project silver

Well, its a 1.4 72Hp clio RT manufactured on November 1997 and sold on the 12th of December.

I was searching for a car to replace my R5 TX (what a shame, it was a 84 model, gold metallic paint..) I almost bought a vw G40, but then spotted this baby on the newspaper. It said: Clio 1.4 electrical problems, cheap.

it was parked like 2miles from my house, didn't start.
I negotiated the price and towed it on the same day
I got it to a Renault dealer for a quote and they said it would be 1000€ for a new ecu, immo and transponders.
I then took about 6 months to discover how to disable the immo and it finally started.

(no it wasn't stolen the previous owner wasn't able to pay the loan and before delivering it he made dents everywhere and swapped the transponder, so the car wouldn't start! stupid people..)

the beast with portuguese sky in the background:


a few months later:


interior as it is now:


1st megasquirt test(failure, I then read the manual, I now know why it failed):


new shocks on the rear, I also fitted new ones in the front


after remmaping it a few times I got a Dyno of it, confirming the lack of power:


roller followers (picture taken while taking it apart)


painted the block, front:


and rear:


Ph1 head after acid cleaning:



i fitted the gearbox mounts from a r19:


swapped the dog bone for the r19 counterpart, and made a front engine mount from the r19 one (its too big, I cut 3cm off and welded it together again)

I also took out the power steering and fitted a normal one as I prefer the feeling (boy is it heavy while parking)

relocated the ECU besides the battery( about 1,5m of wires cut off)

fitted the exahust from a 1.8, it sounds great, not too loud.

everything on this car was homemade, by me, nobody else touches it, when it doesn't run, its my fault

many more mods on the shelf, including a low pressure turbo, MPI with megasquirt... one thing at a time