New owner - some help needed

[Steve R]

Hello everybody, I am a new owner of a Trophy. The car is generally in good order but I intend to spend some time tidying it to bring it up to a very decent condition. I come from a motorsport background and intend to occasionally track the car so incorporated in the build will be some prudent but minor track related modifications. I intend these to be minimal as I wish to keep the car as standard as possible. I have already booked the front dampers in for a rebuild at BG motorsport and intend to order a new set (probably 2 ) of rears from Renault Wolverhampton if there is still stock ( excellent thread on this forum ). Other intended modifications and replacements are:

Front Harnesses and harness bar/rear cage (prefer to retain access to rear seats though)
Brake upgrade - Castrol SRF, different front pad material and perhaps a floating disk set up
Decent track biased geo set up
Front Seat runner replacement ( those in the car do not function )
Gear gater replacement (current one broken)
Steering wheel replacement (current one melted!)
Possible stainless exhaust
Spare set track wheels with Toyo sticky rubber or maybe Dunlop slicks

I wonder if you might give me some guidance as to whether the above is a prudent list of modifications/replacements for my requirements, where you would suggest I sourced them and what else I might also need to look at as part of the project? My sincere thaks in advance.

Anecdotally, I drove a Trophy for the first time in circa 2005 during a trip to SPA in Belgium. One of the mechanics for the team that I was driving for had one and asked if i'd like to drive it. We'd been testing all day at the circuit and afterwards, I jumped in the little car for a 5 minute hoon around the local roads. I returned to a very nervous looking owner about half an hour later. Just lovely, I dont think that id ever driven a better resolved front wheel drive chassis. The damping control was shockingly good. Far beyond what i would expect from a cooking sports hatch. Fast forward 10 years to Silverstone GP circuit where i was doing corporate rides in a 997 Cup car. I look in the parking area behind the teams pit garages and there is parked a beautiful little 182 Trophy. I later learned that belonged to one of my passengers. A quick convesation at the end of the day and he hands me the keys and we go for a 5 minute hoon around the lanes by the circuit. Half of an hour later we returned laughing from a fantastic ride. Many great things in motoring tend to fade in time as progress moves many things incrementally forward - unforunately via digital and not analogue progress. Not so the Trophy. It still had the same shockingly good chassis balance and damping control that I remembered from 2005. For me, it still remains the best FWD car that i've ever driven and proof - if it be needed - that a good analogue chassis is far more involving and rewarding than any digital offering could ever be.

So, 2 months later I bought one - which is what I should have done in 2005! I'm not going to tell you how lucky all of you chaps are to own such a vehice, because you already know!

Your help would be much appreciated.

Kindest

Steve

 

[Rik Perry]

Hi Steve .. sounds like your on the right track with the mods.. I would look into 15" wheels for your track sets as tyre chioce seems to be wider and cheaper .. I also am in motorsport with one of the F1 teams so its good to have another owner in the industry ..

 

[Steve R]

Hi Rick. Thanks for the heads up on the wheels. Do you know of a decent front disc (floating?) upgrade?

 

[Rik Perry]

Not personally but lots of guys on here have upgrade experience.. Just search " brakes" I seem to recall the cup race series cars of our shape car used a bigger stock part.. Maybe from a Megan or scenic as they were on 15 inch wheels and with a floating set up you might not be able to use 15" wheels,,, I'm sure one of the guys will chime in soon to help..

 

[Miller]

Hi Steve Congratulations on finally buying a trophy and welcome to the forum.

For springs and suspension set up speak to Mark Fish Motorsport springs are great and a knowledgeable helpful bloke.
For exhaust and other nice bits have a look at Pure Motorsport.
I run bremdo hc discs on mine and with upgraded pads like 2500 is more than enough with standardish power.
Ktec do a harness bar and bolt in cage.
I would go for 15" wheels for track day tyres.

 

[pj_sibley]

Sounds like a good set of track mods. You'll also find that the other suspension components (top mounts, wishbones, ball joints etc.) are all relatively straightforward and cheap to replace, with plenty of 'performance' upgrades on offer too. You might want to consider an additional, adjustable ARB for the rear beam e.g. Whiteline, uprated (or at least refreshed) engine/gearbox mounts and an engine timing check for peace of mind.

You'll no doubt come across it soon enough, but the Pure Motorsport website is a great source of inspiration for track-biased performance upgrades.

Do keep the owners register updated with your progress, many on here will be interested to hesr what you do with the car.

Pete

 

[Steve R]

Thank you for the response gentlemen - much appreciated. This forum is a great source of information.

I'm a 911 specialist so driving a FWD car makes a refreshing change. The Trophy will also be a great car for my other half to get some track experience in. A track modded 911 is not a friendly place to be for a beginner. Im also looking forward to hooning around my local Suffolk roads in it.

I will keep you all updated.

Thanks again.

 

[Feirny]

Welcome Steve, where are you based out of interest?

 

[Steve R]

Im based near Lavenham in Suffolk.

 

[marrow]

Im based near Lavenham in Suffolk.

Lavenham, that's in the 'sticks'. Drop me a pm if/when you pass Cambridge. Would be good to meet?

 

[Steve R]

Would be delighted.

 

[Steve R]

To report back. i have spoken to a very nice chap at Pure Motorsport who advised that only a front disc and pad material change along with the obligatory racing brake fluid change was neccessary on the Trophy. In essence, he explained that there are other modifications that can be done to make the car more track worthy but they would not make a huge difference to the handling. I am not looking for ultimate pace (just fun) so that suits me as I want to keep the car as standard as possible.

My only dilemma is a method of anchoring the race harnesses without impinging on entry to the rear of the car. A harness bar or half cage will be inpractical in that regard. I'll do some digging but suspect that this may be a bit of a problem

 

[Badgerman85]

To report back. i have spoken to a very nice chap at Pure Motorsport who advised that only a front disc and pad material change along with the obligatory racing brake fluid change was neccessary on the Trophy. In essence, he explained that there are other modifications that can be done to make the car more track worthy but they would not make a huge difference to the handling. I am not looking for ultimate pace (just fun) so that suits me as I want to keep the car as standard as possible.

My only dilemma is a method of anchoring the race harnesses without impinging on entry to the rear of the car. A harness bar or half cage will be inpractical in that regard. I'll do some digging but suspect that this may be a bit of a problem

Lifted straight from Ktec's website about their harness bar: The main bar that runs behind the seats is also fully removable so should you wish to use the back seats you only need to remove the harness bar and not the uprights.

 

[Steve R]

Thats very useful information. Thank you

 

[Philfree]

Hi Steve, I’m certainly not the only one and other will give you advise aswell but if it can be of interest, I track my car and although it's a 182cup,it has the Trophy suspension so chassis is the same. I’m a french driver so I’ma little less used to track in the wet J (only about 20/30% of mytrack time) so take what applies to your own conditions…

My chassis setup:
Front setup:
Toe @ 0, camber about +1.2/+1.5° vs. stock (used more camber around 3° total on Monroe excentrics and different suspension before but found that it’s all that’s needed with the Trophy struts so using a regular clio 12mm bolt at bottom hole of strut and pushing it on full stop before tightening it is just what's required with the added consistency of set-up left/right and no fuss from rotating to correct angle each side when using the excentric bolts)
Top-mounts and strut bar (will def be required with slicks)
brakes: Brembo 4 pot on 283x26 HiSpec rotor and custom drums. No need for floating rotor on this diameter, would only be required past 320mm at least.Rotor and drum is great for unladen weight and time to heat-up and cool down but regular stock discs or brembo max disks is already a good set-up with the4-pot. DS2500 that I use tend to leave residue on the rotors due to very rapid change in temperature from hot to cold and back, rotor wall thickness issmaller with rotors and heat up very fast and at very high temperature under braking eventhough it cools down more rapidly. I have RC6 but don’t use them as they spoil wheel and body paint (melted metal from the pads) but would recommend those for serious racing but DS2500 are OK and cheap.
Master cylinder: upgrade from 22.2mm to 23.8 from Peugeot 406 coupe (22.2may be fine but brake pedal response is lengthier and feel is no good with stock MC).

Rear set-up
Camber: +1° (spacer but went down to 30' with the Trophy struts), Toe-out: +10' (spacer as well) (may need a little more as stock rear axle is really glued to the ground, if you're used to RWD, it won't be pleasant to force rear sliding under steering and braking on short tracks. I would not recommend extra rear sway bar for this reason) Too much toe-out will become touchy in the wet though…
brakes: cliosport mk3 calipers (38mm) on Clio mk3 standard hubs and disks (you loose ABS unless you make a customized bracket for it which I did (Bosch ABS 5.8on these car is very resilient and not too obstrusive so recommend to keep it).If you upgrade front brakes only you will loose balance and car will not keep stance under braking, you will transfer too much load on front. If you don't want to go the extra mile with a full Clio mk3 rear brake upgrade, you can start with Xsara calipers (plug 'n play but 32mm vs. stock 30)or better, Safrane biturbo calipers (36mm, direct replacement as well).
Braided lines front and rear.
Replaced rear bushing with solid cup versions but went back to stock, no real interest and gives horrible squeaking and squealing with road use of the car.
No rear strut bar: no interest

Tyres and wheels: I use Clio Cup speedline 15' wheels on Yoko AD048.Always looked at slicks but never gone to purchase any. Slicks really put strain on the car which may then require upgrading of A-arm bushing, rear solid bushing will then certainly be required, steering fluid overheating issue.Price of 15’ slicks used to be great before but it’s gone now and the cheapest are now 17’ as most of “small size” cars are now on 17’, 16’ slicks are very expensive. I only used semi-slicks and found yoko AD048 to be the best and very good on track especially with the Trophy struts that allow for keeping on the inner line under acceleration far better than any other “performance”suspension I used on the car. 15’ wheels help low price and add shorter finaldrive ratio which is good. 16’ are better to push away overheating the tyresbut found 15’ to really be the best overall for track use. I generally use lessperforming rubber on the rear to help placing the car on short tracks, Federal 595RSRare great in the rear.
Trophy struts: you definitely need to have them de-pinned if not donealready to adjust them for track use and back to stock compression for roaduse.

May have left some things out but if you need more please ask

Just noticed you latest questions:
Harness: don't use harness bar, remove the child restraint bar (if it exists in the Trophy otherwise threaded holes are there anyway) and screw harness hooks in the screw locations (same resistance as the safety belt locations so you will be fine). The angle from the front bucket to these hooks will be perfect for sliding the harness between rear and bottom of the rear seat so harness can easily be removed when not needed. Replace the safety belt screws on front (the one that secure the tensioner to the seat and the door bottom one) with hooks as well. You will need long hooks and one is metric M10, the other 7/16", you will have problem finding a long M10 one though... I purchased a long 7/16" (11.1mm, turned it down to 10mm and rethread...). The side hook will scrape a little on the handbrake cover so either you take it off, cut part of it to make room or just live with the scraping...

Brake upgrade: OK leave them stock with better disks (ie: Brembo Max) and pads (DS2500 or else), you will see later for upgrade if required.

 

[SharkyUK]

Hi mate, congratulations on your purchase and welcome to Trophy ownership and the website.

Are you looking to enjoy the Trophy enthusiastically on B-road blasts as well as track days? The reason I ask is that - personally - I find the front Sachs incredibly capable all-round items. For the roads I have available locally (and the roads I enjoy driving) I'm yet to find anything more confidence-inspiring. I also find them extremely capable whilst on track days. However, if my focus were more track-related then I would consider removing the Sachs and replacing with a high-end set of coilovers. Don't get me wrong, the Sachs are great but I think their strength is in their road-driving abilities rather than ultimate track performance.

I can't really add much more as most has already been covered. However, I would highly recommend the Pure Motorsport front strut / mounts combo and - depending on budget and how you feel about modifications - fitting an LSD. I added a Quaife (rather than anything too hard core or track-biased) and I wish I'd done it earlier.

 

[Steve R]

Thank you

Philfree. Thank you for your advice. Can I ask, are you meaning negative and not positive camber front and rear? Good advice regarding the Harness mounts.

Sharky. Thank you. In answer to you question, the car will probably mainly be driven by my other half who does have some track driving experience but She is not yet at an advanced level. My plan is to instruct her in the Clio and to keep the car reasonably soft and forgiving initially and to sharpen the geo as she gets quicker and more confident. It will be mainly driven on the road, so again I dont want a set up that is too sharp.

I see the car as a very nice and benignly handling road/track compromise so I'm keen to keep it relatively standard to keep that balance.

 

[SharkyUK]

Sounds like a sensible approach to me, Steve. It's sometimes easy to get caught up in the whole modification side of things and then to lose sight of what is an already very capable car out-of-the-box! I like the direction you are thinking of taking things with the Trophy. Good luck with it and enjoy!

(I do believe Philfree would have meant -ve camber).

 

[Steve R]

Thanks Sharky. Thought so. Once youve done the brakes, tyres and geo, there tends to be diminishing reward in terms of performance in my experience - providing the shockers are reasonably decent. -1 - 1.5 neg camber is fine. We run up to -4deg on the 997 cup. It's quick but very sharp. Not the most user friendly car to drive but it's quick in the right hands. I've seen some reasonably big rear cambers on Clio cups at MSA test days but the quick guys have them moving around a lot.

 

[Luke335]

You are right. This could easily become a pretty major transformation. The Trophy as standard feels more at home on the road than on track.
I thought mine was the most fun when it just had 1.5 degrees negative camber on the front and a white line rear anti-roll bar. The balance was very neutral and adjustable. However, on track with grippy tyres it just rolled too much. I then added Mark Fish springs and his revalved rear Koni dampers. This really helped tone down the body roll and upped corner speed but it also lost some of its adjustability on the road.
i guess it's a great car to learn in and tuning out the understeer while keeping that adjustability would be a good place to start. I always wondered what it would be like to just add the rear dampers without the springs.
I think some Brembo max discs and decent pads and fluid would probably be fine. I think it's quite common to remove the fog lights and wheel arch liners to help get some cool air to the brakes. Do yourself a favour and avoid ds2500 if you are going to use the car for any kind of dull commute. They need heat. I rate Pagid RS4-2 for the road but others will have more track experience. Either Pagid or Carbon Lorraine I guess.
Good luck and have fun.
Luke.