Last night I had the joy of replacing the drivers side driveshaft seal as it had started weeping. This is a horrible job laid on your back on the driveway. The seal had actually tore in half [emoji15] Damaged seal Anyway fresh Renault seals and box oil, I will get round to changing the passenger side one when I have some spare time again or access to a ramp, but as it wasn't leaking I will wait a while.
I'm sure a few of you may be interested so here goes... I have been testing the upper torque link to suit r26/225 by evol engineering on my car over the past few months to reduce engine movement. The mount is a direct replacement for the old upper torque link and has provided more stability in the engine on and off throttle. In addition to this I am also testing the gearbox dogbone mount, this will also fit the 197/200 and will be finished soon. For any more information contact the guys at evolengineering@hotmail.co.uk or to order clink on the link https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/162587406512 Just to note, I don't make anything out of this, I simply asked the company to produce a part that I wanted that wasn't available. Hopefully a few other will find this useful.
I have also ordered seats and rails and am in discussions about wheels and what is the best options to go for. I recently received my scan gauge back from being updated however am unable to get the AFR function to work. I have painted a few bits in the engine bay with VHT crackle black too, I am trying to keep that oem look but without all the daft trims so that thinks are readily accessible. I now have a unit and ramp with a few friends so I can work on the car indoors and a lot easier now. I will keeps more up to date with progress too.
Yep, I have found that out the hard way! I run the solid ktec mounts too, so a fair bit more vibration than in a standard car, however I dont think it would be too bad on a standard car
So this past week I have been getting the car ready for fcs, clean and polish, the usual. Paint centre caps to match wheels. The car came up pretty well and I had a great day. Here's the car in its current state
Corbeau clubsports seats arrived fresh from the production line along with some ktec bases. The seats came with sliders however they felt a little unsteady so I direct mounted the seats the the bases for a nice secure setup. I have kept the seat belts and pre tensioners for now however I may go down the harness route. Also trying to find an r26r cage or similar and trying to stay with he 'clubsport' sort of spec without going fully stripped.
Those seats look really good, fairly close match to the R26R ones from memory. Are they quite comfortable?
R26 NS Driveshaft 7711135956 R26 OS Driveshaft 7711497234 Renault parts direct sell them mate about £150 each I think
After looking into what else I could do to improve the handling lately, I read a lot into pre load on the front anti roll bar after a lot of discussion on here. So, put the car on the for post ramp, removed the standard drop links. Note that these have to be 'manipulated' into position because the car is on coilovers and they are too long. I measure the distance between the holes the best I could do that the arb has no preload when the car is sat still. I know I should be in the car for this so it is weight correctly however I couldn't do both and there was no one around. I measure around 243mm. A bit of searching one euro car parts and meister auto'a for lengths of drop link and I settled on a set of 240mm trw ones, part number 427BM0010 Link: https://m.gsfcarparts.com/427bm0010 Ford for the cheapest on gsf with weekend discount code. Think they cost me £22 in total. All fitted Whilst I was at it I got the grease gun out and greased my hub bearings too as they haven't been done since they were fitted around 6 months ago, the hubs still feel great mind. Immediately it is evident that the arb is doing what would appear as more work, the front end feels stiffer straight away. The old droplinks were less than a year and a couple of k old too so they can't of been worn either. Will report back again after a good blast out.
Can someone confirm how I get in touch with Snappy? Is he a member? I think he did my steering wheel on the car i've just bought and wouldn't mind matching gear shift. Thanks
So this weekend I picked up some team dynamics pro race 1.2 in gloss anthracite, couple of marks I had to polish out and one I couldn’t so that wheel will be getting a refurb. Any how, they are on for now and look sweet! Non of the full car as I need to clean it! Also fitted my oil catch can and will be trying to tidy up the breather system over the next few weeks
Air con delete I used a 1*2 pulley however you have to trim around 5mm of the plastic cam cover but I have done around 10 miles and seems fine so far! You will need a 4pk810sf belt, this is a stretch belt that self tensions. You may also see it listed as 4pk810/830 If using gsf or eco they can be found under 2006 bmw 120d Pulled the pulley off a 172 engine from the unit, gave it a lick of satin black, all is good. Size comparison Remember if you are doing this you will need to lock the timing on the engine. Finished It means belt changes are around £10 now, no tensioner and lightened crank pulley. I chose this method for the air con delete as it seems most beneficial when comparing to others.
I've just read your thread start to finish and admire your work sir! I wish I had the time and space to work on my car like you have. I'll be keeping my eye on this. Good man!
Full pics of the car & wheels please haha I'm thinking of getting some myself - What offset are they?
Thanks for taking your time to read it Johnny, do you have a thread up of yours? Funds will be allocated elsewhere as soon as I buy a house so the build will slow down [emoji1361] Will get some at the weekend once I’ve give it a clean mate. They are et45, I am not running spacers any more like the old wheels. May possibly have 5mm milled off the fronts to make them et50 but not sure yet.
I bought some genuine Beru coil packs as the seals on the old ones were not there best and at 60k could probably do with a refresh, so they are now spares. Managed to get 4 for £80 from Mister Auto which I think is very good considering they are £50+ at Renault. And a set of r26r fog light blanks for the grand total of £4 from eBay, someone had listed them wrong. And disabled front fogs in clip. Not sure if anyone saw my thread on air con delete but the Clio cup racer 197 uses the same pulley but they have an extra crank pulley cover to protect the cambelt so I’m having one made up at work, looks pretty simple, will post up ones finished
Posting up here so others can see too, for future reference Also, reading more into my Air con delete setup I discovered the R3 Clio uses it along with an extra cambelt cover that should prevent cambelt failure if ever the aux belt were to fail. So I ordered one of them from John at R-sport. I don’t really think it is needed as a load of the 197 guys on this setup have never had an issue, so it is more a nice to have. I also stripped the inner arches out, prepared them and undersealed / wax oiled to future proof them. Also the fuel system has started to arrive I just need to figure out the rest of the plan now
with the pump you might need to trim of the clips. the original one doesn't have them Old Vs new by matt eaton, on Flickr
The pump I fitted had clips and it should fit fine. The clips don’t do anything, but they didn’t get in the way either.
Pump fits no issues. Return fitted, fpr cut in half, internal removed so it just acts as a blank Fuel rail, line and fittings. Line is msa spec SS braid with Teflon inner, fittings to suit Pms billet fpr holder with Bosch 3.5 bar fpr
Jenvey with 89mm spacing, just need to tig 2 mounting tabs on this afternoon It’s the only “off the shelf” option I’ve found
Scrap that, rail clashes with inlet once the fittings are on. Will just be using new pump with possibly new braided line and no return system unfortunately
Fuel pump in. Sender retaining ring was tight! Anyone reading this I would recommend the correct tool to remove it. Relay setup below And hidden