2006 Deep Black Track Shed BudgetBoltOnBuild

Forgot the car was black if I'm honest... It's been so gross and dirty the past few months I was wondering if it was actually a shade of brown!PXL_20240519_191855822.jpg

PMS aircon pulley works a treat, easy enough to fit too. Longevity remains to be seen! Hoping to be doing Snetterton next month depending on work commitments so we'll see!
 
Snetterton never happened for the 197... It's older softer brother (the 172) took its place.

Today is a sad day...

RIP Clio. The engine is clattering away. The future remains uncertain but the present is that it may go off to my in laws farm for storage until I can source an engine. There's definitely bits of bearing in the oil, I've just done a second change to verify and it's not great.

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It's done well, 126k miles and countless trackdays. It's been abused and beaten like an unwanted ginger stepchild.

It may live on, it may get broken for parts. At the moment I just don't know.

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The Clio seems unwilling to go away. Just to make sure I wasn't being paranoid I took the 197 out for a blast down a private road in Mexico on Saturday, when I got home it sounded healthy again, no more clattering.

So in keeping with my usual thought process, I've booked a trackday :tearsofjoy: 26th Sept at Snetterton. This will likely be the final run out for this engine even if it survives.

The plan moving forwards, is that I'm picking an engine up this Sunday which is going to get some nice bits thrown at it. The plan is to refresh the bottom end with new bearings, rod and main, ARP bolts to go with them. While the sump is off it'll get a good clean, oil pickup inspected and cleaned ready to go back together. The top end will get inspected and the plan at the moment is to give these Piper Cams a go, once this is built up it'll go into the car and down to Andy at Engine Dynamics for mapping.

This isn't the engine I was planning to buy as that was originally bought as a spare a while back so nobody knows when it was last run or whether it does. The replacement I'm buying was taken out of a running car in April so I feel happier to buy that one rather than an "unknown" one.

Other, more imminent plans are to replace the O/S driveshaft as the boot has split wide open and caked everything in grease. I'm also going to swap the front springs out for a softer spring, I think I went a bit too stiff and it feels like the car is pushing a little.
 
It’s not even man maths at this stage…

We taking bets on the condition of Martin or the engine after snetterton
 
Couple of early starts this weekend. Yesterday I went and picked up an engine crane and engine stand from a mate of mine.

This morning I headed out to Derbyshire to collect an engine.
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The trusty Mondeo putting in the work as usual.
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I managed to get my hands on this 104k mile engine out of a 2010 200 for £700, came with all ancillaries, new coils and plugs too (they'll be checked and changed if needed).

For now I'm leaving the belts as they look in good nick, certainly looks like the seller was telling the truth when he said the belts were done in the last 3 years. The engine was last run in May, it turns over by hand and you can feel each compression stroke so it's good news so far!

I spent this afternoon taking the ancillaries off as I'll use the ones off my engine, cleaned the block up a little, dropped the filter off and inspected the oil that dropped out of it - clean as a whistle. The wiring loom will need swapping over as this got damaged while they were pulling the engine however I know mine is fine so this isn't an issue.

Few bits to order like an exhaust manifold gasket and little bits like that. I'll get this chucked into the car in time for Snetterton this month, I'll get a couple of trackdays out of the way with it before I throw more goodies at it. I've got a set of Piper Cams lined up for it and I have a timing belt kit here ready to go on too.

If my original engine is salvageable I'll throw the nice parts on that. If not I'll take bits off that are new and anything I can use as spares then the block will get binned. I'll sell the standard cams to a MK2 owner as they seem to love them!
 
This weekend in pictures.PXL_20240913_182143345.MP.jpgPXL_20240915_121702830.MP.jpgPXL_20240915_154303515.jpgPXL_20240915_155234316.MP.jpg
Took 3 cranks to catch as it needed to build up fuel pressure.
Need to do a few bits still but the majority is done now. Mega relieved for the engine to sound healthy, it's a little tappy but it's been sat with no oil in it for 4/5 months, injectors are a bit noisy too so I might swap those over from my original engine but for now I'm going to finish building the car back up, take it for a spin round the village and make sure the engine is happy under load, then kick its head in on the 26th at Snetterton!