Glacier White 200 Cup

We started today by taking out the standard air box and fitting a K-Tec induction kit. The instructions from K-Tec were really good with lots of photographs and a proper step by step guide.



Out came the old air feed pipes, and the battery.



Then the K-Tec kit went in.



Once the kit was in I turned the car over and thought that the kit had made no difference at all. We were trying to finish off the install quickly so that we could catch the Racing 92 v Saracens match on the TV. When the car was stationary and idling there was no noticeable difference in sound to the car.

After the rugby had finished I took the car out for a drive and then noticed the difference between the K-Tec kit and the standard airbox. Initially the car started to idle at about 1,200 to 1,400 revs. When I drove up the road and the car got to over 3,000 revs the noise of the induction kit kicked in. After giving the car a spirited drive about I was really pleased with the sound. I always thought that my Cup was a bit on the quiet side with it's standard exhaust system but now it has a nice throaty roar to it when it is pushing 3,000 revs or above. When I got home the car was idling back around 1,000 revs and there was no noticeable difference in noise when it was stationary.

The wheel bolts had been sprayed black when the wheels were refurbished earlier this month, but as they were just sprayed black most of that paint had fallen off as the wheels had been on and off of the car when we did the brake lines and brake fluid. I had ordered some new black wheel bolts from K-Tec. Ethan put them on and torqued them up.



I then tried to remove some of the brown paintwork stains that appeared on the car after the roads close to home were resurfaced. Today I tried some Auto Finesse ObliTARate and some Auto Finesse Iron Out fallout remover. Neither did anything to the brown stains. I then tried an Auto Glym clay bar again on the brown spots but the clay bar remained immaculately clean and the brown stains did not move. I might have to concede defeat and get a professional to sort out the paintwork.

We did some more maintenance tasks today and cleaned out the throttle body, cleaned out the PCV valve and replaced the engine bay alarm bracket.

After noticing that my throttle body had some black deposits on it yesterday @suj pointed me towards his how to guide to clean the throttle body.



Off came the throttle body.



The inlet after the throttle body had a few deposits on it so I gave that a quick wipe with a cloth.



The rubber seal was removed.



The it was time to give it a good clean with some carburettor cleaner and a toothbrush.



A lot of black deposits came off with the spray immediately.



When the throttle body had been scrubbed it came up a lot cleaner. Although there were still some deposits left on the throttle body that would not come off at all.



Then we took off the PCV vale and the connecting pipe to give that a good clean as well. I used the guide made by @Dystant



There was not a massive amount of filth in the PCV vale.



After the PCV valve and pipework had been cleaned up with some carburettor spray it was wiped over and put back on to the engine.

When the throttle body and PCV valve were all back on the car we went to take the car for a quick drive to see if the maintenance work had had any impact on the car. The car threw up an error telling us to check the injectors. After reconnecting the throttle plug (doh!) the car was still in limp mode. We drove about 500m and the pulled over, turned off the ignition, restarted the car and it came back to life.

It is difficult to say if cleaning the throttle body and PCV valve has had any impact on the car but it does seem to idle better now. I am sure that time will tell if the maintenance benefits are real or just a placebo effect.

I also took off the rusty engine bay alarm bracket today.



It was replaced with a 3D printed bracket that I had got from eBay for £10.

Thanks - I did notice that after I took the picture. The thread on the bolt is knackered so the bracket moves about a little bit. It is in the right place now.

I ordered a MAP sensor bracket which was delivered today.



I will install this at the weekend.

I have also ordered some engine dress bolts in yellow/gold to smarten up the engine bay a bit.

I had some spare time yesterday evening before it got too dark so I attached the MAP sensor bracket to stop the MAP sensor wiggling about.



The bracket seems to be a simple design that just holds MAP sensor firmly on to the inlet manifold.

The next big upgrade I have planned in an Akrapovic Evolution exhaust system. I intend to keep the standard manifold which has a pre-cat on it. It seems from reading other posts on this site that the combination of a standard manifold and an Akrapovic Evolution exhaust system will be enough to get through a MOT emissions test.

K-Tec are going to do the install at the end of the month. The car is going to be remapped on the same day.

I purchased some engine dress bolts from ProBolt to make the engine bay look a little bit less bland. There are four bolts round the base of the engine bay area and then six which attach the bonnet to the hinges, and the bonnet release catch. I made sure that the bolts and washers that screwed in to he bonnet were at least 22mm wide to make sure they covered the untreated paint when I took off the original bolts. I also put a plastic washer between the gold washers and the bonnet.



It extends the yellow, black and white colour theme of the car slightly.



My car was also missing the standard engine bay warning stickers. I tried to find a set for a mk 3 Clio but discovered that they are as rare as hens teeth so I settled for a set of mk 4 Clio stickers. RPD were very helpful in locating the stickers - although they did cost £25 including delivery.



On the plastic panel with the stickers there were flat areas for the stickers. There are two further flat areas to either side of the long stickers which are a square shape. The rest of the plastic panel is textured. Are there any other stickers that should be on this panel?

I have been on the lookout for a new badge to go on the inlet manifold. Whilst searching I came across MS Custom Engineering on both eBay and Facebook. They sell the badges but do not have any black and yellow Renault Sport badges available at the moment - although they said they might make up a new batch soon. The coloured inlet manifolds they produce look really nice. It has got me thinking that I could probably get an upper and lower inlet manifold for about £85 from eBay and then send it off to have the work done and be returned in yellow for £200 which would be gas flowed and port matched. I need to stop thinking, it just results in me spending more money!

I have had a look at a lot of engine bay pictures tonight and I cannot see that the square flat areas on the plastic panel have any stickers.

I put the stickers on the same sides that they are on for a mk 4 Clio - but I think you are right they should probably be the other way round as the battery is on the right hand side.

I stuck the stickers in the flat areas of the plastic panel (the bits that did not have a textured surface) and the flat areas were both angled and a perfect fit for the sticker size. I have got a 200. I am pretty sure they are in a similar position to your 3rd and 4th photo in your post.

I have got a track day booked for the end of November at Lydden Hill. I have bought a helmet and picked up a GoPro from eBay to film some of the driving. I then purchased a few bits for the Go Pro and ended up buying a 3 suction mount so I could get a clip of the car with the camera stuck to the bodywork. I am aware that any track will not permit me to use a camera unless it is pretty much fixed to the interior of the car.

I have always thought that I have a rattle at the back end of my Clio. I captured some footage of the exhaust tailpipes using the GoPro and it sounded terrible. There were lots of rattles and noises that should not have really been there. I decided today to take off my rear diffuser to see if there was any debris rattling around in there. I used the guide from the How To section.



I was trying to take off the diffuser as quickly as possible so I decided not to bother putting the car on to axle stands. After I had taken out the first two bolts at the furthest sides of the diffuser I put a bucket underneath the diffuser to prop it up.



After all four bolts had come out I started to pull at the sides of the diffuser to release the clips. I found that if I held the white bodywork and gave the diffuser a bit of a tug the clips came away without too much of a struggle. I didn't need to use a butter knife to poke the clips out.



As soon as the diffuser came away from the bodywork dirt started to fall out.



When the diffuser was off completely the back of the car looked a bit dirty.



Whilst the diffuser was off of the car I wiggled parts of the exhaust. The mounts at the rear of the car that suspend/hold the rear of the exhaust were fine. But, when I gave the exhaust a good wiggle it became obvious the the exhaust was moving in the middle section under the car and touching the heatshield in the middle part under the car. As the exhaust is being replaced at the end of the month I didn't bother to try to sort out the movement issue.

The diffuser looked very dirty.



The diffuser was full of rubbish. Some of the rubbish was small stones, some was just mud, but I had quite a few large bits of rubber that fell out. I am wondering if the rubber used to sit between the heatshield and the diffuser?



After some vigorous shaking I got most of the loose debris out. I grabbed another bucket and a sponge and cleaned up the back of the car and the diffuser and put it back on to the car. The clips all snapped in easily and the bolts were easy to do up when Ethan held the diffuser in place.



Later on I picked up some Brasso from Sainsburys and cleaned the exhaust tips. I was hoping to get rid of all of the black marks from the exhaust tips. They came up okay but there is still some faint debris marks. Again, as the exhaust tips are being replaced soon I was not too bothered that they did not clean up perfectly.



I then stuck the Go Pro back on the car and recorded the sound of the rear of the car again. It does sound a bit better but there is still a rattle at about 2,250 revs. Hopefully the new exhaust will solve the rattle problems.

In other news Ethan picked up a Clio 182 Trophy at the weekend. The drive is starting to look like a Renault dealer forecourt.

I installed the latest upgrade to the 200 today.



I like a novelty dust cap and after searching I managed to find a set of yellow dice to match the white, black and yellow theme of the car.



The 200 was looking dirty today and I was feeling lazy so I took it to the local hand car wash.



Here is another photo.



I am really looking forward to next week with my trip to K-Tec to get the Akrapovic exhaust fitted.

When I took out the standard air box and put in a K-Tec induction kit a few screw threads were left bare in the engine bay where the acoustic valve used to occupy. I purchased some yellow vacuum pipe from eBay and some yellow domed M10 nuts from Pro-Bolt to make the area look a little bit tidier.



The metal plate that the solenoid for the acoustic valve sits on now has some flakey/rusty parts. Has anyone got any tips on the best way to treat those small areas of rust?

Thanks for the suggestions.

I had been like a child waiting for Christmas for the past few weeks. I was very excited about getting the OEM exhaust on the Clio replaced with an Akrapovic Evolution system, together with a remap.

Ever since I had diagnosed where the rattle came form my Clio at 2,250 revs (it was the exhaust hitting the heatshield) the rattle had been driving me crazy.

Today I dropped my car off at K-Tec. I was given a courtesy car for the day which was rather entertaining. It was a Clio 182 with a very loud Scorpion exhaust.



When I returned the car to K-Tec at the end of the day they said that they had hastily arranged the loan car as they had quite a few cars booked in for today. It was a lively car with quite a bit of power, but the driving position was awful - that is Renault's fault and not K-Tecs.

K-Tec were kind enough to take photos of the exhaust going on to the car whilst I was enjoying the sights of Dorset with the Wife in the rain.



All very new and shiny.



After the exhaust was put on the car was remapped.



I am not sure how conservative K-Tec's rollers are but I was hoping to get pretty close to 200 bhp - this is a car that is over 10 years old. I am really pleased with the results. The Clio is a stock set up apart from a K-Tec induction kit, the new exhaust and remap from today.

So far I have only managed to drive the car for 15 minutes. I am staying at a hotel in Dorset and the weather was poor on the way back to the hotel. The roads are all unfamiliar B roads that are difficult to navigate in the dark. I am pleased to report that the rattle that used to drive me crazy has disappeared, the power delivery seems constant and the generic Clio 200 flat spot seems to have gone. I was expecting the exhaust to sound louder but I think I have just been deafened by the 182 Scorpion exhaust that I listened to earlier in the day. I have got a motorway trip to get home tomorrow so will have a few hours behind the wheel tomorrow.

The carbon exhaust tips are looking good.



I took some video footage before with a GoPro stuck to the back of the car to record the noise of the stock exhaust. I will get some footage of the Akrapovic over the weekend and compare the two.