Renault life. Ecumaster Black installed and running, Mapping booked

[Brigsy]

Updates.

Extra van passed its mot yesterday, taxed and back on the road.

Weather was good and warm ish, so instead of doing my classic long route of 6 miles home from mot station and putting it back in the garage,  i stuck some fresh fuel in and actually took it for a run out for a few hours last night. Some moderate paced driving on the b roads to Whitby and back covering 60ish miles to check all is good after recent surgery. 

I can report all is good and its still awesome to drive. No abs, no pas, windy windows, no problems.

Small service and its good to go for a map tweak at Efi Parts on the 22nd.

Thanks for reading!!

[Brigsy]

Updates.

Sent the Kangoo and yellow megane r26 gearknobs and gaitors off for retrim to Otto Retrims recently. Received them back this week, sexy fresh nappa leather.

Had a spare hour on Sat so stuck the kangoo gaitor and knob on.

Looks mega, and the new supplied gear gaitor frame otto sourced for me actually clips in as the old one was broken. The steering wheel needed a quick clean as it was starting to look shiney, so give that a quick once over.

Not got round to fitting the megane one yet but its on the never ending list.

Todays job was to give the clio dci's a clean up. Ive been using the orange dci this week as the blue one is currently parked due to heater matrix starting to leak. Its giving the sweet smell of coolant inside the car again, 30 thousand miles after replacing it. The one i fitted was nrf brand, and its full fucking dash off to fit, was hoping it would last the car out but shite aftermarket parts strike again. Ive got a nissens one to fit this time but cant be fucked this week, full days work to remove/refit dash so can sit a little bit until i get some motivation.

It was up to its eyes in shit so give it a clean, so its broken but looks alright 😄

 

Orange dci is running well. I brimmed the tank on Monday and its done around 300 miles last week, daily running and work commuting. I have noticed the drivers side carpet is a little bit damp so done some investigating in the scuttle area today to see if any blockages. Wipers were corroded on/tight as fuck and came off with a bang with wiper puller on them. Scuttle area was suprisingly all clear, so assume its come in via drivers door or heater fan. Whilst in the area, I partially stripped the wiper mech and greased the pivot as was a bit stiff, this is now nice and free so bit of preventative maintenance

I wet vac'd and hoovered the inside so will monitor leakage for now and revisit if needs be.

It was also pitted in muck/covered in black shite and sahara desert sand residue from whatever had been in the air the other day. Not been washed since before xmas so it was well overdue a clean.

Still scrubs up well for 22 years old.

Thanks for reading!!

[loserone]

Really nice seeing this fleet getting some love

[Brigsy]

53 minutes ago, loserone said:

Really nice seeing this fleet getting some love

Cheers mate. Mot time for everything soon, motivation is getting there now weather has picked up and longer daylight hours.

[adey]

soon be out spanking everything (y) 

[Brigsy]

2 hours ago, adey said:

soon be out spanking everything (y) 

Cant wait. Roll on 22nd for map tweak

[vtec-e]

I clean out the scuttles every year now. I cant believe how much debris the Clio collects in there. Hope you sort out the leakage.

The car looks superb!

[vaughant]

Some lovely metal there. 

I think there's a guy on my estate with a clio 182 in that orangey red colour yours is. He parks it out on the road the crazy fool 🤣🤣. Meant to get a picture last week but kept forgetting.

[Brigsy]

On 12/03/2026 at 22:08, vtec-e said:

I clean out the scuttles every year now. I cant believe how much debris the Clio collects in there. Hope you sort out the leakage.

The car looks superb!

Cheers mate. I need to check carpet tomorrow after yesterdays biblical rain to see if any worse. 

 

19 hours ago, vaughant said:

Some lovely metal there. 

I think there's a guy on my estate with a clio 182 in that orangey red colour yours is. He parks it out on the road the crazy fool 🤣🤣. Meant to get a picture last week but kept forgetting.

Cheers mate. I always wanted a orange 182 but never scratched the itch, The dci i have is the poor mans version😄 makes a great daily though so cant moan

[loserone]

I definitely missed my 182 a little on the way home tonight.  205 probably a bit more comfortable and slower being ragged everywhere, even if a bit less safe and more thirsty.

[Brigsy]

12 hours ago, loserone said:

I definitely missed my 182 a little on the way home tonight.  205 probably a bit more comfortable and slower being ragged everywhere, even if a bit less safe and more thirsty.

205 still a great drive, i almost ticked that box. I was going to swap my old astra gte for a 1.6gti 25 years ago but the deal fell through. Car was mint too and seen it in the scrapyard wrote off a few weeks later sadly.

Also had a go in a track prepared 205 gti, mi16 converted running twin carbs instead of injection. Felt rapid.

[Brigsy]

Updates.

Extra van on the dyno at EfiParts last Sunday for map tweak.

Last time it was tuned, in 2020 was for max power. It was to see what the engine and turbo were capable of when pushed, it made good power 249hp at 27psi. The tune was very close to the edge being close to knock at high rpm, and egts around 1000deg peak. Basically every component in the engine was pushed to the limit with stock pistons, conrods and liners running double stock hp.

Its been super reliable using 12psi low boost for trackdays, and i ended up turning the high boost down to 24psi which was OK on short sprints and hillclimbs. High egt's were finding a few weak spots, wiring starting to melt with radiant heat off the manifold etc..

The goal for Sunday was not max power, but reliable power for hard sustained circuit use with plenty of safety, so essentially a detune in some respects from the previous dragstrip/max power tune. A nice high boost setup that would take lap after lap of abuse.

Chris worked his magic and all goals were achieved. The engine was run with no cooldown and long pulls on the dyno to get max heat in and simulate track use.

Boost pressure was kept at sensible levels 21psi on high boost, to allow more ignition timing to lower peak egt's which are now 880deg max. Fuelling richened up slightly to also help with cooling, and rev limiter kept at a more sensible 7200rpm.

Wastegate pressure 12psi/173hp.
High boost 21psh/226hp.

 

Dyno run on vid below

https://youtube.com/shorts/9U5tBaSBXoE?si=9CYT9Pna6IAvUDnA

Its still as fast as f**k being honest, does not feel any slower on high boost. It drives lovely with flat torque curve on boost and no traction issues. Low boost feels the same as before but even safer.

Ready for a few trackdays this year with Croft booked on Good Friday. Cant wait, should be able to absolutely send it like the old days.

Thanks for reading!!

[Brigsy]

Croft Circuit on Good Friday in the Extra van.

Weather a bit iffy in the morning..steady drive over approx 35mins. Unload the gear, and noise tested 101db @ 4500rpm.

Ready for sightseer laps.

This did not go too well. On the 2nd lap of the sightseer's i lose the clutch. The pedal was half functioning but soft as fcuk, to avoid embarassing tow of shame on the sightseer laps crash box it back to the pits and did not need to stop luckily.

Get it in the garage and whip cable off, and examine. It had not snapped but the inner sleeve had pulled through the bulkhead grommit. I had feared the clutch pedal ratchet had failed and it would be day over.

Clutch cable fail on these is common ish but does not happen too often when using oem cable, i carry a used oem cable in my trackday box for situations like this. Stuck the cable on and reset the clutch ratchet, fingers crossed and it was working ok again. Tbh, when i arrived at Croft i could barely get it in reverse to park up so should have clocked that something was wrong. Anyway, lost an hrs worth of track time, was raining heavy at that point so no real loss.

Now that it was working again, the plan was to send it. The weather conditions improved with rain stopping, and track drying out fast. The grip was good on damp circuit on Ar1/low boost settings, done a few laps and turned it up to high boost for a lap, to monitor egt and afr to make sure all good.

High boost was mega as it was the difference between pulling away slowly from some cars and then watching them go backwards in the mirror quite fast with extra 50hp on the button.

This was short lived however as 2nd session on track, clicked it onto high boost and it did not respond. So i was stuck on low boost of 12psi all day with a big fcuking turbo doing nothing, well 173hp but 50hp less.

Assuming mac valve, switch or wiring has failed. I really could not be arsed looking at it with the earlier repairs, so just drove it like i stole it on low boost and had loads of fun. In comparison to modern stuff its hard to drive, you have to let it slide a little and have confidence in the handling. So good letting it sing to 7600rpm.

Track was quiet at the end and hot lapped it for the last hour until the fuel gauge was saying 1ltr left, had to call it a day at that as had done around 60ltrs of fuel/150miles on circuit.

Tyres look a little battle scarred and ive melted more paint on the front wheels. Ive cooked the brake fluid as pedal is a bit longer, so that needs changing for something more suitable. Rad fan wiring failed on the way home, power wire snapped off at the alternator connection due to fatigue at a guess? Luckily does not run hot/did not hit traffic on way home.

Eventful but awesome day. Roll on the next one!

Thanks for reading!
 

[vaughant]

Love that van, it's amazing. Especially with a turbo conversion 😱😱😱

[tom13]

Not ideal but in the grand sense but a good test for it, you got a full day out of it and it's now ready to come back stronger.

[Brigsy]

On 08/04/2026 at 14:54, vaughant said:

Love that van, it's amazing. Especially with a turbo conversion 😱😱😱

Cheers mate. I think its the most fun to drive out of all of the cars ive owned or built. The handling is superb, even better than r5gtt.

13 hours ago, tom13 said:

Not ideal but in the grand sense but a good test for it, you got a full day out of it and it's now ready to come back stronger.

Yeah was a bit of a pain with clutch cable going and not being able to run high boost. Still had a great day so cant moan.

I think im going to book Cadwell next. Get some proper use out of it this year.

[24vdiamond]

If you do book cadwell let us know, I'm only down the road so I'd love to pop up and watch

[Brigsy]

11 hours ago, 24vdiamond said:

If you do book cadwell let us know, I'm only down the road so I'd love to pop up and watch

Will do mate.

Hopefully go better than the last time i took it there ten years ago..snapped the rear engine mount on the mountain last run out chasing a porsche 911. Ten hours for AA to recover😄

[24vdiamond]

It's OK I've got tools and a welder 👍

Get it booked 😁

[Brigsy]

Kangoo compact update.

Had last week off work so cracked on fitting the new g25 660 turbo setup that ive been putting together.

To recap mocked up on the spare engine.

Started by stripping the 20t hybrid, manifold and downpipe off, oil feed and return removed. Plenty of room with scuttle removed. Turbo first, then manifold, then downpipe out via the top.

Fitting the new setup was reverse of the above. Oil feed in, downpipe in then manifold, external wastegate on then turbo.

External wastegate in situ. Fiddly to fit even though on vbands.

Starter motor heatshield was tight and required a bit of clearance adding with deadblow hammer to clear number 1 exhaust runner. From what ive seen a few people dont refit it, but we do stuff right here.

Oil return fitted. Its tight but adequate clearance off downpipe. Might wrap the last bit of the downpipe for added heatproofing

With that done onto boost hose and coolant lines. Trimmed a 90deg silicone hose and the coolant lines are plug and play.

Next job airfilter/induction. 70mm 45deg silicone hose trimmed and 45deg alloy pipe cut to fit. New ramair filter to suit larger bore

With that done i offered the scuttle panel up. Plenty of room.

Mac valve fitted in preperation for Ecumaster Black. Opted to bolt to the scuttle as no optimal place on engine, and the an line is not very flexible but necessary for heat protection.

Done.

Primed up oil system with coils and injectors unplugged, with turbo oil feed into a bottle to check flow. All good, fitted to turbo and primed turbo with more cranking. Reconnected injectors and coils and hit the switch. Fired straight up, check for leaks and none. Sounds totally different to the stock manifold/hybrid turbo previously fitted.

Youtube vid of startup/road test

Around 1.5days of work steady away, so not too bad to do.

WIth that done, taxed and out for a test run.

Test drive went well, heat wrap on downpipe smoked like fcuk for a bit but sorted itself out fast. As im on the old map for the hybrid, i cant give it much stick but it spools well and is responsive, seen 7psi around 3500rpm iirc. Worth doing for the sound alone.

Ive done 50 or so miles and no issues. Onto ph2 which is ecumaster black install and modified inlet. Aiming for mapping in 6-8 weeks..

Started looking at wiring for Ecumaster black ecu upgrade this week. Needs a couple of additions doing and stripping out sensors that wont be used. 

 

Also made a start on changing the heater matrix in the blue clio dci yesterday. Quick hour and dash off. Hopefully get it done and dusted today or tomorrow. 

 

Thanks for reading!!

[Brigsy]

Updates

The blue clio dci van has been laid up since beginning of March due to the leaking heater matrix. I was seriously lacking motivation to do this again but it aint going to fix itself :sneaky:

Had a spare hour on Friday so cracked on stripping it. 

On sat done a bit more in the pm. Stripped heater box and matrix out, and you could see the coolant leaking out of the end seal.

Looks like nothing but was stinking of coolant inside the car with the inside of the heater box showing traces of coolant running across the bottom from that area.

Fitted the new nissens heater core and got the heater box refitted. At this point i was tempted to just stick it back together and move on. As usual i cant leave anything alone and decided to revisit cruise control/speed limiter fitting, to make it feel like ive actually had some benefit from removing the dash.

About 5 years ago i fitted the cruise squib and steering wheel but did not go any furthur due to no wiring at all so needed full prep/dash off which was too much work at the time.

Had a quick look at the wiring on visu and it looked pretty simple adding 2x wires to squib plug, 5x wires to the ecu plug, wire in clutch switch etc. Dug the other parts out necessary, cruise switch/panel, clutch switch and a spare 182 interior loom i bought years ago.

Stripped down the 182 loom for the necessary wires. 

5 wires to the ecu connector added.

I then ran the cables through the bonnet pull grommit for ease, joining to the relevant wires onto the cruise switch and wired in the clutch switch. Taped the wiring to the oem loom so follows the same route.

With that done, i refitted the dash and associated bits and put the battery back on to see if any programming was required. Pressed the cruise switch on and the dash registered set so was already programmed which saved a job.

I then stuck can clip diagnostics on to check the clutch switch and steering wheel switches would respond on live data.

Everything was working fine on diagnostic live data, cruise/speed limiter on and off, clutch switch working and steering wheel buttons responding when pressed. Took it for a test run to make sure all good with the new heater matrix and try cruise and speed limiter, both work great. Wish id done it years ago with the amount of motorway miles ive done in this over the years, but be nice to use in the future.

As annoying as it was doing the matrix again, having the cruise working is a nice bonus.

Back in daily use now. Thanks for reading!!!

[vaughant]

Awesome work as always 👍🏼👍🏼👍🏼.

I honestly look for cruise as the first thing on any car I buy these days, just makes the journey so relaxing.

My Mrs and the boy still won't use it incase " something happens".

I've explained to them that it's been around since the 1950's but get told they'd " rather be in control"....

It's hard I know 🤣🤣🤣.

[Brigsy]

16 hours ago, vaughant said:

Awesome work as always 👍🏼👍🏼👍🏼.

I honestly look for cruise as the first thing on any car I buy these days, just makes the journey so relaxing.

My Mrs and the boy still won't use it incase " something happens".

I've explained to them that it's been around since the 1950's but get told they'd " rather be in control"....

It's hard I know 🤣🤣🤣.

Cheers mate!

Its mega having cruise working on it for a daily runner. I do a bit of dual carraigeway driving most days and just been able to stick it on and sit back is great. The meganes all have it but never get driven slow enough to use it 😆

In all frenchness the speedo needle says just over 60 when the speed is set at 60..close enough i guess

[Brigsy]

Updates.

Blue dci clio van - Vac pump gasket / gaskets on the cylinder head has been leaking for some time. The leak is fairly minor but stuff underneath it is coated in thick oil. Ordered a gasket kit for the vac pump and whipped it off on sat to repair.

Offending vac pump

Removed, simple 2 bolts.

Pretty manky. It was twice as bad as this but brake cleaned it a few thousand ago as noticed oil all over the area including on clt sensor and crank sensor, have been monitoring it since. Assumed gasket and seals had both failed. The gasket to cylinder head was reused when i rebuilt the engine as the gasket set had the wrong one in the kit. As i was stuck i give it a light coat of sealant and sent it. Lasted 70 thousand miles so cant moan.

Quick clean up.

Vac pump on the bench.

Scrubbed with brake cleaner.

Stripped down and new seal fitted. Small filters cleaned. Nice easy job.

Half hours work. Went to refit with new oem gasket. Wrong fcuking gasket.

Tried ringing round the local motor factors for one and they were all pretty uninterested in helping at all so bit stuck. Reluctant to reuse the old gasket 3rd time, offered up the new gasket against the old and the holes match for oil feed etc, but not the correct shape at what looks to be the return port. Offered against the head and only needed the hole around the port modifying..

Out comes the die grinder and carbide burr to make the fcuker fit. Its not my first rodeo modifying gaskets like this - not sure if ive mentioned my die grinded head gasket when a dowel wouldnt fit!? Worked fine, sometimes you have got to make it work :LOL:

Fitted, bolts torqued to spec. Its not right but its ok, it certainly does not leak after a run out. Ive got the right gasket on order, ill prob change it when it arrives to satisfy my ocd as its a 5 min job.
 

Yellow meg r26 got some tlc. 

Fluid change on Sat. Fresh Elf 5/40 and purflux oil filter. 

Also changed the gear oil with Elf nfx. I put fresh elf nfj in when i rebuilt the suspension approx 12k ago, it was typical ndo when cold, bit notchy but overall fine no issues when warm. The nfx has suprisingly improved cold shifting, so nice bonus.

Give engine bay a quick wipe over to finish.

Out and about on daily duties yesterday. Gets used all the time.

Its still patiently waiting to get its arch sorted on passenger side. Hopefully be in bodyshop and done soon.

Thanks for reading!!

[Brigsy]

Updates.

Made a start on the Ecumaster black wiring. 3 years ago i bought a RRR clio 197 pnp adaptor and a few bits.

197 clio wiring is pretty close to meg2rs but different at the same time. I looked at loom options and considered fitting the 197 engine loom, but would need rewiring at the upc plugs to suit megane upc and boost solenoid wiring. Meg 2 loom needed vvt and cam sensor wiring adding, and loom thinning out a bit to remove wiring not needed. As i have a few meg looms here seemed like modding one was the obvious solution.

 

After digging out all the parts and examining the pnp adaptor to see it was potted on the connection side, meant simply adding or removing wires would not be possible. Also i had no map to see how the inputs and outputs had been setup, or idea on how the pnp was wired so had to validate all connections. A few hours of tracing what goes where was necessary to avoid any future aggro. Probably should have just built a new loom from fresh as would have took the same amount of time but nevermind..

 

Simple stuff just time consuming.

I depinned and swapped a few wires about in the oem ecu connectors, moving the megane n75/boost controller wiring to a spare aux that was wired in the adaptor. Oem map sensor wiring is not used so the 3x wires have been repurposed/ repinned for cam sensor. The upstream lambda wiring has been repurposed/pinned to suit the vvt solenoid as again not used as running lsu 4.9 wideband lambda straight to ecu.

 

Also binned oem coil wiring as i have a subloom for Audi r8 coils wired to individual coil outputs. This is much better than the oem coils that are wired in series, which divides the total voltage across them, increases total resistance, and maintains the same current through each component hence giving a shitter spark / small spark plug gaps required. Oem meg coils are also pretty crap when wired up individually where r8 are good for a lot of boost.

 

Enough tech anyway - a few pics

 

All oem tape removed to check loom condition, and retaped in tesa cloth tape.

 

Done a load of connections including 4 way splice for coil power. Dual wall glued heatshrink makes a solid connection.

Its pretty much finished. Throttle body needs wiring, was unsure on length required so will do it in situ. Neutral switch wiring and reverse light switch to sort, i need to repurpose the connector for reverse switch off the current loom.

[Brigsy]

Made a start on fitting the loom today. Bumper etc off.

I was avoiding taking the front off fully, but for how long it takes it was a no brainer. Access is 10x better. 

Got the inlet off etc. When removing the fuel pipe from the rail it was still pressured uo from running yesterday, the fuel system is good on this. I then stripped out the loom and a few sensors, and started fitting the new parts. Wideband bosch knock sensor, lsu 4.9 wideband lambda and newly modified wiring back in the hole.

Offered up the R8 coils and they wont fit with the 250 breather plate, so will need to change that for a pms one, same as i run on my clio trophy.

Half decent start for 4 hours work.

Thanks for reading!!

[Brigsy]

Updates.

Kicked the Extra out of the garage whilst the kangoo is getting its ecu upgrade. Ive got a new mac valve to fix high boost so made a start on fitting.

On removal the issue with the old mac valve was pretty obvious. 

Clean ish break on the wire, unsure if fatigue due to vibration due to the location bolted to the turbo compressor housing. The areas surrounding the turbo are less than ideal for relocating it, so bolted it to the front panel. I dont think this is really optimal and hose length a bit longer than id like, but cant have it all.

With that boxed off, i give it an oil change as due. Valvoline Vr1 20/50 mineral oil and purflux ls218 oil filter.

Extraction pump as usual as i refuse to remove the sump plug now its leak free. 

Note grill removed on the above pic. The oil filter is a nightmare to remove with the boost hose in front, fmic in front of that and alternator above. A stock gtt oil filter is relatively poor access wise but this is next level poor. 7/10 on the difficulty/arm scratching.

With that done, road testing. High boost works again, typically the boost curve is not the same and the pressure has gone down from 21psi to 19psi. Always find that swapping mac/n75 etc on tuned setups in open loop boost control always needs a tweak. Ill datalog and set up again or book it in for a quick dyno check.

Thanks for reading!!

[Brigsy]

Kangoo updates. Big ones.

Annoyingly id forgot to drill and tap the modified inlet for the bolt to the top engine mount. A lot of people dont bother but we do stuff right here.

With this done i could refit the modified 250 inlet. Before fitting, i renewed the cam sensor for a new one as due to location on 197 head, it needs to go on before the inlet. Dug out the bosch motorsport 870cc flow matched injectors i bought a few weeks ago, to replace the 630cc siemens deka that i pretty much maxed out with the old hybrid 20t.

870cc will have plenty of headroom on this setup. I was going to use 730cc but hard to find flowmatched, bosch supply them within 7% tolerance from factory which is dogshit🤣

Inlet fitted, new oem gasket to head torqued to spec and 870cc injectors fitted, wiring routed with cam sensor and vvt solenoid connected.

Note breather plate removed off the cam cover. I offered up the R8 coils last week, and they would not locate properly on the spark plug with the extra height of the breather plate. Options were oem 197 or r26 breather plate or pms as it works on my trophy. Pms it is.

Sexy billet machined alloy with baffle. Would have preferred silver but they only do black anodized now. Looks good so not messing about painting, on it goes.

R8 coils fitted for all the spark.

Throttle body needed a gasket before fitting. Oem 250 gasket no good as hole is too small, so dug the gasket paper out. I initially struggled to find my sheet of gasket paper, it almost got the cornflakes box which has served well in the past when in need🤣

Tap tap tap, cut cut cut. Close enough.

Throttle body fitted and boost hoses offered up. F4r is not a pretty engine, but in my opinion it looks far better than oem with a few bits done.

If all goes well i should be on for a start at some point in the next few days. Until then, more work to be done.

Had a few hours spare back end of last week. Rolled the Kangoo out the garage as weather finally decent, and access required to passenger side.

1st job was replace the top radiator hose. I had noticed a slight split in the one that was fitted when fitting the turbo kit. New old stock oem hose sourced.

Hose split visible. Doesnt look too bad but almost through. It certainly wouldnt get any better!

Next job was running the usb cable from ecu to the cabin and fitting the ecumaster edl-1 datalogger. This was centre console out and glovebox etc, routing wiring through the bulkhead. Couple of hours work for a tidy install.

With that done it was time to finish the engine wiring. Throttle plug needed wiring in, and once id found a good route for the wiring, i knew what length was required. Crimped and dual wall glued heatshrink gives a solid connection.

Also done mac valve for boost control and datalogger to ecu connections. With that done the loom was finally complete, I then offered up the battery tray to see how it all fitted.

The larger throttle body made routing the wiring to ecu and battery difficult as it was very tight beforehand and adding a larger throttle and silicone hose took the available room. The plastic battery tray was offered up and trimmed to suit.

I then fitted the ecu adaptor loom and ecu in the oem location, with a rivnut securing the ecu to the back of the battery tray.

With this done i connected the battery up and energized the ecu. The ecu powered up all good and ecu connected to laptop fine, radiator fan singing away as not configured.
With coils and injectors unplugged, uploaded the modified base map that i have been working on to suit this setup. Looked at sensor data and coolant temp, air temp etc looked good/as expected.

I then ran the dbw throttle calibration tool to set the bosch motorsport throttle up as no pre defined calibrations for the part number i am using. Throttle calibrated fine and operation checked, working ok.

I then cranked the engine over on the starter motor to check crank and cam triggers would read and sync.

Checking the logs, all good and both sync fine with rpm showing on the logs. No point in messing about, connected coils and injectors and cranked the engine. A few coughs but no start, sounded like it was trying on one or 2 cylinders..

Done some basic checks to ensure coils had power etc. All good so asked Sebimotorsport to check injector phase and firing order were correct. My pnp adaptor ign outputs have been wired a bit different to expected so needed a couple of changes, and tps inputs needed switching on the software. A few attempts later and it fired up running ok on all cylinders. Not the clean start i wanted but close enough. Could tell the map was way off, as totally different spec to my clio trophy. idling low etc but running.

By this time id pissed the neighbours off enough with noise as it was 9pm on Sat so asked Sebi if he had availability to remote in for cold start and 3500rpm base map to make it drivable up to 70mph to get to the dyno. He said yes 10am Sunday morning. This was good but I still had no front end on the kangoo so had to quickly refit that and get it in a drivable state. Slight trimming to slam panel for throttle clearance required but all went together easy enough. Also had to remake & relocate the breather hose / catch tank to the drivers side..this required robbing an old diluted 1.5ltr square plastic juice bottle out of the recycle bin😆

Sunday comes and its pissing down, i need this sorting so rain does not stop play.

Sebi gets in touch and takes control of the laptop remotely and startes adjusting throttle, fuel ve map etc and communicating via whatsapp with instructions.

He asks me to start the engine. Engine starts cleanly and watch him adjust the throttle settings and it idles good. Few revs to check fuelling etc. Next we drive, with laptop tethered to mobile. A few tweaks to fuelling, ign etc and its driving good, very smooth. No warning lights on dash or nothing, rev counter etc working good, abs happy etc. This is good as im using clio3 canbus protocol on a megane engine in a Kangoo so was unsure how this would turn out 😄

When Sebi was logging the ecu initially the vvt would not work annoyingly, cam sensor reading fine but cam angle did not move even though above 50deg coolant temps etc.

Not sure why, initially we thought it was a wiring fault on the output or solenoid issues, but a couple of miles of driving and it entered the chat, lazy initially and then fine, and has accurately commanded requested cam angle on logs perfect since. Assume solenoid was a bit sticky after a few years of lack of use. Same issue on the trophy years ago bizarelly!

In no time at all we are all done, its safe to be used at low load/normal driving. Would have been a waste of time trying do any higher rpm tuning as the conditions were terrible, and wet grip on cup2 tyres is not the best. Its going to Efi for mapping on the dyno soon no need to start tuning the higher rpm's.

Quick stop and the mrs takes control and do a few more miles. I set up the gear ratios/selection so it shows what gear its in on ecu data.

The gear selection worked great for a short period and then goes off/gets stuck in 2nd gear. After a little bit of fault finding the clutch switch was not disengaging properly so the ecu assumed it was pressed which was disabling it. Id seen clutch switch fault stored on oem ecu - did not affect anything as no cruise wired etc so had not bothered even looking. It turned out the plunger length was set incorrect, quick adjustment and sorted.

[Brigsy]

On Monday i take it out again on daily duties. No tools or nothing but have laptop just incase. Bit of running about and all good, no issues whatsoever, starts and drives like oem. Go to Asda and park in the underground carpark to grab some bits. Jump in, turn key to start and fuel pump does not prime. Attempt start anyway and it fires up for ten seconds and conks out. Ffs no fuel pump for some reason.

I fire up the laptop and do an output test on fuel pump relay and its clicking so the ecu and wiring to trigger fuel pump relay are good, its either dead pump or missing a live/earth etc. I check the midi fuse on the live wire from the battery and it looks to be complete through the yellow plastic so assume pump has failed. Ive got no spares so cant do nothing anyway, cant access pump without dropping tank etc to give the sender a belt to see if its given up. Its 9pm and the underground carpark shuts at 10pm so ring AA and they say itll be 2 hours minimum until recovery. Not quick enough im in a hurry to get the fuck out of this carpark before lockup.

I cant push it up the ramp to get it out of the underground parking on my own, so ring my mate for a tow. We have done several sketchy tow home from breakdowns over the years and he hooks up the solid bar and tows me 10 mile home. The bar is about 1.2m max so its like tailgating his van all the way back.

Get home fast as he does not hang about tow bar or not 😄

I quickly grab the test meter and start probing the poles on the fuel pump midi fuse holder..initially no power on output side of fuse then next thing it has continuety/ok. I crack ign on and the fcuking pump works. At this point i assumed bad connection on the fuel tank and the thought of dropping the tank with half a tank of fuel in pains me. Sleep on the fucker, its a job for another day.

Get up this morning and look at the midi fuse again. To cut a long story short, the fuse bent slightly when nipping the bolts up the other day and centre plastic was loose, i straightened it out and it looked complete, pump working assumed ok/cheap shite etc but if it works send it.

On removal the issue can clearly be seen. You could move the fuse legs watching the link connect and disconnect. Stress fracture, assume slight movement /push of the test meter probe must have made it connect again.

Obviously not popped as no burns. Replaced with oem renault which look superior in construction. Pump sounds fine no untoward noises. Hit the ign switch and it starts straight up, no issues. Checked fuse when running, no heat or high amp pull.

Im pretty confident that it was the issue. Ill take some tools for next test run just incase.

Its got me thinking about fuel system upgrades to a swirl pot/return system though, it needs one really with the higher power i want..the nuke combined swirl/pump housing look good. We will see.

Thanks for reading!!

[vaughant]

I can't believe that this isn't your main job, the work is unreal 👍🏼👍🏼👍🏼.

Great to see. 

Remote mapping, stuff of the future surely ❤️❤️❤️