Clio 197 Engine advice

[Mattbarri]

Hi, having some bad luck with my 197 lately! Over the last year I’ve had two engines fail on me and was after some advice as to why?
Back in 2021 during a race I made a mistake and downshifted from 5th to 2nd which obviously destroyed the engine! After that I was advised that it was only top end damaged so had the head repaired with all new parts to go with it. At this time I decided to add some cat cams 403’s and got the car mapped. After a short bit of running in during the first proper test day the car failed again within 20 minutes of running.
This time there was no saving the engine so we decided to get a reconditioned engine to hopefully save any future issues. This was not the case and after the 250 miles I was told to run it in. The car somehow picked up a misfire over the winter and didn’t even manage 1 lap on the first track day with it now being completely destroyed again!!

What are people’s thoughts on this?
Could the map be causing this or is it just bad luck? With the extras the car is only running 213bhp so not a massive power increase.

Any help would be much appreciated, can’t keep buying engines!

Thanks, Matt

 

[Frank Perry]

I'm no expert but... Who's mapping it?

 

[Mattbarri]

I'm no expert but... Who's mapping it?

It was mapped by Engine Dynamics in Essex, this was done on the old engine but I had multiple people saying it wouldn’t need changing due to being replaced with the same engine.

 

[l33th3tr33]

I'm also no expert but I would imagine each engine would need its own map, every engine has different tolerances etc. Who actually rebuilt it?
Iirc its Andy at engine dynamics and he was very popular among the cliosport crowd back when I had my 172 cup.

 

[R20BTG]

Not enough information to draw a conclusion.

Engine destruction number one sounds like it was caused by your mis-shift. You replaced the top end.

What evidence did you have that the bottom end didn’t need replacing after the mis-shift?

Engine destruction number two you don’t state how the engine failed and under what conditions so it is hard to know whether destruction number one and two are linked. The timings suggest it might be, but more specifics are needed. What let go?

Engine destruction number three you don’t state what killed that engine, or what parts from the old engine you reused.

Given all that, it’s hard to know whether the custom map you had done on engine number one was relevant to the hardware setup of engines number two and three. It is possible you have killed all the engjnes with an inappropriate map, but without knowing the conditions of all three engines, plus supporting modifications, plus the content of the map, nobody is going to know.


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[Mattbarri]

Not enough information to draw a conclusion.

Engine destruction number one sounds like it was caused by your mis-shift. You replaced the top end.

What evidence did you have that the bottom end didn’t need replacing after the mis-shift?

Engine destruction number two you don’t state how the engine failed and under what conditions so it is hard to know whether destruction number one and two are linked. The timings suggest it might be, but more specifics are needed. What let go?

Engine destruction number three you don’t state what killed that engine, or what parts from the old engine you reused.

Given all that, it’s hard to know whether the custom map you had done on engine number one was relevant to the hardware setup of engines number two and three. It is possible you have killed all the engjnes with an inappropriate map, but without knowing the conditions of all three engines, plus supporting modifications, plus the content of the map, nobody is going to know.


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Thanks for your input.

Number 1 was definitely my fault!
I have no proof that the bottom end didn’t need doing at that point but I went with what people suggested at the time.
The engine had been on the rolling road to be mapped, then run in on a trackday and then let go in the first session on a test day running at race speeds. The engine just cut out, when it was removed four valves were bent and one piston completely alliterated.

Number three like I said picked up a misfire over the winter which we thought could’ve been cause by bad fuel so flushed it and tried to run it on a sighting lap which is when it let go. Similar to number 2 letting go and we have now been told it has dropped valve and shattered a piston which has got me thinking it could be something else.

Each time the engine has been changed The only thing carried over has been the cams which were new after the first mishap.

 

[RSRowe]

Engine 1 certainly sounds like piston to valve contact. I have seen engines have a top end rebuild and run afterwards. The rebuild of the head perhaps wasn’t the best (not knowing who’s done it).

Engine 3 sounds like the ‘normal’ failure for these engines. It’s not super common, but it does/can happen.

What’s it revving to?

The way I see it, is you’ve actually only broken one engine. Perhaps best that the replacement has some upgraded components such as valves, springs, shells, and some ARPs. I’ve ran mine on track hard for over 4, covering likely much more distance than a weekends racing for years without issue.

 

[Twingo200]

Has anyone looked at the bottom end properly, has the crank been checked to see if it's not bent, had all the rods out and made sure none of those are bent ?