Chris H
master of boobies
This is an article written by David, it's not a step by step guide on how to do it, more a brief summary of what was done.
Because the article was done in Word I have had to copy and paste it over here and the layout is now different.
Part I, how it started:
My car started life in 1988 as a Renault 5 GTX supplied to myself brand new from Tates of Brighton, and for several years was my main mode of transport although was well looked after being serviced every 6 months, the usual kind of thing.
In about 1993 I went to a sprint meeting at Goodwood and thought it looked like fun so I thought I would have a go but things being what they are it wasn’t until 1995 that I got around to working on the car and generally prepping it for sprints.
Part II, the build part I:
When I first started work on the car, the class I went in for was modified road going, this allows most things to be altered as long as the interior has standard seating configuration and the gearbox and engine as fitted in the factory.
The engine and gearbox remained the same exhaust was changed to a stainless GT Turbo one this just had the rear silencer which removed the collector and middle silencer as fitted on the standard model, the front suspension was changed to Koni gas adjustable dampers for a GT turbo with turbo top mounts so as not to give to much camber, Koni rears and 6 point roll cage (bolt in).
This, without too many changes was how the car stayed for following 5 years but because of the prohibitive cost of tuning the 1.7 the only way to improve performance is to either change the car or the engine.
To change the engine to a turbo would mean the car would be reclassified in the over 2 litre class, now I know people can do some pretty amazing stuff with turbo’s but I don’t think you could ever get any where near a RS500 lets say or a Evo 4/5/6/7 on performance so that was ruled out and I didn’t want to sell the car so that left me with trying to think of something else.
The only thing I could come up with was 16V engine from an Renault 19 16V. why not? There are plenty of them being broken up so they are cheap the block is the same as the 1.7 so it will fit, engine mounts are the same so no problem and with 137bhp with Cat’, heaps of power. I located one in a breaker's yard and went to pick it up, it came with ECU, loom, hoses, gearbox, starter motor and alternator - every thing I needed or so I thought.
Part III, the rebuild:
As can be seen from the picture below there is not a lot of room in the engine bay at the best of times but fitting this engine took a lot of time and trouble to work things out.
Where to fit the ECU?
How to get the engine in the engine bay without dismantling it?
Before all that though I needed to know that I had all the right bits.
A Haynes manual is about as good as you can get although this is not perfect. A kit of parts was drawn up this was as follows
Engine (Obviously)
Gearbox
ECU
Ignition Coil
MAP Sensor (short)
Water Pump (short)
Down Pipe (short)
Auxiliary Relay Box (short)
Loom
Water Pipes
The things that I was short of I got from a local Renault garage (second hand).
The first thing was to remove the original engine and gearbox then fit the 16V this was preassembled, this was lifted into the engine bay to check the clearances, the engine wouldn’t fit. The problem being the head is too big for the engine bay with the slam panel in place, this is the strip of metal that sits across the top of the radiator. This had to be removed, and as this is not structural it was cut out and replaced by a bolt in one.
The engine slotted in and located onto the same engine mounting positions as the original engine. As there is very little room to work on the engine when it is in position the bolt in slam panel has several benefits, one of them is that if the radiator ever needs any maintenance then the engine doesn’t have to be removed! Once the engine was in place all the ancillary components could then be located in the engine bay, remembering that if the engine had to be removed every thing would need to be removed at the same time. The ancillaries towards the top of the engine at the back with the relay box located behind the nearside headlamp, the battery was relocated inside to where the front passenger seat used to be located.
Connecting the new loom to the original loom caused a few headaches as there aren’t any decent manuals to help unless you pay for the full Renault workshop manual. The only thing you can do is buzz wires out with a digital meter and then crimp accordingly, I have built mine so that the whole loom including the relay box can be removed by disconnecting 5 crimps!
Part IV, now for the rest of the car!
The front suspension has been changed to Leda Height adjustable front struts with 2 ¼†diameter springs no helpers needed, brakes are Tarox 40 groove front discs and grooved drums at the rear. The exhaust is a 16V Clio Devil system. Seat is a Sparco Rev and seat belts are by Willans. A lifeline fire extinguisher is fitted along with a six point bolt in cage wheels a 5½" x 14" R21 wheels and 7" x 15" R25 wheels all 4 stud.
This whole project has taken sometime to complete but then I’m not working on the car every weekend so realistically this has probably taken 6 or 7 months in actual weekend time.
Part V, Thanks:
First Linda my wife for putting up with me.
James, Nigel, Nick, Matt for general help and advice.
Automotiff for help on the exhaust.
Clive for help on car electrics.
Retro-Renault would like to thank David for giving us this article to show on the forum.
Because the article was done in Word I have had to copy and paste it over here and the layout is now different.
Part I, how it started:
My car started life in 1988 as a Renault 5 GTX supplied to myself brand new from Tates of Brighton, and for several years was my main mode of transport although was well looked after being serviced every 6 months, the usual kind of thing.
In about 1993 I went to a sprint meeting at Goodwood and thought it looked like fun so I thought I would have a go but things being what they are it wasn’t until 1995 that I got around to working on the car and generally prepping it for sprints.
Part II, the build part I:
When I first started work on the car, the class I went in for was modified road going, this allows most things to be altered as long as the interior has standard seating configuration and the gearbox and engine as fitted in the factory.
The engine and gearbox remained the same exhaust was changed to a stainless GT Turbo one this just had the rear silencer which removed the collector and middle silencer as fitted on the standard model, the front suspension was changed to Koni gas adjustable dampers for a GT turbo with turbo top mounts so as not to give to much camber, Koni rears and 6 point roll cage (bolt in).
This, without too many changes was how the car stayed for following 5 years but because of the prohibitive cost of tuning the 1.7 the only way to improve performance is to either change the car or the engine.
To change the engine to a turbo would mean the car would be reclassified in the over 2 litre class, now I know people can do some pretty amazing stuff with turbo’s but I don’t think you could ever get any where near a RS500 lets say or a Evo 4/5/6/7 on performance so that was ruled out and I didn’t want to sell the car so that left me with trying to think of something else.
The only thing I could come up with was 16V engine from an Renault 19 16V. why not? There are plenty of them being broken up so they are cheap the block is the same as the 1.7 so it will fit, engine mounts are the same so no problem and with 137bhp with Cat’, heaps of power. I located one in a breaker's yard and went to pick it up, it came with ECU, loom, hoses, gearbox, starter motor and alternator - every thing I needed or so I thought.
Part III, the rebuild:
As can be seen from the picture below there is not a lot of room in the engine bay at the best of times but fitting this engine took a lot of time and trouble to work things out.
Where to fit the ECU?
How to get the engine in the engine bay without dismantling it?
Before all that though I needed to know that I had all the right bits.
A Haynes manual is about as good as you can get although this is not perfect. A kit of parts was drawn up this was as follows
Engine (Obviously)
Gearbox
ECU
Ignition Coil
MAP Sensor (short)
Water Pump (short)
Down Pipe (short)
Auxiliary Relay Box (short)
Loom
Water Pipes
The things that I was short of I got from a local Renault garage (second hand).
The first thing was to remove the original engine and gearbox then fit the 16V this was preassembled, this was lifted into the engine bay to check the clearances, the engine wouldn’t fit. The problem being the head is too big for the engine bay with the slam panel in place, this is the strip of metal that sits across the top of the radiator. This had to be removed, and as this is not structural it was cut out and replaced by a bolt in one.
The engine slotted in and located onto the same engine mounting positions as the original engine. As there is very little room to work on the engine when it is in position the bolt in slam panel has several benefits, one of them is that if the radiator ever needs any maintenance then the engine doesn’t have to be removed! Once the engine was in place all the ancillary components could then be located in the engine bay, remembering that if the engine had to be removed every thing would need to be removed at the same time. The ancillaries towards the top of the engine at the back with the relay box located behind the nearside headlamp, the battery was relocated inside to where the front passenger seat used to be located.
Connecting the new loom to the original loom caused a few headaches as there aren’t any decent manuals to help unless you pay for the full Renault workshop manual. The only thing you can do is buzz wires out with a digital meter and then crimp accordingly, I have built mine so that the whole loom including the relay box can be removed by disconnecting 5 crimps!
Part IV, now for the rest of the car!
The front suspension has been changed to Leda Height adjustable front struts with 2 ¼†diameter springs no helpers needed, brakes are Tarox 40 groove front discs and grooved drums at the rear. The exhaust is a 16V Clio Devil system. Seat is a Sparco Rev and seat belts are by Willans. A lifeline fire extinguisher is fitted along with a six point bolt in cage wheels a 5½" x 14" R21 wheels and 7" x 15" R25 wheels all 4 stud.
This whole project has taken sometime to complete but then I’m not working on the car every weekend so realistically this has probably taken 6 or 7 months in actual weekend time.
Part V, Thanks:
First Linda my wife for putting up with me.
James, Nigel, Nick, Matt for general help and advice.
Automotiff for help on the exhaust.
Clive for help on car electrics.
Retro-Renault would like to thank David for giving us this article to show on the forum.
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