David in Australia with Renault Scenic
 

Hello guys,

I have a Renault Scenic which is not so economical. More of a track car really and a Celica GT-Four.

The Scenic was meant to be an around town 'slow' car. Then the engine blew and I upgraded it to a RenaultSport engine and it now goes as well as a lot of Turbo cars.

That's ridiculous but true.

Last week I got back from Japan and they are into Toyota Prius. omg, such bodykits and extra things they add to them there.

I guess that made me remember about this site.

Is that a 1st generation or 2nd generation Scenic? And what was its stock engine?

Technically, it's a facelifted Gen-I. It is auto and came with a stock 2.0L 100Kw engine. Long gone now.

The new and current engine is a RenaultSport Clio-172 130Kw engine, pretty much stock It's plenty powerful. Definitely the opposite of eco-modding at the moment.

I've got eco-modding plans for it, but we'll see how it goes.

In the past I Water-Injected my L300 Mitsubishi van and got substantial (~33%) fuel economy improvements. But that was carby not efi.

I got to five posts so now I can share a picture:

http://ar5boosted.com/users/david/DSC_0077.JPG

My Scenic is the big car at the front. The ones behind had trouble keeping up - lol.

Welcome to the site.

Was it available only with the 2.0L engine in Australia? Here in Brazil there were 3 engine options, the early 8-valve 2.0L, then a 16-valve 1.6L and a 16-valve 2.0L, and 1.9L turbodiesel versions for export to Argentina and Uruguay. IIRC only the 2.0L 8-valve and the turbodiesel had never been available with automatic transmission.


How did you get that fuel economy improvement in the L300? Adjusting the carburettor to run leaner or keeping lower RPM in a taller gear?

I don't know about the 8-valve engines but the 1.6 and 2.0 16V were both available here and I actually had both. The 1.6 was a K4VM and the 2.0 was the F4R that was mated with the Auto. Having had both I actually prefer the 1.6 K4M but they are cheap crappy engines and the mechanics hate them.

https://plus.google.com/+DavidLyon/posts/MW1qzbFfsDU

I had an electric water pump and a switch. I'd pump water into the carby with a spray module. It was calibrated to work best at 1100 rpm which was low speed driving.

https://plus.google.com/+DavidLyon/posts/jFrdmiMZexL

Due to the increased torque I could drive in the next higher gear.

I found that I could run 50% water by volume and that would give 30% fuel saving going from 14L/100km down to 9L/100km. It also got a lot more power so the life of the vehicle was extended by an extra 10 years over what it was designed for.

A closeup on the next car:
https://plus.google.com/+DavidLyon/posts/3DKGmaFEPvN

It was great to own and drive. I didn't have a good enough system for it to be saleable but it suited what I needed it for.

I haven't seen so many complaints against the K-series engines in general. But anyway, by now it's been mostly replaced by that Nissan QG engine.

Belated welcome!

Would EFI not adapt to this approach as well? There are a couple of manufacturers doing H2o injection these days, but as a means of avoiding detonation in high output engines, not for efficiency. (I'm sure I've read about a BMW with it.)

Have you driven one yet? I ask only because the driving experience is SO different from the cars you've mentioned.

I put it on a Suzuki but then I had some tuning issues - best described as a fail on my part. I never was able to duplicate the economy improvements on the EFI engine due to lowered engine temperatures. I injected too much cold water and blew the Head-Gasket. My enthusiasm declined after that although I do have reflections on how I could have done better.

No, but I get where you're going with that - :turtle:

http://www.performancemag.net/news-images/585/eco03.jpg

but the bodykits that are available for them in Japan make them look so fast.