Mike's racing blue 197

[Miked5]

Changed the gearbox oil praying that this would have some sort of effect of my 3rd gear crunching but new in the back of my mind that the damage was already done. I was right damage already done.

Bought myself a 205 gti to cheer myself up in August last year, I t’s a 1990 1.6 in decent condition but in no way a show car. If I’m honest I haven’t done much with it because all my spare time has been working on the clio but the plan is to slowly remove all mechanical parts and refurbish as I go. She’s a bit rusty here and there so I’m planning on leaving the body work till last. I know it’s not a clio but thought everyone loves a 90’s hot hatch lol

 

[Marsch]

Congrats, my first car was a 205 GTi 1.6 in anthracite grey.

 

[Miked5]

Some first car that is!

 

[Steve.humberstone]

Great thread mate, I purchased mine at around the same time in similar condition, it hasn’t hit the track yet as it’s still in tear down and rebuild but hoping to have it on track by May.
Interesting to hear about the Accelera tyres - I’ve fitted these to use as my setup tyre, I’ve made my car super rigid so I may only be getting a few laps before they overheat!

 

[burrellbloke]

Best tyres I have ever used on track were Dunlop Direzzas. They are very sticky but wear reasonably quickly.

I now use MRF ZTEs as they are good and quite durable. A lot of people here use MRFs.

 

[LiamP]

That was my dream first car, I remember you could get a poor 1.6 for about £800 when I was 17 but the insurance was close to 4k, had to settle for 1.1l clio

 

[Steve.humberstone]

I've not tried either - I've only been on track with crappy road tyres or AR1's which felt pretty good.
I was looking to move to Toyo Proxes to compete but i've since changed my mind on the 750 clio cup and looking more at the hot hatch championship (I didn't rate the suspension you need to run in the clio cup), hot hatch tyre choice is open so I may be heading back to the AR1's.
If you have an opinion on the AR1's vs the ZTR's i'm all ears!

 

[LiamP]

I've not tried either - I've only been on track with crappy road tyres or AR1's which felt pretty good.
I was looking to move to Toyo Proxes to compete but i've since changed my mind on the 750 clio cup and looking more at the hot hatch championship (I didn't rate the suspension you need to run in the clio cup), hot hatch tyre choice is open so I may be heading back to the AR1's.
If you have an opinion on the AR1's vs the ZTR's i'm all ears!

If you want to be competitive in HH it will be the dunlops or AO52's, top 3 in class B are on the latter.

 

[burrellbloke]

I have not tried AR1s - sorry. But @Helpimonfire can give you his views as he has used both AR1s and MRFs

 

[Steve.humberstone]

If you want to be competitive in HH it will be the dunlops or AO52's, top 3 in class B are on the latter.

For my first season in HH i'm not really expecting to be too competitive, the car needs quite a bit more work to even be at the top of class B, as a result tyre choice is somewhat steered by price (pardon the pun). The direzzas' and Advans are just that bit too much, which is why these ZTR's are a possibility. My second season i'm hoping to be more competitive and will be looking at the higher end of the semi-slick spectrum.

@Miked5 sorry for hijacking your thread - looking forward to seeing more updates

 

[Helpimonfire]

I have not tried AR1s - sorry. But @Helpimonfire can give you his views as he has used both AR1s and MRFs

@Steve.humberstone

The short version is that the AR1 is a quicker tyre once it's in the perfect operating window, but you'll only have a couple laps of that then it'll drop off. The MRF is slightly slower BUT more consistent, I found that on a clear track my times with the MRF (hard compound - ex-Type R Trophy tyre) were all within about 7/10ths of a second whereas the AR1 would get quicker after 2 laps, be about a second quicker per lap than the MRF for about 3 or 4 laps, then I'd be almost 2 seconds slower. I'm not a quick driver and I noticed the performance drop off quite considerably.

Of the 2 for trackdays, I'd go MRF because I just couldn't kill them (although I'm now using Dunlop Direzzas). If I was racing I'd be looking at the A052/Direzza (if the regs allow the Direzza as it's essentially a cut slick it seems)

 

[Miked5]

Great thread mate, I purchased mine at around the same time in similar condition, it hasn’t hit the track yet as it’s still in tear down and rebuild but hoping to have it on track by May.
Interesting to hear about the Accelera tyres - I’ve fitted these to use as my setup tyre, I’ve made my car super rigid so I may only be getting a few laps before they overheat!

To be honest I was playing about with the tyre pressures so might have had these set too low which could of been affecting the tyre performance, when I got home it looked like the tyre had been running on the sidewall at times.

I’m all for the tyre talk! it’s good to get other peoples opinions for sure

 

[RSRowe]

MRF are definitely my favourite tyre. They’re quick, consistent, and hard wearing.

AR1 feel like they’ve gone off after about 2 corners. I do drive like an absolute pleb though.

 

[Miked5]

Nearing closer to present day.

End of Nov the MOT was due but it passed and no problems with emissions with the first cat missing thankfully.

December I decided to sorn it and got it up on axle stands ready for gearbox removal, any one who has a new build will know how tight these garages are! I’ve been speaking to a garage in the village up the road and they are happy to rebuild the box for me, they have a few rally Clio’s so definitely know there stuff So it’ll be in good hands.

Just realised how little photos I took. Anyway the box removal went smoothly until the bloody steering column UJ wouldn’t come off the rack but got there in the end with prizing the UJ gap open further to allow the subframe to drop. Gearbox was a bit of a squeeze to remove with the radiator support still fitted but again go there in the end with help from another pair of hands to spin the gearbox rearwards as we removed it from the engine. The only snapped bolts were a few daft trim bits so I’d call that a success.

Small fortune on parts for jobs while the box and subframe was out

• Genuine clutch kit
• Genuine clutch slave cylinder
• Genuine rear crank seal (it was leak bad)
• Blackline LSD from ktec
• Genuine track rod ends x2
• Genuine track rod inners x2
• Droplinks x2
• Braided clutch line
• Anti-roll bar power flex race bushes (hopefully reduce a bit of body roll)

 

[Miked5]

New crank seal in and block cleaned up, the seal I removed was more of an orange colour so maybe non genuine



Clutch and flywheel fitted. Re-used flywheel bolts naughty naughty but I couldn’t bring myself to pay £38 including delivery for them! Re-used flywheel bolts many times over at work so should be fine……famous last words



Braided clutch line from master to slave cylinder, plenty of choice of colour but I just went for carbon effect. Ive used Pro-Line before for some brake lines on a GTR I had a few years back they are good good quality and normally beat the other brands on price.

 

[Miked5]

Boredom set in waiting for the box to come back so I decided to give the subframe a clean up, not that anyone would see it anyway. Used an Autoglym engine cleaner spray I had already in the garage mixed with a brush and a wire brush attachment on a drill. Wasn’t amazing results but removed the dirt so I’m happy with that.

 

[Miked5]

Anyone know if this is normal? Looks like that driver side shaft has extended somehow? I’ve Tried looking at photos of ones for sale to compare but it’s hard to tell on the photos. Someone just tell me it’ll be fine and I’ll crack on lol



Fitted a couple of rivnuts either side of the subframe for that stupid stiffener plate where the captive nuts always come loose

 

[Miked5]

Had a good night shift lunch hour rebuilding the steering rack with new inners and ends, when I was previously searching for the knocking/clicking noise I found quite a lot of play in the driver side inner rod. So decided to change inner and outer on both sides just because I like spending money haha cleaned the rack body up while I was on and it came up really well.

I made sure to count the rod end turns before it was removed so when I fitted the new one it was somewhere near but I’ll be getting the alignment checked anyway after everything is back together.



Wrapped the O2 sensor wire in some heat wrap as this was starting to burn through and I had plenty of access now. Ignore the cable ties I‘ve replaced these with metal ones that I half inched from work.

 

[RSRowe]

That shaft is normal. The o’ring usually fails and spews CV grease everywhere.

Good luck with the flywheel bolts

 

[Miked5]

Oh no! Now you’ve put the sh*ts up me