Hi Guys,
I’ve not written too much about my car but after another significant piece of work I’d like to share what I’ve been up to.
[album]16507[/album]
I have been improving my car over the last few years, checking off things that needed working on since buying it, some fairly minor, others slightly more involved. I’ll fill out my car blog at some point covering these rather than putting it all down in this thread.
I have found the Vee’s handling to be a little ‘different’ to other sports cars I’ve driven, at first this translated to entertaining, quirky and risky in a sort of taming the beast kind of feel, overtime this novelty started to wear off and as I got used to the car I drove quicker, had a couple of outings on the Nurburgring and a Pistonheads taster session around Silverstone and my opinion began to evolve. I didn’t have a lot of confidence in the car, I was just guessing when and how hard it would lose grip so stayed well away from the cars limits.
[album]16506[/album]
On the road down fast B roads the car felt floaty, the wheel took a lot of concentration to keep the car on the line you wanted, the most scary bits were faster A roads/ duel carriage ways, again the car was floaty, the steering almost less disconnected from the wheels the higher the speed and if you got to a long corner then the looseness of the car and driver where beyond bearable!
On track the roll in the car was far more pronounced as expected, it felt like a boat in the corners, on both road and track particularly in slower corners there was a lot of understeer followed by the back end just beginning to twitch. I have spun the car twice at low speeds with no harm done as I provoked it in a safe environment to see where the line is and what happens when you go past it.... Verdict: scary.
I believe the above is typical of a standard Phase 2 V6. My car was on dampers refurbished by KONI and set to Renaults recommended geometry, it has been maintained by Scott and had everything it has required and more. I have also driven other Phase 2’s as well as driving many miles in my brothers 2004 car all of which were very similar and no different to my own, if anything slightly worse.
[album]16500[/album]
So enough was enough. KW Variant 3’s were purchased, I had tried to get Ohlins road and tracks but they don’t supply them for my car and was unwilling to take ‘technology risk’ on the RSC’s so the decision was made. The car was put on new Michelin Pilot supersports and solid top mounts from pure motorsport were also purchased.
[album]16494[/album]
Now the best bit… Thursday morning I took the car up to Centre Gravity http://www.centregravity.co.uk after hearing feedback from owners on this forum and from friends who run GT3 RS’s and Cup cars. The guys had set up Clio V6’s before one not too long ago and were not phased at all by the handling characteristics of the car. After two days of setup with me on site for half that time I took the car out for the hand over test drive, I didn’t push the car too hard on unfamiliar roads and with a passenger on board and I was in the mindset that I was going to pick out any fault I could detect. We covered various road types, different corners and I found it hard to describe how that much of a change could be possible! The car was at ease, it felt as if a huge amount of the nervousness of the car had gone, the floaty feeling at high speed had been massively reduced, white knuckles and sweaty palms were replaced with not so much a grin as shock, disbelief that the same car felt like this. Throughout the final test-drive I was traveling around 20mph quicker than before with a lot less input into the car and a much greater feeling of control and therefore confidence.
[album]16522[/album]
[album]16521[/album]
[album]16509[/album]
[album]16508[/album]
I have spent today driving my favourite roads local to me and although not tested the car enough to write my final opinion I have a car that inspires confidence rather than apprehension. The weight of the steering is physically lighter due to the changes in front end Toe and turn is way quicker as well as understeer being reduced. It is a much faster and more importantly a much more fun car to drive now.
The process to get the car up to this standard was lengthy although quicker than I expected, the car was analysed to see where it stood in comparison with Renaults defaults, the dampers were tested/ mapped and I decided I wanted the car set up for fast B road driving with zero wet weather driving. The new kit was fitted, and it was noted a number of times the condition of the car, a big thanks to Scott here, there was no worn suspension components so again no reason for the way I felt about the car other than the stock dampers and Geo set up. The car had ballast put into it and was corner weighted, this was particularly interesting and difficult as there was a disproportionate amount of weight on the drivers side of the car due to the cars being originally engineered as left hand drive cars. The camber, caster, toe etc were all set up and at the front end the geometry is very different to the Default Renault settings. The guys said the car has a lot of potential that Renault were not allowing to be be realised, in other words they deliberately restricted the cars abilities, this could be for a few reasons including customer safety and is not uncommon among sportswear manufacturers.
I have a folder of documentation collated throughout the process which is way above my levels of understanding and two stages of adjustment I can make to the dampers to increase the aggression of the setup further if desired. Other interesting points to note, spacers are not a helpful add on as among other things reduce the polar moment of inertia further effectively making the wheelbase even shorter and making the snap oversteer even faster than it already was, ride height is lower especially at the front to get that dynamic weight forward in the car helping to reduce understeer and improve turn in, braking etc. I believe my car is close to that of a 997GT3 in terms of height and road comfort. When driving around under normal road circumstances I wouldn’t have said there is a change in comfort over stock, and my brief was for no compromise.
Excuse the lengthy write up but this is only scratching the surface, I am speaking in layman’s terms because my technical suspension knowledge is limited. A nice endorsement at the end of Friday was that Chris at Centre Gravity really liked the car and would love one himself!
Thanks for reading.
[album]16515[/album]
[album]16523[/album]
[album]16505[/album]
[album]16503[/album]
I’ve not written too much about my car but after another significant piece of work I’d like to share what I’ve been up to.
[album]16507[/album]
I have been improving my car over the last few years, checking off things that needed working on since buying it, some fairly minor, others slightly more involved. I’ll fill out my car blog at some point covering these rather than putting it all down in this thread.
I have found the Vee’s handling to be a little ‘different’ to other sports cars I’ve driven, at first this translated to entertaining, quirky and risky in a sort of taming the beast kind of feel, overtime this novelty started to wear off and as I got used to the car I drove quicker, had a couple of outings on the Nurburgring and a Pistonheads taster session around Silverstone and my opinion began to evolve. I didn’t have a lot of confidence in the car, I was just guessing when and how hard it would lose grip so stayed well away from the cars limits.
[album]16506[/album]
On the road down fast B roads the car felt floaty, the wheel took a lot of concentration to keep the car on the line you wanted, the most scary bits were faster A roads/ duel carriage ways, again the car was floaty, the steering almost less disconnected from the wheels the higher the speed and if you got to a long corner then the looseness of the car and driver where beyond bearable!
On track the roll in the car was far more pronounced as expected, it felt like a boat in the corners, on both road and track particularly in slower corners there was a lot of understeer followed by the back end just beginning to twitch. I have spun the car twice at low speeds with no harm done as I provoked it in a safe environment to see where the line is and what happens when you go past it.... Verdict: scary.
I believe the above is typical of a standard Phase 2 V6. My car was on dampers refurbished by KONI and set to Renaults recommended geometry, it has been maintained by Scott and had everything it has required and more. I have also driven other Phase 2’s as well as driving many miles in my brothers 2004 car all of which were very similar and no different to my own, if anything slightly worse.
[album]16500[/album]
So enough was enough. KW Variant 3’s were purchased, I had tried to get Ohlins road and tracks but they don’t supply them for my car and was unwilling to take ‘technology risk’ on the RSC’s so the decision was made. The car was put on new Michelin Pilot supersports and solid top mounts from pure motorsport were also purchased.
[album]16494[/album]
Now the best bit… Thursday morning I took the car up to Centre Gravity http://www.centregravity.co.uk after hearing feedback from owners on this forum and from friends who run GT3 RS’s and Cup cars. The guys had set up Clio V6’s before one not too long ago and were not phased at all by the handling characteristics of the car. After two days of setup with me on site for half that time I took the car out for the hand over test drive, I didn’t push the car too hard on unfamiliar roads and with a passenger on board and I was in the mindset that I was going to pick out any fault I could detect. We covered various road types, different corners and I found it hard to describe how that much of a change could be possible! The car was at ease, it felt as if a huge amount of the nervousness of the car had gone, the floaty feeling at high speed had been massively reduced, white knuckles and sweaty palms were replaced with not so much a grin as shock, disbelief that the same car felt like this. Throughout the final test-drive I was traveling around 20mph quicker than before with a lot less input into the car and a much greater feeling of control and therefore confidence.
[album]16522[/album]
[album]16521[/album]
[album]16509[/album]
[album]16508[/album]
I have spent today driving my favourite roads local to me and although not tested the car enough to write my final opinion I have a car that inspires confidence rather than apprehension. The weight of the steering is physically lighter due to the changes in front end Toe and turn is way quicker as well as understeer being reduced. It is a much faster and more importantly a much more fun car to drive now.
The process to get the car up to this standard was lengthy although quicker than I expected, the car was analysed to see where it stood in comparison with Renaults defaults, the dampers were tested/ mapped and I decided I wanted the car set up for fast B road driving with zero wet weather driving. The new kit was fitted, and it was noted a number of times the condition of the car, a big thanks to Scott here, there was no worn suspension components so again no reason for the way I felt about the car other than the stock dampers and Geo set up. The car had ballast put into it and was corner weighted, this was particularly interesting and difficult as there was a disproportionate amount of weight on the drivers side of the car due to the cars being originally engineered as left hand drive cars. The camber, caster, toe etc were all set up and at the front end the geometry is very different to the Default Renault settings. The guys said the car has a lot of potential that Renault were not allowing to be be realised, in other words they deliberately restricted the cars abilities, this could be for a few reasons including customer safety and is not uncommon among sportswear manufacturers.
I have a folder of documentation collated throughout the process which is way above my levels of understanding and two stages of adjustment I can make to the dampers to increase the aggression of the setup further if desired. Other interesting points to note, spacers are not a helpful add on as among other things reduce the polar moment of inertia further effectively making the wheelbase even shorter and making the snap oversteer even faster than it already was, ride height is lower especially at the front to get that dynamic weight forward in the car helping to reduce understeer and improve turn in, braking etc. I believe my car is close to that of a 997GT3 in terms of height and road comfort. When driving around under normal road circumstances I wouldn’t have said there is a change in comfort over stock, and my brief was for no compromise.
Excuse the lengthy write up but this is only scratching the surface, I am speaking in layman’s terms because my technical suspension knowledge is limited. A nice endorsement at the end of Friday was that Chris at Centre Gravity really liked the car and would love one himself!
Thanks for reading.
[album]16515[/album]
[album]16523[/album]
[album]16505[/album]
[album]16503[/album]
