Throttle Bodied Clio

[Os8472]

Awesome idea, how much does the energy engine put out stock, I've been thinking about a turbo'd version and how it would fit in an renault 5

[spudmurphy]

Been a while since I updated this, but there has been some progress, mostly of the backwards variety

I'll have to get some of the pictures off the camera and do a proper update, but here is one that I've got handy



Spud

[spudmurphy]

Well that last post turned out to be a jinx. I got the engine back in fairly easily and everything reconnected, plumbed in and bolted up and figured I was ready to go. So fresh start one morning, hot cup of coffee in hand battery fully charged and a spare one on standby I cranked it over, and nothing happened….. absolutely nothing. Quick check over and I’d not wired up the starter motor, phew, easy fix.

With that fixed I made myself another brew, and went to crank it again, it turned, it made oil pressure and then it backfired so loud the small child on next doors drive nearly cried! Definitely wasn’t trying to start though. Must be the timing I reckoned so I made another brew and spent a while double checking the timing, making sure the trigger wheel was straight, making sure the crank sensor was in the right place and the wire was connected. I pulled the fuel pump wiring and tried to trigger light it, for some reason EDIS packs don’t seem to work well with timing lights ? Eventually after what seemed like hours of checking the car over I decided it must be the ECU, gutted time to remove it and retire to the garage with a brew.

Cue several more nights in the garage going over the assembly instructions for the megasquirt, checking and rechecking connections and jumper wires and the mods done for EDIS to work, all checked out fine. Until after despairing for a few days I accidentally poked a wire, and realised it wasn’t soldered to the board, hurrah I’d found the issue, time for a celebratory brew!!

I soldered the wire, reinstalled the ECU, plugged the fuel pump in again and cranked it…… nothing…. nothing….. nothing…… BANG. Hmmm that didn’t fix it, brew time. Must still be an issue with the ECU, about this time Dave Walker was writing in his pages something along the lines of 90% of reported ECU failures were nothing to do with the ECU, well obviously I was one of the 10% and the fact he was talking about professionally built Emerald units and I was looking at a DIY Megasquirt I was doubly sure it must be the ECU.

The car was definitely getting fuel, and definitely getting spark, just nowhere near each other or at the right time. So it could only be ECU related…… maybe. Anyway several more nights of brews, head scratching and posts on the MS forums didn’t resolve the ECU issues, internal wiring was all fine, the code checked out and even my settings were looking reasonable, maybe the ECU was OK.

So one last weekend of trying before I was going to admit defeat and trailer it somewhere. Up early again, made a brew and went out to fit the ECU and battery to the car. Cranked it over a few times and got nothing but backfires, leaned the fuel out and it’d spit out the intake, richen it up and backfire out the exhaust. Everything said timing but I knew that was spot on. I made another brew and now was desperate to try anything so swapped the plug leads around, cranked it over and it ran, it actually ran!

That wasn’t the end of the problems though, the backfires had done a good job of blowing the tb’s off the stubby inlet manifold, the silicon joiners not providing as much grip as I’d hoped and now that it was dragging a lot of air in it wasn’t making very much vacuum on cylinder one causing it to run very lean whilst the other 3 cylinders ran very rich. So the next few weeks were spent thinking up and designing a new manifold, I dabbled a bit with the idea of a composite one but having priced up a suitable epoxy resin that would tolerate heat and exposure to fuel I’ve put that idea on hold for a bit. I also looked at getting one made up by Bogg Bro’s or similar but again due to cost canned that idea and eventually settled on making a better effort than last time from mild steel. A couple of ebay purchases later I had the steel tube I needed and some time spent with a brew, and a pencil and I had a design, and more importantly some angles to cut at. A couple of further hours later, and another brew I had, sat on my bench, one kit form manifold. Just need to glue it together and attach some throttle bodies!

Spud

[spudmurphy]

Time for another update, not in any particular chronological order.
The car and engine had been sat for quite not moving or turning so I decided to crank it over a few times on the starter to at least ensure oil was moving about. Gave it a blast on the starter and no oil pressure Spun it over some more and still no oil pressure, so checked the sump, oil was present, checked the oil pressure gauge was plumbed in correctly, it was. Spun it over some more, still no pressure, shit.

Decided that the oil pump was goosed and so removed the engine and box. Then did some research, and found that with a geared oil pump that if it drains dry it can't create enough vacuum to lift oil from the sump. A classic V8 build trick is to apparently pack the pump with vaseline as that wont shift if the engine is stored for a while. Either that or prime the pump by backfilling it from the oil filter. Having stripped the engine and checked the pump I found nothing at all wrong with it... DOH!!

Took the opportunity whilst the engine was out to baffle the sump and give everything a full freshen up with new gaskets seals etc

Couple of pics of the engine ready for re-installation





Also decided at this point to freshen the engine bay and subframe up and liberally coat the underside in waxoyl;





some nugget making noises





Spud

[spudmurphy]

Then we were lucky enough to find a listing on ebay for an exhaust manifold for the renault energy engine, these are as rare as the proverbial rocking horses poop so a last dying second sniping session was employed to ensure a wining bid.

Got the manifold, fitted it and found the first problem, it fit the engine but sure as hell didn't fit the car nevermind, some more precision welding was employed along with a collection of bits of pipe and flanges from various sources to create this...



and fitted...



wrapped the manifold and fitted it



also rolled the car forward almost into the garage so at least I'd be a bit warmer when working on it. This was the first time it'd been back on it's wheels in a long time and I'd forgotten how much of a PITA or more correctly 'the back' working on lowered cars is



Spud

[spudmurphy]

Next up it was time to do something about the inlet manifold and add some structural strength to it. As the silicon hoses had proven to be the weak link I figured removing as much of them as possible would be a good start, more ebay purchases later and I had some steel tube.

Queue some mad scientist type maths to work out port spacings on the head, the bodies, the desired distance between them and the rquired angle of fandangle



pah, who needs fancy catia packages, only a little ironic considering my background in aerospace engineering

Some cutting later we have a kit form inlet manifold



checked they would actually line up..





cut the silicon joiners down to minimum length



used the metal glue gun to stick it all together and gave it a coating of paint to hide some of the shame









Lessons learned here were that the tubes should really have been chamfered prior to welding to get better penetration, would hav save the welds building up round the outside.

Spud

[spudmurphy]

Next everything started to go back together, somewhere in all this I decided that the coilpack that was bolted to the side of the head;



was going to move. I found a strutbrace for a clio, chopped the ford coilpack bracket up and got busy with the welder and the paint again.





And found a suitable new home for the Innovate wideband controller as the sensor had now moved from near the head in the old manifold to in the link pipe with the new exhaust manifold.



Spud

[tommi]

nice work pal. it inspireing me to get my bike carb manifold sorted for my m10

[spudmurphy]

Frustratingly there hasn't been much progress lately, mostly due to the car looking like this



but before the weather set in we did manage to get a few bits done;

Water temp sender for a gauge fitted, not overly happy with the location as it's after the thermostat and so will only read once the engine is up to temp and the stat opens but it will at least show if things are getting too hot


the gauge is a TIM split water temp/oil pressure one so oil take off added


Squeezing the new manifold in didn't leave much room for the fan so we've gone for a front mount one. Verdict is still out on this too, it cools the rad down fine once the engine is up to temperature but it's not been trialled on the road yet to see if it obstructs flow too much.

Back view


Front View


In the scuttle area that used to hold the ECU an oil catch tank has been added. It's a cheapo ebay one for now, planning on getting something better made up with better size breathers once it's up and running.


Another mod I've tried is painting the insides of the headlights. Not seen this done before on a clio so not sure if I'm trailblazing or not. When removing one of the headlights the glass fell off, common problem I've since found out. With the glass off the idea came up of painting the insides black, we've also removed the lenses over the indicators and fitted some silvervision bulbs to avoid orangeyness




Again, I'll wait and see what I think of these once it's up and running.

The list of jobs left to do now is getting encouragingly small, it needs;
2 front tyres
number plates
tracking done
mapping,
MOT

so some time next year then

and one last picture, new camera, snow and playing around with a torch.



Spud

[Renrut]

Seems to be coming along nicely despite the break for weather/xmas.

Your shot of a temperature sender reminds me I need to rig up a proper fan switch for the fiat.

Just had a thought maybe you should stick a reply up on the carbs vs injection thread...

[ST182]

In the scuttle area that used to hold the ECU an oil catch tank has been added. It's a cheapo ebay one for now, planning on getting something better made up with better size breathers once it's up and running.

funny that, it looks like a free one off mr st182 to me

comin on well bud good work i've not touched either car since mid december if i feel well enought sat i'll be spannerin i hope.

[spudmurphy]

funny that, it looks like a free one off mr st182 to me

eeek, you're right you know! lol

Sorry pal, it's been that long between you donating it and me getting my ass in gear and fitting it I'd forgotten it's origins! Well reminded and credit where it's due for supplying parts to the longest project ever

Need to get some more work done on this one now that I'm nearly there with it, hopefully get some more progress this weekend and then just need to get hold of my mapper who's disappeared into a pile of uni work

Spud

[ST182]

only havin a giggle matey lad- its gone to a good home sir thats good

get that will bloke over ASAP sir, tell him uni can wait and to get his priorities straight

i'll have a lookie at the car when i'm next over with a subway for a brew, sounds like a bit has been done since i was over- sorry its been so long

[spudmurphy]

Eek, almost a year between updates!! Well obviously I’ve been so busy doing things in that year that the car is complete and no powered by a new fuel source that invented in my spare time……………. Or maybe not.

Truthfully the car has run, been driven, broken down, fallen apart, been dismantled and is in the process of being reconstructed. The results of which are I’m pretty much in the same place I was 12 months ago.

Picking up where I left off last time the car got some new boots;



Clio number 2 loaded up to go and get the new boots fitted



Out of interest I weighed the tyres and they came out at 7.5kg each on a size of 195/50/15. When the tyres had been fitted to the wheels I weighed them again and the weight was 12kg making the wheels pretty light at about 4.5kg each I think.

Next came the mapping, tracking and MOT. Thought I had some pictures of my mate doing the mapping, it made for an amusing sight as Will is a tall chap, so seeing him squeeze donkey kong esque into the diminutive French hatch was interesting. However I can’t find the pictures so you’ll have to imagine that sight for yourselves.

It did make it to the generic franchise tyre fitters though for tracking;



And eventually after some more mapping to an MOT station for a ‘sympathetic’ MOT. No more said on that front but here is a picture of it out the front of the house waiting to go and get it’s ticket



And it made it into work for a couple of short drives as a bedding in test



After the MOT it’s trial by fire was a drive from Preston to Santa Pod for USC….. “come to the show” I was told, “it’s an experience”. Well an experience it was that’s for sure! But the car made it there mostly without a hitch, I say mostly as the offset on the unknown jap import wheels isn’t 100 percent compatible with Renault’s wheel arch dimensions, so once loaded up with camping supplies and copious amounts of beer there were some interference issues haha. The trip down allowed for plenty of live mapping en route and by the time we got there the car was running beautifully at idle and on cruise, no wide open throttle runs had been done though so unfortunately the planned runs up the strip were aborted. Unfortunately that is also where it all started to go wrong too, after a good but eye opening Friday and Saturday at ultimate street chav we were heading over to Ford Fair on the Sunday. In the usual A43 queue into Silverstone the car started driving badly, then the throttle started racing, then it died…… oh no. We managed to get the car to the side of the road, popped the bonnet and found the throttle bodies……. well to put it simply, they’d fallen off.

I’d never been overly happy about my method of joining the bodies to the stub manifold, the rubbers weren’t a perfect fit, the stubs and bodies weren’t perfectly aligned and the bodies didn’t have much stub on the for the rubbers to grip.

Will jumped out of the Clio and in with someone else in the queue as he was due at the show to do some mapping for a mk3 Escort that went on that day to do 0-60 in 2.74 seconds, and left Nic and me scratching heads as to what to do. After letting it all cool down I managed to wedge the bodies back on and tighten everything up again, although I wasn’t confident of the longevity of the repair it was the best I could do. The repair actually lasted long enough to get us to Silverstone, out again and to the first services on the M6 on the way home, it was on the approach to the service that the bodies started to peel themselves off the rubbers again.

Spud

[spudmurphy]

We bailed into the services and debated the next move. I was tired and fed up and voted for recovery, until we phoned and asked how long we’d have to wait, this was the weekend of USC and Ford Fair, as you can imagine it was going to be a few hours before they could get to us. At this point we searched the service sation, and the petrol station to see what we could find to A-Team the car back together again, Will and I separately returned with a roll of duct tape, and a luggage bungee strap, you know where this is going !!

At first we tried the duct tape, tightening the jubilee clamps up then taping the lot up, but it was service station duct tape, it was destined to fail, and didn’t even last a minute before it all peeled apart again. So next up was the bungee, we attached the bodies, clamped it all up than braced them with the bungee as these pictures sort of show





Amazingly this set up made it the next 125 miles home and onto the safety of the drive.

It has since all been stripped off and manifold design mk3 has been put into manufacture.

Spud