Regy53's Track supercharged Clio

[Regy53]

Thought i would post a build thread for here

Hi All

Bought this in october, i come from a long line of performance cars but never really a track specific car for many years (2007) I have owned some very high performance cars in my time usually with a supercharger that they shouldn't have (rs4 supercharged, e46 m3 supercharged, mg zs supercharged) most recently i had a rs4 supercharged (620 bhp) but it just wasn't fun these are second / third cars to me so rarely used.

I wanted something that i could take to track and have a good crack with it, a friend had a clio 200 and i nearly bought it but knew after reading clio 197 that i would want more power very quickly. I saw this car and Pm'd the owner about some details, it turns out it was perhaps possible to buy and the rest is a big hole in the bank...

I could have bought much more sorted cars (r26 turbo conversion cars) for less money, and to be honest maybe a fool and his money and all, but i just didn't want to ruin the chassis and drive that Renault had created with the clio, high reving fairly low torque engine makes for a good track car, the turbo conversions are all great but i just dont buy into the sound and while it may be faster its not always about every last tenth

A bit of this is stolen from the previous owners thread but here she is and spec

• 
  
  
  • Rotrex c30-94 supercharger
  • Custom intercooler + pipework
  • Rotrex supercharger oil cooler
  • Forge dump valve
  • Mocal oil catch tank
  • KTR engine mounts + steady bar
  • White silicone coolant pipes
  • ARP rod bolts
  • 630cc injectors
  • Quaife differential
  • KTR light weight flywheel
  • 4 paddle helix clutch + pressure plate
  • Gearbox rebuilt with uprated (new variant) syncros
  • Alcon front brake conversion
  • pagid rs19 front pads
  • Megane r26r rear discs
  • Pagid rs2 rear pads
  • AP 5.1 brake fluid
  • Braided brake lines
  • Gaz gold coilovers/ adjustable front + rear damping with race weight springs
  • Gaz adjustable top mounts
  • Rear camber shims
  • Full 4 wheel geometry set up
  • KTR adjustable carbon front strut brace
  • Full Mark fish motorsport roll cage (safety devices bolt in)
  • Sparco 4 point harnesses
  • Sparco steering wheel
  • Sparco Circuit 2 seats (previously
  • KTR pro performance exhaust
  • Toyosport manifold
  • KTR decat pipe
  • KTR delete pipe
  • OZ ultraleggera wheels 17x8 black carbon dipped with NS2R's (soon to be rainsports 3's)
  • OZ ultralagerras wheels 17x8 Matt black with R888R
  • PMS Stud + nut conversion kit
  • Carbon exhaust trims
  • Carbon front splitter
  • Black badges ( sorry @LOCKE )
  • Sabelt tow strap
  • Custom "supercharged" badge on rear
  • Classic / Dynamique rear spoiler
  • De-wipered rear window
  • RS alloy gear knob with leather gator
  • Custom made dash/a-pillar gauge pods
  • AEM boost, AFR, oil temp, oil pressure gauges
  • Alpine head unit (removed just now)
  • Alpine front door speakers
  • Alpine amplifier (removed just now)
  • Rear interior stripped
  • KTR rear carpet
  • Lifeline plumbed in electric fire extinguisher system (discrete install)

Charger kit installed by Jamsport, Mapped and finished by RS Tuning running 315bhp & 230lb

Since i have owned it i had to install a higher seat mount as i am a short ass, fitted a new manifold due to old one blowing and dont not much else (it didn't need it)

One thing with this car is, its hard to show how clean it really is. Its immaculate and a credit to the former keepers

I have taken it to Bedford and had a good crack with a v12 Ferrari allbeit on road tyres (he was behind) it really is a well sorted motor that is hard to think what you could have more fun it. I found along the huge back straight when i reached for 6th i needed more power for now this thing is unreal

it throws a flame every gearchange

PR_171113_MSVT_BA_0326 by Ross c, on Flickr
PR_171113_MSVT_BA_1337 by Ross c, on Flickr
PR_171113_MSVT_BA_1725 by Ross c, on Flickr
img_8209-jpg by Ross c, on Flickr
img_8205-jpg by Ross c, on Flickr
F4434274-C453-4936-AD44-FD99775A9E67 by Ross c, on Flickr
IMG_5711 by Ross c, on Flickr
IMG_5739 by Ross c, on Flickr
IMG_6257 by Ross c, on Flickr
IMG_6270 by Ross c, on Flickr
IMG_8105 by Ross c, on Flickr

upload_2017-9-17_17-1-29 by Ross c, on Flickr

 

[Regy53]

Thanks guys

It’s not road legal anymore and is a dedicated track car so the chances are I will be looking to lose a bit more weight from it as it’s sill a heavy girl I would imagine 40 kg is fairly easy

I am at brands hatch tommorow expecting to fail noise but we will see

 

[Regy53]

It is road legal I just havnt got it taxed or mot’d or insured

Basically I trailer it to track days very litttle chance of me using it on the road

It would pass a mot though so long as I put cats back in

 

[Regy53]

Was black flagged at brands but had a great half hour in the damp, as the dry lines started to appear you could push a bit more although i had never done the track i was driving very tame

Spent the afternoon giving it a clean, Probably been on track 2 hours since i have had it and towing it behind my range rover yesterday in the mist caused a lot of filth down the sides and on the front. Wish i had a enclosed trailer

Took the wheels of and gave each arch a good wash, wheels inside and out and gave the outside a clean and wax. You can see in the winter i cant take the car any further than the concrete in my yard, its just grim.

I must say this is the cleanest car i have ever owned a credit to the former keepers, there are some tar spots i should have removed first but i didn't have time. Not sure if i will do another track day before the new year so will be put away for now. I need to look through the receipts work out what oil has been used in the past also what pads to buy so i have spares.

Untitled by Ross c, on Flickr
Untitled by Ross c, on Flickr
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[Regy53]

Is it really that loud?!

It is in its current guise, Ktec have said when there exhaust was released it was fine but now so many are fitting manifolds etc it really changes the noise

Great combo, I've got a Clio 200 Cup and a Rotrex supercharger. Except my charger is in my MX5..

Totally agree with your love of superchargers though. For me they keep the character of a car but it's like you've got another litre of engine capacity.

100% it is such a natural choice without changing the chassis dynamics to much

Looks awesome, quite fancy a 197/200 as a second car.

But... It's not road legal, and you can't drive it on a track due to noise. So apart from towing it around with your range rover what do you do with it?!

well i will change the exhaust silencing now, Bedford are known for being strict and brands is a few DB higher, it was worth seeing. Other tracks like Donny are much better but I will make it quieter so i can go to all.

you should get a 197 / 200 there great fun

Here is a video its a bit lame as you really cant see how wet it was or greasy, i was taking it very steady as people kept binning it into the gravel which is somewhere i did not want to go, just finding the grip my first 20 mins at brands ever although the last bend i found tricky there was no grip in any part. I was also not being aggressive with wanting to overtake just taking my time and learning the lines etc You will see somewhere in the video i lost second gear so went to put it into third and turns out it was first, quick thinking solved that..also no idea why but movie maker ruined the quality

 

[Regy53]

So I cant remember why I sold this car but back then I was looking to move house and it just suited.

My friend bought it from me done 6 track days with it since, has abused it a bit but i bought it back yesterday as a bit of a restoration project. It was so very clean before and it needs a bit of a rebuild really. It has stood outside in that time and you can tell. I have just ordered a 4 poster for my workshop at work and this will live there and be my little project along with my engineer who works for my company.

It is still on 42k and it had 42k on when I sold it in 2017

Will document the rebuild and work but

suspension needs a refurb
has a oil leak from the gearbox
timing belt
general untidyness
brakes are not as smart as they were
badges etc faded
seats faded
filthy dirty everywhere
bits removed and missing (dials, exhaust trim)
steering wheel gone hard

going to get it on the ramp next week, get the front bumper off access the gearbox and general condition of it all. I may look to see if we should rebuild the charger as its been on for 6 years, clean everything up a good service.

I may look at doing a engine build for some fun but will see. One things for sure im very pleased to have it back, i love this little car it has a lot of presence


Untitled by Ross c, on Flickr
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[Regy53]

So all your friend did in this time was rag it senseless and not maintain it, leave it sat outside, and at some point apparently have the lovely satin black wheels hydrodipped with a carbon fibre effect?

You need a new friend.

Ah it had two sets of rims one was carbon dipped and the others black... I have both

Also yes pretty much, a friend with a to much ££ he spent about 7k on it doing bits but it still needs my touch to bring it back to how it was.

I took delivery of a two post ramp last week hopefully installed this coming week for the work to start

 

[Regy53]

Jeez how do you sink 7K into a Clio at all, let alone doing it and ending up with a car that appears to be the same as when he started!

Hope its fairly easy to get it minty again. I must say I think the black wheels look much better.

Messed around with exhausts and brakes and other bits, its quieter now which is good but the charger makes a lot of noise, need to re route the intake if possible.

The reason for the wheel change is the r888’s on the black rims are spent

I think i need to sink 1.5-2k into this at the moment the seats being faded really bugs me, likely take them out and sell them and replace with new. They are still in date was also tempted to try and dye them but sounds a right faff

 

[Regy53]

So a brief update to this, we installed a 2 poster at work for cars but mainly its for this for now.

It was a little worse than we thought all together and the car has had a big strip down at work.

The underneath was luckily just dirty so not much needed there but anything that can rust has, such as the braided hoses etc, little bits on the refurbed brake calipers, springs, rear calipers were disgusting under the paint.

Sitting under a tree for 3 years is really incredible, the grim is everywhere, So i went to work cleaning it up and pictures will follow this was the strip down

Untitled by Ross c, on Flickr

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The air filter was ruined, all broken up.

So we set out taking it to bits, mainly wheels off, coilovers off, brakes off, front bumper and rads etc off, all coolant hoses off as they were once white but now covered in just grime.

I will grab a few more pics in the week but so far we have sent of the shocks back to gaz for a refurb, the springs are of to a powder coaters as they were looking tired, new rear calipers and ds2500 rear pads ordered, front caliper parts ordered to get rid of rusty bits, new brake lines ordered..

When I got it my mate said they see it was leaking oil, initially it was thought it was the gearbox but it looks to be coming from the air filter, which was directly mounted to the charger..... So Rotrex chargers can let by if the reservoir is higher than the charger itself. I think because the car has sat forever its been doing this a lot. It suggests the oil seal in the charger is failing. Which cannot be replaced so TTS say

More worryingly though is this,

Untitled by Ross c, on Flickr

That is the top of the charger, the ally is breaking up. It has been fitted for 7 years now and looks like it was done up to tight but also the metal is eating the ally, worse is the big crack at the oil inlet union that is likely to fail any time, that my friends is a dead charger really, we cant get it of as the bolts are siezed solid but even if we can we cannot replace this part so its kinda dead I suppose. Since this kit was built many others have followed suit, and in that time some better design mounts have been made which would mean this wont happen. So after some research I actually found somebody who can repair this charger or supply me a rebuilt one for a lot cheaper than a new one (new is 2k) and i have ordered a better mount design with Supreme motorsport. Hopefully a few weeks and we will have this. I will have to modify the pipework to the intercooler but this will be a much better solution, it will mount where the unused air con pully is now.

so parts on order, parts of for refurb and some work to do, next week we will tackle the cam belt, water pump, plugs and oil service.

I was pretty down about it all this week, the more you look at the worse it gets and I didn't pay cheap money for the car, I actually thought I was buying my old car back with 7 k spent on it making improvement's. Once i found the charger rebuild place i felt a bit better

Will grab some other pictures this week, I also took of all the arch liners and had a good clean everywhere with the yard steam cleaner which helped. Its looking a lot brighter already

 

[Regy53]

Was going to say about dying them, but then actually read your post. Is it more of a faff than paying through the nose to replace them?
I guess you could recoup a fair bit of the cost of replacement by selling yours, but you'll still be out of pocket!

Yep i am going to sell them, they are still in date for racing so hopefully i can maybe get half the cost of new ones for the pair of used... will see they have hardly been used. I have looked at dying them but it looks a bit mixed with results and really i will never be happy as i'm to ocd

I've got a Rotrex charger and AFAIK it's a one and done thing, makes it expensive when they do fail.

Edit: sorry just saw you found someone, who is it? Mine is actually ok as it turns out, but might be worth knowing for the future.

Its a guy on FB, he says hes flat out. https://www.facebook.com/UKSuperchargerRepairs
very handy to know, it is still expensive though, Im paying £700 to change for a rebuilt unit with low friction bearings plus £100 for oil and £50 for a filter. Cheapest I could find a new unit was from Europe which is £2k plus vat

 

[Regy53]

Thanks, does he warranty them at all?

Mine came in a kit from the US, think I paid about £2.5/3k on the lot, brackets, piping and inter cooler and all plumbing.

Im not sure he does also another risk i suppose. But must know what hes doing

 

[Regy53]

So its been a few weeks since the last update. this is a project on the side of my main business so we have looked to find time to get it back.


It got put onto the ramps and striped down in a big way. The coilovers were sent to Gaz for a recondition, although they only do the insides we tidied up the outsides using a bench grinder with a wire type wheel, and then added a light coat of hammerite. I sent the spings of to shotblast and powder coat as they were pretty messy


Untitled by Ross c, on Flickr


great result in the end


The supercharger was leaking oil from the main seal, its a common thing. Also as you saw above it was pretty spent, the metal had eaten into the Aluminum so with the help of Supreme motorsport who told me about somebody who refurbs them I was able to send the charger off, he had a spare oil pump housing, i had all the bearings replaced for low friction ones and seals replaced at the same time. Reading about it some people suggest the bearing can help create up to a pound of boost so that will be interesting. At the same time i went for supreme motorsports charger mounting. Mine was done 7 years ago and was a flat plate of metal that actually used the air conditioning compressor to mount of. It meant the charger was literally in the front bumper and allowed for a very tight fitting air filter and to be honest a lot of weight on the front end. The kit from Supreme takes of the Air conditioning compressor itself which is fine as it was not connected anyway. The result will be a much nicer weight as well as a easier way to find a better air intake solution


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We spent a long time degreasing and cleaning the wheel arches while the liners were out. I also gave the calipers refurb with new seals. The old ones had blown all the paint and were disgusting underneith. These are temporary I just wanted to get the car back to working condition so I stripped the paint of again using the bench grinder steel wheel and a few other tools. Then just painted them with some high temp paint to hopefully match the fronts.

old

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new, i also gave the disk a little once over with a wheel and a light coat of paint which will clean up with some light braking. Fitted then with Ferodo DS2500 pads as the RS29's were spent.

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A lot of nuts and bolts were rusty, so these were all sanded back and given a coat of hammerite.


This weekend i set upon cleaning the front suspension area and scuttle panel, if you look at the history of this car it was so mint i had to get it like this. I forgot to get a full pic but even after a steam clean it was still so mucky so from this

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to

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however i soon realized i needed to do more, i pulled the windscreen trims to find


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Luckily i have a full plant workshop so i have a tool from autosmart which fires cleaning fluid and high pressure air (like a turbo nozle) out via the compressor which helped a lot in this clean. You can imagine as well i pulled the door seal off etc to clean that too


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Seeing what was under that made me thing i should probably remove the rear bumper to see what's there but luckily it wasn't to bad, i previously wanted to do this but the project was getting far to big

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So the front suspension is now on as is the rear and i can finally roll this car back to the wash bay to get in all the tough areas, it will then go back to the ramp to a bit more detailing, and then we will start on the charger mounting.


I also changed all the brake hoses including to the rear calipers with Supreme motorsport's braided version.


So lots going on but everywhere we turn the job gets a bit worse, at the same time we are getting through it and i'm happy with the progress made

 

[Regy53]

The suspension is all together and brakes back on. Bled up with some rbf600 fluid . New rear pads ( ds2500 ) The fronts are not the best but just want to get it running before going mad again


Cleaned up the rear end and got the bumper refitted loads better too


also got the cam belt replaced last week ... now we can really get traction in the new year getting it back together

 

[Regy53]

Its been some time since i updated and where do i start, very little work took place over the last 6 months, just been to busy, but managed to get the lads onto it this last few weeks and got her running and back on the ground, we was able to move the charger resivior to level to the charger to reduce load on the seals when stood, as well as moving the oil cooler
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We did things like new gearbox oil, new mud guards, cleaned the steering wheel. Went to it today for a MOT tommorow and the bottom ball joint is knocking. So its currently back on the ramp having it all stripped down to send to Supreme Motorsport for their uprated ball joints on both sides, I will also replace the drop links and rotation links at the same time and probably the front wheel bearings
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Frustrating as i had it booked it for a full alightment on the 31st
I also managed to give it a wash and a quick machine polish, amazing how much iron contaminants was on the car too

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[Regy53]

So I booked a MOT for this and noticed a slight knock on the steering.... back into the blooming workshop she went. Another quick message to Supreme and i ordered uprated bushes and arms for the car. My lads were struggling to remove the ball joints so we sent them to supreme who did some amount of decent work, aqua jetting the parts and fitting all the bits. New wheel bearings too


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Annoyingly the knock is still there, somebody has mentioned something to do with the but on the steering rack / column but not looked.

While its been sat on the ramp we have noticed a little coolant leak that just wets the hoses to drips, we couldn't find anything so the lads took the off and put them under a bit of pressure. The KTR coolant hoses have somehow got a few pin pricks in them which is weird, basically they have failed. I had the mot booked in so I didn't want to cancel AGAIN and i couldn't find a hose kit anywhere, i stuck a blob of glue on the pricks and wraped them with some sort of miracle tape from hellfords.

With the car pretty much fresh as they come I took it for a MOT which passed with flying color's, I got around 100 miles on the car and it was faultless, i noticed a drone on the rear which might be the old disks or even the calipers so I am going to get a set of refurbed calipers from Supreme and then change the disks out. I also managed to get a set of black coolant hoses also which are coming next week


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at the end of the day i parked it in my garage, it has been on a ramp for over a year so its a bit weird but under the garage door openers light the colour just pops like mad

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So until next week when it will go for a 4 wheel alignment on monday at northants motorsport then its back to the workshop for a little bit more works (hoses and brakes) then some new seats and im away.... lol

 

[Regy53]

So to keep this up to date.

Went of and had the roof rewrapped the old stuff came of ok given it was kept poorly in that time, also got a new sticker put on

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The 4 wheel alignment was carried out, had my second set of wheel powdercoated and fitted new MRF semi slicks , replaced coolant hoses due to a weep and booked a track day
XSPC (473) by Javelin Trackdays, on Flickr

Everything went great for about 30 mins on track and I started to lose power and then got a huge whiff of fuel in the cabin, pulled in and couldnt find what it was but the catch tank was full of vapour which was weird. Called it a day and went home.

Upon looking at it we couldnt work out what was up so did a compression test. Found two cylinders low. I found a brand new forged engine for sale by Supreme motorsport who had decided to go a different way for his shop car. Its got forged rods / pistons, head work and lots of brand new nice stuff. Bought that up x mas last year. Car sat there all year untill yesterday where we had time in the workshop to strip the engine out and get this show on the road

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[Regy53]

I’ve just read your whole thread and what an awesome car, it must shock a few people on track too although it seems you’ve had a bit of a hard time with it the second time around it’s a shame it was mistreated as it looked (looks again) a really clean car.

I have a 197 for track and i’m thinking about going down the supercharger route (research brought me to your thread) as I think they’re great on track but I’d like that bit more power.
Im guessing sourcing the parts separately to make the kit could work out quite a bit cheaper especially if a rebuilt supercharger could be found?
Also what have you done or doing with the old engine?

Cheers, just seen this sorry

A lot more supercharged clips out there now, this was or is the original from 2012.
I diddnt really feel the need for more power really apart from say the long back straght at Bedford where it lacked passed 120 . I have seen upward of 350 on stock internals but I doubt it’s reliable at all.
The supercharger bracket is the only thing you need to buy really as it’s done and dusted then. Rest you could do as you wish I suppose . Good luck