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Christopher
ClioSport Club Member
Z4M
It was on the motorway this morning, so it's running to France
Christopher
ClioSport Club Member
Z4M
Nope. Running running.
oooooooo
The Boosh!
ClioSport Admin
Elise, Duster
PMSL. Hats of to you Fred/Sam :hail:
welshname
ClioSport Club Member
Can't believe it. Glad it's all working
welshname
ClioSport Club Member
Seriously. That's a b*****d after all that work.
This!
I want to work for Fred
tunst come over here, my garage is a bit bigger than your we can have a reet laugh
on topic of the thread, well done boys i wish you luck and hope to see you all (in one piece) soon
Evo 5 RS
Face in hand..that lad has some s**t luck!!!
Christopher
ClioSport Club Member
Z4M
Yeah, it survived the journey. lol
welshname
ClioSport Club Member
It is finished. He has fixed it and it's gone to LeMan. Although the handbrake cable has snapped.
as long as the stickers are ok naith will be happy!
Evo 5 RS
ok, where to begin.... this will take a while. I will no doubt miss bits due to my head still being fried but i want to share with others the time. effort and passion showed last week.
It was always my intention to take the car to LeMans 2011. If the car wasnt ready i'd have not taken it. Got it to BTM about a week before we were meant to set sail to Calais. Freds workload was huge though and the car wasnt even touched till tuesday.
I knew he didnt really have the time but if it wasnt fixed i wasnt going to go... if people think thats selfish, they havent been to leman before.
So on tuesday morning with 48hrs to go we set to work. Myself and sam started pulling the car to bits under freds supervision. He was working on other cars so we were kind of left to it and because i've had the bodywork off her before it was no biggy. To motivate and make the car look half decent i got on with my stickers for LeMans half cut by me, the others done in an excellent fashion by the bryan brothers.
this sums up freds stance during the 48hrs...
Being a really messy engine it took ages to pull everything off.
we worked our way down assessing where and what the cause for loss of compression was, alot of people have said what they think it to be and when it boiled down to it Fred was in the right. I wont beat around the bush, the cars had a tough life, it was one of the first to be mapped in the UK and has spent ages on the dyno. This obviously wears parts down. The main problem we found though was that cylinder three in the head was the weak one, yet when fred did his 'tests' cylinder one was the one that dropped all its contents.
F4RT Head.
As you can see in this pic the apparently fine cylinder one has dropped all its contents obviously something major is up....
Without going into detail to much the valve seats werent sitting in their seats properly. This annoyed fred as he'd pulled the pistons from the engine to check for scoring and damage and they were fine as he's always said they would be. So in essence we were left with a bare bottom block with a seperate head that needed all its valves reskimming. 24 of them and each need about an hour.... FFS. All along BTM had said it was the valves and their seats but hey ho.
Fred called in a few other specialists for their opinion and it was the same, look in the pic below and note the build up on the exhaust side, granted it should get sooty and full of fuel but you could literally peel this off and feel it not letting the valves work properly...
sump off
Pistons checked, and checked again, no scoring or damage to the ring landings (is it?)
Book time stood at 44 hours, We had Wednesday... On the way out of BTM on the tuesday night at 11.50pm fred had an idea. The Velsatis head is very similar to the meg (he thought)... A quick midnight call to Adam @ Renault Wolverhampton confirmed they are the same bare head. Fred had 3 Renault developed F4RT heads from Dieppe and bar a check or two would go straight on...
Wednesday 7am, Fred
'Dont come near me till this afternoon, this is a BIG ask by even my standards so FCUK off i dont want anyone near me all day....'
We left him with 10 redbull and some ciggies.
Now I dont exactly know what happened in the time until lunch but when i arrived the engine looked like this.
It had a new sump on as mine was bent, it had all the pistons pushed back in and new gaskets and thingys fitted, cams in and all timed up, the shiny new development head was on with new valves and valve seat, a far cry from the burnt and sooted ones that came from my head. fred showed me the new valves and how they should have a 2 tier level of colour, mine were a mess... 'overfuelling its tits off'...
Throughout wednesday I carried on with the graphics and occasionally helped out, ie tightening the bolts on the top of my engine, so I could tell everyone I had done all the work :evil:
Fred explained that he's also fitted a different 'BTM spec' headgasket that slightly raises the engine compression.
On weds afternoon another of freds customers phoned in a mess as her BMW had broken down on the Mway.... 30 miles away. True to form of helping people fred set off and along with myself we towed her car back to BTM and fred fitted a new alternator... as you do.
So another two hours lost but we were now getting to a point where we could not give up. Some of the LeMans lads arrived and fred sent them packing to their hotels as we had the rest of the engine to get in. I went to BAP engineering to pick up my severly buckled rear wheel which had been weighted, another thankyou. And sam set all the parts ready for them going back on.
So cracking on the rest of the engine got built up during wednesday evening, at this point freds back, hands and head were fried, myself and sam werent in good shape but fred was f**ked. I learnt so much over the two days about engines but bar embarressing myself lets just leave it with the engine was pieced together slowly, a new water pump went on, a new radiator (leaking heavily), new cambelt and various other little bits. It was now Thursday morning 2am. We had to leave for the ferry at 7am....
Cams going back in... we were looking at Velsatis ones but due to a few unknowns we played it safe at went OEM.
I'm sat there shaking in a chair biting my nails, fully aware that if the car doesnt fire and the compression is off then it wont go and indeed neither will I as the efforts to get the clio sorted would take days.
Fred manually cracks the engine to get a flow into it and connects the battery. Now it being a dry lump i expected it to be a messy affair and fred warned me it might be. Exhaust reconnected... filled with oil and coolant, pipes, FMIC fitted, no leaks or drips, engine mounts on (that reminds me i need new ones)....
It fires first time. FIRST TIME.
Everything else is added back on as the boss runs diagnostics on the engine, lights, bumper, bonnet, wheels... and the car goes outside. Fred takes it for a run, everything is fine. I drive it back to Solihull in certain gears and at certain speeds to load the engine without nailing it. It runs perfect, there is a a noticable high pitched whir from the turbo and the car just feels great. So much so i notice the massive instability from the rear (due to the wheel buckle and lack of allignment post new beam) and the fact its not happy going into gear, the box feels tight and metallic.
but sod it, its going to France!!!
jk comes along with his twin brother Captain Pikey to check how the work rent horse samuel has been getting on, together they decide on what part(s) will adorn the 'Wall of Shame'
After an hours sleep everyone arrived at freds and we set off to Dover, Fred not joining us and getting a later ferry, sorry about that but i did try and wake you
Met up with everyone on the M25, checked oil and coolant, all fine. On we go.....
pull up at Dover ferry terminal, pull the handbrake cable and snap it clean off.
The car has to have blocks on it during the ride over and again I'm the subject of much ridicule.
During the weekend the car was great, started everytime, fred kept an eye on its oils and we even joined in abit with the Mad Friday frivolities /chav. The french and indeed LeMan crowd love the RS's so I kept her clean and did my bit for the brand as always(hope your reading this Jeremy Townsend).
On the sunday in the rain we did a lap of the circuit post race, to hear the exhaust gasses popping under you change gear nursing your car into the Indianapolis Corner is a joy to behold, seen as fred was in a good mood he joined me and I even got a smile, I think it was due to me going through a police cordon to drive the Mulsanne chicanes though
but was the drama over, is it ever....
On the return monday I was pulling out of the services and stupidly went from 1st to 5th gear, thinking i'd save fuel. The car shat itself and went into limp mode at the bottom of a hill. with only 2k rpm available we ended up trying to get up the hill at 28mph and losing spped fast. The car wouldnt make it and RenaultSport Megane's wont start in gear, why would i have to be in gear? No handbrake.... FFS.
We pulled over, literally sh1tting myself, the cars only ever gone into limpmode once before like in 2008!!... So I disconnected the injectors, burnt myself, told riad to restart her and voila... back to normal. I then used alot of fuel to catch up with our party and get to Calais, dover and onwards to Manchester arriving back at 9pm, 13 hours after we left the campsite..
Job done. So to recap a rebuild in under a day, with untested/development parts beeded in with a 1200 mile trip to France and back. Seriously.
Plans as of now are to...
Get a new 225 rear wheel and geo setup to dial out the squirm and terrible ride.
Fit wheel studs and bolts that we didnt get time to put on.
(I test fitted them at BTM...)
I need to solder the rear seatbelt lines together with a resistor to clear the dash fault then she'll show no faults
new smaller front plate.
Fit Forge Recirc and Actuator.
flush the gearbox oil and lookinto a new flywheel as the cars really struggling into certain grears if not then a single mass flywheel to be specially made.
Then breathe... the cars still a mess in certain areas but it was never going to be a day fix, it'll take time as i need to source bits and i aint a millionaire. But she drives, she's as fast as a mapped meg still and she'll continue to be fixed up.
Thanks for reading and thankyou to Sam at BTM for his fantastic efforts and Banter, Elliot at GSF for theparts and last minute wednesday night dash for a Cambelt kit when GSF was closed(!), Adam @ Renault Wolves for going in early and sending over all the required Renault tech specs, All my Lemans boy... you know who you are for help and encouragement and obviously the clowns off CS for the pwnts and interest in whether she's make it, it was literally that tense I nearly cried, arsed if thats too emotional.
And obviously the biggest thankyou and eternal gratitude to Fred. I know the boy recieves alot of justified credit on here but to do what he did in the timescale was unbelievable.
even if it has sent fred loopy.
It was always my intention to take the car to LeMans 2011. If the car wasnt ready i'd have not taken it. Got it to BTM about a week before we were meant to set sail to Calais. Freds workload was huge though and the car wasnt even touched till tuesday.
I knew he didnt really have the time but if it wasnt fixed i wasnt going to go... if people think thats selfish, they havent been to leman before.
So on tuesday morning with 48hrs to go we set to work. Myself and sam started pulling the car to bits under freds supervision. He was working on other cars so we were kind of left to it and because i've had the bodywork off her before it was no biggy. To motivate and make the car look half decent i got on with my stickers for LeMans half cut by me, the others done in an excellent fashion by the bryan brothers.
this sums up freds stance during the 48hrs...
Being a really messy engine it took ages to pull everything off.
we worked our way down assessing where and what the cause for loss of compression was, alot of people have said what they think it to be and when it boiled down to it Fred was in the right. I wont beat around the bush, the cars had a tough life, it was one of the first to be mapped in the UK and has spent ages on the dyno. This obviously wears parts down. The main problem we found though was that cylinder three in the head was the weak one, yet when fred did his 'tests' cylinder one was the one that dropped all its contents.
F4RT Head.
As you can see in this pic the apparently fine cylinder one has dropped all its contents obviously something major is up....
Without going into detail to much the valve seats werent sitting in their seats properly. This annoyed fred as he'd pulled the pistons from the engine to check for scoring and damage and they were fine as he's always said they would be. So in essence we were left with a bare bottom block with a seperate head that needed all its valves reskimming. 24 of them and each need about an hour.... FFS. All along BTM had said it was the valves and their seats but hey ho.
Fred called in a few other specialists for their opinion and it was the same, look in the pic below and note the build up on the exhaust side, granted it should get sooty and full of fuel but you could literally peel this off and feel it not letting the valves work properly...
sump off
Pistons checked, and checked again, no scoring or damage to the ring landings (is it?)
Book time stood at 44 hours, We had Wednesday... On the way out of BTM on the tuesday night at 11.50pm fred had an idea. The Velsatis head is very similar to the meg (he thought)... A quick midnight call to Adam @ Renault Wolverhampton confirmed they are the same bare head. Fred had 3 Renault developed F4RT heads from Dieppe and bar a check or two would go straight on...
Wednesday 7am, Fred
'Dont come near me till this afternoon, this is a BIG ask by even my standards so FCUK off i dont want anyone near me all day....'
We left him with 10 redbull and some ciggies.
Now I dont exactly know what happened in the time until lunch but when i arrived the engine looked like this.
It had a new sump on as mine was bent, it had all the pistons pushed back in and new gaskets and thingys fitted, cams in and all timed up, the shiny new development head was on with new valves and valve seat, a far cry from the burnt and sooted ones that came from my head. fred showed me the new valves and how they should have a 2 tier level of colour, mine were a mess... 'overfuelling its tits off'...
Throughout wednesday I carried on with the graphics and occasionally helped out, ie tightening the bolts on the top of my engine, so I could tell everyone I had done all the work :evil:
Fred explained that he's also fitted a different 'BTM spec' headgasket that slightly raises the engine compression.
On weds afternoon another of freds customers phoned in a mess as her BMW had broken down on the Mway.... 30 miles away. True to form of helping people fred set off and along with myself we towed her car back to BTM and fred fitted a new alternator... as you do.
So another two hours lost but we were now getting to a point where we could not give up. Some of the LeMans lads arrived and fred sent them packing to their hotels as we had the rest of the engine to get in. I went to BAP engineering to pick up my severly buckled rear wheel which had been weighted, another thankyou. And sam set all the parts ready for them going back on.
So cracking on the rest of the engine got built up during wednesday evening, at this point freds back, hands and head were fried, myself and sam werent in good shape but fred was f**ked. I learnt so much over the two days about engines but bar embarressing myself lets just leave it with the engine was pieced together slowly, a new water pump went on, a new radiator (leaking heavily), new cambelt and various other little bits. It was now Thursday morning 2am. We had to leave for the ferry at 7am....
Cams going back in... we were looking at Velsatis ones but due to a few unknowns we played it safe at went OEM.
I'm sat there shaking in a chair biting my nails, fully aware that if the car doesnt fire and the compression is off then it wont go and indeed neither will I as the efforts to get the clio sorted would take days.
Fred manually cracks the engine to get a flow into it and connects the battery. Now it being a dry lump i expected it to be a messy affair and fred warned me it might be. Exhaust reconnected... filled with oil and coolant, pipes, FMIC fitted, no leaks or drips, engine mounts on (that reminds me i need new ones)....
It fires first time. FIRST TIME.
Everything else is added back on as the boss runs diagnostics on the engine, lights, bumper, bonnet, wheels... and the car goes outside. Fred takes it for a run, everything is fine. I drive it back to Solihull in certain gears and at certain speeds to load the engine without nailing it. It runs perfect, there is a a noticable high pitched whir from the turbo and the car just feels great. So much so i notice the massive instability from the rear (due to the wheel buckle and lack of allignment post new beam) and the fact its not happy going into gear, the box feels tight and metallic.
but sod it, its going to France!!!
jk comes along with his twin brother Captain Pikey to check how the work rent horse samuel has been getting on, together they decide on what part(s) will adorn the 'Wall of Shame'
After an hours sleep everyone arrived at freds and we set off to Dover, Fred not joining us and getting a later ferry, sorry about that but i did try and wake you
Met up with everyone on the M25, checked oil and coolant, all fine. On we go.....
pull up at Dover ferry terminal, pull the handbrake cable and snap it clean off.
The car has to have blocks on it during the ride over and again I'm the subject of much ridicule.
During the weekend the car was great, started everytime, fred kept an eye on its oils and we even joined in abit with the Mad Friday frivolities /chav. The french and indeed LeMan crowd love the RS's so I kept her clean and did my bit for the brand as always(hope your reading this Jeremy Townsend).
On the sunday in the rain we did a lap of the circuit post race, to hear the exhaust gasses popping under you change gear nursing your car into the Indianapolis Corner is a joy to behold, seen as fred was in a good mood he joined me and I even got a smile, I think it was due to me going through a police cordon to drive the Mulsanne chicanes though
but was the drama over, is it ever....
On the return monday I was pulling out of the services and stupidly went from 1st to 5th gear, thinking i'd save fuel. The car shat itself and went into limp mode at the bottom of a hill. with only 2k rpm available we ended up trying to get up the hill at 28mph and losing spped fast. The car wouldnt make it and RenaultSport Megane's wont start in gear, why would i have to be in gear? No handbrake.... FFS.
We pulled over, literally sh1tting myself, the cars only ever gone into limpmode once before like in 2008!!... So I disconnected the injectors, burnt myself, told riad to restart her and voila... back to normal. I then used alot of fuel to catch up with our party and get to Calais, dover and onwards to Manchester arriving back at 9pm, 13 hours after we left the campsite..
Job done. So to recap a rebuild in under a day, with untested/development parts beeded in with a 1200 mile trip to France and back. Seriously.
Plans as of now are to...
Get a new 225 rear wheel and geo setup to dial out the squirm and terrible ride.
Fit wheel studs and bolts that we didnt get time to put on.
(I test fitted them at BTM...)
I need to solder the rear seatbelt lines together with a resistor to clear the dash fault then she'll show no faults
new smaller front plate.
Fit Forge Recirc and Actuator.
flush the gearbox oil and lookinto a new flywheel as the cars really struggling into certain grears
if not then a single mass flywheel to be specially made.Then breathe... the cars still a mess in certain areas but it was never going to be a day fix, it'll take time as i need to source bits and i aint a millionaire. But she drives, she's as fast as a mapped meg still and she'll continue to be fixed up.
Thanks for reading and thankyou to Sam at BTM for his fantastic efforts and Banter, Elliot at GSF for theparts and last minute wednesday night dash for a Cambelt kit when GSF was closed(!), Adam @ Renault Wolves for going in early and sending over all the required Renault tech specs, All my Lemans boy... you know who you are for help and encouragement and obviously the clowns off CS for the pwnts and interest in whether she's make it, it was literally that tense I nearly cried, arsed if thats too emotional.
And obviously the biggest thankyou and eternal gratitude to Fred. I know the boy recieves alot of justified credit on here but to do what he did in the timescale was unbelievable.
even if it has sent fred loopy.
So not that much of a drama then....
Are those discs HCs that Rich has cut the grooves into? Where did you get the studs?
Hopefully it won't be too long until she's just how you want her
Are those discs HCs that Rich has cut the grooves into? Where did you get the studs?
Hopefully it won't be too long until she's just how you want her
Evo 5 RS
Legends!
That last picture is LOL.
Almost unbelievable mate tbh, you owe em' big
That last picture is LOL.
Almost unbelievable mate tbh, you owe em' big
JamesBryan
ClioSport Club Member
Top class effort by all involved!
First thing Fred said when he got to the campsite was... Naith! Get me a beer! lol
First thing Fred said when he got to the campsite was... Naith! Get me a beer! lol
welshname
ClioSport Club Member
Absolutely epic.
Can't believe after all that the handbrake cable snapped.
Can't believe after all that the handbrake cable snapped.
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