Renault Clio 182 - Michelin Track Car

[andyc123_123]

Hi Guys,

I managed to get my hands on a Racing Blue 182 back in August 2016 after much looking & debating. The car in question was brought from another Forum member.

First impressions of the car are good! Expectations are always high when there are so many good examples out there. Generally pleased with what I got. My plan at the time was to just enjoy it and take things slowly, however the idea of making into a great looking and performing track car was appealing. Especially as the Racing Blue examples are generally kept in pristine condition rather than stripped down and raced.

So here it is back in August 2016 when work had began already shortly after I brought it. Funny thing is I brought the car without viewing it or driving it, as the price was too good to be true. I only paid £950. Which going by today's values still seems a steal! Anyway here are some pictures...

IMG_20170923_155200 by ANDREW COLLINS, on Flickr

Fast forward to this year, the car looks very different and will continue to evolve over the coming months. Earlier this year we was approach by Performance French Car Magazine for a feature (released March) Which I was very pleased with, great write up and images.. Even though it snowed all day! I've got my hands on the images from the shoot, here are some of my favourites.

image%3A13007 by ANDREW COLLINS, on Flickr

image%3A13008 by ANDREW COLLINS, on Flickr

image%3A13009 by ANDREW COLLINS, on Flickr

image%3A13006 by ANDREW COLLINS, on Flickr

I've had a few photo's from friends of the car just after had the wrap done.

IMG-20181102-WA0001 by ANDREW COLLINS, on Flickr

IMG-20181105-WA0000 by ANDREW COLLINS, on Flickr

IMG-20181102-WA0002 by ANDREW COLLINS, on Flickr

IMG-20181105-WA0001 by ANDREW COLLINS, on Flickr

Sorry its so picture heavy! I'd love to hear your feedback on it.

Thanks for looking.


Any advice is welcome and appreciated.

[andyc123_123]

Thanks mate. Totally agree, there great fun on and off the track...

[andyc123_123]

Ph1listine said:

Wow! Those F1s look unbelievably good! What kind of weight is it now and much been done to the engine?

Thank you mate. Its been stripped off everything that isn't needed put it that way. All sound deadening, stripped wiring and painted gloss white shell inside. Engine wise nothing major yet.. Exhaust, intake. Throttle Bodies over winter.

[andyc123_123]

Feirny said:

So good to see this the way it is now, I loved owning that car.

Thanks mate. It was a good starting base in fairness. Can't bring myself to sell it now.

[andyc123_123]

Another good update.

I got the car back from Beaniesport yesterday. Had a sports CAT fitted and a few minor cosmetic interior changes. Also had the car MOT'd and it passed with one advisory, which for 116k I'm pretty pleased with.

I'm hoping to give the interior a deep clean at the weekend, with the intention of a track day at the end of the month.

A few quick pictures back at home. Before it's back in the humble garage.

Back from MOT by ANDREW COLLINS, on Flickr

Back from MOT by ANDREW COLLINS, on Flickr

Back from MOT by ANDREW COLLINS, on Flickr

[andyc123_123]

Robmarriott said:

I only paid £1200 for my Cup with a dead fuel pump fuse and thought I'd got a bargain but apparently not!

Who did the wrap?

That's still a great deal on a cup! Compared to the values of them now.. We've all seen the Trophy's shoot up in value. The guys at 3SixtyWraps Northampton did the work. Great reputation, couldn't of asked for better service!

[andyc123_123]

Wow! I'm chuffed with that. Didn't think it would go down this well. Thank you PH.

[andyc123_123]

ianwayne said:

Well done on a brave purchase. According to the MoT history, it's MoT would have expired 4 months previously in Aug 2016!

113k miles would put many people off too. Nice to see someone taking the plunge and making a car what they want it to be.

Thank you firstly. Yeah you're right on the MOT history. We brought the car with no MOT and without viewing it as the car was quite a distance for us, especially if we're not able to drive it back. So took the plunge and arrange pick up using a recovery truck.

The price and opportunity was too good to miss out on, I'm pleased with how it looks so far... Thanks for the kind words!

[andyc123_123]

Oggy172 said:

Ah, Sporky.
I bought this from Feirny in Aug 2013, it was due to be my main car Until my now wife offloaded her Mk5 golf GTi onto me about 3 months after I bought this.

Once I lost £4k in 6 months on the Golf I bought a Porsche instead.
Poor old Sporky took the hit as a victim of circumstance, I think I sold it for £750 to the owner before Andy after covering less than 10k in it.

It was inevitably worth more but as I was clearly in the mood for haemorrhaging money at that time I just sold it to the first person who showed interest! Think it sold in under 40 minutes!

Andy's done a great job with it, I miss it although I barely drove it. I'll find myself in a French stbox again soon enough.

It's great to see it live on, it'd still be in my garage doing nothing if I hadn't put it on eBay!

Hey Oggy!

Yes the ol' Spork lives on..

That's some background on the car, I remember emailing you on CS after I brought it when I was searching for previous owners on there about 3 years ago. How time flies!

Thanks for the kind words too mate, I've been tempted to sell so many times when it's been in bits or broken. You'd definitely not regret buying another french box!

Thanks again for the compliment.

[andyc123_123]

Small update today. So we decided to check out Caffeine & Machine in Warwickshire, great place! Immensely popular for just a Sunday morning, Really diverse and tasty stuff pulling in all day.

I didn't manage to get any pictures of the 182 parked up here, however I did take one or two as I looked around.

Caffeine and machine by ANDREW COLLINS, on Flickr

Need one of these next I think, in red maybe.

Caffeine and machine by ANDREW COLLINS, on Flickr

Got bored waiting for my lunch here..

Caffeine and machine by ANDREW COLLINS, on Flickr

Nice way to promote in pride of place.

Caffeine and machine by ANDREW COLLINS, on Flickr

Caffeine and machine by ANDREW COLLINS, on Flickr

Love the artwork here.

[andyc123_123]

A quick update,

I spent some time on it Sunday giving the inside a good clean and tidying up any unfinished bits. Managed to adjust the seating position slightly lower, which feels a lot better already.

I started touching up any of the white paintwork, this was looking rather tired in places as it was originally done 12 months ago.

Finished off by hoovering the whole thing, shampooed and cleaned the seats and dash.

I've also got a rather exciting update at the end of the week. I feel it may be a longer term modification but well worth it...

A couple of pictures during the process.

Finishing and Cleaning the interior. by ANDREW COLLINS, on Flickr

Finishing and Cleaning the interior. by ANDREW COLLINS, on Flickr

Finishing and Cleaning the interior. by ANDREW COLLINS, on Flickr

[andyc123_123]

Small update,

I've been finding on recent trips that there is no where to put anything.. Phone, wallet, Bottle of water! So I came across 'Trackcar Doorcards' who supplied the door card setup themselves, but now supply the door nets. Not only functional but look great too.

I also took the car to CGR in Leighton Buzzard last week to have the coilover's setup correctly too, which has made a world of difference. Looking forward to a track day towards the end of July now.

Lastly I'll be heading up to the Cliosport meet at Caffeine & Machine on Sunday 21st if anyone is going.

IMG_20190709_152426 by ANDREW COLLINS, on Flickr

IMG_20190709_155028 by ANDREW COLLINS, on Flickr

IMG_20190709_155238 by ANDREW COLLINS, on Flickr

[andyc123_123]

Rather large update..

Finally progress can start on buying the parts needed to rebuild the engine over winter.

The ATPower ITB's arrived. Please excuse the poor images, I'm hoping to mock them up at the weekend to see what adjustments need to be done.

Further to this I have all the ancillaries to fit, just stand alone ECU to source. I'll be removing the Air Con and Fitting 197 Cams at the same time too. I'd like to start working on this end of October hopefully.

I also took a trip to Cliosport Festival at Blyton Park early July. Great event organised by CS.net

[andyc123_123]

Update time

We finally got around to booking our first track day just after the Bank Holiday weekend. We decided to book Bedford GT Circuit on the 27th.

As the car is owned between 3 of us, finding a suitable day that works for all is certainly a challenge. The overall experience was really good, we all did our homework on the track, what to bring & preparation on the car. Weather wise it was near perfect! maybe a tad too hot!

The car ran faultless all day, other than regular tyre checks and tighten the wheel nuts etc. We've decided higher compound of brake pads is needed, ideally Ferodo DS2500 or 11.1 would be ideal. I plan on changing the brake fluid and fitting braided hoses over the weekend.

Managed to purchase a few images of the day. Along with the GoPro footage which has come out really well too. Already looking forward to booking another one.

PR_190827_MSVT_BA_1148 by ANDREW COLLINS, on Flickr

PR_190827_MSVT_BA_1146 by ANDREW COLLINS, on Flickr

PR_190827_MSVT_BA_0663 by ANDREW COLLINS, on Flickr

PR_190827_MSVT_BA_0588 by ANDREW COLLINS, on Flickr

PR_190827_MSVT_BA_0128 by ANDREW COLLINS, on Flickr

PR_190827_MSVT_BA_0057 by ANDREW COLLINS, on Flickr

[andyc123_123]

galaxie500 said:

FFS.
How hard can it be.
You bought a car. From the verb To BUY.
You brought it back ......
From the verb To BRING.
Come on. If we don’t pick up on spelling & grammar like this we won’t have any forums.

Right because forums run on spelling and grammer, rather than enthusiastic people sharing knowledge. Thanks for adding value!

[andyc123_123]

AndrewGP said:

Great stuff and brilliant to see it getting used properly! ITBs with 197 cams should be awesome too. Miss my 182, easily in the top 3 best cars I’ve ever owned. Keep the updates coming!

Thank you mate. Yeah it's what the 182's are built for. Perfect for it! Yeah a rebuild over winter should be fun. Finding those extra ponies...

[andyc123_123]

Update time.

As it's been a while, last year I think! Quite a lot has happened since the plans mentioned in my last post. The work has began on the ITB's details will be posted below. We've also acquired another little Clio, a 172 Cup. After much deliberating and searching we found a clean 1 owner from new example on Ebay just after NYE.

I kept an eye on it with a budget in mind and it came in under budget which was a delight. A short drive to Worcester to collect it and it was exactly as described, nice drive home and it's now undergoing a restoration back to a clean, new example of factory spec.

So far I've done the following;

• Vapour Blasting Engine Components.
• Cooksport Springs
• Cup Shocks
• Snappy Re-trimmed Steering Wheel
• K-Tec Stealth Exhaust system

Still plenty of work to carry out; Wheel refurbish / Front end respray & PDR / Full Service.

172 Cup Progress by ANDREW COLLINS, on Flickr

172 Cup Progress - Snappy Wheel by ANDREW COLLINS, on Flickr

The 182 is quite different in terms of progress. It's been off the road since November during that time it's had an overhaul. The engine has been stripped in preparation for the ITB's. We've already removed the A/C using the PMS delete kit, other parts from PMS fitted are the Breather plate & Coilpack relocation. A set of yellow silicon hoses have been fitted and the engine has been freshly painted. This week we're planning on fitting the ITB's and assembling the front end so it looks like a car again.

IMG_20200106_165718 by ANDREW COLLINS, on Flickr

I also requested a custom print from Chris at Carbonsoulz I think it's come out really well. His details are below for anyone interested.

182 Print By Carbonsoulz by ANDREW COLLINS, on Flickr

https://carbonsoulz.com/collections/custom-request...

Thanks for looking, more updates soon.

[andyc123_123]

Update

It's been a while since I've updated this thread, some good progress has been made on the 182 with the ITB's. We decided on adding a couple more items to the 'To-Do' list whilst the car was in such a way.

First of which was the Epas conversion, certainly a tricky thing to do with limited space and seized bolts. Nevertheless we managed to get this finished last week, not managed to test it yet as the battery has been dead since Christmas!

Couple of other things include;

Custom Dials
Battery Kill Switch
Shift Light
Go Pro Mounts

I've also managed to get hold of GEN90 ECU, this has been fitted with a base map, I suspect with some tweaks this will be enough to get us to EFI in the near future for mapping.

As you can see from the images below, it's starting to look like a working car again. I'll put together a spec list once completed but I think for the moment I need to stay off the PMS website.

Mores updates this weekend. Please excuse the messy wires, I've not removed anything until we fire it up.

IMG_20200725_171711 by ANDREW COLLINS, on Flickr

IMG-20200721-WA0004 by ANDREW COLLINS, on Flickr

Thanks for looking.

[andyc123_123]

Update - Bodies on.

Made some decent progress on this the last couple of weeks, a number of jobs are completed and the car is back on the ground with the bumpers and wheels fitted.

The following tasks have been completed;

Epas Conversion
New Alternator
PAS Delete
Air Con Delete
Oil Catch Tank
New Dials
Gen90 ECU

Hopefully in the next week or so we'll attempt to start it with a base map and book a date for mapping.

Here's a couple of images for now, excuse the messy wires.

ITBs Fitted by ANDREW COLLINS, on Flickr

ITBs Fitted by ANDREW COLLINS, on Flickr

New dials made to match the car;

ITBs Fitted by ANDREW COLLINS, on Flickr

Thanks for looking.

[andyc123_123]

Thanks for the kind words, I can assure you it's not that clean yet!

It's one of those jobs, it's never quite finished. I've seen your thread as well with your 172, looks great!