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depends on the engines though an how it reacts to mods
a lot of the Jap things are turbos so your bound to get huge gains, i mean look at the 5GTT, anythin u do to that usually gets you a decent gain
oh an not meanin to sound pedantic or anythin but its tuning and tuners, not tunning and tunners......sorry
You can get big jap power gains but it costs loads too!! What cars are you talking about? Most are quite temprimental from what ive read. The RSOC lads call the scooby engine "chocolate". Its not that bad but it needs lots of TLC. Sunny Gti-R = big bills also. My cousins RX7 needed a 3K rebuild for some bloody expensive seals but one of his tips went so he needed it anyway. Im no expert but jap tunning seems expensive too me!!
Its got NOTHING to do with the tuners or the cars. Any car can be made to work better than std and increasing power by 50%-80% its not a technically difficult thing. ALL engines work on the same theory and ALL respond to the same methods. Some come out of the factory in a stonking manner and the F20 honda is a great example..........but because its making 120bhp ltr you need to work hard and the parts will cost.
The real problem is the MKT, if anybody has had experience with it youll know. Some customers are great, they know what they want and even if they dont know how it works they wont pester you for weeks on end before deciding that another place does the "same" job for less (only to their knowledge they are getting the same product) in most cases cowboys get the most business as they are prepared to lie and give silly power gains quotes. Not that tuners mind getting asked questions, its their job, but keep asking the same thing after they have given an answer and they WILL got pissed off....they give answers, not theory over the whole damn topic.
Most people want everything, high peak power numbers, torque, low cost, no development periods, and good fuel economy. Most arent prepared for the tradeoffs and compramises you have to make to run 50% more power, so.....the tuners CAN do it but its not a popular mod, so it costs.....naturally.
Now the scene is catching on a bit, people still want the drive in drive out experience/bolt on gains. SUre, cams are a bolt on mod, but if you want it running as perfect as it can, be prepared to let teh guy have your car for maybe a week or more so he can run a couple tests, tweek this and that, test some more.......so, cost of cams, labour, RR time, more labour.....can easily reach a grand, then wilder cams might need piston mods or new ones, solid lifter conversion etc etc, but most people dont consider that.
What cant be done to a Renault engine that can be done to a jap engine, you want it done, sure, any engine.......but be prepared for the cost.
It seems expensive???
Have any of you tried to design, manufacture, test then sell anything. It costs a fortune! the prices nowadays are comparative bargains. That Norris Designs evo......70K he spent.....70K!!!!!!!! its a stormer, but it cost, and even that is considered Good VFM.
Is this a rant, yes its a rant............its all out there peeps, just cause its not listed in a catalougue doesnt mean it cant be done. I guess this is why companies are making so many kits and stages cause left to their own, people could really mess up their car.
Not meaning to offend anybody at all, but please, think of it on a whole rather than a microcosm of the part you want.
there are bargain packages out there........but its all to keep costs from scaring people.
Sure, you could make a kit to get the 1.8 to run 200-220bhp, which would be brilliant, but how many people would be prepared to pay probably over 10K to give their car away for about a month+, stripped bare, racey cams, steel crank, forged pistons, steel rods, gasflowed heads, throttle bodies, exhausts, new management, RR time (LOTS OF!), and the labour!
to run 170bhp, its out there, the 2ltr conversion with diff cams and all the rest.
The 172 run a new engine, hard to fiddle with without lots of test time and cash, of which most tuning companies except teh HUGE ones have, and they dont need to waste their time dabbling in a tiny market of maybe 1000 (proper enthusiasts like people off this club) 172 owners, of which maybe 10-20% will seriously consider it.
im sure there are loads of yugo owners out there wanting more poke.......tough luck for them eh lol!
debt, always a b*****d! lol
What do i do, um.......i dont do anything in particular! lol
Im trying to finish this degree but great work prospects are taking me away from it lol. I work for Renault in HK a few months in the yr, but i make most of my money by privately modifying cylinder heads for people ( i get ALOT of people wasting my time, when it comes to costing up (which takes a while) they bugger off again) and the occasional engine. Mostly classic ford stuff as parts supply is cheap and i like them.
I just want most people to realise tuners do their job because they love it, not just the money as its not great money. Its great to hand over what ever you do to the customer and they are honestly happy with what you did.
But i get the normal question of "how much power will i get" for moified cylinder heads. its like, um.......k.........what else you running with it? cam profile, is it timed in properly, is the ECU mapped as well as it can be, what fuel are you prepared to run, what sort of CR, is a steel crank off the list if you want to run the RPM needed for the power this head can make etc etc.
It gets frustrating sometimes, but i still love it and most people are nice enough to work with you.
you certainly know your stuff anyway! So how does a tuned N/A engine act? My old Fezzie was up about 25% and only needed a bit more servicing but things like scoobs need to be treated so correctly to stop disaster. I like a compromise of perfomace and reliability. I figured 200bhp in a Clio may mean lots of other upgrades like cluch/gearbox/brakes etc etc and less reliability which too me is too much of a compromise. Maybe 180bhp or so is a better target for me.
how do they act?
they act very well
some engines indeed repsond better as the or that part you are changing is inherently, excuse my french, sh*te. Some are so badly designed that its easy to make up power.
Reliability wise, 100bhp/ltr isnt over stressing a modern engine, and the only things you really have to watch are more regular oil changes and keep an eye on temps and pressures....thats what leads to a bust motor. The box, 200bhp through a std box isnt such a problem as the inherent torque delivery of the engine will be semi peaky so you wont dump a whole lot on it at once. Itll be fine as long as you dont do 1/4 mile starts all day long, which no box likes, drive shafts are fine, brakes are fine (just KNOW when to start slowing) and the clutch goes without saying.
It just that to make power you naturally need to process more air, and when limited to a certain capacity, its always going to be about rpm. The F20 (S2000) engine make 240bhp and run 9000rpm! to make it worthwhile to run that sort of rpm and make decent amounts of VE up there is runs some SILLY com profiles for a rd car...hence the VTEC which solves it very nicely.
your williams, it can make the power easy, the only real thing i dont like about it is the crank, its an undersquare engine and doesnt lend itself to high rpm before you reach piston velocities which are too high, and you need STRONG rods and crank for that, and main bearing design plays a strong role is keeping it ridgid.
I want to eventually do a project car, hopefully on my own. it may be in a clio may not. The cost doesnt really bother me, the thing is it interests me. I dont know a lot yet, just picking up bits here and there. Because it will be done mostly by me, i want to do something managable by the avarage human! something i can have fun with and something that i definately dont have to keep taking back to renault to get airbags checked! lol
I like this forum cos it has people like benr in it, who i have learnt from.
Ben has hit the nail on the head.
Fords and japs etc all have a large market for bits.
French cars, the way the french car set up works is you cant modify the engine to produce any more power. So they go for styling.
You may remember the saxo. It had a spurt of turbo conversions etc. Why? Cos some guy (a pig farmer) decided to get his arse into gear and do it. Ok Gary went downhill in a big big way after a year or so, but he had the balls to try it out.
Renault owners are generally fairies.
The drivetrain. Ben I have to say you are very wrong about the driveline. The boxes are solid. I have no idea what you muppets do to f**k them esprits use the same gears and bearings and they dont blow up every 2 mins. The weak point is the driveshafts. Clutches, not really weak unless abused.
The F20 is not that good an engine Adrian (simons bro) has an S2000, hes had enough of the heap and is getting a Viper. He was in miami test driving one abotu a month ago. I have heard and been in it when it hits 9k and it makes you cringe. I have revved tren 1.6 18 turbo engines to 10 grand and never had a fear it would let go but the honda, I wouldnt trust it at all. The older aircooled hondas like the S800 that went to 11 grand were much better.
As for japs, well if you have ever seen a supra or skyline or scooby exhaust system you can understand why you gain up to 40bhp when you swap them. There are crap as standard. Keeps the power down and cheaper to manufacture. Same with the YB, it had a proper manifold then they swapped to a 2 piece cast jobbie. The YB had major trouble in running at 200 bhp with the decent manifold.
The best engines are actually the really badly cast/poor add ons liek manifolds. If its bad it can be improved - result more power and higher efficiency. if you modify an engine properly you use LESS fuel and get MORE power. Also as Ben knows a correct mod will gain power everywhere not just 500rpm between 9250 and 9750 rpm.
Also the main prob is cost, however some prices are just ridiculous like the KTEC pistons for example you all may recall that thread! lol A proper head shoudl cost abotu 500 quid to get done properly and a properly done road head is almost identical to a racing head, only diff is usually the racing head has opened up ports.
As for the Willy engine, makes a good boat anchor I suppose.
The Japanese engines are often constrained by European emmissions laws and lower octane fuel. I hear that non-Euro spec CTRs come with over 210bhp as standard? European WRXs also have very restrictive exhaust systems.
Ive just been reading a 1993 CCC article on the 16V and Williams, which claims that running 98octane fuel gains nearly 5bhp (news to me) and that de-catting also adds about 5bhp (more believable). So its not just Jap cars.
As has been covered here, the market for tuning NA Renault hot hatches is smaller, and perhaps its better in some ways as most claims are more realistic. Im pretty sure you couldnt guarantee a big increase in power with simple mods anyway. Prima claim you gain 25bhp from an exhaust, de-cat, IK and chip on a Clio 16V, to which we can say from collective experience "bollox"! I see that companies catering for the new Mini claim 130bhp from the 90bhp 1.6 Mini One engine, again with fairly simple mods - totally over the top. Apart from Prima, there seems to be very little of that in Renault land.
P.S. Chris - I remember you telling me why the F7P is better than the F7R, but forgot! Why is it again? (feeling smug as I have a tuned F7P)
there ya go......the box is fine, ive never bust one, but ive also never put 220bhp through one, but i am so not a gearbox person........so chris settled that.
Ben, the mini one and the mini cooper are the same bloody engine, superchips just twiddled the ECU which restrined the engine that much. but having looked at that motor, its a pile of pants..........tinly little head.....so wonder they used a charger!
if anybody think that renault tuning is more expensive than FOrd/minis etc then go cost up the same mods.......a half decent A series will cost you a fortune! more than your mini is worth. A MK1/2 Escort.....jesus! for the price of building a Grp4 escy you could have some rapid supercar!
the thing is with jap cars they are limited by an agreement with the goverment to limit power output to 280 bhp so what you tend to find is they make artificial power reducers like a really restrictive exhust and intake and a really low power mapped chip release the car with like 280 bhp then offer you the parts to give them the power they should make.
Japs engines are indeed used to higher octane fuel, but before we get into a debate about fuel a 102 RON fuel may not be any better than a 95RON fuel.
Emmisions are tight in Japan as well but due to the better fuel they burn better so dont kill dolphins from 50 yards etc.
Theres lots of tricks used to get through the euro laws, a good example is the scoobs, they run reduced boost when in 2nd gear at a constant throttle so the noise is reduced.
The new mini has a horrible engine, what do we expect its American and small. They dont do small!
The box thats currently on my beast has now done 140k ish miles, abotu 20 of that the box was filled with 3 quid asda engine oil The old bx I took apart cos of a dodgy 1st gear synchro, its still sitting in bits (partially) in my room after a year! lol
As for why the Ps better than the R, well the P doesnt have the stroke of an olympic swimmer for a start. It also has the bore sprays. The P is a racing engine de-tuned if you will for the road. The R is a road engine used for the road. Look at the Ps ports for example, not exactly small, the bore sprays are rarely found on NA engines of that era unless they pumped out big power at highish rpms. The P does in my opinion have a longish stroke though and the pistons have an oil slot which means you cant really trust the standard clobber at silly rpms (silly rpms - anything above 8 grand continuos).
The P is also actually pumping out quite a good output for the time. The cosworth developed XE had 156bhp from 2 litres, the MI16 kicks its arse with 160 from 1.9 but the 1.8 P 137bhp is quite good from a 1980s engine. If renault used the willy piston dia and made the engine a true 1.8 it would have made more power, even if it was another 3 bhp thats 140bhp from 1.8 which a lot of 2 litre cars today dont make.
The P along with the 1.4 Energy were the last best engines renault made. They really started going downhill when gordini was no longer involved.
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