Clio 2 1.4 16v Phase 2 - "Cup" Daily Project

[smclt30p]

Chapter 1 - Prologue​

I'm a man who is quiet emotional about cars. and I've accidentally fallen into the world of Renaults by buying a Scenic Mk1 as a winter car and falling in love with it. I bought the car in September 2020 and planned to keep it till spring and sell it.

Well I kept the car and ran it to the ground basically. The right hand sill was bought rusty and the 3 winters it went through did not help much. Also the engine got very tired of my...spirited driving - it needed a full service with cambelt. It's a 1.6 16v K4M so not a lot of power from the start. The suspension was knocking, the tires were bold, the paint was peeling and the engine was running on low compression from the years of pottering around on LPG - the car was screaming for the scrapyard.

The card server very well - covering 60.000km in my ownership. Here it is on the Adriatic coast (Neum).

But all good things must come to an end. So after taking the wheels, rear hubs, front suspension, gearbox, wiring harness and engine out it went to the scrap. To be honest I did shed a tear or two when it went...

 

[smclt30p]

Chapter 2 - A new beginning​

So the daily needed replacement - winter was coming and I can't daily my 225 in the winter. A friend owns a Phase 1 172 and I always fancied a Clio Sport. They are rare here and all of them are run into the ground, so I needed an alternative. See, I kept the Scenic suspension for a reason - the 172 uses the Scenic hubs and brakes and I recently put new front brakes on the Scenic. The plan is to build a car with 172 Suspension but with a cheaper engine to run.

So here is the new daily:

It's a 2001 Clio 1.4 16v with DBW. The DBW is running in safe mode (2k RPM), the whole car is repainted poorly and it has been crashed into a ditch at least once in its lifetype. Perfect. 1100 EUR later it was mine.

The throttle body harness looked abysmal and I concluded that probably that was the issue for the safe mode of the DBW.

But that was not it, even after rebuilding the harness the car was still running in safe mode. Okay, then it's the throttle body - the classic. Turns out there is two types for the K4x family of engines. The plastic Cartier throttle that they used for a few months and they started crapping out after a few months in warranty and the metal VDO throttle body.

Renault was fully aware the old throttle body was hot garbage and they started replacing the old Cartier throttles with VDO throttles as part of a service recall. They would usually replace the MGI Cartier throttle with the VDO one and run a software update via CLIP. The problem I have is that I don't have a Clip or the update CD that's needed to flash the new DBW map into the ECU - oh oooh. A simple throttle body replacement has turned into a bigger problem.

So I said to myself - "well the throttle body can't be that different - its a motor with two pots - the ECU should run it".

75 EUR later a metal throttle body was sourced.

So that should solve it, right? Nope. The car didn't want to idle, the DBW map was wrong. Crap.
Since the car I salvaged the throttle body from was running and driving for another 125 EUR i decided to get the ECU and UCH. The ECU is the exact same part number only it has the updated DBW map for the VDO throttle body.

I install the ECU/UCH and the car starts and idles. WIN! Or so I thought...when touching the throttle the car immediately goes into safe mode again. So back to the drawing table.

This whole time the "check injection" light (heater) was on and I decided to take a look at the real-time data for the DBW using Renolink - and behold one of the tracks on the pedal is missing. So the pedal is dead? No, I looked - it's brand new.

Renault in their infinite wisdom decided that using 3 connectors between the pedal and ECU (two of the three soaked in water) was a good idea. I checked the wiring on the ECU connector and i was missing 3 wires from the pedal to the ECU. This was also a known issue to Renault and there has been another recall for this matter. The solution? Run 1m of throttle cables straight from the pedal, through the cable throttle hole in the bulkhead straight to the ECU.

There is a repair kit available (looks like this) so I decided to build it myself - i chopped the wires off the connector and extended them, and crimped them directly to the ECU.

So NOW it should work, no? Nope.

Now I do see the second track of the pedal, have no check injection light BUT the car revs up to 4k, and goes again into safe mode. Funny thing was - there was SO MUCH water in the exhaust from condensation from being driven in safe mode around I needed to sweep afterwards.

I decided to call it quits and try tomorrow.

 

[smclt30p]

Chapter 3 - Maiden voyage​

In the middle of the night I woke up with a cold sweat and a thought - the damn DBW power wires are shot, that's why the new throttle body that was working before goes into safe mode.

First thing in the morning (5am) I ran to the garage, chopped the DBW power wires off the connector and used wires to wire the throttle body directly to the ECU.

The cable can be seen here running across the engine:

The result? Holy smokes - no lights and I can rev to redline! That day was the first time I actually drove the car properly - and oh boy was it running poor. See, driving the car in safe mode for years really clogs the engine up - it was essentially running on 3.5 cylinders from all the carbon in the engine.

Now I could attend the basic maintenance on any K4x engine - resealing the intake manifold and doing a basic service.

The threads in the PCV plate were shagged so I helicoiled them:

I also removed the LPG harness - I don't care for LPG for this car.

And here is the engine as it stood for a few thousand k's:

So that's it - now we can drive the car and enjoy it till the 172 suspension is ready? No. Oh no.

While on a road trip with the GF to a nearby lake - the dreaded DBW safe mode poked its ugly face again. As Rosenberg would say:

Okay so what now? I replaced everything that can be replaced. To be hones I grew very tired of stupid DBW issues and decided to bin the lot...

 

[smclt30p]

Chapter 4 - Cabling the cow​

See, drive by wire throttle is great as a concept - but sadly (at least on French cars) it's not sustainable in the long run. The response is garbage, the throttle bodies die and the only good perk DBW throttle has is the good idle - any other thing is a problem. Since I am a very old school person I decided to bin the DBW and switch to cable throttle.

I sourced a dCi pedal from a local scrap yard from a Phase 1:

After installing the pedal, transferring over the throttle body, cable, upper intake manifold, PCV plate and airbox from the Scenic we get this:

Isn't this a beauty? One problem tho - the connectors for the TPS and the stepper idle control valve are missing and in place of them is a fat Sicma DBW connector.

The solution? Transfer the Scenic ECU and install the missing wiring for the TPS/Stepper and re-pin the ECU to use a generation older ECU. The tachno would also need changing but I planned on tackling that later.

I cabled everything and tucked the TPS wiring, plugged the ECU in and turned the key. The fuel pump primes and the car starts and runs. For a second. Then it shuts off. See I sent the ECU off to have its immobilizer turned off so it can be ran in the Clio - they bodged the job. Running for second and shutting off is a classic sign the immobilizer is active, and eventually Renolink told the same story.

Queue a whole month of dicking around trying to find a guy that can kill the immobilizer, and every guy failed miserably and had to be threatened to refund the money they charged. After 5 guys I grew tired of this - eventually the first guy admitted this ECU can't be de-immobilized.

So I needed a ECU that can run this engine and I solved this issue in the most insane way imaginable...and a shiny box arrived at my doorstep

Let's do this...

 

[smclt30p]

Chapter 5 - Maxx it out​

Say hello to my new toy - a used Maxxtuning MaxxECU Street. This bad boy has a wideband controller, sequential injection, an ARM Cortex CPU and so much capability it could have landed Apollo 13 in it's day.

Some of the things I will have the pleasure of playing with:

• Boost control
• Shift-cut
• Internal loggings
• Flex fuel
• Advanced warning system
• Built-in wideband lambda
• Launch control
• Anti-lag

Sounds exciting doesn't it? So I ripped the harness out of the Clio and armed with a wiring diagram went straight at it:

I deleted all the stepper stuff (the ECU doesn't support it), the second lambda probe and re-wired the sensors to use a common ground. Also added twisted pairs for the LSU 4.9 wideband lambda probe.

An Audi PWM idle valve was used to take care of the idle duties and a VW wasted spark coil with 1.2 Twingo cables of the bang.

A few hours later the harness was done and installed along the ignition coil and idle valve (seen above the oil filler cap).

One quirk of this install is the ECU needed to be installed in the interior of the car, because it's not waterproof. After poking around it was decided the glove box was the best choice. A 60mm hole was punched in the firewall under the windshield and a rubber boot installed:

The dash went flying and the ECU wiring supplied with the ECU was routed along the inner dashboard

After a few days of splicing and wiring...

A shot for the wiring harness aficionados...

So in the end after wiring everything (besides the AC, the wires on the right) and buttoning it up we have this final result:

Now, will it start? It all boiled down to this - months of work. A very rough was scratched up and the key was turned.

And...ITS ALIVE!

 

[smclt30p]

Chapter 6 - De-projectifying the daily​

Winter was coming. The 225 was still the daily. We need the Clio going...fast.

So I started road tuning the MaxxECU using logs. I even got the dashboard working via MaxxECU's CAN analyzer:



After a few weeks I got the fueling within 2% of the Lambda target and the ignition map was tuned conservatively. I also wired the EPAS to the ECU and configured the warning/MIL lights on the dash in the MaxxECU to light up when a issue is occurred. I re-used the dreaded "check injection" light as the shift light

I then chopped the intake hose and placed the ignition coil next to the engine instead of the front - the reasoning being to run the factory fuel rail crash protection...protector?

This is the final result:

The was taken on October 11 2023. The car has been in spirited daily usage since then - being driven hard every day. The misfires cleared up (probably due to the carbon buildup) and it starts and runs without a hitch.

Now, for the 172 bits i mentioned...

 

[smclt30p]

Chapter 7 - The sporty bits and rear axle​

The main driving factor behind the 172 wide track conversion was that I already had the hubs and brakes. I was missing the lower arms, anti-roll bar, driveshafts and rear axle.

Since OEM Sport stuff is unobtanium where I live, so I ordered a set or aftermarket 172 arms from K-Tec (thanks to K-Tec for shipping to eastern Europe!). After some customs shenanigans they arrived safe and sound!

A anti-roll bar was sourced from the UK from eBay, 172 pistons locally (still stunned I found them) and a JC5 gearbox/flywheel combo from a Scenic...and we get this:

The missing bits is the Sport subframe and the rear axle. I looked in Dialogys and concluded that the 172 uses Megane Coach rear brakes, but after my friend had a incident where the brake pads fell out I wanted to try something else. Given I will run the 44 teeth Scenic ABS, I thought why not use the Scenic rear brakes on the Clio. They are massive (274mm) and the calliper is a much more modern design. A drum-brake Clio rear axle was sourced and after binning the drum brakes and hubs we get this:

After some measurements on the Scenic rear axle, turns out the Scenic hub bolts onto the Clio rear axle with the lower 2 bolts, the 2 upper bolts are narrower on the stub axle.

So I elongated the holes in the rear axle:

And the end result is this:

Which after 2 days of filing and grinding leaves us with this:

Enables me to run 274mm Scenic discs and the much more modern caliper style. Another bonus is that VW pads fit (Audi TT) so that enables me to source sport brake pads like the DS2500, YellowStuff etc...

So now I have:

• A fully mapable Phase 2 Clio with endless engine possibilities
• A big disc brake rear axle

Now we need the front axle...

 

[smclt30p]

Chapter 8 - The wide track front axle​

I sourced a Phase 1 front axle as it had additional reinforcements in the back portion in the form of a third sheet layer and through-drilled bracing:

I got a bit excited and mocked the lower arms and the hubs, discs and brake calipers onto the subframe and stood it next to the car:

Now I need to tackle the challenge or driveshafts. According to my calculations the 172 Cup runs approximately the Scenic Mk1 driveshafts. According to folks here, Shaftec driveshafts R209AL and R209AR fit the 172 Cup and they are listed for a Scenic too. They are 655mm (L) and 740mm (R) based on Shaftec claims, and my shafts measure at 657mm and 742mm roughly. This all means I need to run a 172 Cup subframe, also known as a Ragnotti or Group.N subframe which has wider spaced control arm mounting holes than the Phase 1 item I have.

So, based on this picture...

A template is created fom cardboard and then plastic from a spare arch liner...

Which corresponds to the mounting lugs on the subframe...

And after elongating the holes manually with a round file I can fit the lower wishbones wider on the subframe in a consistent manner. I asked a local machinist to machine some reinforcements I can weld into the subframe:

Which allows me to mount the wishbones in the widest available "Sport Phase 2 aka. Cup aka. Ragnotti aka. Gr.N" location:

For reference, here is the Phase 1/Phase 2 Non-sport location:

After welding and some primer, we get this:

And after assembling all the bits, we get the complete front subframe:

Now for some upgrades...

 

[smclt30p]

Chapter 9 - Present day​

This has all happened in the far away past, this now is the newer updates (last month).

I painted the old Scenic 15's I had in white in homage to the old Peugeot Sport cars like the 106 Rallye (as I like the look)

And after some 172-fitment tyres it looks like this on the car:

That's how the car sits today. Besides a few suspension knocks and a shagged top mount which I replaced, it's driven like this daily.

As for the 172 wide track, I sourced some polybushes from MPBS

And a 172-style dogbone to replace the Non-sport one - the best upgrade to any Clio there is

Also sourced a EPAS rack locally and gave it to a local guy for a rebuild

He ground the rack to undersize and machined new brass ends. Very pleased by the work.

 

[Brigsy]

Great updates, maxxecu install looks spot on.

 

[smclt30p]

Thanks Brigsy!

K-Tec had some freak discout on Cup shocks and they were a no-brainer - that's where the "Cup" in the title comes from.

And with locally sourced Eibach Sportlines and new top mounts, does make it a tasty combo

Also sourced some longer inner tie rods to accommodate the wider track of the 172 bits

Next step is inner boots (which are stupidly hard to source) and it's basically ready to be fit on the car. I also installed some new brake lines on the rear axle bud did not take any pictures...

 

[Brigsy]

Regarding rack boots, febi make half decent quality ones. Sizing is a minefield however

 

[smclt30p]

I bought the Febi ones and they are a complete miss, they are 39mm where I need ~34-35mm, as you can see there is a ~5mm gap and the boot flaps around. Luckily universal ones are available which you cut to the size you need so I'll try that.

 

[Brigsy]

Them boots look like they are for the hydraulic rack with the larger inner. I cant remember the part number but i found some that fitted ok, even if slightly smaller they will go on.

These will work ok going by the size. The rubber is soft will stretch on fine.

Steering Rack Boot fits RENAULT CLIO Mk2 1.5D 2001 on Gaiter Bellow Shaftec New | eBay

Type Bellow Kit, steering. RENAULT 11 (B/C37_) 1.1 (B/C371) Hatchback Petrol 03/1983 06/1986 FWD 8 48 35. RENAULT 11 (B/C37_) 1.2 (B37S, C375) Hatchback Petrol 10/1984 12/1988 FWD 8 55 40. RENAULT 11 (B/C37_) 1.4 Hatchback Petrol 07/1986 10/1987 FWD 8 58 43.

www.ebay.co.uk

 

[smclt30p]

Cheers I was offered 39mm or 30mm ones, I was wondering if the 30mm is the old 1.2 manual rack boot from the Phase 1.

I ordered some Sasic 30mm ones and I'll report if they fit. Thanks Brigsy!

Btw. awsome van

 

[smclt30p]

So parts arrived unexpectedly early today and I was able to spend some time in the garage despite the cold temp (8c).

The Sasic 30mm boots are the right one, for anyone playing along at home its Sasic 4006227.

Fitted some new Moog track rod ends and we get this:

In summary, rebuild rack, new boots, inner 172 tie rods, 172 track rod ends ready for the car. Very pleased

Also installed new SNR bearings today at a friends place with a press:

Disappointed a bit that one says FRANCE on it and the other doesn't even when it's the same manufacturer and part number...

Theoretically everything is ready for the car.

 

[smclt30p]

Bit of an update. Not much has been happening, only driving.

One thing I haven't shown off which I'm proud of is the wideband in the stock Clio 2 cluster. I hijacked the cruise control set point to display Lambda.

100 km/h = 1.00 lambda, 85km/h = 0.85 lambda etc.

Gave the car a much needed wash, also acquired some floor mats (excuse the grubbiness):

Waiting for nicer weather to kick off the widetrack.

Thanks for reading!

 

[smclt30p]

So, It's done in the front. It all went smooth&easy, two of the subframe bolts spun in the metal cages but it's easy as piss to sneak a spanner behind and undo it.

Old crap off:

New stuff in:

Testing driveshaft spacing on full bump and full droop without springs:

Springs and brakes on:

Sitting on the road, all done.

Next is ABS pump replacement to go from 26 teeth to 44 teeth and the rear beam.

I can confirm the following driveshafts fit:

R209AL - Left driveshaft - 657mm total length
R209AR - Right driveshaft - 740-745mm total length compressed

I sourced the left driveshaft from the Scenic (it's the same as a 172) and the right driveshaft bought new for 40 EUR for a Scenic Phase 1 without driveshaft bearing (aka. "Cup" driveshaft).

These driveshafts require the "Cup" subframe mounting style. Some sources say the Phase 2 subframes are all the same. YMMW.

Both driveshafts have about 2cm of space in the gearbox and the outer cup on full bump and full droop.

 

[Brigsy]

Great job, should be a good improvement in handling with the wide track.

Lambda on cruise set screen is spot on. I might look into seeing if its possible to do that on my ecumaster black. Set always comes up with ign on, might aswell use it as cruise is not hooked up.

 

[smclt30p]

Thanks Brigsy. The car feels a LOT more like my 225 then a Clio.

Body roll has reduced massively, uncomparable to before. And having only 90HP at the wheels, makes WOT on corner exits safe and within reasonable limits on the backroads. Always hated that on the 225, its just too fast for safe spirited driving.

The EMU can do it, I think i could help you out with that