Newbie with a 182

Morning,

Ive been lurking for a while within the forum gaining the information needed to rectify some of the issues ive had on my newest Purchase.

Recently purchased a 2005 Clio 182 registration starts EHZ - incase it was anybody's. looks a good car was just slightly neglected prior to my purchase. Initially it was just going to be a track car, however ive enjoyed driving it around so im going to use it as a Weekend/track Hybrid.

Ive done the following in the 4 weeks of ownership -

- X4 new drilled and grooved discs and Mintex pads (PBS for track)
- Braided brake lines front and rear
-X4 injectors - one was bad but worked out cheaper to buy 4.
-New racing HT leads
-X4 Spark Plugs
-Soldered the Air bag wiring under the seats to eliminate the Airbag light
-X4 New Uniroyal rainsports 5
-Re welded exhaust hanger and new exhaust rubbers
-Tracking
-Lanoguard the whole under side of the vehicle.
-Made some 3d Printed OZ centre caps and resized to fit my wheels.
-Created 3d printed fog deletes/Cold Air feed.
-New rear caliper and Bleed nipples all around.

Still a few more bits to do like re paint the inlet manifold as it's been blue at some point.
Ive still to do the belts and dephaser but require the tools before i attempt this. Belts look in good nick but ive no receipt for when it was last done.

Ive ended up buying a knock off clip unit for an issue with the steering angle sensor. Tracking seems to have thrown me the -89k steering angle sensor issue which wasn't there before tracking. I guess this just needs calibration, just looking through the forum for advice how to use this so i can take my car and get it MOT'd.

Welcome.

Sounds like you're making good on a neglected 182 there.

Be careful though - once you start to make small changes, the urge to do more to the car is a bit infectious. I still have a list of things that I'd like to do to mine, nearly 19 years on....

I must admit i have had a little look at power upgrades i.e the 197 cams etc.
However ive decided im going to keep it tame. The only thing i would change would maybe be the seats and wheel at a later date. However the seats are some of the comfiest ive sat in a long time, just abit tall.

Been a first to Renault its certainly been a steep learning curve but much less rust than the Fords

Good work. Hope it all goes to plan!
Out of interest, where did you get the 3d file for the OZ caps?

Bankrupt_drunk said:

Good work. Hope it all goes to plan!
Out of interest, where did you get the 3d file for the OZ caps?

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Managed to find a chap that had designed the STL and sent him a message.
Im happy to send it through to you if its any good. The STL is quad stacked which makes it abit of a nightmare to print, so has taken me a few trial and errors in prusa.

Ash007ks said:

I must admit i have had a little look at power upgrades i.e the 197 cams etc.
However ive decided im going to keep it tame. The only thing i would change would maybe be the seats and wheel at a later date. However the seats are some of the comfiest ive sat in a long time, just abit tall.

Been a first to Renault its certainly been a steep learning curve but much less rust than the Fords

Click to expand...

Welcome.

With regards to the calibration of the angle sensor, I did a short piece on one of my threads regarding this. See the link - https://cliosport.net/threads/clio-182-track-car-daily-projects.830168/page-2#post-11849892 Hopefully it's not the sensor as you'll struggle to find a good working one these days, but you might get lucky 🤞

I didn't use clip, but a general diagnostic tool.

I'm curious as to why you soldered the wires for the seat airbags, as these can be switched off using clip.

There's also a really good video on YouTube by Stone Automotive showing you how to do the belts, once you get the correct tools. The video is here -

Looking forward to seeing progress.

Mr Underhill said:

Welcome.

With regards to the calibration of the angle sensor, I did a short piece on one of my threads regarding this. See the link - https://cliosport.net/threads/clio-182-track-car-daily-projects.830168/page-2#post-11849892 Hopefully it's not the sensor as you'll struggle to find a good working one these days, but you might get lucky 🤞

I didn't use clip, but a general diagnostic tool.

I'm curious as to why you soldered the wires for the seat airbags, as these can be switched off using clip.

There's also a really good video on YouTube by Stone Automotive showing you how to do the belts, once you get the correct tools. The video is here -

Looking forward to seeing progress.

Click to expand...

I saw it two fold, with the wires for the drivers side thorassic air bag relatively easy to get to i thought id give it a go first. Also if you turn them off they wont deploy in a collision ( or im led to believe). I use some heatshrink solder joints and takes literally 2 mins with a heat gun.
Ive found a lad whos breaking one and luckily he still has one so ive got one coming. Hoping it just needs the calibration redoing.
I couldnt find the option to re calibrate the angle sensor on my Launch diagnostic device. But will have a nosey through your guide.
Cheers for the vid, ive seen the internet debate for the real tools vs the ebay ones. im still deciding on which to take the plunge for.

Welcome! Mine was meant to be the same, I've mostly ruined it for the road now in favour of track.

I needed to do a few more bits for the MOT, mostly buying a laptop and Clip/hardware. After my tracking had been completed it constantly threw up an ESP light whenever i started the car and moved the wheel slightly. once I plugged Clip it, it took less than 25 mins and i had my steering angle recalibrated.

I lanoguarded the underneath to give it a bit extra protection. However i have half a container left so im going to give it a second coat in the harder places.

Passed today with no advisories. been abit of a slog to get it ready but is now a nice little car.

Got any pictures of the car?

Ben02 said:

Got any pictures of the car?

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These are what I took on the day after I got it back to mine and started to strip it. I'll get some more now it has a test on it.

Also the fog inserts I 3d printed.

Big progress and dismay since the last post.

If a mod can move this as its now going to be a project thread for all my bits going forward.

Since owning the car I've done the following :

New front arms - bolt had welded itself the the bush insert so wouldn't come out without a stilh saw with a metal blade attached. New bolts ( copper greased and was golden)

New inner tie rods- old ones couldn't hold themselves up and had given up.

New track rod ends both sides

New ball joints

New top mounts

New polybush engine mount

New Vibratechnics gearbox mount.

Gearbox refreshed as it was practically held togther with fragments and would fire itself back from third

AC delete with New metal delete arm

New cambelt , Dephaser , pulleys and bottom pulley.

New water pump and oil pump

Iridium spark plugs x4

Minted drilled and groved discs with Mintex pads. PRS pads for track.

Braided brake lines all round.

Racing HT leads

Full refresh of the crap conduit for fabric loom tape.

Lano Guarded under side and behind the rear door cards.

New brake Switch - old had gone faulty.

New abs sensors and Abs reluctor rings.

New CV boots , inner tie rod boots.

Cleaned and re welded the exhaust hangers to get rid of the sag and welded the exhaust , which had been attacked from a great height by pigeon wielding welders.

Resprayed the front bumper and filled the stone chips from the previous owners track abuse.

New Tow strap and bolt.

New anti roll bar bushes, inner and outer.( if you can tackle these whilst on the car your a better man than me, the inners are pretty much ni impossible to get back in. Luckily I dropped the subframe and was a piece of cake.


Whilst the engine was out I've done abit of cleaning up and changed the water pump and oil pump along with timing/belts etc. Now not particularly new to engines but I am to the F4R engine. So admittedly there has been a few mistakes in the way of 180 degrees out on the timing. Simple misinterpretation of the workshop manual with what down ward meant 🙄

Upon refitting the engine back in , it had developed no spark.

I chased the electrical fault eventually down to the two pins within the crank sensor plug. These had popped out.

Upon finding this , I'd realised I'd then timed it 180 degrees out on both sides. So alot of swearing and cursing later, it was then ready...

It ran and then decided to do a bottom end knock and lose compression.

Luckily no unwanted holes , but still at that moment I could have cried 😂😂 .

So it now needs a full rebuild. My own fault really as I should have just done a full refresh when it was out however we live and learn and sometimes we make expensive mistakes in the process of experience.

On a plus side I now know which way the cams go 😂

For fast road/track use what's the best bits without going too silly. I'm not chasing turbo power, I just want a fast NA car that isn't going to break the bank much more.

Sorry for the war and peace.

Enjoy the pics

Guess who's Back .

Compression check showed 4,3,2 as 110PSI and 1 as 135. so obviously damaged valves at a minimum.

Speaking with my engine builder it has been decided to build a fully forged Cammed N/A for around 230BHP.

However in the meantime i was trawling FaceyB and found a Silver 172 near me being broken for spares. A quick chat with the owner and he had a working running engine on 90k that sounded sweet.

Off i went to see how it looked in person. It had a rusty fly wheel and the inlets had sign of Oxydisation but everything else seemed grand. I managed to get a sweet deal on a spare front bumper with all the pieces and a dent free bonnet. Happy days.

Upon getting the engine home i decided to take the cam covers off and could see that the belt was cracking due to age. pulleys showed sign of wear as well. before i did any thing i got the cams to TDC and locked the crank out in the correct hole ( oh Matron) . Following the workshop manual to the absolute fullstop , a new belt, Pulleys and dephaser was fitted and timing was checked 3 times. ( No 180 out like last time ) .

4 hours to remove the previously fitted engine whilst the engine was out i removed all the conduit to check the wiring , having being caught out with the crank sensor wiring on the prior fitment. in place of the conduit i have used loom tape to tidy up they whole engine bay.

The second hand engine was then painted with the customary blue like last time and then 2hours to fit the new second hand engine and Gearbox.

On a Positive im now quicker at fitting and removing the engines .
New Blue MTC hoses fitted. still unsure on these as the hoses are split so you have to jubilee the joiners. I salvaged the Heater matrix clips without damaging the OE pipes. I used a set of thin wire snips to snip the aluminium clips off and the slid out the connectors.

Engine fitted with new oil and filter along with Denso Iridium plugs. Got these for nearly £20 cheaper than NGKs. Millers Racing Gear oil fitted to the Gearbox using the Hosepipe method.

first fire up and she was popping and spluttering. a quick plug in showed a missfire , checking through the injectors , plugs and HT leads. I found my Matt Lewis Racing HT lead had gone down on Cylinder one and Two. fitting the Old leads and she was back up and running. A quick re calibration of the gear linkage and it was ready for a test.

Runs and drives great. It will be going for a proper run out to test everything through.

Part 2 the tear down.

Stripping the engine down, the New oil was full of coolant. HG failure you say.... was a new HG along with bolts done in the correct sequence. hopefully nothing is warped.

On inspection X4 valves are showing signs of clipping the piston, however the pistons are only showing minor contact so i doubt this was caused with the engine running. Without a spring puller ill await the engine builders verdict.

All in its been a learning curve but sometimes mistakes are made, you just have to pull the big boy pants on and crack on.

See you all on Track/ Meets.

Mr Underhill said:

Welcome.

With regards to the calibration of the angle sensor, I did a short piece on one of my threads regarding this. See the link - https://cliosport.net/threads/clio-182-track-car-daily-projects.830168/page-2#post-11849892 Hopefully it's not the sensor as you'll struggle to find a good working one these days, but you might get lucky 🤞

I didn't use clip, but a general diagnostic tool.

I'm curious as to why you soldered the wires for the seat airbags, as these can be switched off using clip.

There's also a really good video on YouTube by Stone Automotive showing you how to do the belts, once you get the correct tools. The video is here -

Looking forward to seeing progress.

Click to expand...

Spot on