Yotah´s RS Cup "Nurburgring Edition" -> 204hp F4R832 swap.

[Kam Racing]

Alright, here are a few news :

GAZ Shocks (the first built, so pretty much a prototype on which I might have some tweaking and adjusting to do) have been ordered and paid. Delivery within 3 weeks.
Got on the phone today with my workshop guy, as the car is still at home (no free space available yet to work on it). As they're will be a lot of things to do to my engine (cam belt, pulley, complete clutch) and I've got terrible knocks at 3000rpm, I took the decision to do the swap!
Clio 3 RS 2 engine, gearbox, ECU and loom found and downpayment made.
Still some seat brackets to build, battery to order, Twingo R2 top mounts to fit, new exhaust obviously to use with the Clio engine...

Well, I'll be dumping another few thousands euros in the car, but at least I'll have 200hp, 6 gears, and the opportunity to upgrade later if the KTec supercharger is working.

Awaiting to order the Lexan windows, and that's it. Hopefully all can be done before May 1st and I can do my first Ring trip of the year.

how come you're ditching the AST's for GAZ?

 

[Twingogangster83]

Do we know how much extra the Clio's 2.0 litre weighs over the Twingo's 1.6? 15kg?? I'm guessing the gearbox weighs more too but being more centrally positioned hopefully this won't itself cause any nasty balance issues. I suppose this could all be in vein if it wrecks the handling and your confidence in the car.

Maybe the costs would be too high to install a 195bhp R2 Evo motor? You certainly wouldn't have any worries about balance and handling then. Though... on the flip side I suppose the 2.0 has the potential for a much higher power output. Anyway I'm sure whatever you do will be awesome.

Problem is that u need to overhaul the Evo-Engine every 2000 Km .......and the F4R-Engine is easier to handle .....normal services.

 

[oscar]

the F4R 182 engine is one of the simplest engines to work on and they react very well to forced induction. you could have a minter engine for 700 pounds (uk) and then all the stuff you need to turbocharge it for 3,000 pounds total including the engine and ecu. easily 230-270 bhp on standard internals. 280 is where they start to hit the panic zone popping connecting rods and all but the question still begs to be asked ... why would you do this, when near enough the same engine in the megane has already been turbocharged?

don't be too shy to look into a b18 honda conversion (the reason for b18 over k20a = LSD in the box!) obviously would be a fair bit of work but the cost would be so low and you'd essentially have a race engine + LSD for 2,000 uk pounds in mint state! staying with a renault engine makes your choices very limited and no doubt expensive. seen some of the clio boys spend 10-15k on their racecar and it's a labour of love

 

[yotah1]

Alright, here are a few news :

GAZ Shocks (the first built, so pretty much a prototype on which I might have some tweaking and adjusting to do) have been ordered and paid. Delivery within 3 weeks.
Got on the phone today with my workshop guy, as the car is still at home (no free space available yet to work on it). As they're will be a lot of things to do to my engine (cam belt, pulley, complete clutch) and I've got terrible knocks at 3000rpm, I took the decision to do the swap!
Clio 3 RS 2 engine, gearbox, ECU and loom found and downpayment made.
Still some seat brackets to build, battery to order, Twingo R2 top mounts to fit, new exhaust obviously to use with the Clio engine...

Well, I'll be dumping another few thousands euros in the car, but at least I'll have 200hp, 6 gears, and the opportunity to upgrade later if the KTec supercharger is working.

Awaiting to order the Lexan windows, and that's it. Hopefully all can be done before May 1st and I can do my first Ring trip of the year.

how come you're ditching the AST's for GAZ?

I'll try to answer everyone...

I'm dumping the ASTs as I've already had them rebuilt twice, only to enjoy them for 2-3 months and see them spilling their fluid again, so at almost 2000€ with the top mounts, I find that very disappointing and don't want to keep them. They'll make very nice desk ornaments...
GAZ has been very quick and helpful in the development of the shocks, listening to my every requests, adapting the setup to what I'm expecting on the car and with my use on the Nordschleife. I've seen very good results from their suspensions on an E36 raced at the Ring for several years. Plus they are cheaper.

Oscar, I'm not interested in an Honda engine, I want to stay with a Renault setup, this way it can look less conspicuous when the cops check the car... The Clio 3 engine (F4R 832) with its gearbox costs me about 2300€ and comes fully serviced, and I can later decide whether I want to upgrade it or not as there are several options available.

Twingogangster83, you summed things up very well, running an R2 Evo engine costs way too much, and is definitely not "road friendly".

Stunty, the Clio engine + gearbox adds about 20kgs, but given that that's pretty what I removed from my current engine bay, that won't upset the balance of the car, just bring it roughly back to where it was when i bought it. And I can still remove the AC from the new engine anyway.

Moving Shadow, half rollcages are good for show but they don't protect you more than the car's shell itself, as the windshield will still go down on your face if you roll it. I'll do the rollcage together with the new lightweight doors and other things, later, maybe for next season (you have to keep some fun things to do for next year no???)

I'm picking up my engine and box this weekend probably, then will have to see what is the way to go : modifying the Twingo's electrical wiring for the new engine or swapping the whole thing for a Clio's. I must give a call to Renault Adenau also for some advices and engine mounts to be custom built.

 

[Kam Racing]

am surprised at that. not heard of any other similar issues with AST dampers, but with that experience don't blame you for switching..

is there enough room for one of the newer Megane engines or are you wanting to stay n/a for now?

 

[mwalsh]

Few years ago i heard that the 133 and 197/200 shared the same ecu.
Be interesting if it was true, with specialist components having released an ecu for the twingo with all features fully working, wouldn't be to hard to plumb the 2.0 lump into it

 

[yotah1]

Kam, according to the french importer, he got 2-3 customers with issues, the others didn't have problems. But simply the fact that you have absolutely no way to get in direct contact with the company building the shocks just annoys me enough to change. I've had GAZ on the phone several times already, answering my emails at 5am in a matter of just minutes, taking photos for me, doing everything they can to make things go as smooth as possible, so even though I don't have the shocks yet, I'm already much more satisfied with the company than I ever was with AST.
The Megane 225 engine can fit in the Twingo, Renault in Adenau did it and kept trying to push me to do the same, but I just can't stand the modern turbos and their Darth Vador sound, it just doesn't make it for me, I like N/A engines.

 

[Kam Racing]

Kam, according to the french importer, he got 2-3 customers with issues, the others didn't have problems. But simply the fact that you have absolutely no way to get in direct contact with the company building the shocks just annoys me enough to change. I've had GAZ on the phone several times already, answering my emails at 5am in a matter of just minutes, taking photos for me, doing everything they can to make things go as smooth as possible, so even though I don't have the shocks yet, I'm already much more satisfied with the company than I ever was with AST.
The Megane 225 engine can fit in the Twingo, Renault in Adenau did it and kept trying to push me to do the same, but I just can't stand the modern turbos and their Darth Vador sound, it just doesn't make it for me, I like N/A engines.

If you want I could find you out details for speaking to the factory as for most things we deal direct with them now..

I know what you mean. want to keep my car N/A though have had some mad ideas for if i do succumb

 

[Twingogangster83]

Renault - Dealer "Kirfel" did the Megane 225 Conversion....but they converted a Low - Budget Model.... cause this has Emission-Class Euro 4 and the Megane Engine too.... so u cant put the Megane Engine into an RS.... which has Euro 5.

So u have just the last Clio RS Engine (201 HP) cause its the only Engine with Euro 5.....that's the Problem for conversions in Germany.

 

[yotah1]

I don't live in Germany anymore and my car is fully modified for track use so Euro 4/5 emissions are clearly the last of my worries

 

[mazmaz]

decat euro 0 lol

 

[yotah1]

Tatadadaaaaaaaaaaa

F4R 832 with a TL4 6spd gearbox bought in Luxembourg yesterday and delivered to Adenau in the morning. It came with a complete gearbox cables assembly and a Clio 2 RS exhaust manifold (not sure whether we'll use it or not).
As it's complicated to find a wiring loom with the ECU and all complete, we will contact Sybelle which apparently has a wiring loom with standalone ECU available for 1000€, with a base setup already in it, and offering OBD2 connections which allows us to use any display we want (probably using a Motec digital display).
The fine tuning of the engine will be done by an engineer from one of the Clio Cup teams in the Nurburgring.
Due to the new electrical setup, the ABS and power steering will be removed. The power steering will be setup with a Clio Cup power steering setup which has a constant effort as compared to any road car where it's more efficient at low speeds and then softer at high speeds to allow for more precision.
The ABS will be replaced by a brake bias manual adjuster in the car.

All piping will be done with braided lines and all to make sure everything is bulletproof.

The parts removed from the car will be up for sale : engine, gearbox, complete exhaust, original windows, heater unit, wiring loom with ECU and all, displays, etc.

 

[Mr_Ben]

Wow

That is all...

 

[yotah1]

That's a start

Our mind is set on the Sybèle Challenger 6 withauto adjustment option and the connections to plug the laptop to it and do some data acquisition

 

[manofhow]

i dont know what else to say but

 

[dempsej]

I'm reaaaaally hoping that this project will not be abandoned like few other seen here (but this is yotah1, so chances are high that it will succeed).
And really interested will the 6 speed gearbox fit
And how...

 

[yotah1]

Fitting the gearbox will require some cutting, but so will the R2 Top mounts anyway...
The big question remaining will be how much space have we got for the airbox, and then which one do we use?
The exhaust might need some tweaking and welding and cutting, as it will be very tight fit.

The aim is to have the car ready to test for a 4 day weekend at the Ring on May 1st, short time but possible to be done. We just need to sort out all the components this week or next week maximum and dedicate the rest of the time to the building.
Kirfel recons that swapping the "hardware" is only a question of a couple of days. What will be the most time consuming will be to set up the new wiring system, adjust the new transmissions and do the ECU tuning (that's at least 2 days on a dyno).
I'm doing my homework this week with the parts catalog from ISA Racing

 

[singlespeed]

I found that moving the battery created a lot of room, which should open up the options available for the airbox. I know you mention rewiring, so that may be starting from scratch... if not, something like this may be useful for putting were the battery used to be. I used the 1mega, 4midi distribution fuse box.
https://www.polevolt.co.uk/acatalog/Power_Distribution_Fuse_Boxes.html

How much difference in geometry will the R2 topmounts give you? Or, are they just stronger?

 

[yotah1]

The R2 top mounts are stronger, and should allow up to 3° of negative camber, and we'll have to weld in the support plate on the chassis so this way we will put in a bit further back to increase the caster too. Currently with the ASTs being adjustable at the top and bottom, I reached 3° also.
The R2 top mounts are not stronger, just bulletproof

Regarding the wiring, we're starting completely from scratch, with an Odyssey battery in the trunk.

 

[madmatt]

Are you still going to run a Servo with bias adjustment or going for a full pedal box?

I drove my dad's new toy (106 GTI Stage Car) back from Gretna the other day with a Tilton Pedal box in it with no ABS or servo, have to say it was an experience.

It does give you good feel and you can learn the modulation but definetly grows the braking leg