5 Ways To Make Your Renault Clio 172/182 Better
1. EXTERIOR
Looks-wise Renault got it spot on, but for lightness you can really go to town on the exterior. A few companies produce carbon/Kevlar and fibreglass doors, bonnet and tailgate for the Clio, which would make things incredibly light – if a little less ideal for a daily driver. Aside from that, small touches are the way to go, especially some smaller mirrors to replace the bulbous standard ones.
2. ENGINE
The Clio F7R lump is a great engine that really responds to tuning. A decent induction kit and full exhaust – including manifold – peps the car up a little, but real gains are to be had when adding throttle bodies. Over 200bhp has been seen with the aforementioned tuning alone, and add some lumpy cams to the mix and you have a real weapon. For silly power, K-Tec do a turbo conversion, and many custom supercharger conversions have been achieved already.
3. SUSPENSION
As with all Renaultsport cars, the Clio handles pretty damn well as standard (especially the Cup and Trophy versions, which came with uprated suspension). But for the ultimate setup, some fully adjustable coilovers will give the flexibility you need for fast road or track use. Just be aware the rear torsion bar will need adjusting too – and that’s often a job for the pros.
4. INTERIOR
The interior is a pretty nice place to be, but if you’ve improved the car’s grip and cornering ability you’ll need some help staying in your seat, and for that you need some buckets. The list of options is almost endless, but it can really make a huge difference to the driving experience, as would adding a sportier steering wheel at the same time. Be aware though, getting into the back seats once you have fixed buckets is nigh-on impossible.
5. WHEELS & TYRES
A Clio with big wheels is a serious no-no from a looks and performance point of view, and for that reason we would recommend no bigger than 16-inch wheels. In fact we actually prefer 15-inch rims, and would of course go for the lightest items we could afford. For tyres, we’d recommend either good quality road tyres or, if you’re feeling hardcore, semi- slicks along the line of Toyo R888s. You can’t go very wide, with 195s being the usual width, but on such a light car it isn’t usually a problem.
