i know a few of you have done this and what i'm asking is how have you all got on after it was done?? i.e how reliable is your car now? would you say it was all worth it??

i'm now getting to the point where i have some savings that i could use to buy the turbo kit and i've also got a clear visa!!! but i'm not sure if i want to spend any more money on the cinq or just go for something a bit faster anyway????

i'd rather keep the cinq though!

any of you got a second hand turbo kit for sale??? if you do,pm me please! i'm def. interested but only in the low compression bolt on kit and only for reasonable money dont offer me one £100 cheaper than van aaken sell it for be reasonable!

brickfoot how did you get on with your conversion???

doh! just did a search and noticed brickfoot is selling his cinq :-(

i also noticed in his description that he doesnt have the turbo kit on the car??? anyone know why? was it too hard to fit? i remember some of the bits you needed were missing,did you ever get them???

Not selling the Cinq anymore Fimmo?

You'd need to swop bumpers with me if you were fitting a Turbo! LOL

Liam

was going to get a mark 1 mr2 to go with my mark 2 but in the end i have so much fun driving the cinq i couldnt let it go plus mark 1 mr2's rust so quickly,to be honest i couldnt be bothered fixing one up i'd rather spend the money getting the cinq turbo'd!!

anyway,with a turbo in place i think my front bumper will be brilliant at keeping my under bonnet temp down dont you think????

Yeah, it'll be fine, should've realised your too clever to let your gorgeous bumper go so easy!

I take it you don't like fitting front end's to cars every six months then?

Liam

plus.....i got a lot of interest from people that know me and know my car from up here in fife and all i was asking was £900 for it but in the end no one came forward with the cash?? i'm still getting people asking about it but it got annoying so to convince myself to keep it i went today and ordered a set of 4 falken 195/45/14 tyre's to replace the one's on it.

the one's that are on it are just ok and no more (i'm keeping two of them for spares!) but i want brand new rubber for the winter!

fimmo said:

i know a few of you have done this and what i'm asking is how have you all got on after it was done?? i.e how reliable is your car now? would you say it was all worth it??

i'm now getting to the point where i have some savings that i could use to buy the turbo kit and i've also got a clear visa!!! but i'm not sure if i want to spend any more money on the cinq or just go for something a bit faster anyway????

i'd rather keep the cinq though!

any of you got a second hand turbo kit for sale??? if you do,pm me please! i'm def. interested but only in the low compression bolt on kit and only for reasonable money dont offer me one £100 cheaper than van aaken sell it for be reasonable!

brickfoot how did you get on with your conversion???

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Hi,

I didn't do the turbo conversion myself as it already had a Van Aaken Hi-boost turbo when I bought it, but having run turbo cars for the past 7 years (Renault 5 GT Turbo's, Integrale EVO) and in the process of getting to know the Cinq a bit better I would recommend that before commencing on any conversion to turbo, get a cylinder head leak down test done, it will show any faults in the head/gasket/block, and completely flush your cooling system, renew antifreeze/summer coolant with a top quality 50% mix solution, and if any doubt exists over the integrity of any hoses, clips, connections renew them now as compressed air is way hotter than air at atmospheric pressure, therefore exposing any weaknesses. The front bumper on my car has been meshed to increase air flow to the rad and the inter-cooler plus I'm in the process of sorting out a Mocal oil cooler as I believe all turbos cars should have one as the oil is exposed to the incredible high temperatures a turbo creates.

Most turbo cars have a bad rep for reliability but this is mainly on account of unreliable owners not appreciating the much higher levels of maintenance you have to do. First and foremost replace oil every 3000miles with good quality oil, but not anything lower than 10w (Castrol RS 10w 60 is ace) as it's so thin it slips past the oil seals in the turbo and burns off, plugs every 6000m coolant every 2 years or 18000miles, cam-belts half the recommend intervals before the turbo was added. And this is very important, always, let the car cool down and idle after driving it, especially if you have been roasting it as the oil needs time to cool and circulate around the turbo, if you just switch off the oil evaporates and next time you start up the turbo spins with no oil, which leads to expensive failure. I always stuck to these rules and reliable ran 188bhp 212lb/torque from a Renault 5 for 3 years as an everyday driver with out one breakdown, and it had over 100,000miles on the clock. I've only had the Cinq a few weeks now but had it up and down t London twice covering over a 1000miles without a hitch and cruising at 90mph happily, with bursts upto an indicated 120mph.

As i get to know the Cinq better I will be posting up the improvements I make on the Van Aaken kit, i.e. oil cooler, low temp rad switch to turn fan on about 10 degrees cooler than standard, once I source one etc

I can't comment on the low boost bolt on kit, but I'm sure it will be worth it but only if done properly, a half done kit leads to twice the problems :bang:

Aaron.

cheers for that aaron!!! very informative and i'll take it all into account!

I've had a low boost 1108, turned it into a low boost 1242 recently. Stands up well, the oil cooler is a must though, I'd agree with Aaron - worrying how quick the oil temp rises when you give it some.
If you're having an 1108 converted, I'd suggest changing the head gasket for an uprated Spesso one and checking the head face for marking as a precaution - any weaknesses are gonna be found after the conversion is done.

The 1108 got thoroughly caned, did a couple of laps of the TT circuit at full whack. Spent ages in the red, running up to 7k and it wouldn't die. Which was nice.

1242 turbo feels smoother and sounds nicer, bags more mid range too - has made a few owners of standard centos giggle when they drove it.

I have a fan bypass switch on both my centos so I can switch the radiator fan on whenever I wish, for the amount it costs to do I'd say it's worth it. Can be used to keep the water and oil temp right down, especially when you come to rest afrer a fast stretch.

i see your cinq in kirkcaldy a lot

a lot of people do ;-]

it's not exactly subtle is it!!!

I have a fan bypass switch on both my centos so I can switch the radiator fan on whenever I wish, for the amount it costs to do I'd say it's worth it. Can be used to keep the water and oil temp right down, especially when you come to rest afrer a fast stretch.[/QUOTE]


This was how i did it on my first 5 GT Turbo, but as the modifiers became more informed about the car, most companies introduced a low temp thermostatic switch for the fan which makes better sense as the gauge can vary from one car to the next giving varying degrees of inaccuracy & when doing it visually this is what you rely on (tho it is still a good back up with a hidden switch under the dash), but the thermo. switch always comes on at the same temp. On first look, I think the rad switch looks the same as a Renault one, so may buy one to try, they usually switch on at something like 88degrees and off again at 78-80ish which is better than the 95 on, off 90ish as standard on the cinq. of course one other thing they so on the 5's is have a lower thermostat as well, again opening 10ish degrees cooler alloying the coolant to flow through the rad the little bit earlier, this i haven't looked at yet, but once I have I'll post my findings as the Cinq was bought as my daily commuter car, so has to be reliable, and this means removing any uncertainty over the durability of it under sustained high temperatures. One pointer though I can give now, again from my 5 days, at the top of the bulk head you have a seal for under the bonnet, if you remove this seal and cut it down so that it only seals in front of and extended by about 60mm each side off the air intake for the ventilation (don't want any fumes in the car) this lets hot air out of the back of the engine bay, especially when traveling at speed as there's a bit of a vacuum created at the bottom of the windscreen that draws the air out

Rallycinq has an bonnet vent which is facing the window i.e. scoop not opening front wards to draw hot air away and he hasn't got a turbo.

Liam

how much do the bits cost? is diy poss?

bloomfieldliam said:

Rallycinq has an bonnet vent which is facing the window i.e. scoop not opening front wards to draw hot air away and he hasn't got a turbo.

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But he has got a sumpguard which stops hot air being drawn away under the car, hence the bonnet vent sitting in the low pressure area near the front of the bonnet.

Cheers

D

Is there any likelyhood that vanaaken will be discontinuing the low boost kit anytime soon i'm quite worried that i won't be able to get hold of one of these or the novitec. i can't think of it at the mo because of insurance (i'm only 20) but i'd love to turbo my cinq

I'm sure you could get the parts from other cars/sources and make it up yourself.

Liam