Clio tuning guide

"French Chiq"

Launched in 1990 Renault moved away from giving their cars numbers and started to use names. The car was sold as a credible city car for trendy people and has enjoyed particular success doing much for Renaults reputation as a manufacturer.

It wasn't until 1993 when we saw a real performance Clio introduced with the arrival of the Clio Williams with a 16v 2.0 engine producing 150 bhp. It went to show what Clio Tuning is able to achieve and got a lot of performance enthusiasts interested in the Clio.

The best models from a tuning point of view arrived in 1998 where the Clio RS or Renault Sport was introduced. Non sport models would benefit greatly from the addition of uprated suspension and anti roll bar.

The 1.6 and lower engines do not offer much tuning potential and most owners wanting to tune these look to do an engine swap usually going for the 2.0 engine. A set of fast road cams and breathing mods (Exhaust and Intake) will raise power levels of the 2.0 to a credible 180 bhp.

Of the 2.0 engines we would recommend the RS over the standard 16v engine as these offer greater tuning flexibility. The Williams engines are quite rare so are hard to recommend as engine swap candidates unless you can find one.

The flagship Clio is the 3.0 V6 with its mid mounted rear drive engine. The whole body has been widened and early cars were a little tail happy in the wet. With some suspension revisions it is possible to correct this. Look out for 3.0 V6 requiring a cam belt change as this is a very expensive job, the engine location makes it pretty hard to work on.

Our members include many Clio owners with all ages and types of car, join the forum and swap tips and get pointers from our seasoned Clio tuning members.