The High Mileage Track car

[burrellbloke]

Yes. We had a “medium” Gripper and wore it out after about 2 and a half years and 20ish track days. The new plates were only about £150 to replace (as a part) - it was done at the same time as a gearbox rebuild to replace some synchros which we then had to rebuild again after a slave failure.

Our Gripper is very noisy, very aggressive, but very effective on track.

 

[Dowling93]

That's not too bad then! I was thinking a yearly thing. I'm guessing when you do end up replacing the plates you may as well freshen the box each time with new seals and bearings. Is it an easy job to do yourself if you had the time and patience?
It would be the aggressive one I'd go for seen as it's purely a track car

 

[burrellbloke]

That's not too bad then! I was thinking a yearly thing. I'm guessing when you do end up replacing the plates you may as well freshen the box each time with new seals and bearings. Is it an easy job to do yourself if you had the time and patience?
It would be the aggressive one I'd go for seen as it's purely a track car

@EthanMenace Has not fiddled with the Gripper yet. But I am sure with a few technical tips he could do it.

 

[RSRowe]

Me and the boys had the aggressive load grippers in our Clios for a number of years without a drop in performance, but we were exclusively trailering our cars to and from track. Looking at MOT history, I was doing ~2500 miles a year on track in mine.

Gav does alot of road miles in his, and that'll be where most of the wear is coming from.

 

[Dowling93]

Would either of yee say that there is much of a difference between the helical style diffs and the gripper?
That's decent milage before needing to service it which would sway me a lot!

 

[burrellbloke]

I have no experience of using a helical style diff in a Clio. There are a few users on this site have got helical diffs in their Clios.

The Gripper is a plated diff and my understanding is that it is more aggressive, but with that added aggression you get noise. My car sounds broken when it moves at slow speeds and even pulling out of a garage in the pitlane on a track day will attract stares from people who hear the car and think that something is wrong with it. The plates wear and the Gripper should be serviced from time to time. I have been told that I should replace the gearbox oil more often to prolong the life of the Gripper.

A helical diff is usually a fit and forget scenario where it will require very little maintenance but is unlikely to perform as well as a plated diff.

Helical diffs can be cheaper to buy and cheaper to use in the long run.

 

[RSRowe]

Would either of yee say that there is much of a difference between the helical style diffs and the gripper?
That's decent milage before needing to service it which would sway me a lot!

A huge difference.
A helical equipped car won't see what way you've gone by the time you get to the first corner.

In fact, my pals gripper equipped 197 could easily out-accelerate my OEM LSD Megane out of corners, despite having over 100 more bhp and however much torque.

The performance is night and day different.

 

[Dowling93]

Going to disappoint some of yee now but I picked up a good gearbox with a blackline diff in it for decent money over the weekend so it's not a gripper Being in Ireland means I needed to get a ferry and an 9 hour round trip drive from Holyhead to near Luton. Still works out about half or more of the price than if I got one here and fitted and refreshed the box so I'll take that.
We've got a 2 post lift going in the shed soon so I'll tackle it and the clutch once that's all sorted. Looking forward to trying it out in January now!

 

[Dowling93]

Over the Christmas break I began to tackle taking out the old gearbox and putting in the new one with the Blackline LSD and new clutch

2 post lift made it far easier this time along with a transmission jack. Didn't take off the suspension subframe, not by choice I'll add j couldn't get the rack out from the UJ in the foot well, just lowered it on the passenger side this time a bit and with a bit of wiggling and curse words it came out easily enough. A few of the nuts and bolts were a bit worse for wear so I've ordered a couple of new ones along with a new wishbone as the main lower balljoint rubber boot was split. Handy have another one spare that I can have ready to slot in each time with fresh hardware rather than waiting.

The transmission jack made life easier for holding up the subframe, hub etc and maneuvering into place.
Bleeding the clutch was a pain in the arse location wise but after a few goes and tricks it all good. Everything back in place and a quick test around the yard to make sure it all works and was a success! Just need to bleed the brakes I think and should be all good for another track day on the 11th January.
I now have one working box with an LSD, a working second hand standard box and a box with a mashed 4th gear
On the list for this year is:
• Battery relocation
• Fit proper brake cooling
• Get suspension geometry setup professionally
• Roof scoop
• Rear wing

 

[Dowling93]

Went to start the Clio the other day and it turns out I let the heat shield earth off it and the manifold and I killed it! Ordered a new one so it should be here this week. Not a bad job to do took all of 20 minutes to take all apart and take it out. 2 bolts on the gearbox side, 1 nut on the engine side, 10mm for the live and 8mm for the executor on the starter pulled it out under the car.

Tested it off the bench and it worked but was a bit lazy, put it back in, checked earths, lives etc nothing and made no difference! I could jump it by bridging the live and executor with a screwdriver but it was too weak to crank the car.
Did some googling and found out it could be a 20amp fuse in the box behind the headlight. That wasn't it fuse was fine. I took off the starter again and sent it over to a friend to properly have a look at it and test it, he said it's old, lazy and a small bit fucked so there's no harm in changing it anyways. I did some more late night googling and searching the forums, found a post by turkie172 where he details the fuses and what each one is. Turns out it could be a 25amp fuse in the box behind the headlight not 20amp! 20amp one is the windscreen wipers. So I'll check that when I go fit the new starter. Hopefully a new one and checking that potential fuse will sort the problem!

In short I fucking hate wiring


On a side note, anybody have a solution for the studs on the cross member support on the front? I'm missing two of them and replaced them with bolts but they are spinning in the threads just as it gets tight? Can I just rethread them or is it more complicated than that?

 

[EthanMenace]

It is just an insert connected to the front stud, you could try tapping it out but sounds like the threads have stripped.

I think I lost a stud at some point so just cut the head off a bolt and screwed it in hand tight with the same loctite I used for the wheel studs, It's still holding strong now.

 

[Dowling93]

Yeah I may just resort to the loctite approach and leave it at that and hope for the best. Cheers!

 

[Dowling93]

Got the new starter and fuse the other day and went to fit them last night

Turns out yes it was the fuse but the car is no longer a bit lazy to start either with the new starter so I'll take a win when I can get them!

With those both replaced it fired up no issues so I'll make the trackday Sunday now! Looks like rain but it'll be a good test anyways for the new gearbox and diff. Still want to change the oil but I can do that job Saturday as I'll be helping out some friends with their stuff in the shed that day anyways.
I also still need to put the heat shield back in and make sure it doesn't touch and of the lives but I wasn't doing that at 10pm last night

 

[Dowling93]

I blew the main fuse after 5 laps at the last trackday The heat shield came in contact with the manifold and shorted it out, disaster but the diff and gearbox felt way better than before so at least I got to test it!

Ordered a new one from Ktec and got a spare from Renault also as I didn't know which would arrive in time for the next trackday in two weeks.
I went about replacing the heat shield altogether and used a DEI starter shield instead. It's Velcro held together and I used a stainless cable tie on it to keep it in place. Unlike the standard heat shield it's not conductive from outside to inside so even if they touch wires I won't have to worry about it. I'll just keep an eye on it over the trackdays and see how it wears. I decided to not go with the gold reflective tape to just leave a barrier of air between the heat shield and starter.

Out I went to test it all again at the weekend, no issues which was great! Even though it's only a helical diff it's miles better than standard and I can plant the foot a lot sooner on most corners. The gearbox is also far better and smoother than my old one so that's a nice bonus! £800 for a gearbox with a diff is even far cheaper than you'd be able to get a standard gearbox over here I gave my old broken gearbox to another clio owner who does trackdays over here as he wanted some parts from it. I still have my old working one that I'll use as a spare.

I counted about 7 clios at the trackday, great to see so many of them being used and abused!

 

[burrellbloke]

LSDs make such a big difference to Clios.

 

[Dowling93]

LSDs make such a big difference to Clios.

It's ridiculous! My tires are a bit old at this stage to be chasing times but I've a fresh set ordered so I'll be able to see exactly how much of a time difference it can make.

 

[turkie172]

I was all set to head down to Mondello for that first track day, but the weather was so bad with heavy rain that it wouldn’t have been any fun standing around hoping most people showed up. For the car, get a Clio 200 heat shield—it has a leg that bolts to the engine to keep it from slipping. In racing, the heat can get intense enough to melt the solder on the starter’s external cables, so use crimped ones instead. I think the new part number is 7711167498, though I can’t find a picture to confirm. Modifying your current shield is cheaper than buying a new starter. You’d have moved the starter when changing the gearbox; the other time it can be an issue is when swapping manifolds, which is when mine acted up. I temporarily fixed it by reaching over the engine and wedging a piece of heavy mud flap rubber between the shield and live contact, then changed the fuse in the UPC until I could do a proper repair. My issue was that I bent the clips but only wrapped them around the starter barrel, which made it sit too low. Long term you need to protect the starter and check it if you are working around it after you are done.

 

[Dowling93]

I'll see you there someday @turkie172 . I'm at pretty much all the ones run by trackdays.ie
Yeah the starter is protected for now I'll just have to keep an eye on it. Never knew the heat shields were different, thought mine had the leg cut off it from diagrams I was looking at! I've the toyosport manifold so it's a very tight fit with the heat shield, this seems like the better option for now. I don't do more than 15 minute stints on a trackday anyways

 

[turkie172]

Yea I would like to see what a normal LS diff is like, I would not be really interested on doing track days as such but I would still be able to take advantage of it, the heat shield was altered for the 832 engines in the 200 models. I took a run to the last tack day 2025 at Kirkstown as they had a list of cars that were booked on the website so went down a run for an hour or so to see the Clio's and Meganne's.

 

[Dowling93]

Another trackday done during the week. Weather was good so I got to try a few more things with the diff, lower gears in the corners and letting it pull me around. Feels so much better than before. No starter motor or battery issues this time either

Spent most of the day bringing out passengers for a bit of fun and didn't bother timing anything. Tyres probably have another half day or day in them but it's still fun no I don't mind not chasing any times for now. Day ran smoothly and there was a good selection of clios from full race ones to bog standard road cars, even an alien green one which is very rare in Ireland!
I did however have a "squeaky" clutch towards the end of the day so I'll need to investigate that.

Called out to the shed this weekend to give it the once over and clean it all up. I hadn't washed it in a while and forgot how good the wheels can look!
Checked all bushing and underneath on the lift and it all seemed healthy. I will need to get a new set of front pads, I'll probably go ebc RPX again as they have been very good! My passenger side rear caliper is also dragging a bit. I haven't changed the rear discs or pads in 4 years so I think I'll give them a refresh in the next month or two also.
I checked the clutch, pumped it a few times and no squeak so I'm guessing it has something to do with brake fluid temps after a few sessions. I'll investigate it properly the next day.

My PMS shifter had been rubbing against the exhaust heat shield so I also tackled that. You can see where the paint is gone in the above picture. I took the heat shield off and beat it a bit with a hammer and put it back in place, it doesn't seem to be rubbing anymore but the next day out will test that!