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

[LiamP]

Castle Combe yesterday, where it all started for me 5 years ago on a 3 lap supercar experience day (wife still regrets it) and wow what a track, I think it is my new favourite.

Managed to convince my Dad to make the 2.5hr trip as well, with the heat we even brought along a gazebo so looked the part in the pits. TDO was Cooksport which I strongly recommend, only ~35 cars booked on and limited to 12 on the track at a time, I think I was only waiting for a minute or so each time I wanted to go out. Only negative was covered arms and legs, which meant it was hot, really hot, my makeshift blower really helped but it was still 30 degree heat to the face.



Took a few sessions to get used to the track as it is really quick, videos don’t do justice on how damn scary some of the corners are, lots of bumps and undulations right where you don’t want them which really adds to the excitement. With the knock sensor change, straight away I could tell the car felt faster, it had an urgency low down the revs which I had never felt before, it was awesome. Changing the rear top mounts had also made a massive difference with the car feeling super nimble through the mid corner and the ability to actually get it turned in on the brakes. It felt ‘alive’ again, going to keep the toe as it is for now and wait for another trip to Brands before making any changes.

Big contingent of 1*2 had turned up so had some fun, here is a quick clip of me thinking I was in a race up to Quarry, we had a good chat after and he gave me some shit for being a lunatic.

However first session after lunch and my alternator goes causing my first ever red flag, tow of shame back to the pits to work out what the hell I was going to do.



It seemed as though it had completely failed and then drained the battery, all connections where good but no voltage coming out. Lots of ringing around before Simon at Cooksport sourced one from RPD at 5:30 giving us 30mins to pick it up before they closed! 1hr later and the new alternator was in and car running, fairly certain I have destroyed the battery as it went well below 12.5v however it got me home so going to worry about that later.



The car just won’t give me a full day this year, making me seriously question any further track days without a trailer tbh. Regardless it was a great day by Cooksport and I will certainly be back for more when I can.

 

[PITA]

Roof scoop inbound

 

[LiamP]

So RPD actually gave me an alternator for a mk4 clio in a mk3 box, replacement on its way..

No idea why it's working and it explains why it looked different (had given up caring when fitting late Tuesday) but trying to isolate further battery warnings had me checking the part codes, only good news is that maybe my lithium battery has survived.

 

[LiamP]

Alternator replaced with correct part, runs with no issues which is good however after leaving the car for a week the battery has since died, expected tbh considering how low it went and I would rather I found out now.

Replaced front pads and disks, the disks have had a good run (two sets of pads) but where badly lipped so starting to wear the pads unevenly, also replaced the studs with the shorter lengths pre spacer trial.





Had noticed during my nut/bolt check that my gearbox mount had a split, sent powerflex an email and they sent a new one out the next day, can’t complain with that!



After speaking to cooksport I re-torqued my rear damper bolts as I had torqued with the car jacked which puts some load on the bottom bearing.

Finally ordered some lightweight door cards from RaceCarDoorCards and some fancy door pulls, mat finish which matches the rest of the interior and only 900g each (window switch is temporary). Carbon fibre stickers on the cage for protection and to make it look proper race car. I also moved down the wide angle wing mirror with some GoPro sticky mounts and brackets as the cage is too tight to the shell to get the right angle.





Picked up a cheap dash trim for £15 off eBay to experiment with the Garmin position, very happy with how it has turned out as it is now out of the way but still visible to the driver. Just missing a kill and fire extinguisher switch to complete the centre console.



Brands booked for Thursday which should be good, excited to see how the car compares to before the sensor change. It is also a full day so want to experiment as much as possible with the setup, more on this in a following post..

 

[LiamP]

@R20BTG recent upgrades got me thinking about roll centres so I decided to measure mine. First problem I noticed is that my wishbones are almost dead parallel due to my ride height, not ideal. A quick sketch on Autodesk and I have an instance centre that is 12m from the centre of the car and a roll centre that is near enough below the ground. Worth noting that this is without me and no fuel so the true value is probably far worse.



This does however explain the body roll / understeer I have on slow corners at mid corner, most noticeable at Druids as you can see in these images the roll on the front is causing the inside tyres to lift both at the rear and the front (can also feel the car sliding on the front outside edge when pushing):





I currently run 80/100Nm front/rear springs in an attempt to mimic what the racers used (75/130) and have found this setup to be great on fast tracks but always struggled on the slow corners at places like Brands and Snetterton. It’s obvious now that a stiffer front spring (as recommended by Gaz) is needed to compensate the low roll centre once these cars are lowered and that the racers can use the lower spring rate / higher ARB due to the roll centre correction they have on the EE bracket and subframe. With a higher RC (closer to the CoG) and shorter IC you have less of a moment (lever) acting on the car, the docs state the racer roll centre is around 30mm at 110mm body height whereas I am at 150mm but ~<0mm RC.



However a stiffer front spring only tries to prevent the body roll and doesn’t fix the underlying issue, this would also explain why spacers made my car worse as they further reduce the theoretical spring rate. Because of the design of the wishbone/hubs there is no easy fix, this thread is a good read on the topic.

I see the following options:

1. Experiment upping the front spring rate, this would probably also involve changing the rear and would likely then be very track specific
2. Copy Iain with the wheeler motorsport solid subframe mounts to move the subframe 5mm upwards, doesn’t sound like much but from my calculations it would then move the RC up 10mm and shorten the IC by ~4m
3. Full Rentune/PMS cup racer setup

In reality 1 and 2 would have to be combined in order to get the most from the car and both would just be a further step before I accept 3 being the only option that will make me happy. I am going to see what I can do on Thursday with what I have (dampers/pressures) before deciding as I always paid more attention to the rear rather than upping the damping on the front so will be good to experiment.

 

[burrellbloke]

I like these technical posts.

I was having a chat to someone the other day who pointed out that cup racers have a stiffer spring at the back and a softer spring at the front. I might have misunderstood matters but I got the impression that cup racers could do that due to the roll centre correction system they run.

If you were to go for the full Rentune or PMS set up would you need to then change your current spring rates for a soft front and stiffer back?

 

[LiamP]

I like these technical posts.

I was having a chat to someone the other day who pointed out that cup racers have a stiffer spring at the back and a softer spring at the front. I might have misunderstood matters but I got the impression that cup racers could do that due to the roll centre correction system they run.

If you were to go for the full Rentune or PMS set up would you need to then change your current spring rates for a soft front and stiffer back?

Yeah that is correct, I could go slightly softer front and much stiffer rear but driver style comes into it as the racers look very loose! Although who knows what settings they actually ran / not sure if they could change spring rates?

 

[LiamP]

Brands Hatch 04/08

Overbooked and crappy driving standards, to the point that we where all called for a ‘lunchtime drivers briefing’, it’s always OT days. I personally think it was the overbooking that caused all the issues, with a mix of abilities you could see many getting frustrated with not being able to pass the straight line cars resulting in some stupid decisions from a few.





I was there almost all day and I think I managed only a handful of clear laps which was frustrating, overtaking MX5’s and stuck behind Honda's is not my idea of fun, however car was faultless allowing me to try lots of changes. End result is that I just can’t get the car to turn on the slow stuff, no matter what I did I just couldn’t get the front end to grip when pushing. Best results where from front full hard, rear 1 click from hard and 30/37psi F/R but for context I am only 4 tenths off in the Saxo which is about 25BHP/t down on AO48 vs the Clio and tbh I think I could get the saxo to lap faster.







3 wheels for @burrellbloke

End result is that it’s probably time to throw some more money at the geo, racing at Brands GP in the saxo this weekend but nothing booked for the Clio till October so going to do a full strip down of the frontend, dream setup is:

- PMS Cup Racer frontend
- PMS spherical wishbones
- PMS spherical rear beam
- PMS rear axle spacers
- Wheeler Motorsport solid subframe bushes

I know its likely that my wishbone bottom joints need replacing so its good excuse to strip everything down and decide how far I am going to go.

 

[LiamP]

As per usual things have escalated, few hours and the entire front end was into the utility room, subframe also off and striped down. Assuming no bolts are seized it’s pretty simple tbh, driveshaft nuts took some serious persuading.




Due to some slack on the steering I had assumed my wishbone joints where finally going but after stripping down the hubs it’s my lower swivels (again) which have some movement, interestingly more on the FS which is probably curb related. Decided to replace them all whilst it was all apart, was going to get a garage to push them out but took the plunge on an Amazon special I had seen a few recommend. Had both the swivels out in a few minutes! Freezer and some heat to get the new ones in although it was a bit of trial and error to get them to go in straight.




NS wishbone came off with the modified sealey adapter, breaker and some heat however the FS was a 2 day ordeal. Lots of heat, litres of plus-gas, car used as a vice and 2m scaffold pole it finally cracked, probably the most satisfying moment of my life with the car so far. After a clean up using some Ali-clean, not up to blasting standard but it’s impressive stuff and OCAP replacements for both.





Considering the subframe was off I thought I might as well go all out and purchased the wheeler solid subframe bushes, seem well made and fit well. Had gdf weld them in, unsure if I will powder coat or just paint myself yet.




Exciting news is that I have placed orders for the following:

- PMS Cup Racer frontend
- PMS rear axle spacers
- 22mm cup racer ARB
- SW Motorsport subframe brace
- 130Nm rear springs (maybe)

 

[strell]

Awesome update. Always been intrigued by the solid subframe mounts

 

[R20BTG]

Nice work, looking forward to hearing about the EE brackets etc. Please report back


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[LiamP]

Nice work, looking forward to hearing about the EE brackets etc. Please report back


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Will do, got loads of data from a few tracks so will be easy to compare like for like on what improvement this really gives

 

[LiamP]

Subframe

Picked up the newly welded subframe and opted for some mat black paint to smarten things up, I also purchased the SWM subframe brace. Questionable that this actually does anything but it removes the original two braces and looks good. It does however required a circular hole for the engine mount, not sure if this has been missed in the design or it is a result in the height change.





22mm ARB purchased from R Sport, also finally upgraded the bushes to black series, using the CUP 21.5 size but they fit/rotate fine once torqued.

Fitted the extended inner tie rods, I know the cup racers ran a ~30mm spacer on the rack to stop rubbing, I have instead doubled up the stock spacer resulting in a reduction to 2 full turns lock to lock.




I knew that with the 5mm correction and 10mm steering rack spacer things where going to be tight, in the end it just required the white plastic dust trim to be cut roughly 10mm in order to fit without any clearance issues.



Due to the 5mm correction the brace required a few washers to fit flat but once added the subframe fits perfectly with an obvious higher height.



All of this took a surprisingly long time due to the requirement to fit/unfit/modify/refit however everything that has been removed has been cleaned / re-greased / torqued to spec.

Suspension

Got in contact with Cooksport to find out what grease to use on AST’s (Putoline Grease with PTFE) and have booked in to have my rears re-valved so that I can run 130Nm on the rear. Frustratingly the way I have jacked/positioned the car means I need to wait until I have finished the front before I can get them off.

Stripped down the fronts, removed the old grease and re-greased the damper, see no wear on inner seals so should be good for another year. Top mounts have picked up some surface rust from the chassis so I have cleaned them down and added some ACF to stop it reappearing.




Hubs

Hubs now rebuilt, in order to fit the BS correction the hubs need to be drilled out to ~15mm, easy with a stepped drill. Image to show the difference between the EE brackets in length and the extra caster, amazing how small the difference is!







Top Mounts

Noticing the rust on the top mounts I knew I needed to sort the chassis out, quick investigation and it looks like it was caused by the original top mounts (triangular shaped rust)



Few minutes on the wire brush to remove it all followed by etching and some hammerite stone chip it looks good as new. I thought at this point I might as well clean up the top as well, frustrated with the late 200 design I decided to finally copy what many have done and cut out the hole. Once cut I then etched, primed, sprayed and lacquered, not perfect but should prevent any further surface rust.





Using the No7 motorsport strengthening plates, I will eventually get these welded but they seem fine as is and certainly makes adjustment easier, having to fully drop the hub was a real pain.



So 6 weeks in and I am just about ready to do the final fit on the front, had a slight issue with the lengths of the shafts so waiting on Nick to rebuild. Maybe a trackday in October, who knows at this point

 

[LiamP]

Week 9 and she is back on her feet, temporarily..



Bump Stop

Once the coilovers and hubs where rebuilt I decided to do a dry fit and have a rough measure of my bump/droop, since installing I sometimes feel a bouncing from corner to corner when I am harsh on braking/acceleration so wanted to confirm it wasn’t the bump stops. Once the wheel was jacked up to ride height it looked bad, really bad, took it all apart again and setup without springs so I could get an accurate measurement. 52mm of bump out of 115 of travel, doesn’t sound bad but from rebuilding I knew the bump stop is 43mm so 10mm of travel before the stop starts impacting the stroke.




Had a call with Simon from cooksport and the easy fix is to up the ride height however they can be run with a 20mm stop which basically means cutting the progressive part (20mm) off.




At this point things have gone full touring car as I have machined out a section of the hubs to allow the coilover to sit ~5mm lower.




This allows the following:
20mm bump stop reduction
5mm hub clearance
10mm ride height increase

This now gives a total of 45mm of bump before the bump stop, not ideal but combined with the stiffer front end (RC and ARB) it should be plenty. The impact of this would have been huge and tbh I am pretty annoyed I didn’t try and investigate it straight away.

Driveshafts fitted with fresh redline, ARL installed at correct length and then wishbone/subframe torqued once on the floor.



Top mounts set at the mid point and the camber is around 3.1 degrees, set the toe as straight as possible so that I can get it aligned properly without causing too much wear. Rear has now been jacked and stripped so the shocks can be sent off to be revalved, slow progress…

 

[RSRowe]

Money

 

[R20BTG]

You can just tell the difference the setup makes by looking at this picture, so much more aggressive on the front end:



I'm dying to know what it feels like to drive.

 

[LiamP]

You can just tell the difference the setup makes by looking at this picture, so much more aggressive on the front end:

I'm dying to know what it feels like to drive.

Yeah, this is on 7.5J and no spacers…

 

[LiamP]

Had the rear coilovers off and sent to cooksport, 3 days later they where back with new 130Nm springs and re-valved for 90-130 so can switch back to 100Nm if required. When fitting I also added the 10mm axle spacers, tbh this is more for looks and probably something I will experiment with when I get the chance.




Quick test drive and everything feels nice and sharp even with the geo all over the place. Considering the front now has solid mounts and the rear is super stiff it isn’t actually that bad on the road (damping fully soft) although come next year I don’t think I will continue to tax/mot/insure.

Geo and corner weighting booked in for the 19th, ride height will also need some adjustment to make sure I can get the right amount of bump. Potentially a track day the following week, can’t believe it’s been nearly 2 months!



Once that is finalised I will need to trim some of the wing/bumper, the extra caster causes issues (arch liners are probably staying off). I have seen various attempts at this with some looking god awful, want to try and blend it in with the shape of the front as well as possible.

750MC HotHatch

Managed to get a last minute spot for the final round of HotHatch at Snetterton, long story short it was very eventful! No question that it is a competitive series, I was severely underpowered in the saxo (152BHP/t vs 175 limit for B) but had great fun trying to keep up. Cements my decision that it’s the series I want to be in, looks like it might be even more competitive next year with quite a few clio 3’s entered..

 

[deekay16v]

Had the rear coilovers off and sent to cooksport, 3 days later they where back with new 130Nm springs and re-valved for 90-130 so can switch back to 100Nm if required. When fitting I also added the 10mm axle spacers, tbh this is more for looks and probably something I will experiment with when I get the chance.

View attachment 152216
View attachment 152217

Quick test drive and everything feels nice and sharp even with the geo all over the place. Considering the front now has solid mounts and the rear is super stiff it isn’t actually that bad on the road (damping fully soft) although come next year I don’t think I will continue to tax/mot/insure.

Geo and corner weighting booked in for the 19th, ride height will also need some adjustment to make sure I can get the right amount of bump. Potentially a track day the following week, can’t believe it’s been nearly 2 months!

View attachment 152218

Once that is finalised I will need to trim some of the wing/bumper, the extra caster causes issues (arch liners are probably staying off). I have seen various attempts at this with some looking god awful, want to try and blend it in with the shape of the front as well as possible.

750MC HotHatch

Managed to get a last minute spot for the final round of HotHatch at Snetterton, long story short it was very eventful! No question that it is a competitive series, I was severely underpowered in the saxo (152BHP/t vs 175 limit for B) but had great fun trying to keep up. Cements my decision that it’s the series I want to be in, looks like it might be even more competitive next year with quite a few clios entered..

View attachment 152219

Wonder how you will like rear axle spacers. I did not like them when fitted alone (without front spacers). It was more understeery. But you have coilovers so probably can mitigate this a bit with settings.

 

[LiamP]

Wonder how you will like rear axle spacers. I did not like them when fitted alone (without front spacers). It was more understeery. But you have coilovers so probably can mitigate this a bit with settings.

Yeah it’s certainly something I am wary of, 20 minute job to get them off so will be good to experiment depending on how I find the setup.