Glacier White 200 Cup

The exhaust has been irritating me over the past 6 months or so as the clamps keep loosening allowing the elbow of the centre pipe to rotate and bang on the rear beam. Also, we had developed a loose heat shield under the car which was rattling.



Last week @EthanMenace had purchased some new exhaust clamps with M8 bolts and was told to just over tighten them with the ugga dug dug to keep the exhaust in place. He tried that it and did not work. When Ethan was using the Clio last week to get to and from work when his Megane was in for a belts change the exhaust came loose again.

Today he tackled the job again.



Off came the exhaust clamps, and off came a bit of heat shield that was rattling. The heat shield was replaced with a spare one we had in our spares pile.



He then took the original Akrapovic clamp, drilled out the bolt holes and then used some M10 bolts to hold the clamp tight.



The clamp between the stock manifold and the Akrapovic centre pipe then got some similar treatment.



Once it was all in it was tightened up so that the centre pipe will hopefully stay up and in place rather than drooping and hitting the rear beam.



The clamps are now held in with a combination of nyloc nuts, crush washers and lock threader.

The PMS EE bracket kit has now arrived. Not everything is in the photo.



We opted buy some nice new shiny extended drivershafts rather than build our own.



I started cleaning the wishbones that we picked up last week that had spherical and solid bearings pressed in at AW Motorworks. I think that the wishbones probably had 10 years of more of crap, dirt and corrosion on them. I used some wire wool to gently get off most of the crap and then used some fine grade wire wool with some AutoSol metal polish to give them more of a clean and polish.



You can see that they started off fairly dirty and have come up nice and clean. I have not got all of the dirt and rubbish off of them but they will look good enough under the arches for a few weeks when they go back on.



We are at Snetteron next week, Donington Park at the start of March and then at Cadwell Park in May. So the plan it to get the PMS EE bracket kit installed before Cadwell Park. As it will be installed on the drive @EthanMenace wants a bit of time to do it properly rather than rush it trying to get it done quickly. The kit will need to go on and and the car will need to be aligned to sort out the massive amounts of caster and camber that it will generate.

We have decided to get a Cup racer 22mm anti-roll bar for the car as well so we will acquire that from RSport and some black PowerFlex ARB bushes when we have some more money in the car fund. It makes sense to install the new ARB and bushes at the same time as the PMS EE bracket kit.

In preparation for Snetterton I have today swapped out the normal passenger side headlight for the cold air feed version.



Track day season is here now so that car needs it's cold air feed. Whilst the bumper is off @EthanMenace has been measuring up to make more progress on the brake cooling ducts to feed the Corvette ducts that currently channel the air coming straight through the empty fog light holes.

The Clio has had Corvette brake ducts on since it was rebuilt but we have not put anything in place in the fog light holes to properly direct the air from the fog light holes in to the brake ducts which sit about 15 to 20cm back from the bumper. The Corvette brake ducts have a very wide opening which is probably wider than the fog light hole.

@EthanMenace had come up with a few designs to channel the air coming in via the fog light holes in to brake ducts. One design was to get the fog light hole duct to butt up against the opening of the Corvette brake duct. But that was over engineered and did not fit nicely.



Eventually the simplest design was the best - a fog light hole duct that was as wide as the fog light hole and deep enough to sit just inside the opening of the Corvette brake duct.



This design means that the front bumper can be removed without having to undo any ducting going in to the Corvette brake ducts. It also gets the cold air in to exactly where it needs to go.



Before the fog light hole ducts were put in you could see inside the bumper and the white paint. Now it is one dark tunnel straight through to the Corvette brake duct.



We have not really had any brake over heating issues with the Clio but hopefully the new ducts will help keep the brakes as cool as possible.

We went to Snetterton on 17th February 2024. I will do a proper write up soon but I will just leave this photo here.



I tested the limits of my driving, and found out that I had in fact run out of talent. The car came off at Brundle and the front of the car hit the front passenger side corner as it spun past an armco barrier.

After a quick inspection the passenger side chassis leg looks fine and the drivers side looks okay. It was not a direct front impact so we might be lucky enough to get the car back on track sooner rather than later. The engine is working and the wheels are capable of being turned from side side, and are pointing in the same direction. So it looks nasty but most of the broken parts are from the bumper plastics. The car might need a new radiator and a few other bits.

I had paid for track day insurance so it will be interesting to see what they will pay for.

Thanks Iain.

Once I have spoken to the insurers I will get in touch.

I am pretty confident that it’s not another reshell job - but thanks for the offer.

I was really looking forward to Snetterton on 17th February 2024 as it was the first track day of 2024.

It was a good day with a bittersweet ending.

We had booked on to a cheap MSV Saturday track day and we were not sure what to expect with the weather in February. The weather forecast had looked a bit ropey two weeks ago but in the days running up to the track day the forecast suggested we were going to get a clear dry day. As it turned out the weather was mostly dry with a bit of drizzle in the morning which made the track a bit greasy but the afternoon was dry.



@Big Ben and @Helpimonfire were at Snetterton as well as Ben's mate Ross in his Megane 300 Trophy and Chris Young in his white Clio 200. There were a few other Clio 200s at Snetterton, a few 182s, a nice looking Twingo RS, and a smattering of other cars. Although there were a few bigger powered cars like a few E92 M3s most of the bigger powered cars were driving slowly round the track rather than loitering behind and trying to push their way through traffic.

@EthanMenace had booked his Megane 250 on to the track day so we arrived in both the Clio and the Megane nice and early and set up the cars swapping over road wheels for track wheels.



After the sighting laps I went out in the Clio ahead of the Megane and the car was feeling good. Towards the middle of the session I had a black 200 behind me and was able to keep ahead for a bit, then he passed me and I chased him. I did a bit of off roading carrying too much speed at Williams before the Bentley Straight and then came in. I managed to keep ahead of Ethan's Megane in this session. I did another session and this time Ethan took off in the Megane and I could not keep up with him.

Ethan's Megane was odd yesterday as it was turning well going left but was struggling a bit going right. A delaminated MRF sidewall on a front tyre was causing issues with tyre pressures. Even with the front wheels swapped to the back did not solve all the issues, albeit it made the car drive better. I tried his Megane in the afternoon and felt unsafe in it so only did one lap.

During the morning sessions @EthanMenace jumped in the Clio and I went out with him as a passenger. He immediately said that the Clio had more grip and that he could feel more feedback from the car as he drove it. He got out of the car at the end of the session very pleased with the way the Clio was set up and how it was performing.



We use a RaceBox Mini S to record our lap times. It is just a box that records the GPS position of the car. The Mini S version is great as you can connect your phone via bluetooth to the box and tell it to record and it will auto sense when the car is on track, then you disconnect your phone and leave the box to just do it's job. With this set up there is no faffing around having to start a recording or having to have a phone connected during the session. We had brought along our old RaceBox Mini which you do have to connect to a phone and start recording data before each session. The plan had been for @EthanMenace to use the RaceBox Mini in his Megane and for me to use to RaceBox Mini S in the Clio. The Mini box decided not to work yesterday so it foiled our plans to compare lap times.

As we got to about 11 am the drizzle started to get worse and some people chose to have an early lunch around 12 pm as the track conditions worsened. We of course stayed out to enjoy the track time.



The weather after lunch was dry and clear. The drizzle had gone and the track was dry. During the afternoon a few people were black flagged and told to go home due to triggering sound limits. I watched as Chris Young came in to the pit lane and a marshall attempted to tell him off and remove his window sticker from his windscreen. It was amusing to watch as the marshall could not get the sicker off and walked off after a few minutes embarrassed that his show of authority to remove the sticker had failed. It was odd that a Clio had been black flagged for noise but Chris told me that he had a custom straight through exhaust which could explain how it could get close to the sound limits.

During the afternoon we did a timed run in Ethan's Megane and used the RacBox Mini S in his Megane for a session. I need to check the data and video but the fastest lap of the day that was recorded on the RaceBox Mini S was a 2m 20s lap - I am not sure if that was a Megane lap of a Clio lap. Whatever car it was it is very likely to be Ethan who was driving at the time.

We had the CANchecked display logging car data at Snetterton together with the oil pressure and oil temperature sensors. I have yet to look at that data but it was interesting to see the oil temperature rise the longer the car stayed out on track.

Normally I am really careful about making sure the data is being logged and the cameras are recording. I was enjoying the driving in the afternoon and the two fastest sessions (or the sessions that felt the fastest) that Ethan and I did did not record as the RaceBox Mini S ran out of storage.

Up until 4.50pm the day had been good. I had enjoyed the company, the Clio had been pretty perfect all day, the weather was good in the afternoon. I had enjoyed sessions where there was some traffic to play with and overtake. I had been trying to get get round turn one at around 75 to 80 mph and was doing okay. I felt like I had improved on other corners to carry more speed. Between Coram and Bomb Hole I was all trying to keep the speed at about 80 mph. It was all going well until I lost the back end of the car at Brundle.

In the penultimate session of the day Ethan had been driving and I was a passenger. Ethan was taking a line where he would come down the Bentley Straight, go under the bridge and then brake in a slightly diagonal line as he came to Brundle and then when the speed had decreased turn slightly left towards armco before breaking harder and yanking the car right through Nelson. I decided that I would try this as well. At 4.50 pm I came flying down the Bentley Straight put the car on the diagonal braking line and before the car had slowed down enough turned the wheel towards the armco as I was still braking. The result was the back end of the car went in an anti-clockwise direction as we skidded across the kerb and grass and the drivers front corner hit the armco. The car kept moving until we came to a stop but thankfully we did not hit the armco again.



This is what happened.


Both @EthanMenace walked away from the crash without any injuries and no sore necks or limbs the following day. I will do another post about the damage but it looks like the car is okay structurally but the bumper and other front plastics have seen better days!



Thinking about the accident it was all down to driver error, particularly braking and turning at the same time. Since we have had the strengthened rear beam on the car we have only done wet track days where the Gaz Golds have been far softer than they were at Snetterton. The rear of the car definitely felt like it rotated better on Saturday, and that extra rotation probably aggravated my driver error when I smashed the car in to the barrier.

Despite the crap end to the day it was a good track day. I will look at the data and sort out some videos, and most importantly work out how fast the Clio went.

My thanks go to @Helpimonfire who made the trip to Snetterton and bought the Clio back to Essex today on his trailer.

In an ironic twist I got home today to find that the TRS crutch straps, eye bolts and spreader plates had been delivered.



The idea of getting these extra straps was to make sure there was no submarining in any crashes.