I bought a DCi175 3 door a month or so ago, i did have a 5 door a few years back but i ended up trading it in for the 265. I sort of bought it blind (what could go wrong) took a chance as it wasn't a lot of money, got some muppet from Shipley to collect it and deliver it to my workshop, i have used Shipley before without any issues it was just this one guy, the seller gave me more info about collection and delivery, it eventually turned up a day late after me waiting around for 4 hrs without a call to say it was going to be the next day. It had a bit of an issue with smoking. after cleaning and checking the EGR valve and the throttle body, i found that someone had fitted a blanking plate to the EGR pipework so left it in there. This didn't fix the problem, so looked into it a bit more and found that the turbo didn't look to good. Megane 175 dci by Ian Austin, on Flickr I found a turbo from an Espace on eBay for £80 posted, bargain I tried to get the turbo off but everything was either seized or very tight, so easy way to get at everything is to get the engine out Everything on the suspension was so rusted on, the shocks had seen better days, there was play in the track control arms and the steering arms, swivel bearings etc you get the picture the seller told me that the car was well looked after
Anyway Engine was out on the floor so i could get at the bolts etc, snapped the bolts on the turbo trying to undo them, but as the turbo is scrap it didn't matter. While the engine was out i thought it was worth checking the cam chain, it has 134k miles on the clock so thought it would be interesting to see what sort of wear there was Dci 175 m9r by Ian Austin, on Flickr Dci 175 cam shaft sprocket by Ian Austin, on Flickr All looks great, could hardly lift the chain off of the sprocket so that didn't need changing. I know from going right through CJ's thread that he had an oil pump fail, so thought it was worth fitting a new oil pump as a precaution. Refitted the engine and i then noticed that the boost pipe was damaged Dci 175 boost pipe by Ian Austin, on Flickr So i'm thinking this is what caused the damage to the turbo (over spinning) i had some silicon elbows i had bought for the R26 turbo upgrade and managed to fudge them on. While the lump was out i thought i would check the clutch that was fine and the duel mass was still good enough to use, then one of the best very cheapest mods you can do was the short shifter mod, makes so much difference all round. Short shift mod by Ian Austin, on Flickr
next mod was to fit a LSD, well i had a spare for the 265 so why not put it to some use. Megane dci 175 by Ian Austin, on Flickr Refitted the engine i already had some refurbished hubs in the workshop so they were fitted along with the struts from the R26, well they were in a better condition than what came off. i had a track day coming up at Abingdon, so i removed the mk3 brakes from the R26 and fitted to the DCi, the track day was Yesterday, i hadn't driven the car really so bit nervous about the 200 miles to get to the track, but i did drive it to town to get the tracking done, went well so was good to go. Car averaged 40mpg but i wasn't hanging around, it still smokes a bit when booting it so i think it needs a proper map on it, it must be mapped as its had a DPF delete treatment, but i think its a bad flash map. Managed a good few laps at Abingdon very pleased with the way it went, well apart from the smoke and 13.9 mpg , my mate in his DCI averaged 38.4mpg and he was hammering it and so did i all was well until i tried to leave, couldn't start the car as the key wasn't recognised, swapped the battery from another remote and that didn't work, in the end the guy we went with took my car to his place and he lent me his DCi 175 he just bought, had fun driving that home its mapped to 201hp and felt good. I had a call this morning to say they found the fault and it was the card reader itself that was broken, so i will be collecting mine very soon.
Small update Been really busy with work so not had much time to sort the DCi Booked Llandow Saturday 18th, drive up on the Friday and get a map put on the car, turned up to be told that they broke the laptop so a bit of a wasted journey. Trackday went well, wasn't as wet as it said it was going to be, but a fun day anyway. Need to get some camber and coilovers now https://flic.kr/p/2ntaMGY
Still here Been busy, R26 engine is out and pulled apart The Diesel is fitted with BC coil overs now (DS version), half cage fitted, 5 point belts as well. Did go to have it mapped (properly) on Thursday in Wales, the place i was supposed to be at the guy never turned up and wouldn't answer the phone, so called the guy that organized the dyno, told him and he said drive to me, so that was another 1hr 1/2 drive, he did some road mapping Feels a bit better and a load of less smoke, but he will map it properly on a rolling road soon. Fitted some new Asymmetric 6's just in case its wet on my next trackday which is Thruxton on the 11th
