Albi Blue 200 >> BMW E46 Track Car

Another little update while i'm still chasing the leak coming from the clutch now the slave and gearbox are back in. I've got a suspicion that the join on the edge of the gearbox where it meets the engine bay pipework is leaking and causing it to run through into the box. I've placed paper in various places tonight to leave till tomorrow to see where is wet when I get back to it.

Tonights progress.... Two steps forward, one back....

All started with fitting new bushes to the wishbones while they were off the car while the subframe hasn't been refitted yet.

I bought my self my own 12t press a while ago, used it for fitting black series into my mates clio.
Start off removing the old bushes using a socket and the press, makes light work of removing the old ones.

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In the process of pushing the new mushroom bushes through the wishbone, this takes a fair amount of force with the bush on a slight angle to push it through the hole. I remember how difficult it was fitting the last set we did.

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It wasn't long before disaster stuck again, I've had a lot of bad luck in the past few weeks with things in general. As you can see in the image below part of the wishbone decided It was going to sheer of while pushing the new bushing through.
As luck would have it I knew where someone was breaking a Clio only half hour drive from me so jumped in the van at 6:30 to go and pick up another wish bone.

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Luckily out of the two wishbones I had the one that has snapped as the ball joint in it which has a damaged boot and was slightly leaking grease out of it so managed to replace that with the replacement wishbone too.

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Finally. Two solid wishbones with black series poly bushes fitted ready to go into the subframe tomorrow evening and back onto the car.
The instruction say just add fairy liquid, what they don't mention is the amount of force required to get them in!
 
ohh no Tom..looks like you've had your amount of bad luck recently..glad you managed to sort it..lucky really that you knew about someone breaking their clio..
looks good..hope you able to see further improvements on a track..
 
ohh no Tom..looks like you've had your amount of bad luck recently..glad you managed to sort it..lucky really that you knew about someone breaking their clio..
looks good..hope you able to see further improvements on a track..

Thanks mate,
Spent another couple of hours on the car this evening. Refitted the subframe and bolted together all the suspension properly, drop links, tie bars, track rods, ABS sensors, drive shafts, wishbones, bumper back on and reassembled the engine bay.
Got my friend to drive it back home from the unit to my house. Will give it a final check over tomorrow for leaks and top up the gearbox oil. very strange for me to spread the work out over a few days, normally it's done in one sitting but been chipping away at this a few hours at a time waiting for parts to turn up.

Finally back assembled and on it's wheels. Need to give it a good wash and some TLC.

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Sorry to hear about the problems you've had. Hopefully resolved now though! When and where are you out in it next?
Not too sure. Want to get one booked for the next month or so considering the issues I had at the last afternoon. Driven the car tonight to the gym and back, keeping a close eye on everything and taking it easy for the time being considering so much has been removed and put back.
 
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MMM... not a fan of spacers, puts extra stress on your bearings by moving the rotating mass outward. If Reno wanted to change the suspension setup I'm sure they'd done that by now. Plus all that extra weight in the wrong places is not worth it IMHO of course.

Cup Racers use them. It's marginal. H&R and KTEC's are aluminium so weigh almost nothing, which is crucial with rotation.

I've had mine on for almost 70k miles on both road and track and I've had no issues with bearings.

Car looks great! Keep it up!
 
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View attachment 15101 View attachment 15102 View attachment 15103 Only a couple of things this weekend.

Booked Oulton park with Chris and Pav from here in November. So starting to get ready for the next track day.


Fitted sun a complete black sun strip, wanted to go slightly lower with it but I was limited by trying to keep the automatic windscreen wiper function and auto lights so didn't want to cover the sensors. Managed to keep all the track day stickers too.

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Also fitted fire extinguisher in the passenger footwell with a proper Motorsport quick release bracket. Nice and assessible but not in the passengers way. Gave the interior a Hoover and couldn't resist taking a few photos. Love the seats and harnesses.

https://c8.staticflickr.com/8/7482/30125039391_dd79acac38_z.jpg
https://c7.staticflickr.com/9/8412/29914075230_4dd2f0813b_z.jpg

Final on going jobs at the moment is sorting wheels and track tyres ready for November. Will update with that soon.

How did you fix the extinguisher? I'm looking to do the same. Did you buy the unit with the quick release together?
 
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How did you fix the extinguisher? I'm looking to do the same. Did you buy the unit with the quick release together?

Cheers for the positive comments! Yes I bought the fire extinguisher with the bracket as a kit through my mate who supplies them for a living.
It's uses some long bolts and bolts directly through the floor so ensure t is held securely.
 
glad all is great again..very handy to know your way round engines..when's the next track day Tom??
 
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glad all is great again..very handy to know your way round engines..when's the next track day Tom??

Yeah. been driving it around a little more now getting a feel for it again and what needs tweeking. Couple of tiny things to sort this weekend and get it aligned again now the subframe and all the suspensions has been off.
There isn't anything mechanical I won't tackle, if i don't know how to do it i'll learn how to in the process of doing it.

Here's a little bit of rough footage from the weekend. Didn't spend a long time editing it together as I only had the footage from the morning on track, very quiet out there with only 30ish people booked onto the track day.

You can probably tell from the video but I absolutely love wet track days in the Clio.

 
Yeah. been driving it around a little more now getting a feel for it again and what needs tweeking. Couple of tiny things to sort this weekend and get it aligned again now the subframe and all the suspensions has been off.
There isn't anything mechanical I won't tackle, if i don't know how to do it i'll learn how to in the process of doing it.

Here's a little bit of rough footage from the weekend. Didn't spend a long time editing it together as I only had the footage from the morning on track, very quiet out there with only 30ish people booked onto the track day.

You can probably tell from the video but I absolutely love wet track days in the Clio.


That's the position I want to mount my gopro, where did you place the mic?
 
That's the position I want to mount my gopro, where did you place the mic?

It's mounted just to the left of the rear view mirror behind the left side of it, as central to the car as you can get it. There's no mic on that footage just the standard sound taken from inside the car believe it or not.


great video Tom..that BMW was all over the place..glad you had a good time..

Haha the BMW was actually a mate of ours, that thing is serious track weapon with custom engine and throttle bodies and the quickest thing on track all day, grest car to have passenger laps in and an great driver. The morning was great even in the conditions the car was going well, just a shame didn't get more time to have a play with the set up. Managed to take Chris' car out on track though in the afternoon. Good to do back to back comparisons because his turned in a lot better than mine... hence me doing the wishbone bushes as that's one of the last things he did.
 
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Cheers for the positive comments! Yes I bought the fire extinguisher with the bracket as a kit through my mate who supplies them for a living.
It's uses some long bolts and bolts directly through the floor so ensure t is held securely.

Sounds perfect. Do you have a link to the kit that as used? I assume that you had to drill the floor, rather than use existing holes?
 
1. Cup racers use 5mm spacers not 20mm
2. Cup cars have them on the front wheels only
3. Cup racers have different front suspension compared with a road car so such little offset doesn't affect their scrub radius and so on.

Still stands though, for road use. Mine have been on for 70k almost. No wheel bearing issues, no scrubbing. The only downside being that the car tramlines under very hard braking slightly more.
 

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