Project X

Retroholic Joined: 12 Feb 2004 Posts: 5685

Soon to be named...

And yes, its a retro-renault

Retroholic Joined: 12 Feb 2004 Posts: 5685

Retroholic Joined: 12 Feb 2004 Posts: 5685

Ok, quick run down on the spec. Some isn't done yet so its subject to change!

1993 19 16v

Bodywork:

Smoothed bumpstrips etc
One off front bumper, currently held together with gaffer tape. To be replaced
One off purple metalflake respray, sparkly!

Suspension

GAZ Coilovers and adjusted rear torsion bar, lowered approx 100mm

Brakes

285mm Front Brake Conversion with matchin rear discs

Wheels/Tyres
16" OZ Saturn Plus with Goodyear Eagle F1's

Engine
Garrett T3 turbo running 0.65 Bar with 21 turbo injectors controlled by fastchip ECU.
Uprated clutch

I bought this as a slightly ropey unfinished project so the aim is to have it as a reliable everyday car. It will be in no way a show car!

Retroholic Joined: 12 Feb 2004 Posts: 5685

Feckin cars off the road for the minute due to a cracked sump. People were right when they said it was too low!

Progress wise i've gathered some 21 turbo injectors and a map sensor to go with my fastchip chip i should have any day now. This should let it run a bit more boost safely.

I went out and spent some of the hard earned on a new stereo and speakers for it the other day cos i was sick of not having any tunes. Picked up a fairly basic sony cd player, some jbl 6x9's for the rear and 5 1/4" jbls for the front.

Sorted out a tidy way of mounting 6x9s in the rear of a chamade if anyones interested.

Heres a few more pics show just how stupidly low it is lol

Retroholic Joined: 12 Feb 2004 Posts: 5685

Finally got a sump, cheers to infinicar!

While the car was off the road i decided to do a few of the odd jobs that needed doin.

First up was takin off the manifold/turbo/downpipe to sort out the leaking manifold. The whole lot is a bit ruff 'n' ready as its all homemade. Because of the welds on the manifold its impossible to get some of the nuts tightened home which has caused the gasket to blow. In the long term i'd like to replace the whole lot with somethin a bit tidier but for the minute it works so i'm happy enough.

Whoever done the conversion first replaced the oil pressure gauge sender with the turbo oil feed so the gauge never worked, not very good. I got a nice new stainless feed with a take off for a pressure sender so that'll be bolted on before replacing the manifold.

Went to fit my JRT big brake kit at the front as well, the drivers side went on fine but when i took the passanger caliper off i discovered that the threads in the hub were fucked. No problem i thought i'll throw the hub off my old 19 on it. Dug it out of my box of crap but the bearing was HANGING out of it so one will have to be pressed in before that goes on.

On to the sump...what a pain in the arse. All but 2 of the bolts came out no probs. The ones that caused the probly were in the ally casing on the timing belt side. I guess they're more liable to sieze in that or somethin. Managed to ring the torx heads on them in a matter of seconds which i was quite impressed with. It took well over an hour to chisel them out. Not helped by havin to use a blunt screw driver as a chisel!

Without an engine hoist or anything to use as one i've no way to lift the engine up enough for the sump to clear the subframe. Jimbo suggested tryin to remove the bearbox studs that it needs to slide off of but only 2 of them will come out. The other 2 are stuck solid.

So its still sittin there with the sump half hangin off and i'm not happy!

During the many frustration breaks i took fro the sump i put my low temp thermostat in and the 21 turbo injectors for the fastchip management.

Other than that i've just been tidyin it up a bit, moved the ICV, rerouted some of the wires etc.

I'll get some pics takin and put up asap

Retroholic Joined: 12 Feb 2004 Posts: 5685

Just some you all know, a hammer won't break the sump.

Retroholic Joined: 12 Feb 2004 Posts: 5685

Just a quick pic of the 285mm discs behind the 16's

Retroholic Joined: 12 Feb 2004 Posts: 5685

Finally got that arseache of a sump off with the help of a big tyre lever! That left enough room to get the rest of the studs out from the gearbox.

The new sump went on fairly easy after that.

Next job was to get the oil feed line on, after tightening it up it was clear that it was about 6 inches short, grrr. I got it from fastchip at the same time as getting my ECU chipped and unfortunately the manifold they use sits alot lower than mine so the old feed was put back on. Big shout out to grif who went down to bone on one of his knuckles tightening it up!

After getting the manifold back from getting the face skimmed and a few cracks rewelded i went about refitting it while grif went at finishing the brakes. Luckily the threads weren't as bad as i thought in the hub so they were rescued with a new bolt. The calipers got a coating of red gate paint to add a bit of a boyracerish look to it Wink

Manifold went on easyilt enough now that some of the welds had been ground off so you can get a spanner on them. T'was a joy to get them all tight!

When that was done we got busy fitting the blue hillpower pipes and the JRT alloy header thank.

Other bits done was replacing a few feet of vacuum hose with some nice blue stuff and makin it look semi tidy. Yes yes i know i should have pics up but i'm irish so once i start workin its best not to stop me cos it'll be 3 weeks before i start again Razz

Decided to treat it to a new oil filter with its new oil (boost 10w 40 semi-synth, nothin fancy) and coolant (renault type d, nice colour)

Anyways, everything was all tightened up and she was dropped from the axle stands for the first time in 2 weeks!

Theres was a bit of a reluctance to start it incase the manifold was still leaking but it had to be started sometime... She started first turn and settled to the smoothest quietest idle i've ever heard from a 19 16v! No doubt helped by the new coolant temperature sersor and lambda sensor thats gone on.

Time for the first test run on the new fastchip management, first impressions were very good. The car was pulling much smoother and the boost was coming in much lower which i guess is because the manifold isn't leakin valuable gasses anymore. Started to open it up a bit more when i heard the dreaded jingle jangle of the bastid pinking. Took it back to base and lifted the bonnet to be greeted by a turbo and manifold glowing, not good. First guess was thats its underfuelling so the 5th injector was hooked back up as well as the fastchip stuff. Took it for a run and it was a bit better but still had the same probs. On Jimbos recommendation i pulled the vac line off the fuel pressure regulator to have it runnin max pressure the whole time. Out for a run again and its definately pulling much better on boost but its also giving 2 foot flames on overrun, not just ordinary flames either we're talkin good long road lightin flames Very Happy

Just as we were comin home i was flickin thru the screens on my XRD and was looking at the MAP sensor reading and low and behold its not reading over 80 kPa. Now as you know 100kPa is atmospheric pressure so the underfuelling problem seems to be that the ECU still thinks the manifold pressure is 80kPa (-0.2BAR) and is only fuelling for that. By right max pressure at the manifold should be about 135-140kPa (5psi positive boost)

I'm going to order a new MAP sensor in the mornin and i've now learned my lesson on buyin somethin so important secondhand lol

Jobs that still need to be done:

Waiting on JR Tuning to get my rear pads in so i can collect my matching rear disc set.

The part of the bulkhead that was cut out (unnescessarily) to fit the turbo hasn't been replaced but as its non strutural i'm not too worried, its just untidy.

Theres a very slight oil leak from the engine so i wanna see where thats coming from. If its the sump i'll make sure i have an engine hoist handy this time! Its more than likely from the oil return from the turbo tho which i'm unsure how to fix...

Retroholic Joined: 12 Feb 2004 Posts: 5685

Shite, just got a mail from fastchip about the map sensor. Apperently the xrd needs to be calibrated for the 200kpa map sensor so theres a fair chance that it is in fact reading right. Not overly impressed with the car at the minute Sad

Retroholic Joined: 12 Feb 2004 Posts: 5685

Right, a further mail from Henk in fastchip. He's not comvinced the CR is lowered and i'm starting to doubt it too. Found a simple solution to the pinkin tho...AVGAS. 8 gallons of normal unleaded and 4 gallons of AVGAS. Oh yes please Very Happy

She was runnin sweet tonight on that cocktail, even managed to burst a boost pipe during some trashage. Luckily i'm a messy bastard so had the boot full of various pipes and tools so a quick roadside fix had her back as good as new.

I don't think avgas will be a practical solution tho so maybe some ordinary octane booster is in order. Don't really fancy takin the head of just yet

Retroholic Joined: 12 Feb 2004 Posts: 5685

Bah, fuel line decided to burst this mornin while i left the car idling. Doesn't take long for the last 4 gallons of petrol to be pumped out of the tank. Sad

No more avgas for the minute so i tried the normal 95ron stuff with some octane booster. Not too bad but starts to pink a bit at high revs in 4th an 5th

Retroholic Joined: 12 Feb 2004 Posts: 5685

Ok ok after countless PM's (well you can't count to zero can you...) i'm managing to update the report.

Since last time:

Fuel line has been fixed, just lobbed the burst end off and refitted it. With a mixture of 98 fuel and booster she runs sweet as a nut. I've recently got my hands on a few gallons of avgas so that'll be mixed up and ready for use.

About a week ago we fitted my new back box, i nice little 4" F1-X stainless job. Thanks to Alan from fast cars, fast bikes for the use of his workshop and his handiness with a MIG. While we were at the exhaust we welded in a flexijoint to the downpipe to allow a bit of movement.

As per usual the cars off the road, this time i've managed to blew a 1" hole in the exhaust manifold and despite the v8 rumbleness i parked it up. Attempts by Alan to patch the hole with in on the car failed so it was the final straw for the poxy botched manifold. A little bit of surfin the net showed BB performance are sellin their turbo conversion parts seperately...

A bit of a wrestle with the credit card seen a manifold, turbo and downpipe bein ordered from them. Bein from southern ireland i was able to get the vat off so they wrren't TOO dear altho still more than i paid for the whole car LOL

They should arrive in the next few days so i'll be sure to take a few pics of the new gear and the ugly excuse for a manifold thats on at the minute.

My new rear discs arrived from jr-tuning (a match of my drilled 285mm fronts) so they'll be fitted at the same time as the new turbo.

Cheers to JB for the manifold studs i'll need for that!

Retroholic Joined: 12 Feb 2004 Posts: 5685

Yey turbo and bits arrived today!

Pics:

Turbo

Manifold

Downpipe:

Retroholic Joined: 12 Feb 2004 Posts: 5685

Couldn't wait to start fittin all the gubbins as you can imagine. Got it into the workshop around 6 this evening

I had intended to pull off the old manifold and stuff but laziness got the better of me and i never bothered so first job was takin that off. Bloody well used to pullin it off at this stage so we had that done relatively quickly. Again i'm gonna give a big shout out to JB for the manifold studs that went on next!

Pulled off the old oil feed and went about fitting the new one. Oh look chets lost one of the adapter pieces! Off i went to the house in search of it, had a smoke on the way up. Yey found it sitting in oil in the bottom of my old sump. With that sorted we were a good bloody hour trying to figure out which way all the adapters and bits went. Funnily enough it all came preassembled but for some reason i took it apart Smile

Next up, the manifold. Despite tripping over it for the last 2 months my spare manifold gasket has disappeared. Off i went up to the house again, had a smoke. No gasket. The old one (only on since the old manifold was skimmed) was usable tho so on it went. The manifold looks like it'd be nice and easy to fit but i can assure you it isn't, it leaves no room to get a turn on a spanner or a socket on it, i suspect it was designed by Renault. Got there in the end tho.

Time to bolt the turbo on!! Yey it fits the manifold, result. Again i believe this was designed by Renault due to lack of common sence used in designin. Do these people not realise people are going to want to fit these?! Anyway, its on. All we ned to do now is stick the new oil feed on...you think that was easy? NO!! Grif bein the brains of the operation figured it out tho. It was suggested it didn't fit right cos i had took it all apart, i don't agree, at all. This new turbo has a coolant feed aswell so that was plumbed in without much fuss

Heres a pic of the manifold and turbo in place

It sits so much lower than my old one, its a pity really cos you can barely see it when you look under the bonnet, theres just a hole!

Downpipe went on next, fits lovely, clears the rack perfectly. We were just thinkin its too good to be true when it became horribly clear it was. The flange on the downpipe is different to the the one on the exhaust. Same shape but different sizes. Shite. A trip to alans is in order, god loves a mig Very Happy

A quick look at the clock and it was half 12. Where the 6 hours went i'll never no but we called it a night

Still to do:

Sort exhaust

Run pipework. With the turbo sitting so low now space is very tight. I think i'll have to move some of the water pipes a bit.

I think thats it for now. I plan on gettin up early in the mornin to run the pipework so i can get it down to alans. Really don't fancy drivin with just a downpipe tho lol

I got you all a pic of the front brakes finally!

Retroholic Joined: 12 Feb 2004 Posts: 5685

You may have noticed how close the turbo is to the 2 brake fluid pipes, we'll be sorting that

Retroholic Joined: 12 Feb 2004 Posts: 5685

As promised i got up super early (12) and headed to the workshop.

The head was a bit clearer than last night so a logical plan was drawn up... 'make it work'

The only way to have any room for the turbo outlet is to have it pointing back towards the block so the pipe has to come off the turbo and immediately at a right angle to come out over the gearbox. Anyone thats familar with the 19 cooling system will know the stupid twin metal pipe that runs along side the head and has a number of loops in it. Speak now if this is important because its in the bin and the hoses rerouted to suit.

With that mess sorted we were free to run the pipes to the intercooler.

Its amazin how when i write it here it seems like feck all work but in reality this took 2 of us the guts of 4 hours!

We towed it down the road to alans to sort the exhaust. I had already known the downpipe wouldn't be straight forward cos it says on BB's site **This pipe is constructed for the clios, it will fit the R19 with slight fabrication.**

Didn't expect to have to chop the feckin thing up tho!

With a bit of grinding and welding it was all sorted. woohoo!

Right then, lets start it up! Batterys late...jump start..she runs! Bleed the coolant system. Done. Oil leak from the turbo oilfeed, shite. How was i to know i should have used a copper washer! Sorted. Water leak, tits. How was i to know i was to tighten all the screws in the thermostat housing! Sorted...

Righty, to the pics

The engine bay as she stands, bit of a jungle!

Ppttsscchhhh!

My relocated ICV

Turbo all plumbed in (No air filter tho)

Boost hoses. the airfilter now comes straight from the turbo on the end of another stainless pipe and sits over the chassis rail

Breather filter

Retroholic Joined: 12 Feb 2004 Posts: 5685

Oh, some of you might actually want to know how it runs...i knew i forgot something.

At the min its set at 4psi till the turbo gets used to its new surroundings. First impressions are very good. Depite bein a bigger turbo than the last one it spools much much quicker.

Time will tell how she goes on more boost. Really need to lower the CR tho. Watch this space for a timing belt/headgasket change!

Retroholic Joined: 12 Feb 2004 Posts: 5685

Still running 4psi and still having lots and lots of fun. The drone from the LHR wheel bearing got too much to take so we finally put the new rear discs on. I say we but in real terms i didn't do a whole lot. Laziness is a terrible thing

Retroholic Joined: 12 Feb 2004 Posts: 5685

Discovered the hose going to the trottle body was leaking boost so the car spent the day in alans where we done all the boost/induction pipework in stainless. Once done it brought about a slight rise in pressure, we're now reaching the dizzy height of 5psi and it is spooling quicker than before.

Bought a new air filter today to replace the battered k&n

Pics:

Retroholic Joined: 12 Feb 2004 Posts: 5685

Project ended, see here