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VR6 Turbo Conversion.........Rear Engined MK1 Renault Clio......Build thread


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A few people on here may know me already.... My name's Andy ( aka Blocky ) , and i've always had a soft spot for VR6's. Having built a couple of VR turbos, one of which i owned, in a Corrado. Plus also being a member of the RTOC ( renault turbo owners club ) it seemed the next step.... Here's a quick pic of the 'rado. I'll put some more in another thread.

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I've also just sold the 2.7 biturbo S4 i was running, and bought a 3.2 TT, so still staying faithful to the VR. The Plan is to turbocharge the TT next spring/summer. Watch this space.... :-)

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So, This is gonna be a cut and paste from the clio forums, hopefully it all reads ok !

Unfortunately i lost alot of the early build pics due to a shitty Samsung hard disk failure, I managed to recover some from friend that i had sent stuff to.

So i bought the car August 2007, with the sole intention of hacking her to bits ! The timing belt was broken, so the purchase price was nice and cheap 8) We towed her back from Northampton one evening and proceeded to strip the parts i either didn't want or need...... Grey leather, Full magnex and rear axle and konis were all up for dibs and by the time i'd finished selling, i'd nearly covered my purchasing costs. :P

Over the next few months the floor was cut out, and mucho fabrication performed to mount a Corrado VR6 front subframe and front Weitec coilovers , Mk2 Golf 16v wishbones / anti roll bar / and hubs. Again sorry about the lack of pics :-(

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Gradually it began to take shape and after several engine fitting tests, i decided the offside rear chassis rail needed to move to allow clearance for the VR6 Crankshaft pulley. The removed metal was replaced inside the offside rear arch / chassis rail. A firewall was built and provision made for a rear window.

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Eventually the time came to paint the rear engine bay

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  • 3 weeks later...

By now i had a fully painted rolling chassis. Look at the rear track !!

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Ok, so now lets get that motor back in the bay

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By this time, a list of 'other' jobs was starting to build. The project had to go on hold to clear the backlog. :evil:

Time passed on, and every day i had to see her sat, cold and miserable on the drive , waiting, waiting and waiting.......until April 2011. Since then, some real progress has been made. Fingers crossed, another couple of months should see her on the road.

These are the most recent pics i have of the build, and i'll keep posting pictures of various random parts along the way !

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  • 1 year later...
  • 2 months later...

I realised that the Clio had a cable driven speedo, and the VR was electronic so some sort of conversion was needed. I did consider 5 GTT clocks, but opted for some Astra GTE digital clocks as i'd had a set gathering dust for some years ! After stripping both of the clusters down, i modified the astra unit to fit inside the clio one. The end result is a perfect fit, shame about the spare trip counter hole icon_rolleyes.gif I actually bought some slightly smoked perspex sheet, 3mm thick ( the thinnest i could find ) to make a new front for the clocks, but it's not flexible enough to deal with the clio clocks contour.

A couple of nights wiring up and the were fully functional, i even tested the speedo with a drill on the sensor !

 

 

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After a trip to see Scoff @ Efi-Parts, Runcorn to finish off the mapping and hopefully get some decent results, the outcome was 430 hp and 430 lbs/ft of torque @ 1.3 bar boost pressure. The injectors were pretty much maxed out at that boost, so since then i've changed to some 850cc siemens units. Just on with some suspension tweaks currently and then i can try some more boost !! :-P

 

 

 

 

 

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It was all going so well until i managed to strip every tooth off 5th gear. Crappy O2A gearboxes lol. In the hope of salvaging the day i removed the gearbox end cover and fished out the broken teeth

 

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But it wasn't to be and the gearbox still wasn't right, so a phone call to the trusty AA later and we were on our way home.

 

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The plan was to change the gearbox over and repaint the car over the winter 2012. Unfortunately i ended up with another list of pressing jobs, so the clio went on the back burner for a year.

 

Come the end of 2013 and i started to repaint the shell, stripping both the front and rear engine bays out and tidying up along the way.

 

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