Welshname's Deep Black 197

[welshname]

Thought I may aswell copy my project thread from cliosport.net over to here. Apologies if some of it makes no sense as it's purely a copy and paste from there.

Cheers:

So as some of you know I've been looking for a 197 for a while. As much as I loved the monaco the time had come where I had to draw the line with spending any more money on it.

So...The replacement is a deep black 197.


Spec:
Xenons
Cornering Lights
Climate Control
Cup Spoiler
19mm Spacers
Scorpion Non Res Catback Exhaust
H&R Springs
6 CD Changer
61K Miles
2006 Model
FSH
Belts due in June/July
£4000


Don't have any of my own pictures yet as it's been dark, raining and the car is now dirty so the ones from the advert:



197 Advert by Rhys Bartley, on Flickr



197 Advert by Rhys Bartley, on Flickr


So I've already started to buy some things for the car. One of them being Recaros from an R27 which myself, @Rob and @TheEvilGiraffe fitted whilst @Cookie brought us food. I'd had the car for less than 24 hours before this was completed. Then I used clip to remove the airbag light caused by the missing extra airbag that you get in the 197 seats.


My brand new wheel has just arrived along with my RS Mats which will be fitted tomorrow



Brand New 197 Wheel by Rhys Bartley, on Flickr


Still waiting on:
RenaultSport metal gearknob
LED Kit for the interior
Sunglasses Holder


Really happy with the car so far. It's VERY clean for it's age and for the price I can't complain. I'd spend ages looking at cars up for £5-6K that were higher mileage, no options, very sheddy with no service history so to find this was brilliant.


If the weather is nicer tomorrow and I'm not still feeling like I might die at any second I'll get some pictures of the recaros fitted. Also going to try and get it aligned properly tomorrow. The only thing really letting the car down is that the passenger front alloy is badly kerbed and a bit of a chunk missing from the tyre which the previous owner did when avoiding some moron in a nissan micra and it's knocked the tracking out a tiny bit.


Massive thanks to @Rob for coming with me to view/buy the car and driving the Monaco back to @TheEvilGiraffe who kindly put me up for the night, @Cookie for bringing food and @Scrooge for taking the Monaco off my hands. It all worked out pretty well.


Cheers.

So still feeling rough but decided to give fitting the steering wheel a go.

Pretty simple job to be honest and it's made a huge difference to the inside of the car.


Some pictures:



Old Steering Wheel by Rhys Bartley, on Flickr



Old Steering Wheel by Rhys Bartley, on Flickr


As you can see the wheel was pretty shiny, melted and the stitching at the top was coming off.


So the new one fitted:



New Steering Wheel by Rhys Bartley, on Flickr


And against the old one:



New vs Old by Rhys Bartley, on Flickr


And as promised a very quick picture of the Recaros. Love them:



Recaros by Rhys Bartley, on Flickr


Booked in on a hunter alignment system at 3pm today so looking forward to having that all sorted too!

So after fitting the new wheel I took the car for it's alignment. I always use a place local to me called Drury Lane Services. They know what they are doing, the place is nice and clean and everyone is really friendly.

So on the ramps it goes (this angle is one of the worst for the spoiler):



197 On The Ramps by Rhys Bartley, on Flickr


And all done:



197 Tracking by Rhys Bartley, on Flickr


Much better. Had the wheels balanced whilst I was there to cure the vibrations at speed caused by the kerbed wheel. Bloke there told me there is a small amount of play in both inner tie rods so that's something I'll look to do next month.


Got home to find my sunglasses holder had arrived. Saw someone post about these a few weeks ago and thought it was a great idea to get rid of the handle blanks that you have on the drivers side:



197 Handle Blanks by Rhys Bartley, on Flickr


And replaced:



Sunglasses Holder by Rhys Bartley, on Flickr


Much better use of the space although it's a tight fit for the Ray Bans!


Gearknob is due to arrive on the 11th of Feb and my LED kit should be here in the next couple of days.

So the LED fitting kit turned up from partsulike. I actually ordered the kit that included number plate bulbs too BUT they don't account for the vanity lights. So I've fitted them there instead and will order 2 more bulbs for the number plate.

Apologies for the grainy phone image.



Recaros + LEDs by Rhys Bartley, on Flickr


I've also ordered the update list stereo and I'm going to try and get it to work on the standard ISO connectors. Hopefully it does and I'll reroute them to the back of the dash instead of under the seat. This way I can fit the bluetooth. Was only £37 including next day postage so can't grumble too much. That'll be here tomorrow so I'll test fit and see how we get on. Read a post on the french forum that said the original ISO plugs are also up inside the back of the dash so will investigate that too. Maybe they just ran an extension loom for the cabasse amp, who knows.


More on that later in the week though!

So I'm getting closer.

Got the stereo working with the standard loom and the Bluetooth in. Hooray.


Issue now is that the clock works, but there's no radio display or stalk controls which I believe are both controlled by the yellow plug. My yellow plug looks like this:





And the 197 with update list from factory looks like this





Any suggestions welcome. Think I'll take the dash off at some point and have a look.

So the saga continues.

Phoned and spoke to Steve at Wolverhampton Renault today. Really nice and helpful chap. He went through the diagrams and options and the difference between my car and Knuckles car who has factory Update List stereo is the display. They have different part numbers so looks like the software in that is what controls it.


So I've ordered one off eBay, used for £44. Stalk has the same part number so I'm thinking if the display works the stalks will follow. I'm really hoping to get this sorted as quite frankly I want it all working. If I can get just the display to work and no stalk controls then I'll take that. That's a victory in my book.

 

[DS197]

Welcome saw this on Cliosport. Great stance, looks real mean

 

[welshname]

Thanks, I'm really enjoying it at the minute.

Got one of the RenaultSport gearknobs, one of the ones from Turkey. It's a crappy fit and I'm not impressed with it at all, it's been a nightmare to line up. Going to have another fiddle with it later as I didn't have much time on my lunch.

 

[Pav]

nice subtle upgrades..keep them coming and dont hesitate to ask :thumbsup:

 

[Cal]

love the sunglasses holder can't find one online but they're a great little accessory!

 

[welshname]

love the sunglasses holder can't find one online but they're a great little accessory!

http://pages.ebay.com/link/?nav=item.view&id=291673670162&alt=web

From Laguna's, scenic etc.

 

[Pav]

http://pages.ebay.com/link/?nav=item.view&id=291673670162&alt=web

From Laguna's, scenic etc.

never thought of one of these..but good shout..better not have them shades on the loose...

 

[welshname]

I was really impressed when I saw one on CS. Decided I needed one.

 

[Chris]

What so you pull out handle blanks and theres some sort of clip that this plugs in with?

Nice car btw

 

[Pav]

how much did you have the wheel alignment. done for pls??

 

[welshname]

What so you pull out handle blanks and theres some sort of clip that this plugs in with?

Nice car btw

Cheers.

You pull the blanks out, get the holder and make sure the two pins on the inside of the prongs are removed. Push the holder in place (it's tight and fiddly to get in) then once it's flush push the retaining pins in.

 

[welshname]

how much did you have the wheel alignment. done for pls??

It's just shy of £50 Inc VAT as its just the front toe that can be adjusted. I had my wheels balanced too though so it was more this time. Regardless of what anyone says, the difference between standard laser alignment and hunter even just for the front is night and day different

 

[Pav]

cool..thanks..just browsing their site..

 

[welshname]

cool..thanks..just browsing their site..

Ah didn't realise you're local. On their site you can see the price for front toe adjustment which is all you have. Really friendly, I've been there 5/6 times now and took my mums civic there.

Really recommended them. Just book on the phone and say you'll want to stay there whilst they do it, they tend to have cars dropped off and left all day so book an actual time so you can wait. There's a subway over the road in the petrol station where I usually grab some food. The waiting room there is clean and not very garage like and a decent bog too lol.

 

[Stephenvenning]

Very nice example that, black is the best colour IMO, I'm biased though

 

[///M]

My god there's always one huh?

Dont listen to him mate. It's a fantastic car. He's probably just bought a dump and wonders why he doesn't like it.

197s are so much fun and plenty quick enough on twisty roads. I enjoy it more than my other car sometimes purely for the fun factor.

Very nice motor mate. Hope you enjoy it.

 

[Chris]

skmaxwell.sm - Enough posting on welshnames thread now, go moan about it on another forum, this one is for clios.

@welshname did you want your thread tidied up?


edit: thread all sorted - it won't happen again

 

[///M]

They aren't the quickest thing in the world but the fact remains that they are quick.

You can exploit most of their capability on the road. Take an E46 M3. It will take a b road with no effort and feel boring because you're driving it at 3/10 of its ability. In the Clio its more like 8/10 and its great fun.

And THAT is why I enjoy the Clio so much! Yes my CS is bloody rapid but unless I'm on a road that really suits it and I'm driving like a complete and utter nutbox, I can't wring its neck like I can so easily in the Clio. It's pitched just about perfectly for every day usable thrills in my opinion. You can give it the full berries much more often!

However, I'll gladly show you how the CS can make the right B road anything but "boring"!!!

 

[welshname]

So a little bit of progress but in reality a back step.


Had another fiddle around last night with the stereo setup to try and work out what does what.


The yellow connector that controls the dash and the stalk controls in a 197 that comes with and Update List stereo seems to control the inputs from the CD changer on the unit I have. The stalk and display are controller by a separate connector that's specific to the CD changer unit.


For now I've gone back to the standard setup as I'm away in the lakes this weekend and wanted to be able to fiddle with the stereo without pissing around under the seat. I've put an email in to a local mobile auto electrician explaining the situation and I'm waiting to hear back from them. Fingers crossed they can sort it for me.


My advice at present is to not bother with this as it's an arse ache. But as I've come this far already I'm going to carry on and hopefully be able to show everyone what the electrician has done so it is possible for others to replicate in future by splicing looms etc.

 

[welshname]

update:

so went to rs tuning today and had the car mapped. Paul said it was the worst flat spot he'd seen from just a catback. Ended up with a decent gain and the car is so much more driveable now.

before: 178.7 bhp
after: 185.6 bhp


not sure what these usually run but paul said it's about right for them. He also said he thinks the timing might be out a little but it doesn't look like it's affecting the power at all. He was fairly happy with the bhp increase too.



clio 197 on the rollers by rhys bartley, on flickr



197 dyno graph by rhys bartley, on flickr


can't recommend getting this done enough.