rabbitstew
Active Member
Hi All,
Im a long time 5 GTT Owner, having bought my first one in around 1994 and after owning and tuning a couple ive had my current 1988 Phase 2 one since about 1995/1996. I bought it as a shed back then and decided to tune it up how I wanted it. Id never been one for mad bodykits, so kept the car looking as standard as possible but did all the tuning under the bonnet. Back then it was a pretty mental car and very little local to me could even come close to it performance wise. I had loads of fun over the years until it became a bit impractical for work, so I took the car off the road in about 2001/2002 and its been in my garage ever since. Family commitments and DIY on various houses unfortunately took up all my spare time over the years.
Anyway, after finding myself with a few spare hours each week over the last 12 months I started working with the spanners on my Yamaha R1 and Ducati 996 and got them running nicely. I soon found I had got the bug back to get all greasy in the garage and decided to finally start giving my 5 some love. Im lucky in that ive always been handy with the spanners and over the years ive built up quite a good collection of tools so I will be doing all the work myself which will help cut down some of the costs. I had started turning the car into a track car back in about 2003/2004 so a lot of the OE interior trim has long since been ditched, so rather than try to turn it back into an OE car, I will replace all the knackered bits with performance pieces. The bodywork/styling I will keep stock as I like it. Standard bodykit, bumpers, spoiler. The wheels are not OE as I upgraded them to 15" at some point in the past and the suspension sits a bit lower on Jamex springs with Spax adjustable shocks. Interior long since went and ive already a proper 6 point cage, harnesses and buckets, so they will stay for the time being.
The first thing I noticed in getting back into the 5GTT scene is that things had moved on seriously since I was into the 5 tuning scene back in 1993/1994. Back then the RGTT owners club was fairly small and me & other guys used to spend ages on the phone talking about tuning tips and ideas we had come up with. The main company back then was GT Tuning and people such as K-Tec wasnt even a name to us back then. It was well before the mad "Ali G" Max Power type days of people using mad bodykits and colours etc. I remember most people back in the old days tended to go for what was commonly called a "stage 1" level of tune. Of course each manufactorer had different ideas and claims, but roughly speaking "stage 1" meant a bleed value to increase boost from about 8psi to 14psi, a strap for your intercooler to stop the plastic ends blowing off, and a bigger carb jet... typically a 135 main jet. You`d normally bung a different exhaust on and air filter. On the road the difference was quite noticeable and cheap. I remember I went a stage further with a T25 hybrid turbo (wish I could remember what spec it was now!) and subsequent heavy duty clutch to handle the power, and then after chatting to another guy in the owners club I got in touch with Portformance who ported out/gasflowed the head, carb and manifolds on my car. They got about 17% more flow through the engine and on the road I noticed immediately that at standard boost the car felt like it was running 14/15psi but it was much more responsive. To sort out the fueling at 20psi the recommendation from the tuners at the time was to just bung a big 160 mains jet into the heavily bored out/gasflowed stock carb (which apparently is all frowned on these days). I was worried about overfueling but at idle it passed the MOT emission test fine and on the road it seemed okay. Although the soot in the tailpipe would tell me its running a bit rich.
Anyway roll on to 2014 and I start googling and im amazed now at how things have moved on, EFI injection systems welded to stock manifolds, electronic boost values, so you can plug an ECU into it all and map it how you want, AFR gauges. Even engine transplants with clio units.... Some cars putting out 300/500 bhp now... mad and all very exciting to me! All the "old school" tuning seems to be out of the window now and a whole new era actually came in and went in the time my cars been in the garage off the road.
My plan really atm is to get the car back on the road, through its MOT and replacing everything which needs to be done with performance bits. So, ive new brakes, bearings, ball joints, brake pads, calipers, brake lines, brake hoses, brake bias valve, brake master cylinder, wishbone mounts, seat mounts, fuel lines, fuel pump, plus all the service bits like new plugs, leads, dizzy cap, fuel filter, oil filter, air filter etc... Then as the old radiator is knackered ive a double capacity alloy one, a big alloy front mounted intercooler, a mocal oil cooler, new pipes, silicone hoses, water pump, alternator, starter motor, new 2.5inch exhaust system, new alloy carb top and thats about it. Only bit im not touching atm is the engine/head/carb as I want to get it on a rolling road in its "old school" spec to see exactly what power it was kicking out. Estimates at the time were around the 200bhp mark with the work on it, but we all know that unless you have the rolling road print out it could be anything! Once I have a base line figure and can see how healthy the old lump is, I can decide what approach to take going forward. I have however bought an AFR gauge/sensor which I will plug in as im dying to now how good/bad my carb set up is!
The other big challenge I have is the dreaded rust. Having left the car outside parked up against the side of my house for about 12 months, upon jacking the car up to look at the front suspension it soon became apparent that the passengers side underside isnt great. So ive had to weld in new front jacking point and do some sill repairs as I work back to wards the rear wheel.... where I can see that the rear jacking point is also looking a bit worse for wear.
Anyhow thats an intro to me, im on other forums, so you may recognise my username from there. Ive also setup a blog so you can follow my build progress and see photos - link is in my signature.
Looking forward to getting to know everyone.
Im a long time 5 GTT Owner, having bought my first one in around 1994 and after owning and tuning a couple ive had my current 1988 Phase 2 one since about 1995/1996. I bought it as a shed back then and decided to tune it up how I wanted it. Id never been one for mad bodykits, so kept the car looking as standard as possible but did all the tuning under the bonnet. Back then it was a pretty mental car and very little local to me could even come close to it performance wise. I had loads of fun over the years until it became a bit impractical for work, so I took the car off the road in about 2001/2002 and its been in my garage ever since. Family commitments and DIY on various houses unfortunately took up all my spare time over the years.
Anyway, after finding myself with a few spare hours each week over the last 12 months I started working with the spanners on my Yamaha R1 and Ducati 996 and got them running nicely. I soon found I had got the bug back to get all greasy in the garage and decided to finally start giving my 5 some love. Im lucky in that ive always been handy with the spanners and over the years ive built up quite a good collection of tools so I will be doing all the work myself which will help cut down some of the costs. I had started turning the car into a track car back in about 2003/2004 so a lot of the OE interior trim has long since been ditched, so rather than try to turn it back into an OE car, I will replace all the knackered bits with performance pieces. The bodywork/styling I will keep stock as I like it. Standard bodykit, bumpers, spoiler. The wheels are not OE as I upgraded them to 15" at some point in the past and the suspension sits a bit lower on Jamex springs with Spax adjustable shocks. Interior long since went and ive already a proper 6 point cage, harnesses and buckets, so they will stay for the time being.
The first thing I noticed in getting back into the 5GTT scene is that things had moved on seriously since I was into the 5 tuning scene back in 1993/1994. Back then the RGTT owners club was fairly small and me & other guys used to spend ages on the phone talking about tuning tips and ideas we had come up with. The main company back then was GT Tuning and people such as K-Tec wasnt even a name to us back then. It was well before the mad "Ali G" Max Power type days of people using mad bodykits and colours etc. I remember most people back in the old days tended to go for what was commonly called a "stage 1" level of tune. Of course each manufactorer had different ideas and claims, but roughly speaking "stage 1" meant a bleed value to increase boost from about 8psi to 14psi, a strap for your intercooler to stop the plastic ends blowing off, and a bigger carb jet... typically a 135 main jet. You`d normally bung a different exhaust on and air filter. On the road the difference was quite noticeable and cheap. I remember I went a stage further with a T25 hybrid turbo (wish I could remember what spec it was now!) and subsequent heavy duty clutch to handle the power, and then after chatting to another guy in the owners club I got in touch with Portformance who ported out/gasflowed the head, carb and manifolds on my car. They got about 17% more flow through the engine and on the road I noticed immediately that at standard boost the car felt like it was running 14/15psi but it was much more responsive. To sort out the fueling at 20psi the recommendation from the tuners at the time was to just bung a big 160 mains jet into the heavily bored out/gasflowed stock carb (which apparently is all frowned on these days). I was worried about overfueling but at idle it passed the MOT emission test fine and on the road it seemed okay. Although the soot in the tailpipe would tell me its running a bit rich.
Anyway roll on to 2014 and I start googling and im amazed now at how things have moved on, EFI injection systems welded to stock manifolds, electronic boost values, so you can plug an ECU into it all and map it how you want, AFR gauges. Even engine transplants with clio units.... Some cars putting out 300/500 bhp now... mad and all very exciting to me! All the "old school" tuning seems to be out of the window now and a whole new era actually came in and went in the time my cars been in the garage off the road.
My plan really atm is to get the car back on the road, through its MOT and replacing everything which needs to be done with performance bits. So, ive new brakes, bearings, ball joints, brake pads, calipers, brake lines, brake hoses, brake bias valve, brake master cylinder, wishbone mounts, seat mounts, fuel lines, fuel pump, plus all the service bits like new plugs, leads, dizzy cap, fuel filter, oil filter, air filter etc... Then as the old radiator is knackered ive a double capacity alloy one, a big alloy front mounted intercooler, a mocal oil cooler, new pipes, silicone hoses, water pump, alternator, starter motor, new 2.5inch exhaust system, new alloy carb top and thats about it. Only bit im not touching atm is the engine/head/carb as I want to get it on a rolling road in its "old school" spec to see exactly what power it was kicking out. Estimates at the time were around the 200bhp mark with the work on it, but we all know that unless you have the rolling road print out it could be anything! Once I have a base line figure and can see how healthy the old lump is, I can decide what approach to take going forward. I have however bought an AFR gauge/sensor which I will plug in as im dying to now how good/bad my carb set up is!
The other big challenge I have is the dreaded rust. Having left the car outside parked up against the side of my house for about 12 months, upon jacking the car up to look at the front suspension it soon became apparent that the passengers side underside isnt great. So ive had to weld in new front jacking point and do some sill repairs as I work back to wards the rear wheel.... where I can see that the rear jacking point is also looking a bit worse for wear.
Anyhow thats an intro to me, im on other forums, so you may recognise my username from there. Ive also setup a blog so you can follow my build progress and see photos - link is in my signature.
Looking forward to getting to know everyone.
