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Misfire issue on turbo 182



Une_Baguette

ClioSport Club Member
  Renault Clio 172
Hello all, a bit of a long story this one, about a year ago I purchased a Clio 182 turbo with the engine dynamics low boost kit on it. The car needed a fair bit of work and wasn't exactly the best looked after however always had this weird misfire issue you could hear on idle like the exhaust popping was quite prominent. Did the usual checks on the injectors, spark plugs, coil pack, etc couldn't find any issues so went towards wiring/ECU. I actually ended up changing the whole engine wiring loom and wiring in the AEM ECU again since whoever was at it did a pretty pathetic job. Wiring didn't bring any joy so decided to send the ecus off to Andy at engine dynamics. He actually remembered the car when it had the turbo kit installed back in 2015 and the car had the exact same misfire issue when they were mapping it however it didn't seem to affect performance at all. He couldn't find any fault with the ECUs but he turned off the EML from coming on due to Cylinder 1 Injector Circuit fault. I requested for him to do this as it was looking like potential engine internals, compression and leak down test didn't show anything either and it wasn't using much oil so pretty much lived with it for a long while as when driving you wouldn't even think there was an issue!
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This brings me to today, had just finished doing plenty of work to the car got a new timing belt kit, put a JC5 128 gearbox in (the old one crunched going into 1st), and also got a KTEC exhaust system fitted. Fixed other oil leaks etc and other small bits needing attention. Just finished doing all the work tonight and on idle you could hear the prominent popping from the exhaust seemed to sound worse than before however which initially thought was due to the new exhaust as the old one was leaking in several areas. Just by pure coincidence was checking the lights were all working put the heaters etc all on and went around to the back of the car a noticed the misfire/popping noise stopped?? Got back into the car and switched everything off again and it started misfiring again! Turned everything on again and the misfire disappeared again, so it seems to be some electrical issue of some sort I'm guessing as when the car is under load with the heater blower, headlights, and fogs it corrects itself but when not underload it misfires again. Glad I've figured it out to be electrical and not engine related but I'm not sure where to start with the car was thinking to check relays etc. Don't see it being the engine loom as it was changed previously and it didn't make a difference was wondering if anyone could give some advice thanks very much!
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npt

  BMW 320d- 172 cup
Is it related to one electrical item, ie lights or is it happening when you have a few random things on at the same time
 

Une_Baguette

ClioSport Club Member
  Renault Clio 172
It seems to need the heater blower, headlights (sidelights, low beam, and high beam) and front + rear fog lights for the misfire to disappear if you turn one thing off it starts doing it slightly but when they're all off it just misfires as usual.
 

npt

  BMW 320d- 172 cup
It's a day with the multimeter I would say on each item affecting the car, teo start eliminating/see what's going on
 

R3k1355

ClioSport Club Member
Could be a weird alternator issue?

Would start with the easy stuff first, go round all the main earthing points, clean the connectors up and make sure they're properly tightened down.
Bad earths cause all sorts of odd behaviour, but cost nothing to fix.
 

Une_Baguette

ClioSport Club Member
  Renault Clio 172
Yeah haven't had a chance to look at it properly yet, stripped the fuse box down to check the relays fuses and the white plug of doom all seemed in order my suspicions are possibly around the interior loom/ where it meets the engine bay as I've been thinking about and I've had some weird other issues with the car (cruise control not functioning, wipers randomly turning on, Speedo reading very fast) the wiring to the fuel pump also melted a while back 😬😬 so something's clearly not right somewhere I'll keep yous updated when I get the chance to look more into it
GridArt_20220906_021229100.jpg
 
  Clio Expression 1.2
Yeah haven't had a chance to look at it properly yet, stripped the fuse box down to check the relays fuses and the white plug of doom all seemed in order my suspicions are possibly around the interior loom/ where it meets the engine bay as I've been thinking about and I've had some weird other issues with the car (cruise control not functioning, wipers randomly turning on, Speedo reading very fast) the wiring to the fuel pump also melted a while back 😬😬 so something's clearly not right somewhere I'll keep yous updated when I get the chance to look more into itView attachment 1610771
Hi, did you ever get to the bottom of this?
 

Une_Baguette

ClioSport Club Member
  Renault Clio 172
Hi, did you ever get to the bottom of this?
I did indeed turned out the cylinder head was the culprit the stem seals were leaking oil into the combustion chamber and the valves weren't sealing the best.
 


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