Renault 5 GT Turbo Tuning

"The impressive R5 GT Turbo."

This will just be a basic guideline for anyone whos a bit of a newbie to the Renault 5 tuning scene and was written by one of our forum members - BluntyR5GTT.

If you want more information or would like to swap your Renault 5 GT Turbo tuning suggesions with other owners please join our friendly forum.

5 GT Turbo Power mods.

 

Please watch our video which covers the 5 principles of tuning your 5 GT Turbo. Be sure to keep up with our latest YouTube content and subscribe.

Best mods for your 5 GT Turbo

  1. Remaps - A Remapped 5 GT Turbo ECU provides the most advantage for the money, aftermarket ECUs, and Tuning boxes are all alternatives.
  2. Fast road cams are are often the best upgrade for an engine, but they must be fitted by someone who knows what they are doing and they are not always easy to source but you might find a local firm to regrind a stock camshaft.
  3. Intake and Exhaust Upgrades - Please note that on their own these mods will NOT ADD POWER in most cases, but they can help enhance power after other mods by removing the restriction.
  4. 5 GT Turbo Handling Mods (suspension) - Upgrading your suspension greatly enhances your 5 GT Turbo road holding and cornering. Adjustable coilovers and better bushings are what is needed here.
  5. Brake Mods - Improve your 5 GT Turbo's stopping power needs to be high on your agenda.
  6. Forced induction upgrades - A New Turbo is the most efficient approach to increase air supply, allowing you to burn more fuel and make more power. Although one of the most costly upgrades you'll see massive gains.
  7. Internal engine mods - crank, pistons, conrods & compression ratio including balancing and blueprinting

5 GT Turbo Tuning Stages

Typical stage 1 mods often include: Sports exhaust, Engine Tunes/Remapping, Alloy wheels, Lighter flywheel, Panel air filter, Suspension upgrade (drop 26mm - 41 mm.).

Typical stage 2 mods often include: fuel pump upgrades, Ported and polished head, high flow fuel injector, Power/Sport clutch, Fast road cam.

Typical stage 3 mods often include: Competition cam, Sports gearbox, Internal engine upgrades (pistons/head/valves), Adding or upgrading forced induction (turbo/supercharger), Engine balancing.

5 GT Turbo Intake and Exhaust Tuning.

Breathing mods are usually next up.

Contrary to popular belief there is usually very little power gain reached by fitting an induction kit, they only work well and are recommended after you increase the engines power to the point where the standard air intake box cannot cope!

Maximum power gains come from a full induction kit with a cold air feed on heavily tuned engines, this can be sited within an air box but a performance panel filter should suffice for most applications. TorqueCars suggest you use a panel air filter as these are easy to clean and maintain and generally perform better than paper ones.

As with any car the first job is to free up the breathing so a nice full exhaust system is in order the bigger pipe bore the better (up to a point).

Then to compliment this either a full one piece 2.5 " elbow and downpipe from BJR or a slightly cheaper option of the Ktec 2.5" downpipe and get your existing elbow bored out, and make sure the throat and bend is worked on as well.

Also its a good idea to uprate the air filter and if losing the standard air box then try to mount as far away from turbo as possible. These mods are what many class as essential first steps before doing anything else as now the restrictive standard parts of the gas/airflow have been freed up. Paragraph 1

The Renault 5 was an extremely quick and capable car, and in it's time would show up the competitions hot hatches. With modern tuning parts it can keep up and show a clean pair of heels to modern hot hatches.

Next its time to get the boost turned up you can do this by either fitting a bleed valve under the bonnet or an in car boost controller (personally we would suggest you go for bleed valve as its too tempting to keep winding the boost).

Once either of these is fitted the most you can safely turn the boost up to on a standard T2 unit is around 16psi (obviously dependign on the condition of your engine). This mod coupled with the above breathing mods makes for a very rapid little car.

At this point we would like to add that the fuelling will need looking at and possibly different jets either main or 2nd stage fitted. Also when running more boost a 0.9 air corrector is a good idea to have (we wont keep repeating this about jetting etc as everyones spec and engine seems to react differently so there is really no rule of thumb regarding which is the best for each level of tune).

At this stage its very important to at least upgrade the intercooler to a double capacity one or if funds will allow a front mount intercooler (adding one of these will give the ideal place for an aftermarket air filter and cold air feed).

Now like anyone the craving for more is always there.

Whilst the T2 Turbo is a cracking responsive little turbo its just no good for a serious power increase.

There are countless different specs of turbos out there so take your time in choosing one that suits your driving style and what exactly you want from the engine.

One of our members has gone for a hybrid t25/t2 with a .63 rear this for him it was perfect as the lag will not be increased by more than around 300-400rpm and it will give alot bigger gains than the stock T2 and pull alot better higher up the revs.

The most popular turbo we see is a full T25 turbo! You need to be careful what rear housing you go for as this will add to the lag but this seems to be about the limit for a fast road turbo as after this they start to become a bit of a lag monster eg hybrid T25/T3 , T28 but these make serious power so if your going for a drag or track car these are going to be best.

Next we move onto cams and headwork now and after quite a lot of asking around and speaking to other GT Turbo tuners on this and we conclude that unless you want 200bhp or more then you shouldn't bother.

It is worth noting that a Piper ultimate road 285 cam wont really work well with anything less than full T25 @ 20psi - we cant comment on this as we've not experienced it. Please let us know in our forum if you have experience with this setup.

Renault 5 GT Turbo Camshafts

Piper also offer a fast road 270 degree cam and maybe this would work with the hybrid t25/t2 turbo at around 18psi but our member Blunty tells us "this is something im unsure of unless i try it ( wink wink).

Also headwork regardless of what anyone says if you have the head off for any reason is a must as a better flowing head is always going to be a benefit no matter what the level of tune your engine is also why the head is off make sure you replace the gaskets with a group A gasket set".

Porting the Renault 5 GT Turbo

Another note on Renault 5 GT engine tuning - if your really serious about getting the best flow then look at getting the inlet manifold ported and de burred as it is a tad restritive and then look at getting the carb top gas flowed

5 GT Turbo Handling/Suspension upgrades

Handling modifications are at the top of your mod list for the 5 GT Turbo.

Now obviously like with most cars its a good idea to get the suspension uprated either with lowering springs or a full kit and always look at upgrading the brakes either by fitting better discs and pads or going for a big brake upgrade.

If going for big brakes either ktec recing or cgb motorsport do the kit, as they up it to 285mm on the front. There are many different sets of upgraded pads and discs for the r5 gtt iv always fount that ebc make good discs and greenstuff pads seem to work well.

Adding better brake discs and better quality pads should make for dramatically enhanced stopping.

Note that race pads can grind and will need to be really hot before they bite.

On your regular commute to work the brakes are only applied now and then and won't be as effective at slowing you up so choose brake pads which work well in daily use.

Tuning tips and articles

Engine tuning Transmission tuning Care care Intake & exhaust mods Improve handling Forums

5 GT Turbo Alloy wheel upgrades.

Alloy wheels can help the brakes cool down and are usually less heavy than steel ones. Don't forget that your choice of rubber greatly affects your cars grip and handling.

It is not worth compromising performance with cheap tyres when you can buy directional tread pattern performance tires.

We should point out that although they can look cool on the 5 GT Turbo big alloy wheels will actually decrease your performance. The larger you go the lower your acceleration will be - this to the change in your effective final drive ratio.

When it comes to choosing wheels it is possible to fit 17" rims on them but it takes alot of work and you will lose the handling qualities of the car. The best size is around 15" really and popular Renault spec upgrades are the mk1 clio 16v turbines or mk2 clio alloys also Ronal turbos look amazing on the 5 gtt but alloy choice is always down to the owner and for me the alloys make or break a car

Because of this we would advise sticking to a maximum wheel size of 15 inches, although we know some of our members have fitted larger wheels with no problems.

Renault 5 GT Turbo Tyres

Choosing tyres is subjective but Blunty recommends his personal favourite choice, the uniroyal rainsport 2s. Someone told him they are more for the wet to which his response was, "well compare the days the roads are wet or dry in the UK. Also dont be fooled by this as these tyres are better in the dry than any toyo proxes or yoko parada etc."

If your a bit more serious about handling then fit front and rear strut braces this will also help stiffen the chassis and no doubt help you if doing trackdays or some seirously hard driving.

The 5 gt turbo is one awesome track toy once set up right. Keeping on the trackday lines is great fun, and, even though the 5 gt turbo is a light car (around 830-860kg)  a bit of weight loss can be had by removing the back seats and even adding perspex windows then its an ideal time to get a nice cage in there this will really help stiffen what already is a great little chassis up.

As said this is a pretty basic guide if anyone would like to add or comment on this that would be great and appreciated in this forum thread.

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One Response to “Renault 5 GT turbo tuning”

  1. alen yammine says:

    plz can i u tell me what can i do with my stock engine renault 5 gtt (c1j fase 2) with water,what can i do to cutsh the 220 hp

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