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!
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!
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!
