Automotive

Later on a couple of my friends bought the Mk3 phase 1 RS with 197 hp, in 2009 the phase 2 came out with 201 hp.

In may 2010 i decided to place an order for the latter. This was and still is in my opinion one of the great driving cars. How can this be possible you say ? Back in those days most of the British car magazines like TOPGEAR and EVO did multitests with the best driver cars .... Lambo, Ferrari, AMG, BMW M and the likes .... AND from time to time ... a RENAULTSPORT .... .

There was a certain year the Clio almost made it EVO car of the year, unfortunately one or other Ferrari was soo good so the Clio came second.

So even after ten years and 145.000 km of ownership i still enjoy this car like no other ( unless somebody gives me a 430 Scud or a 458 Speciale ).

Why would this be the last of the Mohicans ? I believe this was actually the very last naturally aspirated FWD hot hatch that came on the market.

A 2 litre four cilinder which is actually a race engine (Clio cup / Formula Renault 2000 / R3 Rallye) , no turbo or any other forced induction and 201 hp output. Yes, 100 hp per litre which was pretty amazing for a road car at the time.

Off course there were already cars with that kind of power from a 2 litre and even more but most of them we equipped with a turbo. The older Honda S2000 even managed 240 hp although most tests on a rolling road showed less than 230 hp .... nonetheless a great achievement by Honda ( although below 6000 rpm that engine was pretty slow ).

So last year i decided to give my little Clio some more spice and i took it to a local tuner. Since i bought this car new and had always been very careful 🥶 with it ( at least when the engine was still cold) i felt the car was still performing like new.

First run on the rolling road with standard mapping (but different air intake) showed 207 hp and 221 Nm ... so still above the official specs of 201 hp and 215 Nm.

After one and a half hour of testing and mapping the ECU everybody was amazed by the result that showed, even i couldn’t believe it was possible to gain this much power with a ‘simple’ mapping ... 222 hp and 249 Nm. That is a gain of 15 hp (7%) ... okay a turbo car can easily be tuned with an extra 70% .... and actually 20 hp gain from 4000 to 6500 rpm.

Furthermore the rev limiter was raised from 7500 to 7800 rpm and even then it is/was still pulling very strong jumping of the limiter from time to time 😁.

On the road and in real life the car feels a tiny bit stronger than before, when you really start to drive fast and hit the throttle 100% from 3500-4000 rpm the powerhike becomes noticeable, especially above 6500 to almost 8000 you realize i made a good investment 😄.

The addition of a mechanical limited slip differential in the gearbox is another great feature. This gives the car like 50% more grip in tight corners and some kind of stability in the faster ones ( i think ). Compared to a standard differential this new one divides forces to the wheels that need more or less grip ...

For a front wheel drive like my Clio it is very handy for better traction out of the corners , for a rear wheel drive car it is very handy for .... traction as well ... but makes it a lot easier to drift the car 😁😁😁.

I hope the other Clio drivers on the forum 😂 will take my advice and go for a remap on their Renaultsport ;-)

Cheers,

Filip

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