Megane III TouchScreen GPS SatNav,iPod,Bluetooth,Reverse Camera etc.

Finished installing our aftermarket 7" Chinese DVD, GPS headunit. The system is CANBUS enabled and works perfectly with steering wheel controls.

The setup and configuration of the system is as follows:

• Primo 1.2 with latest maps on SD Card.
• Extended auxiliary RCA video & audio input to a surface mounted plate in the glovebox
• Extended iPod Connector to the glovebox
• Replaced the Standard RCA auxiliary port that came with the car, with a USB port connected to this system
• Reverse camera (Mounted Flush) wired via a voltage regulator.
• GPS Antenna concealed inside top of the A pillar lining magnetically mounted to car body

Below are some pics of the system and the setup:

And here is a Spanish youtube video review of the system by Eric Martinez.

Painted RenaultSport Body Panels

Today we got all the panels back from the paintshop. In total there were about 27 seperate pieces that were painted. The things that were painted were as follows:

• 14 RS Bodykit Mouldings
• 2 Mirror Covers in Gloss Black
• Rear Bumper Diffuser in Gloss Black
• 2 Headlamp Washer Covers
• 2 Rear Parking Sensors
• Renault Bonnet Badge Mounting Plate
• Rear Bumper
• Front Bumper
• 2 Front Wings
• Bonnet

We could have brought down the cost of the project a fair amount if we used a cheap paintshop. But at the end of the day you get what you pay for. We did not want to compromise on the paint job. A true quality paint job done the right way is very time consuming. The panels need to be sanded, washed. primed, blocked, then washed again, cleaned with a tack cloth, based, cleared, baked, then color sanded and buffed.

The prep work is the most time-consuming aspect of painting car panels. Because of this, many cheap paint shops skimp on prep work in order to quickly move to the painting process. While a car that was not accurately prepped may look good temporarily, you’ll notice fading and peeling much more quickly than if your car was prepped properly.

For this reason we chose to entrust Kraftwork Vehicle Refinishing of Chelmsford with the job of painting our panels. We've used Kraftwork before and their quality of work is EXCEPTIONAL and very reasonable on price. Davide at Kraftwork is highly knowledgeable and a really nice guy to deal with. I've added a link to Kraftwork Vehicle Refinishing website on the related link section. I would highly recommend their services to anyone looking for bodywork in and around that area.

Here are a few pics of some panels before & after painting: (Click to Enlarge)

Megane RS 250 LED Bumper Lights

The OEM LED bumper DRL units for the Megane RS 250 are quite expensive to buy brand new (around £430 for a pair). I managed to get them brand new for just around £270. In order to power these units you need 2 power supplys which cost a further £400 for a pair plus a few wiring looms which come to around £90. I could not justify spending that kind of money on a power supply and some wires. So I decided to build my own. The OEM loom and power supply is basically CANBUS enabled that allows it to disable the DRL inside the headlamp unit and let the LED DRL's take over.

I wanted my LED DRL's to work exactly like OEM. I wanted to be able to control them via the settings menu that allows you to turn the DRL on/off. I also wanted to be able to use them with the headlights on as fog lights with the fog light switch. So the first thing I did was isolate the DRL circuit that goes into the headlamp. This disabled the entire DRL inside the headlamp housing. Then I built a custom wiring loom and a circuit consisting of a relay, capacitor, diode and a time delay fuse to smooth out the PWM DRL circuit.

Here is a diagram of the custom loom that I built (click to enlarge):

I housed the custom relay circuit in the following weatherproof project box, with rubber cable grommets:



I also used 2 more of these boxes to house the custom built LED power supplys (LED Drivers). I built the LED drivers with 2 way superseal waterproof connectors, so that they can simply plug in and out. The connection from the LED driver to the LED unit is also the same superseal 2 way connector. So everything can be removed if needed. All the connections look like factory fits. In total the custom wiring, circuits and LED drivers, project boxes and connectors all cost me around £30.

Here is a picture of the connectors i used:


And here is a picture of the LED DRL unit:

Halogen to Xenon Headlamps Conversion

I needed to buy a set of replacement Halogen headlamp units for the car. I came across a pair of complete Xenon headlamp units from a donor Megane RS 250. They were being offered at a very good price. They came complete with the bulbs and ballast for £260. A brand new single halogen headlamp costs around that price.

So for those of you considering upgrading to Xenons, here are some details about installing Xenon version headlamps to a non-Xenon Megane III (X95).

If your thinking about whether this is effected by the new MOT laws from 2012 and whether this will become illegal, the official leaflet on the DFT website http://www.dft.gov.uk/vosa/repositor...3-lighting.pdf states in section 1.7

The Department for Transport considers that after-market systems should be required to meet the same safety standards as that applied in respect of these lamps at vehicle Type Approval. Therefore, in order to pass the MOT test, vehicles fitted with after-market HID systems would also need to be fitted with headlamp cleaning and self-levelling systems.

My setup consists of a retro-fit headlamp washer system which works. I will post details about this mod shortly. I will however be working on retro-fitting an auto levelling system in the near future.

The DFT publication also states that:

Where headlamp levelling or cleaning devices are missing or defective, but there is doubt as to whether they are required, the benefit of the doubt should be given and an advisory notice issued.

This statement opens up a whole new chapter in terms of interpretation. If a tester is testing a car that has OEM projector based HID headlamps and correctly functioning headlamp washers and all the beam patterns and everything are fine, then I dont think they will just fail it because it has no self-levelling system.

Back to the topic, here are a few pics of the xenon version projector based headlamp:







The headlamp units are actually a direct replacement. The exisiting wiring harness and connectors all fit and operate the Xenon headlamps. The only thing different is that the Xenon headlamps have the cornering feature which have an additional connector. As the car doesnt have this feature, I didnt have anything to connect to this, so I simply covered with a rubber insert. In the near future I may attempt to get this working using custom wiring.

There is however one small problem with directly swapping a Halogen with a Xenon version. The UCH in the car is programmed for a standard halagon bulb, and after a little while the car detects a problem with the discharge bulbs and will begin to flicker. The reason for this is that the car is sensing a steady current. A ballasts needs are anything but steady. To resolve this I basically added an inline HID anti-flicker decoder to each headlamp unit. It is basicaly a smoothing capacitor in parallel with an inductor. There may however be a way to have the UCH re-programmed to accept HID. The inline decoder works fine for me. If you are going to do this, I would recommend using some weatherproof connectors like the 2-way superseals, and also just as a precaution add a inline fuse. This way, if the decoder ever fails, you can simply remove and replace with another one.

***UPDATE with Complete Photos***