Rich's Black R26

I've owned the R26 for a couple of weeks now, so I thought it was about time I started a thread to document progress with the car.

A year ago I became a two car man, one for daily road use and one for track\weekends etc. At the time I figured that a Caterham was the right car to fulfil the track\weekend duties, but a year later I've had a change of mind\heart (I won't bore you with details!). Having moved the Caterham on, I started looking for something that would be reliable enough to drive to the track, spend all day on it and then drive home. Something that would pass the noise limits at most/all tracks. Something that I could drive in the dark mornings\evenings of winter without fearing frostbite.

Having always been a fan of Renaultsport cars, my mind was finally made up having spent 2 days at a Destination Nurburgring event with my brother - the Meganes were almost as impressive as the GT3 RSs. Given that you can get a MK3 Megane for < £10k, I did consider whether I should invest a little more in getting the more modern car, but always loved the shape of the Mk2 and given that I was always going to run this as a track only car and modify it accordingly, I'd prefer to have the extra cash in the modification funds!

So the forum\pistonheads search commenced and ended quite quickly. 15 miles down the road I found an R26 with 104000 miles on it, 103700 of those having been done by the latest owner. Having seen the car and spent some time with the owner it was clear that this was a well maintained vehicle; when he produced an entire A4 folder of service, MOT, tyre, oil etc. invoices this confirmed it! In terms of modifications it's got a K-Tech 3" exhaust (with an extra silencer to keep it quiet), panel filter, stage 1 remap and braided brake lines fitted.

Some photos from when I picked her up:









Since then I've commenced with some modifications;

1. Fitted a double DIN Android head unit; basically to let me run Torque and Google Maps. The Torque app is ace - having it embedded in the dashboard is even better!



2. Removed rear seats & other gubbins from the boot
3. Fitted a Boardy short shift mechanism
4. Fitted a CGLock from my previous car

That's it for now.

In the garage I've got;

1. Carbon Lorraine RC5+ front pads
2. Silicone boost pipe + ITG filter - will be following the DIY induction kit guides on here
3. Wolf Race Pro Lite 2 wheels (18x8 ET50) + Toyo R888R tyres





Going forwards I'll be looking at doing a front suspension refresh and fitting coilovers at the same time, installing some lower, more supportive bucket seats and harnesses, fitting a larger intercooler, fitting a sports\decat and then getting a remap to take advantage of those, while keeping the torque low enough to avoid bending the engine!

First track day is all booked up at Donington GP tomorrow - don't think I'll have a chance to get the R888Rs mounted before then, so I'll be on my Contintental road tyres; maybe some rain would be good!

:Edit: As Photobucket seemed to be offline for all of Friday I didn't get a chance to submit this post! So I've now been to Donington where the car performed really well. I did cook the DS2500 pads at the end of the day which resulted in going straight on instead of turning left into the fast chicane onto the GP loop, and then a very slow and squealy drive home!

Intake temps were peaking at 51 (ambient was no more than 8 degrees) so that's 43 degrees above ambient! Intercooler, Carbon Lorraine pads, Brembo HC discs and new RBF660 will be installed over the next couple of weeks.

 

Had a "car day" to myself on Saturday; was hoping to fit new brake discs, pads and fluid but still waiting on some parts to be delivered unfortunately.

Instead I fitted my 70mm Airtec "low lagg" intercooler. As it's smaller than the normal Airtec offering, but a bit larger than the Forge\Pro Alloy products I'm hoping this will offer a good compromise between temperature control & turbo lag. I went for it in black with no logo, rather than anything more lairy. It's a pretty simple job to swap over, once you've worked out how the 4 bumper clips above the headlights work (bumper removal probably makes up 90% of the effort required for this job!).





I also took the opportunity to install a DIY ITG intake system, following some of the excellent guides on here.



I've seen a few people commenting on how the OEM cold air feed is laughable - a small piece of black ducting running from somewhere behind the bumper to somewhere around the OEM airbox. Well mine doesn't seem to have an OEM cold air feed - I'll be installing something over the next few days. I recognise that the intercooler does the vast majority of the cooling work, but if feeding it with slightly colder air improves it's efficiency a bit then I'm all for that.

On a side note - the jubilee clip holding the OEM turbo hose on is indeed a bitch to get at - my hands are covered in small cuts and grazes this morning!

 

New brake parts ready to be installed:

Brembo High Carbon solid front discs
OEM solid rear discs
Carbon Lorraine RC5+ pads all round
Motul RBF600 Brake Fluid
MrPink's front caliper pins
KTec Stud Conversion Kit



Braided lines are already fitted.

After a scary moment on track at Donington where I went for the brakes and had zero pedal, I thought it best to start from scratch and replace everything so I have confidence in what's fitted and how long it's been fitted for.

 

Cheers mate. Engine and gearbox mounts are defo on the cards.

I used this guide;

http://www.rsmegane.com/threads/itg-cone-filter-induction-kit.646/

Wheels are meant to be 9kg but I will weigh them before fitting.

 

So, I've got my CL RC5+ pads fitted all round, and Brembo HC discs fitted at the front. Had to give up on rear discs for now - the two bolts holding the caliper guides in place seem to have been tightened by a man with ungodly strength -



after 2 evenings of extreme frustration I've decided to leave it for a day when the car is up in the air on a lift - hopefully then I'll be able to get at them with a breaker bar.

I used this guide for the fronts:

http://www.meganesport.net/discandpad.htm

and this guide for the rears:

http://rsmegane.com/threads/how-to-guide-r26-rear-pads-and-discs-change.11603/

The front pads on the inside of the caliper had taken a right hammering at Donnington; one of them worn down to (and beyond) the backing plate - I should've been keeping a closer eye on them, lesson learnt!



Fronts looking much better now:

 

Think I'll do the same. You don't happen to have part #s for the bolts, or links to buy online?

 

Legend!

 

After a couple of frustrating weeks at work and busy weekends, I finally had a "car day" this Saturday.

Before anything could be done to the Meg, the daily was in need of a clean:







With that out of the way, I could get the Renault on to the drive way and start fitting some pretty Forge bits and bobs; a hard pipe kit, recirc valve (yellow spring) and wastegate actuator (yellow spring)







Unfortunately, rain and darkness curtailed my outdoor time on Saturday. I got the recirc valve and actuator (half a hole of preload as advised on here) fitted, but gave up on the hard pipes. Took her out for a drive afterwards to make sure there are no nasty boost spikes or anything; Torque app is reporting exactly the same peak boost values as before. The big difference I noticed is increased turbo stall noise when short shifting.

The evening was spent knocking up a storage solution for my track wheels/tyres, using some decking joists I had lying around, and some 8mm chain (and associated fittings) from screwfix:





I then spent the rest of the evening drooling over this (2nd seat is still in transit somewhere!):





Then got up early on Sunday morning to do a test fit before my planned day out:



Not only are these seats sexy as hell, but ultra supportive, ready for 6 point harnesses and a healthy 6kg lighter than the OEM Recaros (13kg vs 19kg including sidemounts and ktec sub frames, weighed with a slightly dodgy luggage weighing device). Mind you, I wouldn't want to be much wider round the waist - I'm a 32" and they fit me perfectly.

I got home in time to give her a quick wash down before it got dark on Sunday afternoon:



In my garage I still have rear brake discs, BC coilovers, most front suspension parts, oil temp and pressure gauges (+ sandwich plate and gauge pod) and the forge hard pipe kit to get fitted. Not to mention properly fitting the drivers seat when the high tensile bolts arrive, along with the passenger seat when it eventually shows up. I wish my Christmas holidays started today!

 

I tried to create space by removing the intake pipe, and I also had the wastegate actuator already removed. This makes 2 of the 3 bolts relatively easy to get to. However, the top left one is tucked up right next to the head of the engine - a lot of people on here have mentioned using a ground-down ring spanner to get at it (a normal ring spanner is too fat to fit between the head of the engine and the recirc valve). I use an open ended 10mm spanner, but I could literally only do a quarter turn of the bolt at a time, so it's a long and tedious process. I considered removing the scuttle panel to give me a bit more room, but ultimately you don't need to.

Something like this might be worth a try, although you might still find that the ring head is too fat!

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B002ZU5XIC/?tag=rsmeg-21

 

I'd been looking forward to getting a bit of car time over Christmas, including the use of my brother's more skillful arms which came in very useful.

First up was installing the OMP Champ R seats, on OMP side mounts and KTech Subframes. I also went for OMP 6 point harnesses (only use the crotch strap on track to prevent submarining under heavy breaking). These are mounted using Scrotch harness brackets and high tensile bolts all round. They're tiny, probably narrower than the Tillett B6's I had in the Caterham, so no big passengers for me (also helps keep the weight down ).



The big installation job was BC Coilovers. I went for the DR series ones with 7kg springs all round. DR ones are digressively valved and only slightly more expensive. 7kg all round is what KAM Racing recommend for a car that's going to be used on track (normally the kit comes with softer 4kg rear springs).



On getting them out of the box the first thing you notice is how small they are compared to the OEM stuff:



All the BC stuff seems to come with camber adjustable front top mounts:



I got the rears done in about an hour. The fronts were a different story. I'd decided to replace steering arms, anti rotation links and drop links while I was under the car. The nuts on the anti rotation links had 105000 miles worth of rust on them, meaning we snapped 3 T40 torx bits while trying to hold the bolt still to remove the nuts. Ultimately we drilled the old bolts out! Utter ball ache. Anyway it's done now.

Back on the ground:



I set the dampers on '15' hardness all round (on a scale of 1-30). With these 7kg rear springs it certainly is firm - I don't think I could drive it every day like this, but for running up and down the motorway to track days it's bearable!

The car is booked into CGR Automotive for a full decat system, with a swappable straight pipe/sports cat front section, in February. The following day she's off to see Paul at RS Tuning for larger injectors and remap to take advantage of all the new hardware. I will also get her booked in to Wheels In Motion for a 4 wheel alignment & fast road/track setup.

That's all for now - in the garage I still have the Forge hard pipes & oil temp\pressure gauges. I'm working on the gauge pod right now.

 

Excellent, good to hear from someone else running the same setup. I'll have a play with the damper hardness knob (ooh, err) then, see if it gives me a bit more compliance on the road!

 

Hmm, I have a feeling I'll shortly have a matching set of burns

 

I'll take a couple of pics tomorrow to show you.

 

Been ages since I updated this (and I realise I left Audio Addict hanging waiting for pics - my bad!).

At the end of January I took the Meg to Donington for my 2nd track day in her - the first one had also been at Donny. Since then I'd fitted new Brembo front discs, Carbon Lorraine pads all round, new brake fluid, larger intercooler, DIY ITG Intake, BC Coilovers, bucket seats, harnesses and had some R888R tyres mounted to my track wheels. Needless to say I was excited to see how differently she performed.



Mother nature had different plans - the track days started 2 hours late initially due to ice, then fog. It remained a cold and wet day once the track had opened, so not really an opportunity to test the changes to the car at all. Towards the end of the afternoon I made the schoolboy error of saying "right, I'm coming in this lap" only to change my mind at the last minute due to getting a bit of clear track ahead. Cue me lifting off in the middle of the craner curves, travelling sideways across the grass before ending up buried in the gravel trap on the outside of the circuit. Spent a good hour removing gravel from wherever I could find it (including some wedge between the wheel rim and the bead of the tyre), then trundled home with a glum expression on my face!

Having cleaned up the car and wheels, here's the 'finish' that the gravel trap left on the two wheels that took the brunt of the gravel:



The following week the car was booked in for a 2 day holiday in the North of England - Day 1 to get a full decat system installed at CGR Automotive. Day 2 to get larger injectors and a remap done at RSTuning.

Day 1 went OK - it took Charlie a fair while to get the old downpipe off the car - it was gone 9pm by the time we all left the workshop! I drove to my hotel for the night and the exhaust sounds amazing. On the motorway at low revs it's quiet and drone free. When giving it a bootfull it's properly snarly.





Day 2 did not go well. I arrived at RST, greeted by Andy who got the car loaded on the dyno. Paul arrived and started my 'before' run. The look on his face immediately told me something was run. "Who did the Stage 1 map on this?" he asked. "KTec" I replied. "This is the worst one of their's that I've seen.". Great. He showed me some of the issues with the map - some of which I understood, some of which I didn't. Anyway, next plan was to flash it back to stock and make sure it ran ok at that.

With the stock map on, Paul's face again did not look happy. The car was generate lots of boost, but no power to go with it. A compression test followed, to find that two of the cylinders were holding less than 5bar of pressure - about half of what they should hold.

Cue long discussions about possible causes, plans of action, costs of options etc.

Anyway, we're now reaching an exciting time. The car has remained at RST for the last 4 weeks, pretty much stagnant. This is because CP pistons have a 6 week lead time. That 6 weeks is almost over, so shortly work will commence on a forged engine build. The final spec (valves, springs, injectors, turbo) still need ironing out, but I'll share the details once it's finalised.

So it's an expensive start to my R26 ownership, but hopefully this will give us a very good platform for years to come!

 

Cheers pal, they're certainly not pretty. Means that getting them refurbed in red might happen sooner rather than later!

Bought the intercooler direct from Airtec for £415 delivered. The two things I remember Paul saying about the map was that it was running impossibly high correction factors, and that a 16 bit map had been put onto an 8 bit ECU? Ultimately I'll never know whether the map caused the issues; I did't mean to insinuate that - I think given the age of the engine and car there's plenty of things that could've gone wrong with it over the years.

Quite a lot. £500 on wheels, £720 on suspension, £500 on seats, £400 on brakes (front pads were barely used off eBay), £260 on tyres (part worn on eBay), £200 on the head unit, at least £200 on gauges and sensors, another £200 on harnesses. ITG kit was relatively cheap to knock up - £70 or so. Engine build is gonna be pretty pricey!

Gone for CP Pistons, Manley Rods, Supertech Springs and Valves. I'll do the 630cc injectors at the same time and probably a 250 turbo.

 

Just had the call from Paul to say that the new engine should be installed and running by the end of the day. Originally the CP pistons weren't due until this week so we're way ahead of schedule.

Engine spec is:

CP Pistons
Manley Rods
ACL Big End Bearings
Supertech Valves & Springs
630cc Injectors
RS250 Turbo
R26.R Clutch and Single Mass Flywheel

Given that the car felt pretty rapid with 2 leaky cylinders, I can't wait to get back behind the wheel!

 

Cheers - it was very much a 'strip the car for parts, sell the lot and forget it ever happened' vs 'get it done properly & hope the car delivers many seasons of reliable and enjoyable track action' decision.

 

Let's hope so. Paul mapped her on the dyno today - 308bhp and 335lbft with boost limited to 1.4bar. I've not seen a graph yet.

Flying up on Friday morning to collect.