Tom's Track Car - BMW E46 -Engine Number 3

This thread takes me to boner town i love it.

BTW great vids. I also enjoy watching you friends abuse your car. when i do a track day i usually let the instructor drive me for a bit, i love watching their faces light up that they can hoon for a bit as the know the rest of the day theyll be sat in the passenger seat teaching other muppets like me how not to end up in the tyres.
 
Thanks again for all the great comments. I'll get some more photos of specifics posted up for people.

Update

29th May 2017 was the Anglesey Track day with circuit days.

I'll start off with a little video between a couple of Clio mates. Little bit long but some really good sections in the video.

 
  • Like
Reactions: peter and Sean197
You mentioned new track tyres, and I recall you were looking at possibly a staggered set-up (225 front/215 rear). Have you tried this and, if so, thoughts?
 
  • Like
Reactions: tombate911
So Anglesey went really well...
Car was running really well, was trying a slightly different car set up after having it aligned to my specifics by a local motorsport company to give me a baseline to work from after having so many suspension things changed.
Car didn't quite feel like I liked it to in the morning, felt like it was pushing wide through the corners and not turning in as well as I was used to and noticed the tyre wear wasn't 100% flat across the brand new front tyres I was running with the 225 profile.
Changed the camber to 3.5 degrees and then added some toe out to help with the turn in, and it was back to feeling amazing again, still need to get the rear beam shimmed at some point too. Stiffened up the rear coilovers a little more and by the 3rd session out there it was really picking up the pace again and surprising some of the other cars.

I was now running 225 fronts and 215 rears with no issues or rubbing and the car is lowered considerably. I'm tempted to say I had slightly more grip on the front with these with a slightly larger contact patch on the front, Chris also commented on this.
However for some reason I appear to have worn these brand new tyres down to the wear markers in one track day, normally a new set of tyres would last me 3/4 track days on the front but I can tell this set is going to be ready for the bin after two. Potentially the effects of all the suspension changes enabling me to corner faster causing more tyre wear.

Day went well, I did however keep loosing/snapping alternator bolts from the kit I bought from a member on here, it appears he is having the same issues, luckily with the way the alternator is mounted now I was able to run it with just the bottom bolt holding it in place and it managed all afternoon like that.

Got the chance to drive a friends Storm Grey Clio 200 which we had finished doing a lot of rebuilding on recently, had the engine out and the gearbox rebuilt with a Quaife, Very similar set up to me with the exception of KW Clubsports and the Quaife! I was really shocked with the difference even an ATB diff could make to the cornering on the clios. Couple of times I'd turned in and had to let off a little bit of lock through the corner as the car was being pulled around the corner with the diff....
Got it on the upgrade list for the future now!

The day came to a finish about 4pm when I noticed that the band that holds the driver side CV boot in place had snapped and the grease was starting to eject it's self from the drive shaft when going around corners. Easy fix but I called it a day there and put it back on the trailer.
34310290513_da5212b45e_b.jpg

34310290563_a2ba97a063_b.jpg

34989590431_ef9f7a15b6_b.jpg


You mentioned new track tyres, and I recall you were looking at possibly a staggered set-up (225 front/215 rear). Have you tried this and, if so, thoughts?
 
a diff is the way to go Tom...:thumb:

Aye. I think if I do go down that route, which might happen eventually it will have to be a proper plated diff. From what I've researched and tried the quaife is better than the standard Megane diff but plated diff's are another level again with the downsides of the noises/clunky operation and servicing. Watch this space.
 
Aye. I think if I do go down that route, which might happen eventually it will have to be a proper plated diff. From what I've researched and tried the quaife is better than the standard Megane diff but plated diff's are another level again with the downsides of the noises/clunky operation and servicing. Watch this space.

Tom, there was a guy selling a rebuilt gearbox with a gripper diff on FB:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/1484501948492837?view=permalink&id=1904425936500434&ref=bookmarks

Looks a bargain seeing as the gripper is what, £950+ alone.
 
  • Like
Reactions: tombate911
Tom, there was a guy selling a rebuilt gearbox with a gripper diff on FB:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/1484501948492837?view=permalink&id=1904425936500434&ref=bookmarks

Looks a bargain seeing as the gripper is what, £950+ alone.

Cheers mate, had a look at it already, saw it come up for sale last night... Great gearbox with the gripper LSD. 197 gearbox with the shorter final drive.

I'm sure there was a teaser for something big happening...

:tongueout:

Ohhh yesss, certainly a surprise coming up very soon. It however is not the original surprise I alluded to back then though...
 
  • Like
Reactions: ///M
Ok, really exciting update...

Last time I was at Anglesey I had a good drive of the Clio with the Quaife fitted and was really surprised at the difference, I had previously been a passenger in a really well spec'd Clio with a Quaife fitted also but you don't really notice it the same as a passenger.

I had a spare gearbox in the garage I was going to strip and rebuilt fully with a new diff, but was totally undecided about whether to go down the gripper or the Quaife route.

Anyway when scrolling though facebook last week I was the following gearbox come up for sale. I wouldn't normally buy things such as gearbox second hand so ignored it, went back the next day and looked where it was located and dropped them a message, mainly due to the fact I had been following the build of the car that this box was originally from which gave me some trust in the quality of their work.

Decided to drop them a message, lots of messages backwards and forwards, checking paper work, when it was purchased, when it was rebuilt, what was replaced and how many miles it has driven and cross referenced the information with a few places.

Mind made up, deposit paid and collected this morning. Not too bad only 4.5hr round trip.

Clio 197/200 gearbox fitted with plated Gripper LSD also fitted with a shorter final drive (4.73) so should be fantastic on track now!
Recently rebuild with new bearing, seals and syncros

34849994400_caf046a3e3_b.jpg

One of the other main selling points to this gearbox was the fact it was fitted with a shorter final drive along with the clio 197 gearset meaning a slightly longer 1st and 2nd, 3rd remains the same with then shorter 4th, 5th and 6th. 6th gear now replaced 5th and it tops out at 130mph at about 7750RPM in 6th,

Spent a lot of time working things out before buying the gearbox and put the below graph together to show the differences in the gear set and FD in this gearbox.

Data set one at the bottom shows the speeds of the Clio 200 gearbox
Data Set two shows the speeds for the 197 gear set with shorter Final Drive



35072199722_2e4bf0e2a2_b.jpg
 
Last edited: