people from Rotterdam, who we kept meeting up with during the rally.

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Finally it was time for a good beer, and a decent meal.

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The next day, we went to Karlsbad Czech Republic.

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At the end of the day, we got to a campsite which was occupied, so we had to go somewhere else. We arrived at something which must haven been a Stassi trainingscamp in the past or something like that.

We put our tents up in between the very old barracks.

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In the Czech Republic, you see this sign very often. :sneaky:

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The next day, we drove to Salzburg Austria.

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And the final day, it was time to go through some real mountains, entering Italy, and finishing in Hippach Austria.

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At the final checkpoint, we received our medal, and had a some beers and a good time at the campsite. :cool:(y)

We had a really good time, and the only problem we had with our car was a broken headlight bulb. :ROFLMAO:

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@scullyg40 I'll be watching with interest as to how much you save from the doors by gutting them and going poly/lexan windows.

@scotiamr2t It's been a while, but I've got the first one done. I've gutted the inside, fitted polycarbonate window and fitted the carbon mirrors.

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Starting weight of the door was 25 kg's. The bare door, gutted, weighs 9,8 kg's. So by going to fibreglass doors, there's still about 5 kg's to save, but at the cost, it's not worth it for me. Standard glass weighs 3,5 kg's, polycarbonate 3 mm one, weighs 1,5 kg's.
Total weight of the new door is 12,6 kg's. Saving 12,4 kg's, and that's just one door. :cool: Total weight savings 163,7 kg's.
 
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Well, the cage build is done. I spend a lot of hours to get this done, but I am quite pleased with the result, to say the least.

Now that I'm done, it's time to make up the numbers. Offcourse I weighed everything, and although I added nearly 75 kg's of steel, the car has only gained 12 kg's in weight. Very happy with that. And I have still to fit the polycarbonate rear screen, which will save me 5 kg's hopefully? And the lightweight battery, which will also save me another 10 kg's most likely.

Apart from that, I also asked the logistic department at work if I was allowed to use their weighing bridge to finally get a number of the entire car.

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The car weighs:
980 kg's with me and 20 litres of fuel
860 kg's without me, but with 20 litres of fuel. Fuel weighs 0,72 kg/dm3, resulting in 846 kg's for the car alone.

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I also took the opportunity to see the weight over the front and the rear axle.

Front axle weight is: 640 kg's
Rear axle weight is: 340 kg's

This gives a front/rear weight distribution of 65/35.
 
So it was finally time to get this thing and myself back on track. I set the deadline at Jully the 19th, and I made it.

So there we were, back at Zandvoort.

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Can't say I wasn't a bit nervous, as I didn't drive on track for half a year, and also because I didn't know how the car would perform. Would the gear linkage be okay. Would the windows stay in place at high speed etc. But everything turned out okay.

On the way over to buy the tickets, I spotted this thing. Don't even know what it is, but it has got to be the most brutal car I have ever seen in the flesh. A 6.3 V12 with 541 kW. :oops: Catalogue price 371000 Euro. :eek:

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I lined up for the first session.

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Look at the car behind me, a 2016 Porsche 911 GT3 RS, new price over 250000 Euro, that's more than my house. :eek: I'd like to add, that this car did overtake me, but only on the straight. In the corners, I was able to keep up for quite some time. Also, there was a red flag in I believe the first session, and it was because of this car, he got of track, and littered the track with gravel. I can't see this car getting through that completely damage free.

In the first session, I needed to get familiar with the car again, so I took it kinda slow and easy. In session 2 and 3, I had @sjaakmeister as my passenger, and I started to build up speed whenever possible, as it was very busy, especially after the start after a red flag, which we got twice.
In the fourth session, I managed to do 1 or 2 nearly free laps, and I was able to improve my personal best from 2.14 to 2.12, which I'm quite happy with.

 
Been to Assen again today. Had a great day. My wife came along for the day, and I met up with a friend, and a colleague also came by.

I did 5 sessions, the first one was mixed with getting a bit used to the car again, a bit of rain, and a bit code 60. In the 2nd, 3th and 4th session I was able to pick up pace, did a couple of 2.12 laps, and a pr of 2.11, which I was happy with, as my previous personal best was 2.13 The last session, my brakes started to get less, so I had to brake a bit early, and as a result I completed the laps a bit easier and slower, but still good fun.

I do have a couple of videos, but the camera angle wasn't the best, anyway, heres one.

 
When I wanted to refresh my brake fluid, I noticed my tyre have excessive wear on the outsides, and they are colored blue.

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What does this mean? And how do I solve it?
Do I need to change my tracking? Currently it's like this.

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The top one is camber, then caster, then toe.
Hot tyre pressure after each session is checked, and is regulated at 30 psi.

I've noticed that a lot of heat is created with the tyres/brakes after each session. I also feel, that I lack grip coming out of the slower corners. I've always put this down to the low weight of the car, but hopefully someone here can shed a light on the tracking if that might be the case.
I'm thinking I need more camber, but that will also effect my braking. Will more caster be advisable to give more camber just in the corners?

Another issue I discovered is this.

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My left brake pad has crumbled. They are Carbon Lorraine RC5+ and I did my first trackday with them in march 2018. Since then I did about 8 to 10 trackdays I think, with an average of 4 to 5, 20 to 30 minute sessions. Is this normal that they gave up after this amount of track time?
Might it also be heat related that they have crumbled? Should I upgrade to RC6 or higher, or a different brand of brake pads?
 

robzracing

ClioSport Club Member
View attachment 1434069

My left brake pad has crumbled. They are Carbon Lorraine RC5+ and I did my first trackday with them in march 2018. Since then I did about 8 to 10 trackdays I think, with an average of 4 to 5, 20 to 30 minute sessions. Is this normal that they gave up after this amount of track time?
Might it also be heat related that they have crumbled? Should I upgrade to RC6 or higher, or a different brand of brake pads?

See my reply to your other post about this but I'd say they've lasted well. I've just changed my RC6s after 3 races and a test day. 2 of the races were wet hence they have crumbled like yours. (worse than yours actually although they were still attached to the backing plate)
 

George@RTR_Parts

ClioSport Trader
  need BRAKES? PM me
If wanting to try the DS1.11 brake pads get in touch, I've them in stock. Just seen you're in The Netherlands, not a problem i send parts all over the world. I use FedEx as they're the quickest and most reliable international courier I've found. Send me a PM with which parts you're after (as can supply brakes and parts for most cars) and your address and I'll get a quote together and give you an accurate ETA for delivery @scullyg40
 
The weather forecast for Zandvoort the day before the trackday was so bad, that I decided to skip it.
So instead, I made a start with this. :)

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At the moment I am waiting for some aluminium to arrive to make the brackets.

So I continued with my lightweight battery.

Made a battery tray for it.

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I relocated the ECU, to get better access to the brake fluid reservoir, and I placed the lightweight battery in the same position as the original one. This way, there is no need to modify the wires, and moving the battery to the back is pointless with the battery and battery tray weighing just 1,2 kg's.

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Pretty happy with this, as it gives me more room in the engine bay, and saves me a ton of weight. Weight saving with this mod is a staggering 13 kg's, bringing the car weight down to 833 kg's. Unfortunately the splitter will add another 5 or 6 kg's.
 
I did a top speed run on the German Autobahn with the Golf. Pretty sure theres a bit more in it, as I had to let go of the gas because I was closing in on some other traffic. But I'm happy with the pace of the Golf, also because it handles the speed so well. For the UK people on here, 273 km/h is about 170 miles an hour.

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I also got the splitter finished. Very excited about this, can't wait to see what this does on track. :cool::cool:

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It's mounted in 5 points, 3 in the front, and 2 between the wheels. It still flexes a bit on the front, I'll see how it goes, and if necessary I will add splitter rods or something to hold the front in place more.

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It sits 5,5 cm's from the ground, and extends 10 cm's from the air dam, and it goes through underneath the engine, almost to the steering rack. If this isn't functional as a splitter, than I'm lost. If I can't feel a noticable difference, I will remove it and tell everybody aero mods suck. 😁
It weighs 6,2 kg's, which is quite a bit less than my lightweight battery mod, so I didn't add any weight with this basically. Car weight now at 839 kg's. I'm also working on the rear window at the moment which should save 4 or 5 kg's. After that, I think I'm pretty much done with the weight saving programm, and I will probably focus more on the handling, which is when it will get expensive I suppose. 😆
 
Yesterday it was time for another trackday, finally. I was really excited, the weather forecast was very good all week, untill the day before. :mad:

First I need to update on my bootlid, I've made the polycarbonate rear window.

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It didn't work out as nice as I wanted it to, because of the curves in the bootlid, I couldn't get the polycarbonate to sit completely flat at the sides. But it did save me a lot of weight. 3.8 kg's to be exact, bringing car weight back down to 835 kg's. As said before, this is probably as light as the car will be, as I don't see any real weight savings anymore, but time will tell.

To get the car to a trackday in the first place, I need to get in on and off the trailer. This wasn't possible anymore as to how I did it before, because of the splitter. So I did some calculations involving sinus and cosinus etc to see how the ramps needed to be. And this is the result, and I'm happy to say it works, with 1 or 2 cm's to spare. :)

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Then onto the trackday. First session was a wet one, and I needed to bed my new brake pads in so easy on the brakes. Ferodo instructions say you need to brake 25 to 30 times with about 50% braking power and for 4 second periods.
But with the wet session, it was easy to combine this, and just drive the session a bit more relaxed. Nevertheless, I managed to pass 39 cars in total within half an hour. Looked like the other cars had a lot more issues with the slippery track than me, as can be seen below.



Second session it was dryer on the racing line, but still moist next to it. Pace went up quite a bit, and I really enjoyed myself. What's remarkable about this session, is that at the end of the first lap, I got passed by a big SUV. :LOL::unsure: What the f**k? We looked up the specs on the way home, and it was a Alfa Romeo Stelvio with a 2.9 v6 bi-turbo, with 510 hp. :oops: I was able to close up in the corners, but not that much that I was able to keep up. Good fun. :cool:



Third session was mostly a code 60 so not much to say there, except that I blew a hose of, which looked to be a coolant hose, but it was at the back of the engine, and I couldn't really see what it was. Because of this I called it a day and went home. I now know it's the engine breather, and it's just a very minor issue.
 
Yesterday it was time to go to Racepark Meppen, a small track just 20 minutes from my house. I wanted to go there for a while, and now the opportunity was there. Although in the middle of december, the weather was not ideal, but at the end of the day, the track dryed up, and laptimes increased.

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First session was wet, and I got heavy rain during the session. There were a lot of spins, but I managed to stay out of trouble.
Second session, still wet.
Third session, some dry lines started to appear.
Last session, there was a clear dry line, and laptimes started to drop. This was the XL session, which is half an hour. At the end of the session, my car died, and I had some lights on the dash. Tried to restart, but it died immediately, and I had to get towed of the track. After some thinking with @sjaakmeister during diner, we thought it could be fuel. And it turned out to be an empty fuel tank. 😇

Video of the first part of the last session, starting to get dark already.



As a conclusion, I really liked the track, and had a really good day.

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Apparantely my buddy @sjaakmeister wasn't really happy with our conclusion that it was just fuel which caused the car to die because of the lights which lid up on the dash, as can be seen at the end of this video.




He sent me a very usefull link to do a bit of simplistic diagnosting, which is this one.



Topics like that should be a sticky if you ask me, but anyway. It says that if an 'h' showes up while doing the test, it is the oil level sensor. I was able to reset this, and measure the resistance on the sensor, it was 9,4 Ohms, which according to the topic is just right.

The oil level itself was a bit lower than when I did my last check during the trackday, so my conclusion has to be that the oil level at the place of the sensor was to low during the long right hander, causing this to happen. I can't thank @sjaakmeister enough for his help, as I would have never found out myself, but I did buy him pizza after the trackday, so that should level things out a bit I suppose. :LOL:

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Now I just have the problems, that my diagnostic port doesn't work, and my fuel gauge has a bit of a life of it's own. :unsure:
 
As I had a puddle of water beneath the radiator, it seemed a good idea to change the radiator. As I had a Spal fan laying in my garage it seems a good idea to mount that at the same time.

Because a radiator has a pretty hard time on a track car, I bought the cheapest I could find. Immediately I noticed a difference, namely that the fins on the new one are much thicker, and fewer, as can be seen here.

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Other than that, the fitment is good, but I'm not really sure if, and how this will affect cooling capacity.

To mount the Spal fan, I had to make a bracket.

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Then it was time to mount it all back.

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I've saved another 700 grams, but I've gained enormous in space, so that my big sausage fingers can reach the butterfly plug on the gearbox. Checking oil level, and changing the oil filter is also very easy now.

One question though. Who can tell me which sensor this is?

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It's mounted behind the original radiator, I guess it's the air temperature sensor? I've just cable tied it for now.
 
How much polycarb did you get mate. I'm going to do the same.

I had to look it up, but here it is.

1 plate 1230x560 mm
2 plates 800x470 mm
2 plates 1000x500 mm

The windows on the side turned out okay, but the rear window doesn't look to pretty if you are bothered about that. There's to many curves in the bootlid.

@scullyg40 Whats your plan with the laguna/cup racer hubs? I got a pair recently but its the coilover that is the problem, either find some original ones or get your ones custom mounts

For now, my plans are to go for the PMS Roll Center Correction kit, as to my opinion, it's just the best option around, because part of the roll center correction and bump steer correction is already in the Laguna hub itself. A bit of track width gain is also welcome, and the bump steer is adjustable. But that being said, if I do come across a nice set of @NorthloopCup I will buy those as well, but my budget doesn't allow that earlier than next year I suppose. :rolleyes::sneaky:
I've got BC Racing coilovers, so they are not a problem to customize, as the strut and the coilover are separate items. So it is easy to modify the BC racing strut to the 65 mm of the Laguna hubs with the PMS plates.
 
Because my car jumped out of gear 2 times at the last trackday, I thought it was about time to beef up my engine mounts. I have to add, it happened just 2 times, in the same braking zone, which was bumpy, and it was wet, so my ABS got activated as well.

Since I'm to cheap to spend a fortune on some Vibratechnics, let alone the PMS engine mounts, I looked at alternatives, which I found, thanks to this thread:


Getting everything sealed up was a bit of an issue, glad I tested it with water first, but I managed to get it al sealed. Mixed the 2 components together, and poured it into the mounts.

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Let's see how this goes. Engine movement is eliminated for sure, but vibration is present to say the least. :ROFLMAO:
 
I ordered 2 packages, and the first one, my Powerflex black wishbone bushes, arrived. I can't wait to get the second package, as it contains some really cool stuff :cool::p Not gonna say what, but it has to do with the first package. :giggle:

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I also did a small upgrade to the GTI. Normally, I'm to much of a purist to mess with the badges, but I felt since the car has 300 hp, and Clubsport brakes, it is allowed to wear a performance badge. But I did it because I think it matches much better with the red line in the front, and the red badges on the side and contrast nice on the dark grey body.

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Some big changes to be made! So you will be using those mounting brackets on the bcs.. And do you have alignment settings in mind? If It was me Id be going for a lot of caster, but I know you use manual steering which will make the steering even heavier, as the increase in mechanical trail.

Also can you post bigger pictures? I couldnt see the diy poly bush very well
 
Some big changes to be made! So you will be using those mounting brackets on the bcs.. And do you have alignment settings in mind? If It was me Id be going for a lot of caster, but I know you use manual steering which will make the steering even heavier, as the increase in mechanical trail.

Also can you post bigger pictures? I couldnt see the diy poly bush very well

I can answer your first question, but regarding posting bigger pictures, I haven't got a clue how. :ROFLMAO:

I consider this a pretty big upgrade, very interested to see what all the fuzz is about.
Regarding alignment, I'll see how much caster can be achieved within the wheelarches.
I'm not to worried about the steering, my arms are bigger than most of the legs of the EPAS drivers. :ROFLMAO::ROFLMAO::p
Just kidding ;), but caster can be adjusted through the topmounts, and the adjustable plates from PMS. I'm also using the Cup wishbones. Camber and toe will be about the same as before I suppose.
 


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