Hello from a 182 wanting Trophy suspension owner

[r-jay]

Unfortunatley I brought my 182 a little to early back in March so wont be getting a Trophy. Really hoping the Sachs suspension kit does get released that is being talked about over on Renault Sport forum, if so hopefully I will get it for my Cup Packed Black Gold car.

 

[mr StinKa gob]

The dampers are £350 each + VAT according to my telephone converstion with Renault.

 

[r-jay]

That for the front?, any idea on the rears?

 

[Nik]

Welcome to the forum mate, nice pic of your car.

I imagine the Trophy suspension will be fairly expensive, but the buying power of Renault might mean its not too bad. I expect they could sell quite a few conversions if the price is reasonable.

 

[mr StinKa gob]

They told me the dampers are all £350 each

 

[r-jay]

Cheers for the welcome Nik.

I guess its not going to be cheap, but am planning to keep the car for a while, and want a decent ride so the set up sounds ideal for me. As long as the kit is not to much over £1000, It will be temptimg.

I would lose lots more trading mine in (only has 1300 miles)

 

[mr StinKa gob]

I know no one will listen to me but here goes anyway.

I dont think the handling characteristics of the Trophy come from the fact that the dampers are Sach dampers. It comes from the stiffer damper setting, the wheels and the other minor suspension changes.

Let me explain. Resevoir dampers are designed for competition cars where the dampers take a real pounding, such as gravel stage rally cars. In a normal damper the movement of the piston within the damper disipates the energy of the spring and converts the movement energy to heat energy. As the damper works harder for longer this heat builds up and eventually the oil reaches a temp beyond which it can not effectively work and you get damper fade (similar to the brakes fluid heating up to give brake fade). Resevoir dampers were designed to prevent this over heating, by allowing the damper to store more oil (in a separate resevoir) and in doing so provide better thermal buffering capacity and prolong the time until damper fade occurs (the more oil there is to heat up the longer it is before that oil reaches a hot temp, much as half a kettle boils quicker than a full kettle).

Now the whole purpose of the resevoir damper is to improve the efficiency of the damper over a period of time such that the point that fade occurs is prolonged or removed entirely. A resevoir damper provides no real benefit to a car other than this (it can also allow a thicker damper and therefore stiffer damper) but it is still a normal damper but with more oil in it.

I know i will get flamed by the Trophy owners for this, but the resevoir damper on a light road / occassional track car is COMPLETE OVERKILL. I have never induced damper fade in my Williams, and i dont suspose any other clio owners have either. Therfore the whole point of the resevoir damper on a Clio is a complete white elephant. In any case, your tyres will be overheating / worn out and your brakes faded long before you reach a point hat damper fade would set in even on a prolonged hard track session.

If you selected a 'normal damper' with the same setting of stiffness as the Sach damper, and changed the rest of the car to the trophy settings, my opinion is that the car would handle just as well as if it had resevoir dampers. You would in effect have the same car at a much cheaper price. The ONLY disadvantage i could see is that IF you decided to do a gravel rally stage you MAY induce damper fade. (not very likely that this will happen is it?)

I really cannot see a reason to fit a resevoir damper to a light fwd car. Sports bikes and rally cars i can understand, but on a clio they are total overkill.

 

[Nik]

I'm no suspension expert so I wont try to argue against what you've said, but I think you hit the nail on the head when you said:

it can also allow a thicker damper and therefore stiffer damper

Renault claim the following as benefits:

• It liberates enough space to package a thicker, and therefore stiffer damper rod, thus increasing camber compliance [/*:m:kn1c2urn]
• The increased oil volume brings better thermal stability, to enable the damper to maintain optimal performance at all times [/*:m:kn1c2urn]
• The space liberated allows a better quality for the hydraulic components to enable the damper valving to work more effectively [/*:m:kn1c2urn]

Another unusual feature of the damper is that a hydraulic bump stop replaces the usual physical elastometric one. This gives a much more progressive stiffness rate once the bump stop starts to work and thus allows a lower ride height without compromising bump travel.


Wethere it's overkill or not, it certainly does the job. \/

 

[mr StinKa gob]

A number of interesting points there Nik.

Stiffer dampers are available from all manufactuers. Some can be custom made. You dont have to utilise a resevoir damper to achieve this.

Renault claim the following as benefits:

It liberates enough space to package a thicker, and therefore stiffer damper rod, thus increasing camber compliance (like i said stiffer dampers and adjustable ones are already available, it would be easy to copy the damper stiffness to any other damper)

The increased oil volume brings better thermal stability, to enable the damper to maintain optimal performance at all times (this is the point that i made, and is the real reason to fit a resevoir damper IMO, but not needed on a raod / track car)

The space liberated allows a better quality for the hydraulic components to enable the damper valving to work more effectively (would this be noticable? Honda S2000 use resevoir dampers on the rear suspension, and Honda has a trick valve i theirs too)


Overall im not saying the Trophy isnt a good car. What im saying is that the resevoir dampers are a GIMMICK, that need not have been used. Normal dampers would have given the same effect. Just as the 182 allegedly came with 'special' Exalto tyres, which turned out to be normal Exalto tyres that anyone could buy from Kwik Fit.

 

[hyb]

You might be right with saying its complete overkill, but the people that have come from a 182 to a trophy, or test drove the 2 say they notice a complete difference in how it feels in general driving, in a good way.. If between the two you prefer the trophys feel on the road then thats down to the dampers as well surely. You don't have to go road rallying in the trophy to get the goodness from the dampers, it feels better in general driving too.

 

[mr StinKa gob]

You might be right with saying its complete overkill, but the people that have come from a 182 to a trophy, or test drove the 2 say they notice a complete difference in how it feels in general driving, in a good way.. If between the two you prefer the trophys feel on the road then thats down to the dampers as well surely. You don't have to go road rallying in the trophy to get the goodness from the dampers, it feels better in general driving too.

But the Williams feels better than the Valver, but it doesnt have resevoir dampers, its just a better set up car.

I would suggest that the Trophy, if it is indeed better than the 182, is better on account of set-up, not its resevoir dampers.

 

[hyb]

But the main part of the setup is the dampers, thats the only 'real' change from the 182.
Theres not a whole lot of new parts on the trophy really. Dampers and wheels being the only mechanical parts. Recaro's spoiler being the cosmetic.

 

[hyb]

But on topic... unless you live at trackdays, i wouldnt bother changing

 

[Wurlie]

Wheels!!!

Hi all!

Just to introduce myself, have been a lurker on the cliosport forum since 2003, owned Mk1 172 until I changed to 182 two months ago.

Similar to r-jay, I bought my 182 with cup options a bit early. On top of that, I live in Croatia so it would be extremely difficult for me to source one of the reported 50 Swiss Trophies.

Two days ago I installed Trophy Speedlines, purchased at my friendly Renault dealer. I measured the weight of the wheels without tyres on, Trophy wheels being 9.9kg, std. Cup wheels 11.9kg.

I found the the influence of 2kg of unsprung mass to be hardly believable, especially on short, sharp bumps.

It would be interesting to see what the specs of the Sachs dampers are, and to try and source some aftermarket replacement with the same characteristics, combine that with the Trophy wheels and compare with the vanilla Trophy setup.

In short, 2kg less makes a lot of difference!

Rgds,
wurlie

 

[Nik]

Welcome to the forum Wurlie, thanks for signing up.

It's good to hear from people outside of the UK. Do you see many other people with the Renaultsport models in Croatia?

 

[Wurlie]

Hi Nik, thanks for the welcome!
There are quite a few of Renaultsport owners in Croatia. We got the Mk1 172 at the same time as the rest of Europe, at the time I knew all the examples that entered the country.
With the Mk2 more of them were bought, as people perceived them as well equipped Clios, similar to the Initiale models. Now with Megane 225 and Clio 182 one tends to see even more of them on the road.
There is also a lively message board, and a Renault club just recently established. I tend to post the useful info I gather from cliosport there.
I know most of you guys from lurking on the cliosport message board for the best part of the last 5 years, as I lived in Cambridge until 2001. Only registered in 2003.
Great to see a Trophy board go live, as I am looking forward to more technical, and may I say serious, level of discussion.
Cheers,
wurlie

 

[r-jay]

Intrested to read the difference in un sprung weight has made then? Have read lots of times in the past how important it is to reduce it in the past. Has now got me thinking the full benifits of trophy suspension will only come in conjunction with the wheels?

How costly did the wheels work out out?

 

[Wurlie]

Hi r-jay!
The wheels worked out to about 400GBP in croatian currency, VAT included.

After seeing the difference in suspension control with the lighter wheels, I must say that I am starting to believe all those claims about the importance of unsprung weight.

I would like to see the effect of the dampers alone, but I guess that it will be difficult to arrange a swap to std. cup wheels on a Trophy car.

cheers,

w

 

[r-jay]

The wheels worked out better than I expected them to cost wise.

My plan is to do the suspension first if the kit becomes available as I like the look off the car, and take it from there.

 

[mr StinKa gob]

Is it possible to do the suspension in stages?

Maybe something like this:

Wheels
Hubs and others
Shocks

If you could it would give you a good understanding of what effects the handling and how.

I rebuilt the suspension on my Williams in stages and it helped me learn what is the most important parts for the set up.


Just a thought