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Clio Trophy number 54 aka T.Turbo

It was indeed done before i bought the car. Camcoat done it years ago iirc. It looks good but i dont think it does a great deal for temps. Best option by far is thermo met heat shielding, but the price is staggering to get a manifold done.
 
Always used zircotec historically which seems to work well and better than other options in my experience, but thermo met stuff is next level and looks 👌 price reflects 😔

Much want though
 
2019

Slight diversion but bear with it as it all fits together in the end.

The years of sales. I move the old Kangoo 172 on to a new owner after CSF 2019. Come to the conclusion that it was a nice little thing and quirky but not fast enough. Steve H said to me when i bought it, that i would be bored with the power in no time, and keeps telling me to turbo it and repeating how good T.Turbo is compared to stock n/a.

I did consider turboing it but the thought of stripping all the parts off it that id just fitted and starting again put me off. So get a good offer and off it goes.

No plans to replace it but i go to the Nurburgring Oct 2019 and have a stupid idea of building a mk2 Kangoo compact with megane engine after seeing the van for sale non runner on facebook market place, and the next thing it rocks up on a reco truck with half a diesel engine in the back and half eaten sausage rolls up front November 2019 :LOL:
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2020.

2020 comes and im on with building the Kangoo Compact with megane power and the covid bollox is on going so its killing boredom doing the work. Im in need of everything to put it together parts wise so i buy a used forged part assembled meg engine, 250 cup gearbox early 2020 off Steve and end up buying his brother Dave's red r26 to break for parts for it. See the Trophy in Steves garage sat there looking rather barn find. Im down Steves fairly regular raiding the parts stash.

Summer comes and we get an offer on the meg 250 cup. Little bit sad seeing it go, but its a hassle free sale so off it goes.

Dave, Steve and the lads in the group chat have all moved onto hot 1 & 2 m series modern Bmw's and are telling me to stop f**king about with the Renaults and get a reliable and fast as f**k modern Bmw thats capable of everything. They nickname my house the Renault Rescue Centre as im doing the usual and plowing loads of effort, money and time keeping these old Renaults going as per usual :LOL:

With the Bmw's on the scene and work/life busy, T.Trophy is on the stop. Nothing has been done for ages and Steve's motivation is down and hes loving the tuned m140i he has, so T.Trophy is just sat as per last pic with the engine loosely fitted in the bay.

I briefly flirt with buying a Bmw M2 and thinning out the cars to suit. Decide it will probably be a garage queen so sack the idea off in the end. We dont need any more cars as plenty here as is!!

Late 2020, November iirc. Kangoo compact has the meg engine and running gear in so its looking good but realistically its miles away from a start up. Down to Steve's again for more parts and generally drink all his coffee and do his head in. Pop in the garage and grab the parts needed and look at the Trophy. Its looking sad, half fitted engine, no panels on and interior in a million bits.

I look at the car and i think this has potential to be f**king epic when done but needs a lot of work to put together. So we are talking about it and hes considering options, including putting back to original, which is a massive task as a lot of the oem parts are long gone. Other option is breaking it which would be criminal as the car is one owner with 43k on the clock and albeit in a million pieces, is still in great condition wearing unmarked original paint, and 90% of the parts are there to put it back together.

Seeing the Trophy and remembering what a great car it was when in one piece fires up my enthusiasm about it again. On the flip side, it would be daft or stupid (definitely financially stupid!!) to buy a project whilst ive already got a large project kangoo ongoing thats quite far off actually running.

Next thing we are asking how much would buy the Trophy as is. Its a massive jigsaw puzzle, parts all over the place. We agree a price and Steve is unsure if he wants to sell it as owned it from new, but considering selling it as ultimately its not going back together any time soon.

We shake on it but again nothing is final until its sat on our drive.

Trophy looking quite sad! A fair chunk of cash for a project. Steve repeats to me a few times i have to put it back together myself, no building it up to drive away in his garage but i can get it rolling. He says clear everything all the spares which is a lockups worth which no doubt ill be needing and best of luck rebuilding it as ill need it.

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Heads spinning at this point as its totally unplanned..what have i done? Bought a load of work and hassle? Most likely is the honest answer.
 
December 2020 - This is where we come into it.

So we have shook and agreed a price on T.Trophy. Im still unsure whether the sale will go through as can tell Steve is not 100% sure if he wants to sell, and totally understand as its a large decision to make after owning the car since new. My head is also spinning as i need to turf a car out of the garage to get it in as it would be sacrilege buying it and leaving it out to the elements all winter especially with all the aqua blasted bare alloy parts etc, arrange recovery truck to collect it, van to collect the spares package and timescale is tight as hes working a lot and not much time off.

As previously agreed i needed to put the car back together in a fashion and get it rolling as per last pic. The last pic on axle stands actually is mid way refitting parts as it had no subframe on up front. Opted to refit a few bits to engine whilst there and Steve showed me a few tricks on how it all slots together. Refitted suspension, driveshafts etc and body panels to save any damage when moving them about. 2 days of work to get it somewhere near.

Looks ready to drive? Absolutely not - we are pushing this out with no brakes and bare minimum parts fitted. First time its been on its wheels for a few years.
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At this point moneys are transferred over. Logbook is transferred online and Steve is really unsure whether to hit the button to confirm as its final once done, after a few mins he hits the switch and its done.

The recovery truck is booked and the car is rolled out of Steves garage and winched on. Garage door shuts and Steve is gone and its final.

Stand back and seeing the Trophy in daylight loaded on the trailer on a fresh December morning and even though its covered in dust and looking "barnfind" it looks awesome. Well apart from splitter is not fixed on properly and its a total non runner with a load of work required!! But visually looks great.
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My mate gets the pedal down and we follow in the orange dci on the 45min or so journey back to our house. Shez unloads the car with no brakes and underestimates how fast it will roll off the trailer with only handbrake available and nearly goes half way down the street :LOL: repeat pushing up the drive into the garage.

Megane is turfed out the garage to another garage for dry storage. Trophy sat next to my Gtt in the Renault Rescue Centre as the lads have named it .
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Steve sends a pic over on the group chat of the bare garage. End of an era and i think Steve is actually a little bit sad thats its gone which is understandable for us petrolheads as its been a part of his life for years. Hes normally mr emotionally dead taking the piss out of everything too so comes as a shock haha. I do say if he changes his mind it he can take it back no worries, but he replies its tainted now its not a one owner car, and thats the normal Steve back :LOL:
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He says hes glad its gone to a good home and to somebody who can put the car back together to the standard required. He also tells me not to rush it back together and take my time and it will turn out awesome.

I dont think i could have rushed it back together if i had tried with all the work the Kangoo needed to actually be finished and running which unknown at that point would take me to the following March to get road legal in a fashion.

I sat down and had a good think about what the f**k id commited to project wise, and needed to break this down into different sub projects so nothing was missed. Parts all over and ive no idea where half of the parts are, this aint going to be a ten min build and in for mapping. This is rebuild most areas of the car!!

To be continued..
 
Sorting the s**t out

So with the car at ours, next step was to clear out Steve's parts garages. Steve had said i had to clear everything (take the f**king lot or not at all) and as we are renault parts hoarders that was not an issue. Id be needing bits and bobs out of this lot whilst building it back up and bits for the Kangoo.

A few of the boxes of shite that i gathered. Sachs Trophy front shocks and koni rears were top of the list. They need a rebuild and a good clean up even though they were low mileage when removed.
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loads of other random oem stuff from stripped engines.
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I wont bore you to death with pictures of random boxes of crap, but there was at least several more full boxes of stuff and 4x f4rt engine blocks, a ndo gearbox, gear sets for ndo, new old stock parts front arch liners, several tubs of clean stored engine parts, cams etc.

Borrowed my neighbours 1.7cdti combo van as i had 2 non working vans at that point :rolleyes: it was on its arse with all the engine blocks in, probably overloaded to be fair.
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My badly organised lockup which has been sorted out a bit since as was total chaos, and was only half way through moving it all at this point. Its rammed with gear now.
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Had to fit a couple of shelving units in my own garage full of bits too build the car too.

As i was off work for 3 weeks over Xmas and had quite a bit of time to shuffle bits about and do a bit. Got the Trophy out for a clean up and see what i was working with first of all. I was keen to see if any storage marks had been picked up on the bodywork as it was that dusty it was hard to see.

Bilt Hamber snowfoam and 2 bucket wash was on the cards and a quick blow dry as it was about 2degrees ambient temp.
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Cleaned up lovely. Capscium red looking good, no fading due to years in the garage. Noted loads of carbon deposits up the back and tar spots on the sides which needed removing, but was not too bothered as very low on the priorities at this point as everything else needed work.

Rolled it back into the garage and had a bout of covid that knackered the rest of the xmas 2020 hols up and was trying to make good progress on the Kangoo between cold weather/snow showers etc so nothing happened for a couple of months.

To be continued..
 
Feb/March 2021

Not a lot had happened after Xmas/new year apart from initial wash and pushed into the garage, combination of cold winter weather, up to my eyes building the kangoo with that almost in a driving state so was pushing to get that finished.

I made an effort to sort the spares out into piles that id be needing to fit soon and piles that might come in handy. Shelving units built up in the garage to house the many parts that were cluttering the place up.

So many areas of the car needed putting back together, interior, engine, running gear, wiring to make etc. Where to start?!

Steve had issues with the epas column and wanted to change the slave cylinder on the clio v6 pedal box to make the clutch biting point feel better as it was always on the floor and change brake master cylinder for a larger diameter piston so the brake pedal feel was improved with the wilwood front calipers. In the process he had started fitting a set of infinity crossovers and component speakers with a small alpine amp, so the whole dash was loosely sat in place and fixings all removed/all over the place in the car. Decision was made to get that all finished and back together to earn a quick win.

Crossovers stashed behind the cluster. Maybe not ideal position but out of the way. Amp also stashed behind alpine stereo.
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Infinity components fitted on adaptor rings in the front doors. Excuse the temporary screws i was waiting for some longer oem type torx to arrive.
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Wiring adaptors used to save butchering the oem wiring.
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Full days work, all back together and tested with a temp power supply hooked up so that was one quick win ticked off the list.

Walkaround vid of it with interior back together, excuse the breathing my chest was still a bit fucked after covid.



With that done i started to look at the engine. Everything loosely fitted and all looking clean but loads of work required to actually get it anywhere near a running state. Looking at it briefly, i could see several areas that i wanted to change/improve.
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At this point it dawned on me that this was not going to be a simple bolt components up and its running. The thought of making a wiring loom up from scratch was not filling me with confidence, having never built one up. The rest was not looking so bad but i knew the fiddly bits would take ages.

Noted a few changes i would be making and started the long hours of searching on google to find suitable components.

To be continued..
 
I would love to build my own loom. On a scale of 1 - 10 how bad was it ?
Ive done worse jobs to be fair, to do it right id say its a 7 out of 10 on the scale. If you do it, absolutely do the Hp Academy wiring courses as they are great and will cover all the questions that you will need to ask. Also got to lay out the dollar on proper crimping tools as cheap are absolutely rubbish and will make an unreliable loom.
 
Small interim update.

Took T.Trophy for a run out on Sat. Weather was awesome around 30deg ambient so went for a steady ish drive around some great North Yorkshire b roads, past Croft, Northallerton area and back via Stokesley.

I dont like leaning on turbo cars massively in these temps as it all gets hot quickly but this is a cool cat and sits around 85deg coolant temp/92deg oil temp when on the move and charge temps of 5deg above ambient. Works great and the only thing that overheats is the driver with aircon removed for the turbo conversion.

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It drives awesome on the Bilstein b14/Northloop roll correction kit and whiteline arb. Compliant and tight no drama just turns in, gripper plate diff doing the business, 4 pot wilwood/reyland brake combo up front stand it on its nose if needs be.

Stopped for coffee's in Great Ayton.
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Temps had dropped loads by the time we were almost home as late evening so give it a tickle, it pulls effortlessly through the rpm range even on 8psi wastegate pressure.

Needs a good clean to get all the bugs off the front as not been cleaned since it was coated, this weekends job.

Next large project update coming when i get a spare hour to write it up.

Thanks for reading!!
 
So where were we.

I recall it was pissy wet March 2021. Interior is done so thats one job off the list. There's f**k loads to to do and im flirting around the engine. Start seeing what will bolt up and what will not.

Steve was planning on using Aem ign1a smart coils. They are a nice bit of kit and in tests they perform excellent. The downside is actually finding a nice position to mount them to the engine which will look decent and not foul anything.

He had mocked them up on a billet alloy bracket that bolted up to the fuel rail mounting points. I did not want to use this location, as the coil bracket was only mounted on some small bolts so would be risky due to weight of coils and vibration stressing the bolts, and they were very close to the bonnet, so if an engine mount failed then its all going to go pete tong rapidly if the coils touch the bonnet, snap the bolt or worse still the fuel rail mounting point, fuel rail comes off in the process and potentially almost 5bar of fuel pressure squirting out on a hot engine. Also did not like having to use short ht leads, as another thing to fail.

Aem ign1a & Bracket.
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So with that idea shelved, i looked at coil on plug options as they package ok and no ht lead required. The eagle eyed will note that there is already meg coils fitted in the head and why not use them!? Main reason is they are crap and need spark plug gaps to be super tight on high boost, and the engine suffered the occasional misfire and plugs fouling in the past due to small spark plug gaps using these.

I was not precious at using the Renault parts bin on this engine, so sniffed round for the best alternative COP option, that would first of all perform good, secondly look good aesthetically and fit ok. These engines aren't pretty but lets make an effort to improve the look.

I looked at yaris, hayabusa and audi coils, they all looked somewhere near. I noted that a few high powered F4R were running audi r8 coils but not much other info, and they are a common upgrade on high powered jap turbo cars. I measured up the length of the stock meg coil and a standard length audi coil looked like it would fit OK so ordered a new set to mock up. Surprisingly cheap new, and had a chat to Chris @ Efi on his thoughts to see if they were a good option, he advised they can give a good spark for all the boost so that was decision made.

Test fitted and fits nice. Clips on the plug tight with a good click so no mounting bracket required.
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Note gap around the COP to head. I did not want any s**t or moisture going down in the plug hole so looked at a few options, alloy inserts to fit in the head or 3d printed spacers. In the end i just simply found a rubber grommit that fits perfect in the head and around the coil to fix this.

Job jobbed. Later pic as the grommits took ages to arrive on slow boat from china as obscure size, for some random electrical fitting,
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Next issue was the breather plate. The cylinder head is clio 197 and a 250 breather plate was fitted. Im not sure if the internal baffle channels matched perfectly but that was not my main concern. The main issue was the fact the plate was almost wedged under the external wastegate vent pipe, and breather hose was almost on the same pipe which was not ideal.

Can be seen fitted in this pic
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Simple solution to this was to buy a Pure motorsport breather plate for 197 head with -10an fitting in the centre. Waited for what felt like ages for them to come back in stock.
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Bonus of being able to use oem gasket instead of leaky sealant.
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Fitted, nice elegant bolt on solution with plenty of clearance.
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Coils and breather plate both fitted. Coils fit ok between breather plate, no fouling or mods required.
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Might seem like easy work at the moment, but hours of googling on the coilpacks to find the right solution was time consuming s**t, especially as this was my first time id strayed off the oem parts route on the F4R. It was the start of hours of googling random parts to search and find the best solutions to make it all come together.

To be continued soon. Thanks for reading!!
 
Fuel the fire.

So next thing i looked at was the fuel system. Steve had previously mounted the fuel reg on the end of the cam cover, but had decided to move it to another location next to the top engine mount.

Rail with gauge and bosch sensor fitted for fuel pressure.
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Reg next to top engine mount.
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I mocked up the fuel lines in ptfe and was not keen on the route, as the pipe returning off the fuel rail to the regulator was straight across the front of the plenum, and as the ptfe is basically a solid hose you cant add length in this situation so the hose was tight. I was concerned that any movement on the engine would possibly flex the hose at the an fittings causing a leak over time.

With that idea shelved i looked at other options, which all seemed to go with best location being regulator mounted on the end of the cam cover.

Fuel lines made up to suit. Not 100% keen on the fuel rail inlet fittings so might change that for a better fitting soon.
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Reg and home made bracket. Fuel pressure sensor is fitted straight into the fuel pressure reg spare port.
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Fuel pressure gauge has gone the journey as not keen on running them permanently, as ive had one leak in the past. They are supposed to be fitted for initial setup and removed anyway.

Note new k&n airfilter to get rid of the knackered old one, black mtc silicone water hoses and dipstick fitted. Finding a dipstick tube and modifying to fit was a ballache on its own. The block previously ran a short dipstick like 172, which was a nightmare to check oil level with the nortech inlet. I eventually settled on a modified meg 250 dipstick after buying 5 different dipsticks and tubes which are a pain to find 2nd hand.

Next job was injector fitting. The engine was previously running pico style short injectors as the inlet was designed for them. Iirc the injectors that were supplied were 780cc injector dynamics, modified bosch ev14 short, supposidly flow matched.

Pic of Injector Dynamics injector.
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I sent them off to Chris @ EfiParts for a clean and check over. The news was not good, all 4 injectors were stuck after storage, which is fairly common. Main issue was once coaxed back to life was flow rates not matched and 4% out iirc. This is almost acceptable but not the best and Chris advised me not to run them just incase, as closer flow matching is preferred, especially if running the fuelling close to the edge.

I also had power goals in mind so sitting down and doing the maths it looked like they would be 90%+ injector duty as tested around 720cc so started looking at alternative injectors. There is not a lot available between 600cc to 1000cc that are decent in the short ev14 size. Options are limited to similar modified ev14 that i already have, siemens deka 630 or 875cc options. I did not want to use siemens deka, fakes are rife, and the spray pattern is like a hosepipe, they work but again i want the best drivability for a street car.

Discussed options with Chris and he suggested Bosch Motorsport 980cc injectors. They are short ev14 style so drop in with no mods, with long pintle like megane 250 injectors. The spray pattern is nice, long pintle would in theory fire the fuel closer to the valve stem and Chris advised they are great to map as work like a good oem injector at low pulsewidths, which gives good drivability and economy and can supply all the fuel i would need on high boost with a bit of headroom.

Picked up a set of flowmatched 980cc from Speeding performance parts. Price was reasonable then got stiffed with import tax thanks to brexit !
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Fitted.
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Took a few weeks of searching on and off to find that solution. Nothing seemed to be moving fast at that point and progress was slow.

Completed another small job at that time to chip away. Aux belt fitted, this runs from memory a renault traffic alternator mount which utilises the oem megane auxillary tensioner. Shorter 6pk 1060mm long belt and idler pulley off a toyota avensis from memory as no hpas or a/c as both gone so axuillary only runs the alternator.
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Would like to change the idler for an alloy pulley at some point so if anybody can suggest a 65mm 6pk pulley to suit let me know.

More to come soon!!
 
Its April 2021, things are moving but its all slow. Weather is starting to pick up, ive got the Megane r26 Kangoo Compact running and road legal, the pressure is off slightly as shaking it down and finishing small jobs before its mapping date in May. Start chipping away at smaller jobs on the Trophy so progress is still happening.

With the fuel system built up and ignition parts in place the next logical step to start up and driving would be sorting the engine wiring harness out. However i was not prepared for the wiring physically (and probably mentally) at that point as it was a large job to do and was putting it off to be fair. So decided to concentrate on the other things that i could do easily and fairly fast to continue progress, as progress was slow at best and other areas needed attention.

The eagle eyed will have noticed no front calipers were fitted in previous pics. Infact no brakes at all apart from handbrake. Steve had been running a jamsport wilwood kit.

The wilwood calipers looked to be in decent nick but dust seals were perished. Decided to give them a full overhaul as the seal kits are cheap enough. I needed to check them over as a new set of Reyland rotors and bells were supplied with the car and did not want any sticky pistons causing issues.

This turned out to be a nice easy job. Simply applied a bit of air pressure to pop the pistons out which were free thankfully, quick clean up, soak new seals in brake fluid and use brake fluid as lube. Me and the mrs done a caliper each as she was keen to do a few small jobs to it to help speed progress up. It was a nice simple hour job on a Sunday evening.

Stripped, fully cleaned and rebuilt.
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Before fitting the brakes the hubs needed to be changed. The car was still running the original 60mm hubs which were absolutely fine albeit just loosely fitted for transport to get it rolling. Steve had bought a Northloopcup roll correction kit off the group buy many years ago for a performance upgrade and not fitted it. The hubs had new genuine bearings pressed in all them years ago but needed a little clean and paint up to fit in with the rest of the setup. Also fitted new abs sensors as had no chance of removing the originals from the hubs as seized in place. Give them a good clean up, hydrate 80, flash over with zinc primer and a coat of chassis black.
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The roll correction parts are an excellent bit of kit and i was certainly looking forward to seeing how good these would be on the road at this point.

More to come soon. Thanks for reading!!
 
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