Zubans LY RS200

[Zuban]

Yeah no probs I’ll do a post tonight when I can get to my pc and notes. I made a choice not to cut into the body or go fibreglass etc, partly on cost and mostly on making sure I had covered all other options before resorting to that.

The engine is stock internally but with a lighter flywheel, lighter exhaust pulley, crank pulley and the aux belt has no idler pulley and the alternator is under driven as I’ve used a clio mk2 crank pulley. So somewhere close to 5kg off the rotating mass. Also on the day of the dyno the wheels fitted were 16’s with 205/45/16 tyres at 15kg a corner vs the stock 17 inch speedlines at about 19.5kg a corner so roughly 18kg of wheel weight less in total and a 5-6% shorter gearing aswell. So you can see where some weight has been saved too.

The dyno I used is known to be quite accurate but it’s also an inertia dyno so as I understand it the reduction in rotating weight plus gearing is picked up by this type of dyno resulting in the higher wheel power figure. On a brake type dyno I’m not sure the result would be the same, would likely show its just a very healthy stock engine. The thing that matters though is the weight reduction of the rotating parts on the engine, plus the less weight to rotate in the wheels etc does translate into faster acceleration so the dyno is reflecting that. At least that’s my undereducated understanding of it.

 

[Zuban]

With 1121 as the starting point when it was last weighed with around 17-20kg of fuel (was showing half a tank. My notes aren't great but the main things I've done to reduce weight are:

1. Dashboard stripped to a single skin and remove plastics around the steering column, around 6.5kg
2. Rear wiper removed 1.13kg
3. Heater matrix removed 5.6kg new heater weighs 1.23kg saving 4.37
4. Tool kit in boot floor taken out 2.1kg
5. Radiator fan removed 2.95kg replaced with lightweight 1.35kg saving 1.6kg
5. Remove rear bumper internal plastic 3kg
6. Front undertray removed 1.26kg
7. Front door cards swapped for ultra light card 5kg
8. Rad support bracket replaced with aluminium box 2kg lighter than original with legs cut off.
9. Modified the front bumper removing much of the internal plastics, notes aren't clear here but in the end its down from i think 14-15kg stock down to just over 6kg.
10. Glovebox gone it weighed about 2kg.
11. The steel bar that sits under the dash bar got a bit more work, removed most brackets and cut down excess metal. Dont have notes on that.
12. Head unit removed 1.4kg
13. removed 600 gram bottle of window cleaner I forgot was in a side pocket.
14. cup spoiler removed 3.35kg
15. Diffuser and brackets 7kg.
16. Two seat mounts removed which were 13kg between the two, and replaced with a single pair of custom side mounts at 1.5kg saving 11.5kg
17. Removed the previous two seats which were 17kg between them, and replaced with a single 6.5kg seat.

I'm forgetting there is more i had planned to do that i haven't got to yet, so its probably closer to 1050kg with the same fuel load in it, in reality as i have added a couple kilo with the splitter and bits for the computer, I've got a short session on track this weekend so had to put the car back together as it was, once I'm past this weekend will look at getting on with those next which should take it under 1040kg all being well.

 

[Zuban]

few more pics of changes, the front bumper weighs a lot stock, which is weight hanging out Infront of the front tyres, so all the plastics in the large mouth area are gone, and i've trimmed the bumper a bit, replaced with some mesh, and some abs sheet to reduce the size of the opening, quite simply tied together with tie wraps that you dont notice until closer to the car. I'll be playing around with ducting for the rad etc to minimise the amount of air going into the engine bay in the future. The black plastic part with the numberplate on it is also trimmed and bonded to the bumper.

The plastics above the crash bar are all gone as well, the bumpers outer shell is strong enough, the dark plastic part that is held to the plastic slam panel has been trimmed to minimum and bonded back to the bumper shell with adhesive. It does leave the bumper feeling a bit flimsy, i had it sitting off the car and a strong gust of wind flipped it over. I always intended to run a splitter so the tie rods from that are attached to a lightened crash bar, so the bumper ends up over all being well supported and not had any issues with it yet.


There is still work to do to the interior, but its enough for a quick track excursion. Its not pretty but its a work in progress.

 

[Zuban]

Great chance today to contribute to good causes and get a shakedown of the latest changes at Golspie track n show at the sprint circuit there. Met up with another few Renaultsport owners which was cool one of which kindly sent me this picture.


It was a really well run event with hour long slots allocated for up to 8 drivers to take a sprint style go at the track, its a small track, but very intense and physical due to the nature of the corners. Unlike last year, the rubber seemed to have been washed away by the recent rain etc, so it was a very different track to the last time I drove it.

Gone was the huge amount of grip, and it was a very slippery track as you can see in session 1.

Tyres are a set of NS-20's as was expecting wet weather or damp.

I ran in the second batch of cars, and the track was just drying out so it had some surprises. As it was a show day for charity, no timing, and a decent audience pushing myself and the car as hard as possible was not on the agenda, especially since I had only put it back together a few days prior.

Great fun though, and the car felt great, performed flawlessly, and nothing fell off. There was a lot of interest in the car and some really good comments following the display.

 

[Zuban]

Was doing a little fettling today so took some pics of things I didnt when rushing to get it back together.

Inside of the front bumper, haven't had any issues so far with this and it feels really light compared to standard,


The radiator support has been replaced with a bit of box section aluminium, weighs about 800 grams and cost £15. Funny story with this is years ago when the original radiator was holed, when i replaced it i wasnt paying attention and i used the wrong holes for the rubber supports on the bottom. This gently twisted the radiator so that when i took it apart end of last year, i realised i could now just straightline the bottom mounts due to the twist in the radiator, so was pretty simple.


Noticed some rubbing with the 225 wide tyres on the 8J ET25 rims.


So set to trimming things to make sure they clear. Also gave a bit more clearance using the 12mm spacer trick to move the top of the arch out a little


And whilst I was at it I trimmed it enough to clear some 245/45/R16 tyres on 8J ET25 rims.