It is in the top left of the photo. Yes exhaust had to come off but brake lines and rear beam remained on the car.
I think it may be better to run the diesel tank, that will get away from the breather system all together
So, tank off was a horrible job, back bumper off in order to remove the exhaust properly then tank off on your own is “fun”, to say the least! I didn’t really take many pictures at this point as I was slight sodden in v power. But I made a blank for the carbon canister valve at the top of the tank out of another tank from the yard then plastic welded it to my tank and sealed over it for good measure. Whilst the tank was off I took the opportunity to under seal that part of the car as it isn’t from factory. Next up was the fuel system. As a few of you know, I’ve been experimenting on how to make a decent fuel system without a swirl pot. Take the top of a diesel sender, the body of a 225/r26 sender (they are slightly different) a decent pump and a blank, a custom rail and lines, a regulator and you negate the need for a swirl pot and external pump. I the return hose is slightly too long so that I can remove the gauge setup once it is mapped for the new fuel setup, the vac hose to the regulator will be installed for mapping too, so I will have a 1:1 boost to fuel pressure ratio which is what these cars should of come with from factory. Note, you can remove the carbon canister line pretty easily with everything still in, you can reach the heat shield but from underneath Does anyone have a r26 regulator from in the sender unit they could send me?
Great job, probably better than mine! Just keep an eye on temperature of the braided line when the car is hot and idling, mine has been warming up the fuel, not enough to cause danger or problems but it needs to be checked I moved my regulator last yesterday, actually to a similar location as yours, didnt nick your ideas Can you just go through everything you have done to remove your carbon cannister? Mine is off, left top tank vent as is just completely disconnected the cannister. Removed vapour line under car, solenoid valve still plugged in will see about removal during mapping, I have plugged the pre turbo induction line that ran to the solenoid, and running my temperature sensor on the throttle body where the second line went to originally. Also just double check your tank is venting, with the return and fuel inevitably warming slightly it will evaporate at a faster rate Great work again once though
It has been fine so far but haven’t really given it death yet as it needs mapping, it’s holding 3.5 bar by the regulator and won’t connect the vacuum line till mapping, is this what you are doing too? For carbon canister removal I used a Fidel fuel tank as it doesn’t have any of it attached, as for the breather line, I blocked this off, I’m expecting the tank to “breathe” through the one attached on the filler neck. All vapour lines removed. Line from throttle body is capped off, solenoid valve still plugged in but no lines connected to it, will ask Paul to map the light out when I remove it. How are you venting your tank?
Yes exactly the same. Have you decided how you are running that yet? Been eyeing up the two manifold outlets today, they are both 10mm quick connects, been looking for that to -6 really but not found anything yet. Was thinking about running it from the left side (that vacum breathes the engine) and doing away with the breather. May look at running both breathers to a catch can but dont have time right now. I only have tomorrow to come up with something im "busy" on Thursday with something else Did you mean to write diesel fuel tank? Not sure about filler neck and how that line works, must have some kind of valve? I didnt bother removing my tank. Same as me then really, I am still using the main breather, just disconnected from the canniser of course. Didnt see any need to blank that as it has a float / rollover valve. Pretty simple really. Havnt had any problems other than my car smells like fuel, but then ive probably had to clean up over a litre from inside from changing fittings, pumps and swirl pots etc
Car is for sale, I haven’t wrote an official advert yet but I will, if you are interested drop me a DM. If I can not get what I want for the car, I will consider breaking
A long overdue resurrection of this build thread! When I purchased the car from Korky I had every intention of matching his diligence in documenting all changes made to the car, but as usual, life got in the way and good intentions turned into another item on the ever growing to-do list The car may also be up for sale shortly so wanted to make sure I captured the changes made over the past couple of years. This thread proved to be really useful so hoping the same might be true for the next potential owner. First up, fitting a SW Motorsport half cage. Cazper's fitting guide was absolutely spot on and no doubt saved me a lot of time and swearing Seats out and carpet up. Positioned with rear bolts in. Front feet ready for bolts and underbody plate. Underbody plate protected with underbody seal.
Next up, fitting new Sparco Evo LF bucket seats, Sparco Endurance 6 point FHR harnesses, Race Safety side mounts and K-tec Racing bases. If found the Recaro Trendlines to be comfortable but not ideal for track work. FIA Compliant harness bolt stress plates were already fitted to the car so fitting the harnesses was nice and straightforward. I found the Sparco fitting instructions to be a little wanting so ended up using the Schroth guide which was much easier to follow for attaching the harnesses to the cage harness bar.
I noticed the handbrake playing up a bit, and after some investigation found the offside rear caliper to be sticking. Further inspection showed the piston's rubber boot to have perished allowing surface corrosion to build up, which was presumably the root cause of the issue. A number of forum members recommended the Bigg Red BRKP7 brake caliper piston repair kit, which was ordered and used by my brother in law (a mechanic) to rebuild both rear calipers. QX Tripple Red Rubber Grease and ATE TYP200 racing brake fluid was also used to complete the rebuild. Old piston with surface corrosion. Just a slight difference in pad wear! Caliper internals. Annoyingly I forgot to take photos during the rebuild but remembered at the end.
Over time the sticky caliper had caused the handbrake cable to become stretched. I opted to replace both sides, as per the caliper rebuild, to keep things consistent. This was a relatively simple job, apart from where the cables go into the chassis. The old plastic grommets wouldn't budge so after reading a couple of threads where members also had the same issue I ended up carefully drilling them out. The replacement cables came with combination of metal grommets and rubber O-rings instead of being completely plastic, which I coated using Bilt Hamber Dynax UC to help prevent future corrosion. Stretched cable leading to both sides being unbalanced. The Renault handbrake design only appears to cater for a a very minor difference between each side before it being an issue, i.e. the cable slipping out of the carrier. Other manufacturers appear to have a more tolerant design allowing for much larger discrepancies. Just after carefully drilling out the old grommet and before tidying up all surface corrosion and plus spritzing with Bilt Hamber Dynax UC. Comparison of old and new cables. New cables fitted and balance restored! Handbrake now working like a charm with the rebuilt caipers.
One of the previous upgrades to the R26 was the installation of a new stainless steel braided fuel line running from the sender unit to fuel rail. Being slightly OCD I wanted to provide some thermal insulation to dampen any potential heat soak from the engine bay. There was no particular evidence for this being the case but given it's relatively inexpensive to do and also adds a bit of extra bling to the engine bay then I thought why not! The I used following two products from DEI: Heat Shroud Gold for the fuel line and Reflect A-Gold Heat Barrier for the fuel rail. The Reflect A-Gold Heat Barrier comes in a large sheet with an pressure adhesive backing. I used a bit of standard A4 paper to experiment with to make a template to wrap the fuel rail. Once I was happy with the template and knew it would fit I used it to cut out the heat barrier material. The whole process was pretty straight forward and I was pretty happy with the results. Here's the finished engine bay with the fuel rail re-installed and the heat shroud wrapped around the fuel line.
The old girl decided she no longer wanted to open the passenger window. After replacing the Temic unit with no joy (and checking fuses) it was time to replace the whole window motor unit to see if that did the trick. After crossing both sets of fingers and toes, and the press of a button, bingo! She was cooperating again
In August 2020, the engine was found to have poor compression on one cylinder. Other than the fact that the compression test was low there wasn't much else to indicate the engine had an issue. Given this development there was only one option in my mind so I packed her up and sent her off for a rebuild Following a full engine strip down, the root cause of the low compression turned out to be worn valve guides instead of the dreaded ringland failure or a piston ring issue. Apart from the valve guide, the rest of the engine was in excellent shape - a real credit to the previous owners and their relentless upkeep of the car. In light of the above, the head was rebuilt involving: Valve seats re-cut. New valve guides fitted. New seals fitted. Vales re-lapped. Head skimmed. The bottom end was also treated to a bit of a refresh involving: New big end bearing fitted. New piston rings fitted. Bores deglazed. The engine was built back up with all new gaskets, seals, belts, etc. I'll need to dig out the images of the rebuild as they're currently on my NAS which has just died - my wife plugged in the wrong PSU and it went pop!
I was very pleased with the results of the engine rebuild - the pull in every gear was/is so much stronger, and long may it stay that way! The most recent item I've changed on the R26 is the radiator, header tank and various spring clips that looked past their best. The radiator was found to have a very small leak on one side. A call to RPD led to a quick turn around of a new genuine replacement and 10L of type D coolant. I sourced the expansion tank from ECP and the clips from Car Builder Solutions. Top tip: make sure you remove the upper mounting rubber inserts from the old radiator as the replacement won't have any. I found out the hard way, having been a bit too efficient at disposing of the old one, and having to buy new ones. A really minor part but I found it quite difficult to find replacements. I ended up getting genuine replacements from here (Renault part no. 8200051471) just in case anyone needs the same in the future. New spring clips and rubber inserts. Fan fitted to new radiator. New radiator fitted.
