Project 172

[Andrew Cooke]

Andrew Fantastic news that she is all up and running with a few minor issues for the MOT. You'll have to get some pics up so we can all see how she now looks sitting down on all wheels and any vids you have of driving.

Think you haven't yourself a nice cuppa

Thanks James

Do you know what map is in the ECU? it doesn't feel that great, although the Twingo peashooter might be bunging it up

I'm going to have to be careful in it as it's such fun giving it a big squirt, I gave it full beans on entering a 60 limit earlier, and came upon a photographer hiding in a corner trying to take a magazine type photo of a beemer coming the other way. I could see him trying to peer around me to see what was making the noise

[James5]

Thanks James

Do you know what map is in the ECU? it doesn't feel that great, although the Twingo peashooter might be bunging it up

I'm going to have to be careful in it as it's such fun giving it a big squirt, I gave it full beans on entering a 60 limit earlier, and came upon a photographer hiding in a corner trying to take a magazine type photo of a beemer coming the other way. I could see him trying to peer around me to see what was making the noise

That ecu is standard phase 1 map, it has been virginlised and also had the emulator in place aswell all works done by rstuning the blokes a member on the cliosport site aswell

[TNT Tricky Nicky]

i find the f4r sluggish at lower revs, once you pass about 3.5krpm it starts getting lively and after 5 it wants to go even harder. that's on a standard map not sure what gains are to be had from a remap but it's something i may look into.

if it's been reflashed by the rstuner from what i kno the preset group n remap removes the cold limiter and raises the limiter to 7.5

the 182 manifold changes the torque curve so you get a better lower range but not so great at the top so your exhaust could be having an affect on that front

[Andrew Cooke]

That ecu is standard phase 1 map, it has been virginlised and also had the emulator in place aswell all works done by rstuning the blokes a member on the cliosport site aswell

Ahh, that sounds right, I did interrogate the reprogramming history and do recall seeing grpN in there, but didn't think it was still in. It certainly has a very odd torque curve, it just seems to climb in steps. Still, I'm very happy with it so far

I was showing it off at work, it went down very well, my favourite comment was 'this is the Twingo Renault should have made'

[Mart]

Haha, great stuff mate! Definitely get some vid's uploaded of it out on the road

So, turbo conversion?

[Andrew Cooke]

needs a bit of a clean, anyone with OCD want to pop around with your wet and dry, or what ever ones uses to clean stuff these days?

[TrixNFlix]

Love it. Top work at keeping it almost 100% standard looking.

[Andrew Cooke]

Haha, great stuff mate! Definitely get some vid's uploaded of it out on the road

So, turbo conversion?

I'll get my photographer queued up on that one...

errm, nope, 'it's got enough power'

[old skool turbo power]

good job on the car mate haha you could just imagine being at the lights lookin at it and having a laugh at it then before you know it the little twingo..............a right sleeper

[BriC]

needs a bit of a clean, anyone with OCD want to pop around with your wet and dry, or what ever ones uses to clean stuff these days?

Fantastic stuff - looks really good!

Good to hear it didn't fail on any of the complicated / expensive stuff - just a bit of welding

[Andrew Cooke]

Hot news, it's now running on my ECU rather than Spooky's (James' old one)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VgkOCJ9PGkk

[Spooky]

[T.K]

Haha! Awesome. Needs the optional standard fit Ronal Teddies..

I have some!

Amazing conversion Andrew

[Andrew Cooke]

Haha! Awesome. Needs the optional standard fit Ronal Teddies..

I have some!

Amazing conversion Andrew

If they're 15s I'll give 'em a go

[Andrew Cooke]

it's got an MOT

and an ugly looking patch on it's sill it'll get fixed properly some time.



It all went a bit depressing when I dropped it off for welding yesterday, as I slowed down the revs stayed very high, and as I tried to find reverse all it would do was grind the gears I popped out and stuck my thumb over the ISCV pipe which dropped the revs right down, so it was either a stuck valve, or the ECU was holding it open. Got back in and decided to switch off, select reverse, then restart to allow it to reverse. Went to start, and nothing , I pushed it back, dropped the keys off with the garage, and went to work.

I had a call later to say that the battery was completely flat, and it started OK after a boost. This got me thinking. If the battery voltage was low the ECU may well try to open the ISCV to give it some charge, obviously the high revs would make reverse difficult, so the only problem I had was why wasn't it charging, and was something flattening the battery?

I popped up to the garage at lunch time to have a look around, and immediately spotted that the battery cable to the alternator was very loose and about to fall off. Tightened the nut and everything was fixed

[andyrg]

This is such a great project, proper pocket rocket Nice sill repair Just needs a little paint work now Im sure you can sort that.

I did that with the earth from my Altinator and melted a battery

[Andrew Cooke]

I've been a bit slack with updates, the filter was fitted a couple of weeks back, but here it is:

The first thing I got sorted was the air filter:




I used:
pipercross filter 100mm dia 200mm long 70mm inlet
samco 90deg 70mm
70mm aluminium tube
16mm revotec barb
16mm samco flex hose

A little bit of trim got the filter sat where I wanted it, I then fitted the 16mm barb into the elbow and ran the hose to the ISCV. Job done.

I'm thinking of bonding the filter to the aluminium pipe to the 90 with tigerseal to get rid of 2 of the jubilee clips as they look a bit messy.

I'd also like to swap the blue hose from the FPR to the plenum with either an original part, or some black silicon. Drop my a line if you have anything lying around

On Friday I decided to fill up with fuel to get an idea on fuel consumption. unfortunately during this fuel started pouring out of the top of the tank, so I popped home to investigate. It was easily found, some fool (that'll be me) hadn't seated the seal in the fuel collector correctly before screwing it down (whilst fitting the 172 fuel pump early in the project). Easy fix.

[Andrew Cooke]

My completion target was La Vie en Bleu at Prescott at the end of May. I'd hoped to complete a few jobs and checks on the Saturday before, as it turned out it was a bit wet, so I just did the minimum of sorting out the fuel tank seal and running a damp sponge over the outside.

I'd arranged a spot on the Renault Alpine Owner's Club stand, and dumped it there on the Sunday morning. It languished there for a couple of hours largely unnoticed amongst it's sporty brethren. A friend of mine came along at around midday, and I popped the bonnet to let him have a look:



The game was up, and I soon had a few heads peering in...

Anyway, I dropped the bonnet, and left it once again in anonymity.

We got to do a convoy run, and I hoped my G/F might make a video of it, unfortunately she lost concentration once I hit the throttle, so that was that. If you have a search on youtube for 'Patrese Wife' you'll get the idea, although she had time to relax as there was a lot of traffic. She's going to love Mallory

[Andrew Cooke]

I've not done a lot since Prescott.

Swapped the bent Williams driveshaft for a straight one.

Used my first full tank of fuel, averaged ~38mpg, which was nice

I've got an annoying screeching noise on the passenger side over 5Krpm, only does it when the GF is in the car, no idea what it is

Other than that I have a little bit of touching at the rear on big bumps, so I'll need to investigate that.

I've booked in at pro-speed at the end of the month for an exhaust.

[Scoff]

awesome, I got worried about half way through that you'd never finish it

[Andrew Cooke]

I bought an RSTuner remap gizmo a while ago, it's been handy for checking sensors etc, and once I've fitted an OBD sensor inside the car I can use it for logging, making 'power curves' etc. It's been a bit of an epic making it talk to my ECU, and somewhere along the way it decided to latch itself onto Spooky's ECU rather than mine. He doesn't know yet, but we're going to be swapping ECUs This is a bit of a downer for me as I think I have the better emulator, and I fitted it, so I know it's done right... I suppose we might be able to swap emulators depending upon what the RSTuner has latched itself on to.

I'm now almost at the bottom of my second tank of fuel, with no more problems, so I've started tidying up a few loose ends.

I bought some new number plates, GB, euro plates, the ones with the blue rectangle on the left, it's a bit poncy, but only £7.75 a pair off ebay. I wanted to pull the old plates off to clean behind them as they had filled up with crud after being stood for so long. I've stuck them on with mirror tape, not sure whether I like them or not, but for now they're fitted.

I pulled the roof trims off for the same reason, they were packed with mud and stuff, so I've saved a few grammes there. I broke a couple of the retaining clips, so they're on order with Renault, not bad at £2.25 for 12.

Whilst in the dealers I ordered a pair of new front indicator lenses as one was snapped in half, and both were faded, a bit of an extravagance, and much more than buying white, blue, or black ones of Ebay, but I'm trying to make it look tidy and original. BTW, the sales men in the dealers had a good look when I arrived, and had a 'does not compute' look when I squirted it off their forecourt.

Again, whilst buying I ordered a pair of new front window seals as mine are falling apart.

When it comes to real work, I'm just doing an oil change, 5L of halfords finest to replace the oil that was in the engine when I bought the clio

[Andrew Cooke]

awesome, I got worried about half way through that you'd never finish it

You were worried? you didn't have it sat on bricks blocking your drive

I think it might need a turbo though, the torque curve is a bit dreadful, maybe once it has a decent exhaust rather than the standard Twingo one it'll wake up a bit.

[Scoff]

You were worried? you didn't have it sat on bricks blocking your drive

I think it might need a turbo though, the torque curve is a bit dreadful, maybe once it has a decent exhaust rather than the standard Twingo one it'll wake up a bit.

There's space for a turbo ?

[Andrew Cooke]

There's space for a turbo ?

sure, there's loads down the back.... OK, maybe not loads.

I think if I did that it'd be best to sell this one and fit a 225 engine and box into another shell. Or as a minimum do what andyrg has done, although I might just stick with the PH1 ECU and get it mapped.

Oh, and I'm not being serious

[Trevhib]

...it'd be best to sell this one...
-------------------------------------------

How much?!

[clee]

What about a rear mount turbo
http://www.balancemotorsport.co.uk/p...=turbocharging

[Andrew Cooke]

...it'd be best to sell this one...
-------------------------------------------

How much?!

lol, everything has it's price, and obviously if a lottery winner came along I'd sell, but at the moment I'd quite like to have a bit more fun out of it

[Andrew Cooke]

What about a rear mount turbo
http://www.balancemotorsport.co.uk/p...=turbocharging

I couldn't find space for a brake pressure regulator out back, not much chance of me fitting a turbo there

[Spooky]

Andy, you can do what you want to my ECU

Also, that lovely inlet manifold that you showed me a few months back from JMS has been released and tested with a price...not exactly pocket change ...

[Andrew Cooke]

it's only a little thing, but the blue samco pipe from the FPR to the plenum really offended me


Thanks to TrixNFlix popping some black pipe in the post I'm much more at peace.




I've bought some more fancy toys, but you'll have to wait for them to be fitted before you hear about them

Off to get the exhaust made on Monday, it'll be interesting to see what difference that made, as sticking 3x design horsepower through the standard Twingo exhaust can't be good

[Ian S]

For the exhaust are you going to any company we'd have heard of?

Do you have a design in mind?

[Andrew Cooke]

For the exhaust are you going to any company we'd have heard of?

Do you have a design in mind?

possibly, Prospeed in Cardiff.

Design is quiet, and hopefully with a hidden tailpipe, depending upon what will fit in the limited space. Oh, and stainless.

[SP33DY]

What about this manifold rather than the jms one? at least with this you get a new 70mm throttle body

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Clio-Sport-172...item3efe9fcf34

[Adam L]

What about this manifold rather than the jms one? at least with this you get a new 70mm throttle body

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Clio-Sport-172...item3efe9fcf34

I'd want the injectors aswell at that price

[Andrew Cooke]

I was down at ProSpeed in Cardiff on Monday morning to get my exhaust made up. My requirement was to make it look and sound as standard as possible, Charlie recommended 2 boxes and 2" pipe, so that's what I went with. I'm not sure how long it'll take the guys at ProSpeed to get over seeing a 2L engine shoehorned into a Twingo, but I'm sure they're making good progress .

Anyway, so far I'm very happy, no knocks, or bangs, it's as quiet as I'd hoped, and looks pretty much standard.

Anyway, a couple of pics:
before


after:


you'll note that the number plates got replaced between pictures and for those that might recognise it, the star of strip (Santa Pod RTOC National Day 2003) and track (Mallory Park RTOC National Day 2009), the mystery machine, is parked to the right in both pictures...

oh, I almost forgot, when we got to look underneath at the standard system the rear box had ballooned, I guess it must have been pretty restrictive

[Andrew Cooke]

I'd want the injectors aswell at that price

which is why you use that mass produced Jap stuff, I'd have ripped their arm off to get a plenum that cheap for my 5.

[Penfold aka The Dealer]

Love this conversion, Andy do you think it would be hard to do again? Do you have any templates of your brackets you made?

Ph1 172 would be alot more easier and cheaper to use as a donor?

[Andrew Cooke]

Love this conversion, Andy do you think it would be hard to do again? Do you have any templates of your brackets you made?

Ph1 172 would be alot more easier and cheaper to use as a donor?

It'd certainly be easier to do again as I'd know which bits to use, I'm not sure that it's an easy swap as there are quite a few custom parts. I don't have any templates, everything was made on the hoof...

Yeah, def start with a PH1 unless you have the plenum, ecu and loom lying around, plus the final drive is a 3.89 which I think would be nicer than the 4.07 I have.

Obviously the easiest swap would be to fit GTT stuff.

[Trevhib]

So how does the new exhaust fair over the standard job Andy in terms of how the car picks up, responds, revs out? Surely it's a good deal better?

[Andrew Cooke]

So how does the new exhaust fair over the standard job Andy in terms of how the car picks up, responds, revs out? Surely it's a good deal better?

I've no idea, my instinct tells me it'll pick up a handful of hp at the top end, but not make much difference outside of that. It's still running the standard Cat, and that'll be the main restriction now. I couldn't give it any beans on the way back as the GF starts making funny noises over 5K, and the run to work is too short to get it warm enough to get out of the warm up map.

I guess at some point I'll have to drop it onto some rollers to get an idea of it's general health, or wire the OBD into the cockpit so that I can do some logging with the RSTuner doohicky.

btw, I've now used 3 tanks of fuel:
tank 1 38mpg
tank 2 36mpg
tank 3 38mpg

again, I need to do some comparisons between the standard map and the 'tuned' one. They feel about the same to me

[Adam L]

which is why you use that mass produced Jap stuff, I'd have ripped their arm off to get a plenum that cheap for my 5.

Nothing is mass poduced on my car, apart from the stock parts

[Ian S]

It's still running the standard Cat

Standard Twingo Cat or Standard 172 Cat?

btw, I've now used 3 tanks of fuel:
tank 1 38mpg
tank 2 36mpg
tank 3 38mpg

That's more than I'm getting from my 1.1 litre Fiat, though I don't think that has a warm up map and it does get given plenty of beans on short journeys.

[Andrew Cooke]

std 172 cat.

I think it's the most I've ever got out of anything, that said, I'd be happier if it did a wee bit more, but I think I'll need to fit my wb to have a look at what's going on as I think the new map might be hurting the MPG.

[Ian S]

A pal just bought a 172 and gets 40mpg, I think he said. But that mostly his wife driving on the motorway to work and back.

[f0xy]

std 172 cat.

I think it's the most I've ever got out of anything, that said, I'd be happier if it did a wee bit more, but I think I'll need to fit my wb to have a look at what's going on as I think the new map might be hurting the MPG.

Mine did far far far worse on the emissions test at the MOT this year with the RSTuner (172 Ph1) Group N map on compared to last year on a standard map - the guy couldnt believe it. Still passed mind...

It does tend to stink of fuel slightly of late, wondering if ive only just noticed it though who knows.

[Andrew Cooke]

Mine did far far far worse on the emissions test at the MOT this year with the RSTuner (172 Ph1) Group N map on compared to last year on a standard map - the guy couldnt believe it. Still passed mind...

It does tend to stink of fuel slightly of late, wondering if ive only just noticed it though who knows.

I'd be surprised if it messed up the emissions at idle as that should be in closed loop at lambda 1. I'd put that down to either a lambda sensor or wiring problem (or possible cold cat, mine took a few minutes to light up, I was gobsmacked at the difference). I fitted a brand new sensor when I fitted the engine, and the signal looks perfect on the RSTuner.

The other small difference is that I'm not running the grpN map, rather the RON98 one (dated 23/09/2009, or is that the day I downloaded it???).

I wondering about trying the launch control version as it supposedly has an improved map.

Before the door got slammed shut I managed to download:
std
grp N
RON98
Launch

That's my one criticism of Henk, there is no clear indication of which maps have been tweaked where, or even whether paying £5 gets you anything different to the map currently used.

It's about time I hacked the maps and started playing with them myself, I hate dealing with experts.

[Mart]

Andy, how flexible is this RSTuner gubbins? Can you actually view/edit the ign, fuel, vvt maps etc, or is it just a rom-dump via one of Henk's downloaded files?

[f0xy]

Could be Lambda then - im not running a Cat at all its just a straight through downpipe onto the exhaust, never have done. Used to run cleaner and not smell as much as it does now too!

[Andrew Cooke]

Andy, how flexible is this RSTuner gubbins? Can you actually view/edit the ign, fuel, vvt maps etc, or is it just a rom-dump via one of Henk's downloaded files?

you can see what is going on in real time, and dump roms, no edit possible - unless you hack the files yourself...

[Mart]

Hexadecimal?