Renault Cléon-Fonte engine

The Cléon-Fonte engine is a family of inline four-cylinder automobile engines developed and manufactured by Renault. It has also been called the Sierra engine, the C-engine, or the C-Type. It has been in continuous production by Renault or a licensee from 1962 to 2004. After about three decades of use in Renault's compact models, it was gradually replaced by the E-type engine from the late 1980s onward.

The C-type is a water-cooled design, with a wet linered cast iron block with five main bearings and a single, chain-driven cam-in-block mounted high on the side that drives two overhead valves per cylinder in an aluminum cylinder head via short pushrods and rocker arms.

History

When production started in 1962, the engine was called the "Sierra", but was soon renamed the "Cléon-Fonte", taking its name from the new Renault factory where it was first manufactured. This four-cylinder provided power for several generations of Renaults, with displacements of 956 to 1,565 cc (1.0 to 1.6 L). Cars fitted with the engine range from the Floride/Caravelle through the first generation Twingo of 1993, thirty years after this power unit was presented to the press at Geneva.

Technical adaptations enabled the production of this engine in many displacements in single and dual carburettor forms, later with fuel injection, with or without turbo. The Cléon-Fonte was coupled initially to four-speed manual transmissions, and then later five speed and automatic gearboxes according to its applications and the natural progress of the automotive industry.