GW 200 CUP (clubsport->racecar->v2)

[Gorman]

Rear catches on, tailgate gutted, loom stripped further and some plastic removed taking the cup down to its lightest so far (~1125kg dry)

View attachment 150252

View attachment 150253

View attachment 150254

Had Goodwood yesterday, good news is the car felt great, could really feel the difference with the new wheel and was going around the quickest I have ever been by the second session. Bad news is that 12 laps into the morning and the clutch started playing up

View attachment 150255

View attachment 150256

Came in to bleed before testing on the road, was obvious at this point that bleeding helped but then slowly got worse. Went and saw Garry (Clio Man) to pressure bleed and try and save the afternoon, this made things much better on the road but as soon as I started changing at higher revs it just doesn’t want to get out or in to gear. Similar to last time no evidence of a leak or air and the box itself feels good pointing to clutch disengagement. Alex got in contact and he is confident that it isn’t the slave (has been changed twice already) so the only thing left to change is the clutch master, he has one on the shelf so is going to send (legend) Praying that this fixes things as I am not keen to have the box out again…

Potential full race car conversion in the planning stage but will save that for another post...

Mega work, really cool build! About to tackle the boot aerocatches this weekend myself. Going to gut the door as well and have the same brackets. How did you fix them to the inside and did you fix those first and mark the pin holes/catches from there?

 

[LiamP]

Mega work, really cool build! About to tackle the boot aerocatches this weekend myself. Going to gut the door as well and have the same brackets. How did you fix them to the inside and did you fix those first and mark the pin holes/catches from there?

I created a few templates, worked out where I wanted it on the outside and then transferred to the inside to confirm that the brackets would work ok. Then cut for the catches on the outside / fixed before getting the brackets lined up. I found this to be the easiest way as there is a fair amount of adjustment available on the brackets.

 

[Gorman]

I created a few templates, worked out where I wanted it on the outside and then transferred to the inside to confirm that the brackets would work ok. Then cut for the catches on the outside / fixed before getting the brackets lined up. I found this to be the easiest way as there is a fair amount of adjustment available on the brackets.

View attachment 150515

Thanks mate. How did you fix the brackets??

 

[PITA]

Thanks mate. How did you fix the brackets??

They just bolt through the C pillar

 

[LiamP]

Got the car back at the start of the week and quickly started stripped everything out, only tricky part is the rear loom due to the ABS needing to be disconnected behind the arch liner. Currently all the parts are in my office which looks ridiculous, I also can't believe how heavy the doors are, my scales make them over 30kg each so they will certainly be going on a diet when I get the chance.









Already made a good start on cleaning, degreasing and etching the cage itself, seems preparation is the key and the primer sticks really well. Gave it a sand with some 400 wet/dry and focussed on any areas that didn't look 100% before giving it another coat.








Now looking to move onto the shell itself by cleaning up where the brackets have been removed and giving it a good clean, should then be ready to prep properly for paint.

 

[Clarki99]

Looks like they have done a great job with the cage. If you are getting 'Ron Dennis' anal about weight saving then only need one strut to comfortably hold up your boot lid.

Just out of interest, did you manage to disconnect the rear abs wires to the hub sensor without needing to remove rear discs? I want to do this but thought might need to pull caliper off, remove rear disc etc to get to where the wires come through rear arch and connect to the sensor.

 

[LiamP]

Looks like they have done a great job with the cage. If you are getting 'Ron Dennis' anal about weight saving then only need one strut to comfortably hold up your boot lid.

Just out of interest, did you manage to disconnect the rear abs wires to the hub sensor without needing to remove rear discs? I want to do this but thought might need to pull caliper off, remove rear disc etc to get to where the wires come through rear arch and connect to the sensor.

Nice I will add that to the list

Yeah you can either disconnect from the loom behind the arch liner or just disconnect from the sensor, no need to remove the disc but the sensor itself will still be there.

 

[LiamP]

As per usual underestimated the amount of work required to prep both the cage and the interior, lots of time spent on removing and cleaning up various areas such as brackets / seam sealer / random crap left over from manufacture.







A week later than planned the car was fully masked up in my makeshift paint booth on the drive. After a visit to a local paint supplier the plan was to use a LVLP gun and a borrowed compressor rather than rattle can. At £10 a can this actually works out at roughly the same price but obviously much better coverage / quality.



I have been taught how to use a gun before so this wasn‘t completely new but painting a cage and interior is a whole new thing, the quotes I was getting now make completely sense, anyway here she is:







Really happy with how it has turned out, took me a solid day to paint, full suit and mask in the current heat was not fun! I now have a week to fully rebuild..

 

[Beany]

Yeah can’t fault you there… think it was shy of 2 grand to have my interior and cage painted (2 different colours)

 

[strell]

Looks a mega job. Well done!

 

[Alistair]

Looks so so good! Awesome job.

 

[AG_Cup]

Wow. It looks spot on. Well worth the time spent on prep.

The dark silver against the white is a winner in my eyes!

 

[needforspeed]

Ultimate cage from them guys! The money you've invested into this already it has to go to Level motorsport for a proper loom now! Are you retaining the f4r? Awesome build!

 

[LiamP]

Cheers guys!

Ultimate cage from them guys! The money you've invested into this already it has to go to Level motorsport for a proper loom now! Are you retaining the f4r? Awesome build!

Don‘t tempt me! His stuff is next level, certainly want to clean things up with potentially some PDM’s but we will see.

No plans on changing/upgrading the engine atm, any BHP improvements and you start competing with the VTEC boys.

Been busy fitting new and cleaning old but still loads to do before Tuesday, still have no glass but she starts

 

[LiamP]

Currently sat in the cafe local to AW as Alex fits a new clutch + slave for hopefully the last time in a while!

Really enjoyed building the car back up, few new items

• Rentune foot rest
• Pure Motorsport bulkhead blanking plates
• BG racing wide angle mirror
• T7 design heater
• £20 eBay special gearstick adapter
• P4P lexan kit

Recommend the footrest, lightweight and very well made, I have left a bolt off as it lines up perfectly with the fuel lines and didn’t have time to jack/move so added to the backlog. Also cleaned up the pedal assemblies by removing some surface rust.



I have also left off the heater matrix hole as it gives a nice bit of air flow, going to look at piping it up to the now redundant dash blowers.

Heater is plumbed in but yet to wire or feed up to windscreen, looking to add a set of switches to the front of the dash.


Fuses have been moved to the centre of the dash bar which cleans things up nicely and easy to get to. Since lowering the seat the column support is now positioned perfectly without the need for spacers.



P4P windows are nice, OEM look with the black border and tbh you wouldn’t notice they aren’t glass (for now)


It’s now very loud, lots of rattles from various places on idle / low speeds but once up to speed you soon forget!



Edit: Looks like he has found the source of my issues…

 

[Clarki99]

Had the same issue with one hole of the footplate being very near the brake line holder and after a bit of head scratching came up with a solution. Give me a shout when get round to trying to sort it and I can tell you what I did.

 

[LiamP]

Great evening on Tuesday with my Dad for a shakedown, after saying I would never do an evening session ever again I was pleasantly surprised by both standards and space on the track, BBQ after really topped it off as well









Zero issues with box or clutch, took a few sessions to change my damper settings and up the rear pressures to get some rotation as it seems the cage stiffness has added some understeer. Wasn't expecting this tbh so looking at adjusting the front toe to help the initial turn in as I don't want to go much further on stiffness/pressures as it was starting to get very lively!

Few small things I want to change/fix but mostly very happy with all the changes. Quick video from one of the laps, after reviewing a few videos I have isolated downchanges as a weak point so going to try and focus on improving that.

Earlier in the morning Alex dropped the car onto his scales (ignore cross weights as the ground isn't flat) and it weighed in at 1136kg (over half a tank) which I am really happy with, once the doors are gutted and glass removed it should be bang on the limit or under. Hopefully I can get it under and then ballast up the passenger side to even out the L/R weight.

 

[LiamP]

Talking to Alex last week reminded me of the timing issue that was noted last year so I finally got around to plugging in a cheap OBDII adapter I had purchased a while ago. Running diagnostics two errors raised straight away, decided to ignore the battery issue for now but the 'Knock sensor (KS) 1, bank 1 - circuit malfunction' is what I wanted to fix.



Cleared them both, quick blast of contact cleaner on the sensor connection and went for a drive with a few pulls up to the rev limiter, knock sensor error came back so transferred the data to get a better look.



As you can see from the graphs above there are a few sudden drops of timing and a very rough RPM increase, what was interesting is that it wasn't always like this (bad top/good bottom) something that was also seen last year on the dyno:




As far as anyone could remember from last year this sensor was changed however it didn't look that new/OEM and the error stored was certainly pointing at the sensor being faulty as the connection and wires looked good. Decided to purchase new from RPD, so £60 later a new one was on, few revs on the drive and the error didn't return so took it for a few pulls and the graphs seem to suggest this was the issue!



Bottom graph is showing considerably higher timing advance and no more spikes, I am no expert but I imagine 5 degrees of timing would have a massive impact on power. Tbh I can't tell on the roads, the only difference I have noticed is that the engine/exhaust seems much quieter but this could be a placebo, I will have to wait for some time on the track to see if has had an impact.

 

[LiamP]

After Brands I thought I would do a nut and bolt check on the rear to see if anything has come loose as it just didn’t feel quite right. Didn’t take long to find out that my rear top mounts had seen better days with a lot of movement, still on the original so made the upgrade to the powerflex black (not sure why I hadn’t already tbh) Dampers still look brand new, dust jacket was certainly worth doing.



I then decided to take a look at my rear disks/pads and found significant movement on the bearings, it’s only been a year since they where replaced which is annoying, not sure if that is normal? I then found the brakes had started to crumble, at a guess this is due to outside storage with the handbrake (need to stop this) So another purchase of new disks and pads, same again with Brembo and DS2500, moved back to the shorter studs so no more mad max style hubs.




Moving on to the front I found a few of the top mount bolts to be almost hand tight, quick torque and mark up to spec. My wipers had started to slow down so knew I had to clean/regrease however during removal the bracket snapped, another eBay purchase..




I then moved on to the only change I was actually planning on doing which was to adjust the front toe, quick check of the tie rods and as feared I am already on the limit on the NS. Going to leave this for later in the month where I can remove and cut a few mm off the thread so I can get more.

Now added my ducting to the front vents, seems to be equivalent to the blower speed 2 once up to speed. Can be moved to the heater in the winter months so seems like a no brainer to add.



Quick test drive to bed the brakes and the car feels a lot sharper, lower end torque feels awesome after the knock sensor change, probably all 90% placebo but I will take it.

I guess I was lucky that all of this was found on the drive rather than a track day, Castle Combe next Tuesday which I am really excited about, car should feel brand new!

 

[tcw]

After Brands I thought I would do a nut and bolt check on the rear to see if anything has come loose as it just didn’t feel quite right. Didn’t take long to find out that my rear top mounts had seen better days with a lot of movement, still on the original so made the upgrade to the powerflex black (not sure why I hadn’t already tbh) Dampers still look brand new, dust jacket was certainly worth doing.

View attachment 151251

I then decided to take a look at my rear disks/pads and found significant movement on the bearings, it’s only been a year since they where replaced which is annoying, not sure if that is normal? I then found the brakes had started to crumble, at a guess this is due to outside storage with the handbrake (need to stop this) So another purchase of new disks and pads, same again with Brembo and DS2500, moved back to the shorter studs so no more mad max style hubs.

View attachment 151252
View attachment 151253

Moving on to the front I found a few of the top mount bolts to be almost hand tight, quick torque and mark up to spec. My wipers had started to slow down so knew I had to clean/regrease however during removal the bracket snapped, another eBay purchase..

View attachment 151254
View attachment 151255

I then moved on to the only change I was actually planning on doing which was to adjust the front toe, quick check of the tie rods and as feared I am already on the limit on the NS. Going to leave this for later in the month where I can remove and cut a few mm off the thread so I can get more.

Now added my ducting to the front vents, seems to be equivalent to the blower speed 2 once up to speed. Can be moved to the heater in the winter months so seems like a no brainer to add.

View attachment 151256

Quick test drive to bed the brakes and the car feels a lot sharper, lower end torque feels awesome after the knock sensor change, probably all 90% placebo but I will take it.

I guess I was lucky that all of this was found on the drive rather than a track day, Castle Combe next Tuesday which I am really excited about, car should feel brand new!

I’ve also managed to kill some bearings in the rear quite quickly. Torqued to spec on fitting too.