Well i'll be happy with anything around 280bhp so we'll see. Car's booked in for remapping on Monday! Now i've got the mid box chop and decat the standard exhaust sounds mental, so i'm happy enough to stick with that. A 3" exhaust would be nice, but I think i'd need a 250 turbo to make it worthwhile. At which point i'll probably have spent another grand for not a lot more power so think i'll stick with it as it is for now.
Well, had a little issue with my rear brakes. Heard a quiet scraping noise at low speed one evening but had a bit of a drive to Liverpool the next day to have my decat pipe fitted, so just had to stick it out. Anyway this scraping quickly developed into a horrendous grinding under braking. I could tell it was coming from the rear passenger side just from the noise inside the car. Had a look at the brake and see that the pads are down to the metal! But what can you do, I was stuck in Liverpool at about 7pm so just had to drive it back carefully. Next day I got hold of some pagid pads and set about changing them. But when stripping down the brakes I was surprised to find that the outer pad was down to the metal backing plate, but the inner one still had 4-5mm lift left in it!? Look at the drivers side and see thats fine, both pads still 4-5mm of material! So I stripped the brakes down to try and find the problem and the issue I found was the handbrake sticking on. Now i'm not sure really why this would cause one pad to wear massively more than the other, but this was the only issue I could see. As you can see in this video, when I pump the handbrake up and down, once its on it jams on and doesn't release! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b_cXdLG03PM So I looked into this further and found that the little outer sheath of the cable was frayed and peeling off and I think this was jamming on the rubber outer cover. So I chopped all this off back to the inner cable. Dripped a load of bike chain lube down between the inner and outer cable, greased the handbrake linkage on the back of the caliper and filled the little rubber end cap of the cable with grease to keep it lubed as it moved. You can see on the caliper there is notches for springs to be fitted, but they aren't fitted as standard as far as i'm aware. So I ordered some of those and clipped them on: Now the handbrake has a more positive action to it, you feel the springs working and they ensure the hand brake is held off so it won't rub again. So now the new pads are in, I just need to let them bed in a bit. Unfortunately the drive back with no pad material has scored the disc slightly so i'll see how it goes on. I may have to take the disc to be skimmed. Next up, the car is due a service so I ordered all genuine Renault parts online and fitted a couple today: Spark plugs were changed. Nice easy job and was pleased to the see the ones fitted were in good condition, along with the coils which looked almost new. It has Bosch super plus plugs fitted, so I was glad to fit the proper NGK-R plugs: Its probably a placebo affect but the car seems to idle smoother and respond better under power! Cabin filter was also changed. Looks like it was much overdue and the old one came out with a pile of leaves! Then i've got genuine Renault oil and filter which will be put in tomorrow by RS Tuning, along with the magnetic sump plug and 630cc injectors. Little pic of the decat pipe fitted too. Not really that visible: The car sounds nuts now with the decat and mid box chop. Proper bangs and pops on overrun now, and loud under power, but can still be driven quietly when you want so i'm chuffed really. I'll be off to RS Tuning first thing tomorrow and will see how she does!
Yesterday morning was spent at RS Tuning, got there early and had the oil and filter changed before getting the car on the rollers for some base readings. Me and Paul were both surprised to the see the car performing really strong with just the supporting mods before remapping, producing 252hp & 240ftlb of torque! The 630cc injectors were then fitted and the remapping began. Eventually ending up at 277hp & 300ftlb torque. This is at 1.2 Bar boost. Dead happy with the result, the car drives so much better now. The dip in power you can see on the before graph after 5500rpm was really noticeable before, meaning I didn't really rev it much higher than that. But now thats gone and the car pulls hard to the limiter. Turbo lag has been reduced, infact its none existent now, the turbo and engine respond instantly now at any revs. The additional torque has made a massive difference to the drive, the car absolutely rockets out of second and third gear corners now, with the exhaust 'Whoosh' really loud, sounds great. Also i'm happy that the car seems to handle the extra power with ease. The car puts the power down no problem at all, and I found that if I launch with a little care before flooring it, all the power goes straight to the road even in first gear.
On the rollers: And a quick video. Not great quality tbh: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DM6LlfjicWg&feature=youtu.be
Your video has been made private BEEFTEC. Good figures, though you could probably run less boost with a 3". If you've got some coin, KTEC have 10% off over the Christmas period, a good £47 saving iirc.
Ahh think i've sorted the video now. Wish i'd of taken one from that back - Had some major pops and bangs coming out of the back on the rollers but they don't pick up well on the vid haha. Yes he said I could pull more power with less boost on a 3" exhaust, ideally with a 250 turbo and i'd be seeing 300hp. 300hp / 300ftlb would be nice round number I suppose, but with an exhaust, turbo and a map tweak i'd be looking at best part of £900 so I won't be going down that road for now! Although if a used 3" exhaust comes up I might be tempted haha.
