Walker's Gordini - Number 8

[Walker2686]

Hi everyone

I started a thread in the Gordini register section but I think it's better over here now. Not really a project as such, well I never intended it to be when I bought the car in May!

But I've done a few bits to it already which I'll update on here shortly.



Sent from my BLA-L09 using Tapatalk

 

[Walker2686]

The car was completely standard when I picked it up. A 2010 model with 42k miles.. and crappy tyres!! [emoji85] I never understand why people put rubbish tyres on performance cars.. just been ribbing a mate of mine for putting Landsails on the front of his new S5!

First thing I did was take off the Clio badge to make the rear look much tidier.

And a pic with said S5 outside Five Guys at Kirkstall Road.

Sent from my BLA-L09 using Tapatalk

 

[Walker2686]

Next up a Ramair panel filter and then a few weeks later white silicon hoses fitted which I picked up used off eBay from a guy off here I think.

The filter added a little induction noise but when the hoses were added it definitely increased and sounds really good.

Sent from my BLA-L09 using Tapatalk

 

[Walker2686]

So last month I wasn't happy with the state of the rear discs, really corroded so I replaced these myself with some Mtec drilled and grooved and EBC Yellowstuff pads. I did this myself having never really worked on cars before and found it fairly straightforward following the guide on here.. apart from everything being seized and the calipers being a pig to wind back!

I also put Yellowstuff pads up front and on checking the discs they looked good, slightly lipped but still decent.. well on the face of it but I'll come to that later!!

Sent from my BLA-L09 using Tapatalk

 

[Walker2686]

Swapped the rubbish Orium tyres for some Eagle F1s as well that same week. As expected these made a massive difference.

I changed from the standard 215/45 17 to 225s as others have done. Cheaper and wider. These were only £75 each fitted by Tyres on the Drive with a special offer on Goodyear's. I've used these guys a few times now and always been great.

Sent from my BLA-L09 using Tapatalk

 

[Walker2686]

Next up a good polish after having it washed as my pressure washer packed up. I've never been in to detailing.. don't get me wrong though I like a nice clean car but I get annoyed finding marks and scratches etc! Might change with this one though.

I don't know what it is but I've become addicted to it, I really love this car.. maybe it's because I've just come from a boring brand new Passat?? But it's only a year since I had an Accord Type R.. and I never really got into the last Clio I had which was a 182 Trophy 11 years ago when it was a couple of years old. I didn't keep it long but now I wish I still had it.

Sent from my BLA-L09 using Tapatalk

 

[Walker2686]

I opted for the silver coating on the Mtec rear discs and I wish I'd have seen the posts about it before I did because after only a few weeks they were already showing corrosion! Not just surface rust either as I tried cleaning it off...

So I complained and was refunded fully for the coating so the week before last I spent some time painting the hubs in hammerite smooth black instead. Whilst there I got some E-tech high temp paint and painted the rear calipers in red. The finish isn't amazing as I did it whilst on the car but it's a million times better than the rusty looking things they were before.

Sent from my BLA-L09 using Tapatalk

 

[Walker2686]

I also did this little fix for the MAP sensor at the same time and the car has behaved much better from cold since I did this.

Sent from my BLA-L09 using Tapatalk

 

[Walker2686]

So a couple of days later onto the front calipers.. now it's not got the Cup pack so they were silver as standard. They looked ok, if not a little tired so painted them red as well. Not a great finish but unless right up close they look great and will do until I get some new or refurbished ones which is on the 'to do list'. I've got some new brembo decals to go on these but I'm away at the minute and didn't get chance to do these last week when they arrived.

I've also got some new Bremtech pins to go in the fronts from Brake Parts on eBay, £12.99 for the full set.

Sent from my BLA-L09 using Tapatalk

 

[Walker2686]

Whilst painting the front calipers I found a couple of problems unfortunately which needing sorting asap..

The inside of the discs on the inside edge were badly corroded, and this had spread up on to the bottom of the contact area and if left potentially ruining my new pads! This was obviously the source of a bit of a grinding type noise from the brakes.. I obviously didn't check them properly when I replaced the pads!!

As well as this I discovered the front n/s spring was cracked [emoji85]. Good news or bad? Update on that one to follow...

So I again ordered the new discs from Mtec this time with no coating! They came the next day, a week last Monday, and I fitted them straight away as I was off, after again painting the centres in hammerite smooth black to match the rear. Much better, and as the pads had been on less than 1k they should hopefully bed to these new discs without issue.

Sent from my BLA-L09 using Tapatalk

 

[Walker2686]

Cracked front spring and the dampers looking tired in general at 8 years old although they've only covered 45k miles now.. so a decision to make on where to go having been considering refreshing this already [emoji848]

Sent from my BLA-L09 using Tapatalk

 

[Walker2686]

Apologies for the spam posts btw but I've finally got a bit of time to post tonight and I find this easier than one long post!

Sent from my BLA-L09 using Tapatalk

 

[Walker2686]

So at the same time as the painting I decided to tighten the car up and hopefully some preventative maintenance to preserve my standard manifold/flexis with the upgrade of the engine mounts.

I ordered the Powerflex upper torque mount and lower engine mount inserts from Eurocarparts and collected them the next day on the way home from work and went straight to fitting them between coats of the last caliper.

Anyone who says this is an easy quick job I'm sure is lying!! They took me ages! [emoji85] Firstly I could not get the metal bracket thing off the upper torque mount.. and then relocating the lower mount after fitting the insert was an absolute nightmare and took me a stupidly long amount of time and effort to get it back in, but it finally went and I ended up lowering the car off the jack/stands after midnight!

The difference these have made though is night and day and I'd recommend them to anyone. The car feels much tighter and more responsive, not that it was a problem that it wasn't.. but it is such a good cheap upgrade. I actually like the vibrations and feel when you fire it up now, feels like a race car. My Mrs not so much . It's settling down a bit now though after 2 weeks.

Sent from my BLA-L09 using Tapatalk

 

[Walker2686]

Ok so now onto a less essential upgrade. Something I like to do on all the cars I intend on keeping a while is fit a stainless exhaust. Some might have seen my post in exhausts regarding a Powerflow system I picked up off eBay from a garage for £90..

Well I ended up getting a £45 refund from the seller so it was really cheap!

Long story short I found a decent place local to me called Fenton Motorsport who specialise in race and track day cars. When I spoke to the guy there he said no problem and I booked it in for the next week (a week last Tuesday now) and he welded it to repair some slight cracks and fitted it within an hour. So it cost me £75 fitted and welded including a couple of new decent clamps it needed. Their labour rate is £60ph.

So in total it cost me £120 and it honestly sounds great and the car feels better for it. I'll get a clip of the sound if I can as no pics of it fitted up. It's not too loud at all but definitely louder than standard adding a more sporty and deeper sound.

Sent from my BLA-L09 using Tapatalk

 

[Walker2686]

Now onto sorting the suspension.. I'd been considering this since I started on this forum actually.. bad influence?!

The spring can't have been cracked for long as I definitely noticed the car becoming more crashy.. the standard suspension is fairly stiff compared to my Mrs new Mini Cooper and the Passat I just had. I find it quite bouncy and my Mrs commented on it when she first came out in it.
Having read alot on here and researched I came up with these options:

1. New standard springs up front.. but that didn't excite me, especially at the cost of them. £160+/- plus fitting (for 2)

2. Lowering springs with the FF shocks.. I liked this idea but didn't want a massive drop so was looking at either the Whiteline or Cooksport but it doesn't seem that many 197/200 guys have them so very little info available. £140+/- plus fitting (4)

3. New Cup Shocks and lowering springs as above. Very appealing but put off by loads of comments that they're very crashy on the roads. c.£4-500 plus fitting

4. Koni Dampers and spring set. Tempting especially after reading Matt Scarbro off here's fitting of them and review. c.£700 plus fitting.

5. Coilovers - Bilstein B14, KW V1, Gaz Gold. Depending on which ones c.£850-1100 plus fitting.

Now I've not mentioned this yet but the car is my daily, originally purchased with no intention to modify it. I've never been on track in anything before but it is something I want to do and had in mind when changing to the Clio. I wanted to track my ATR and was going to keep it as a toy but ended up needing to sell it on..

So considering the above and that my wife and kids (4&6) need to travel in it as well I decided on the Bilstein B14's, a popular choice on here! I liked the sound of them in that they're comfortable on the road yet can perform on the track. I have no need or desire to adjust the damping and also did not want to slam the car, with just a mild drop in height desirable.

So I ordered a set and had them fitted last Friday.. what a nightmare the garage had. I took it to Bram Racing in Featherstone who specialise in suspension and alignment so I could get it set up properly at the same time.
They'd worked on a Clio 200 before and quoted 4 hours roughly as it was a pain to do on that one.. @ £50ph labour rate. It ended up taking them a fair bit longer than 4 hours due to everything being seized and the fronts being a nightmare. I ended up having all the drop links replaced as they had to cut them, but this is one less thing to replace in the future now! I ended up paying for 5 hours, despite it taking longer than that, plus the alignment sorting.

Suspension loaded up ready, fitted and then aligned shown here [emoji108]

Sent from my BLA-L09 using Tapatalk

 

[Walker2686]

I'm away at our caravan in Burgh Le Marsh, just outside Skegness, currently and was hoping to do my first track day at Cadwell whilst down here but it's not going to happen now with the outlay I've had! I took my little boy to BSB there on Sunday and it was awesome, I've not been in at least 10 years.

The B14s are amazing. The car feels much better than standard. They're not uncomfortable or overly stiff yet the body roll is reduced and the handling improved. I would recommend them highly to anyone considering them. You can feel the improved damping on them definitely. I can't wait to get on track now.. I'm looking at a few options but think I'll go to Blyton Park for my first outing next month as it seems popular and isn't too far from me on the east side of Leeds.

I'm really happy with the car now and there's not 'much' else cough cough I'm planning as yet.. next up will probably be a brake fluid change with some braided brake lines, just weighing up whether I can tackle it myself but probably not. Small things like an RS steering wheel insert, Heko wind deflectors might happen soon as well. Other than that I'm going to do something with the wheels, although I do like the Gordini ones so unsure, but they could do with refurbing.. so considering plastidip for now. Oh and reclining bucket seats maybe!

I have forgotten to mention that I have remapped it with the Fastchip RS Tuner from Henk which is an excellent upgrade and made a huge difference low down and with general driveability. Now the exhaust has gone on I shall be contacting him within the next month for remote custom mapping when I get chance to do some data logging.

Here's how the car is sitting now.

Sent from my BLA-L09 using Tapatalk

 

[Johnny 99]

Good to see this thread up! I like what you have done to the car. I'm also the only person I know who really really likes the Gordini wheels with the blue inserts. When I was looking for a Clio that was my ultimate specification. Sadly most had been replaced with Speedline wheels. Ended up with a non Gordini anyway.
Love your car!

 

[petercronin]

Great start to a progress thread, well done.

 

[Big Ben]

Excellent intro posts. Look forward to some more in the future

 

[Dumdum]

Nice job! However no one has mentioned the yellow stuff pads habits of destroying themselves on trackdays, not very good at all and you won’t find a set in a Clio on here that does trackdays, Ferodo ds2500 generally are the goto pad for upgrades (just saying so you don’t find out the hard way and ask why no one said!)