These techniques would equally apply tho anyone doing a DIY wheel refurb at home, without the advantage of a spray gun and compressor. This is by far the most proffessional job i have seen done on the Clio Williams Wheels. Spot on finnish, and has taken the trouble to get the correct colour! Top job!!

Dont forget to comment, let us know what you think!

1. Paint removal – Chemically stripping all the old paint by submerging the wheels in a chemical stripping tank. The wheels were then bead blasted.

2. Re-cutting the RIM – If like me you don’t want to spend ‘£20′ !! on having the rims re-cut by machine, i thought of an alternative solution that gets good results.
By using an electric sander with 120 grit paper i carefully went around the rim removing all the excess dinks and curbing whilst removing as little of the rim as possible. More will be covered on this later….

3. Etch priming the surface – To ensure good paint adhesion to the metal i used a 1k etch primer as a 1st coat.

4. Priming the surface – After 24 hours room temperature dry time i then primed the wheels with 2K High build primer. This stuff is very good to ensure the surface is smooth covering all the minute imperfections of the alloy.

5. Polishing and cutting the Rim – As i had no machine lathe to cut the rim. I thought of jacking up the car on both sides on my RT.

I then fixed the wheel refurbs to the car and put the car in gear to spin the wheels. I also popped the bonnet and pulled on the throttle cable to spin the wheels faster whilst i placed some 120 grit paper on the Rim. This gave the rims a consistant groove in the rim. */thumbs up*

6. Base coat using speedline gold R9312 – The gold paint I used is the offical Akzol Noble code supplied by Speedline Corsa. This code has been checked with Akzol Noble and the UK conversion is R9312.

When spraying I use a Devilbiss GTi HVLP gun its excellent for tops coats.

I also hang the wheels up when spraying as it avoids the dust.

7. cleaning the rim – After each coat of paint i cleaned the rim with paint thinners and a clean rag. Ready for the ‘Top coat’

8. Top Coat – Ensure the surface is dust free. My advise is top coat one at a time unless you have a professional spray room. Their’s too much dust floating about when spraying 4 wheels on top coat. Confused

I used Lessonal 2pac lacquer with fast hardener. drying time is less than 12 hrs.

Really be liberal with the spraying especially on the rim.

Hope you Enjoy!

His latest mod is a group A/N MAXI air scoop, sent over from a French Renault tuning company.

The kit uses the Renault V6/172 airbox and an adaptor to connect it all up the the throttle-body. The setup was featured on the rally cars, and is the most efficient air intake system around taking high pressure COLD air from the scuttle panel just below the windscreen.

I myself am working on the Clio forum project car, and have just been trying to make one of these scoops. They sell for a fortune on French eBay which i couldn’t justify. When i saw Speeds project log I had to get in touch and find out all i could!

I was told that the scoop was bought from France from a company called MC Racing SA. There website can be found here: http://www.mcracingsa.com/

I found it worked with google translator.

Are the items concerned. I had to speak to Speed, as i couldn’t find them on the Clio section of the site. Apparently these items are actually for the Megane 1. There is a carbon (which i will be buying) option and a black polycarbonate version which Speed has fitted to his car.

He said “fitment is very easy, just a few sparks with an angle grinder and a few bolts… job done!”

The first job is to remove the standard air-box and battery to make some space in the engine. With this setup you will need to relocate your battery to the boot to make space for the huge airbox!

Next remove your screen washer bottle and cut a section out of your scuttle panel to fit the scoop. This is done easily with an angle grinder. Make sure you mark before you cut and cover up your engine bay etc you don’t want sparks flying all over it and metal shavings getting anywhere they shouldnt!

I fitted a rubber edge to the cut to stop the metal cutting into the air box. I suggest you do the same.

You will also need to move the header tank over to make space for the airbox, i just drilled out the top rivet of the mount and lent it over.

The adapter needs to be fitted to the airbox, using nuts and bolts.

After connecting up all the pipework and fitting the airbox you should be left with something like this.

I thought you mite like to take a look at Speeds car, but make sure you check it out in the project logs. Let us know what you think!

I hope you have enjoyed this and found it useful. Please don’t forget to comment. Let us know if you will be joining me in ordering one, maybe we can do a group buy and save some of the postage costs from France?

Cliolord has let us know that Pattern NKG BKR6EK spark plugs are longer than the genuine Renault sparkplugs available from the dealers.

Please read more… High compression engines beware

I would like to thank Cliolord for letting me know about this, as I had fitted pattern parts to my high compression track car engine, before whipping them out and fitting parts from Renault.

The danger is that with the high comp pistons the crown will touch the spark plug / the spark will be very very close to the piston yielding less than best ignition conditions.

The pictures say it all….

You have been warned. Let us know what you think!