You might be surprised by how much difference a new steering wheel will make to the feel of the car.

Gloves are definitely a worthwhile investment. My mates used to call me a full kit w*nker when I first started wearing them but they've all invested now!

One thing to note is I wish I didn't get Gauntlet style ones as they're annoying when heading out on track and showing your wrist band!
Haha yeah my alpine star ones are like that, just have to fold it over when going out to show the bands… isn’t much an issue
 
I have Sparco Land + Race gloves, decent - but yes i roll the gauntlet bit down for the wrist band visibility (in fact theyre always rolled down and seem to stay that happily). I may even cut them and get the wife to make it neat!

Steering wheel is great for handling. I had mine retrimmed with zero padding and alcantara and its much better.
 
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The Corvette brake ducts were installed today.

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I had spoken to @LiamP to ask how had installed his Corvette brake ducts and he had confirmed that he had just used cable ties. @EthanMenace did a quick test fit and worked out that the brake ducts are a really good fit for the Clio and direct the air pretty much directly at the calliper if the wheels are straight.

The arch liner required a hole being cut in it to allow the aperture of the brake duct to allow air to get in to the wheel arch. But even when full lock was applied there was no rubbing. It is tight and only time will tell if the arch liners do not rub and get destroyed on track days.

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We have replaced the bottom clip/plug that goes in the bottom hole of the front arch liner with a thick cable tie now to help keep the arch liner as far away from the wheel as possible.

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We took the car for a test drive and we can't hear any rubbing so hopefully all is well in the wheel arches.

The Clio version 2 is pretty much at the standard that the first car was. It has taken about 6 months to get to this stage and all credit goes to @EthanMenace for doing 99% of the work. My contribution today was to polish the cold air feed headlight as it had some minor scratches. The car is going to be mapped at Engine Dynamics on Thursday this week in time for a track day at Truxton on 5th May 2023.

I still have a strong urge to get a stud and nut kit soon, and a cup spoiler on the car by summer time.
Looks sweet, how did you fasten the front of the ducts to the bumper?
 
We went to Brands Hatch today for an evening track session with Track Obsession. The circuit layout was the Indy Circuit which I like as I think it is well suited to a Clio, lots of corners and not too much straight track requiring power. The weather was perfect as it was mid 20s and no rain, the track was bone dry

As we arrived it became clear that there was a big Mini meet going on as over 50% of the cars there were Minis. There were no other Clios (172s, 182, 197s, 200s, 200ts) at the track session, other than the battered red Track Obsession 197 that was used as a pace car for the sighting laps. There were a few Porsches, a pair of Corsa VXRs and a very quick Honda Civic EK.

I took the GR Yaris with us so we had both the Clio and Yaris to drive and compare with each other. My brother and step brother joined us - they were driving a VW T-Roc which has the Golf R engine in it. It was their first track day outing.

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I had been curious about whether the Yaris or the Clio was the better track car. The Yaris is pretty standard apart from some camber bolts giving it about 2.5 degrees of negative camber at the front and about 2 degrees of negative camber at the back. The Clio is heavily modified in terms of its suspension but only has 207 bhp. The Yaris has about 260 bhp and four wheel drive. Also, it is worth noting that the Yaris was on standard brakes and had PS4S tyres on. Could the boost, extra power and 4 wheel drive beat the front wheel well designed chassis of the Clio.

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I went out for the first few sessions in the Yaris on what was a crowded track. The evening had sold out and for most of the night it was difficult to get a few laps in without there being traffic in the way. The Yaris felt good, but it was clear that the brakes were not as sharp as the Clio, and that it could not corner with as much grip as the Clio. The Yaris felt good in a straight line but felt a fit "wafty" round corners like Paddock Hill Bend. During the second session I managed to catch up with @EthanMenace who was doing a cool down lap but then shot off. I struggled to keep up pace with him and decided to head to the pits to check the tyres pressures.

We then swapped cars and I did a few sessions in the Clio and @EthanMenace did a few sessions in the Yaris. As soon as I got in to the Clio I felt much more comfortable. The combination of the bucket seats and harnesses meant that there was no need to move about during cornering. The flatter firmer suspension meant that I had so much more confidence when cornering at speed. The brakes were so much better allowing me to brake later and with more impact. Another big difference was the Sabelt Cup Racer steering wheel. It is a 330mm wheel covered in alcantara. The wheel made the Clio feel more precise and easier to throw around with less effort from me.

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I had a RaceBox in the Yaris and the Clio. I have not looked at the data carefully yet but I think that @EthanMenace and I both achieved better lap times in the Clio rather than the Yaris. I need to go through the data and the GoPro footage to confirm if the Clio was the faster car.

When I was out in the Clio and @EthanMenace was in the Yaris he was still faster than me and seemed to cope with what I considered to be the limitations of the Yaris better than I could. Albeit when we finally pitted together the Yaris brakes were smoking heavily and people walking past thought that the engine had suffered some kind of failure - it was just very hot brakes.

Ethan and I then swapped around doing some passenger laps in the T-Roc and giving rides in the Clio.

The track day went well, apart from some straight line heroes who refused to pull over, and a few red flags which reduced the track time by about 25 minutes. I quite enjoyed being able to jump out of one car and get in to another. That in itself gave us the ability to compare the cars better.

So, what was the better track car tonight?

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Both @EthanMenace and I agreed that the Clio was the better track car. There is no doubt that the GR Yaris is the better B road blaster at the minute with greater pace and more compliant suspension. But on track the Clio wins, and possibly with faster laps as well?

The only negative to the evening was finding out that one of the well worn MRF tyres has several cracks on the inside sidewall. All four tyres on the Oz Ultraleggeras are well worn and could probably do with being replaced with some of the other MRFs we have stowed away.

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My brothers seemed to enjoy themselves in the slow T-Roc and their passenger laps in the Yaris and Clio.

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Our next rack day will be the clio197.net track day meet at Oulton Park in September 2023. Provided that we have enough time we may have a strengthened rear beam by mid September 2023.
 
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Looks like someone's been enjoying kerbs too much when the tyres are cold :nomouth:

Great cars the Yaris - very capable too.
I got made a complete tit by one at Cadwell last summer. Was completely stock :tearsofjoy:

Not guilty….maybe :flushed:

I said that too, I felt like if I knew how to drive it properly it’d go a lot faster. It’s really impressive for an essentially stock car that feels completely normal on the road.
 
I agree, despite being the slower car it feels way more involved and exciting to drive for me which makes sense considering one is heavily modified for the track and one is not. Very biased though ofc after spending obscene amounts of time and money on the clio.
 
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Nice write up, looking forward to Oulton Park.

Have you guys lost the CL10 LSD plate or have you just not got round to transferring it yet? You'd better transfer it before the MOT runs out on the previous vehicle otherwise you will lose it forever. Ask me how I know...
 
Nice write up, looking forward to Oulton Park.

Have you guys lost the CL10 LSD plate or have you just not got round to transferring it yet? You'd better transfer it before the MOT runs out on the previous vehicle otherwise you will lose it forever. Ask me how I know...
I have got the CL10 LSD plate on retention. I removed it from the crashed vehicle before it was scrapped. I can't transfer it to the new Clio as it was originally registered in 2009.

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I will bring this to Oulton for you.
 
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I thought that would have been obvious! Crashed a car when I was younger, sold the shell to my mate, he took all the nice bits off and scrapped it, stupidly let the MOT run out, and the plate went with the car to the scrapyard never to be seen again.
 
I have had time to look at some of the data from our Brands Hatch session now. I know the data side of things is boring but for some reason I like to see that my driving improves across a session.

Ethan got the best lap of the evening in the Clio with a sub 1 minute lap time of 58s57. Unfortunately he forgot to start the GoPro recording so there is no video of his best lap.

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His second best recorded lap was 59s80 which was again in the Clio.


My fastest lap was in the Clio and was a 1m01s60


The best comparison between the GR Yaris and the Clio that I have got data for is my two best laps. I drove the GR Yaris and did a 1m02s60 lap, got out of it and jumped in the Clio and did a 1m01s60 lap.

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You can see from the RaceBox summary that the Clio carried more speed through the corners but the GR Yaris had more grunt when pulling away out of corners and along the straight. I wasn't driving the GR Yaris too hard as the tyres were okay, but not great and felt like they were flexing a bit too much for me when they got hot. I also drove the GR Yaris with a bit of a fear factor and was not going too crazy as I did not want to come off the track.

This is my fastest lap in the GR Yaris.


Although my driving shows that I was faster in the Clio I think that Ethan was faster in the Yaris, and possibly faster when he was driving the Yaris than the Clio, that’s the unscientific feeling I got when I was on track at the same time as him. He didn't record the Racebox session for those GR Yaris laps and the camera just recorded the back of the passengers head due to the way the GoPro was mounted. I even tried to extract the GPS data from the GoPro but that was all over the place and did not record any sensible lap times.

So, we have both Improved on our times at Brands Hatch from previous track days. Ethan achieved his goal of getting a lap time of under 1 minute. I am getting closer to the sub 1 minute lap time.

Hopefully my next track day car comparison will be with Ethan's new chariot, his 2010 Megane 250 Cup.
 
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I do really like Track Obsession photos. Katie Foster always seems to take photos that are a little bit different to a diagonal shot of a car on track.

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This was the general theme of the evening - whatever car I drove @EthanMenace would get out in front and would lap faster.

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The Clio was good fun round Paddock Hill Bend on Thursday as it was flat and firm. I remember my first time round Paddock Hill Bend with a far softer set up that meant the car would drift off and usually end up on the left hand kerb by the gravel. On Thursday I was turning in late and had no issues with the car drifting towards the left hand kerb.

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The cup spoiler and sun strip made the car look more like a track car. The sun strip was really useful as it was a bright sunny day with the sun setting slowly.

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No explanation required - you always need a bridge photo to show people where you have been to.

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I really like this photo that was taken at Druids.

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