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1987 Renault GTA :: Gone to a new home


PhilA

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35 minutes ago, junkyarddog said:

Would be interesting to hear the back story on that car,how did it end up there with only 800 miles on it?

Do yards over there sell complete cars,or does it have to be scrapped?

They'll usually sell you the whole car.

Possibility of superb* build quality occurring.

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The hood on that is absolutely immense:

  • Shoddy press stud attachment
  • Totally square for easy fabrication
  • Hood fabric looks like it could have been glued together by a 4 year old

The best part - this is a manufacturer / time period combo where that hood could conceivably be either factory finish or a DIY conversion.

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16 minutes ago, Dave_Q said:

The hood on that is absolutely immense:

  • Shoddy press stud attachment
  • Totally square for easy fabrication
  • Hood fabric looks like it could have been glued together by a 4 year old

The best part - this is a manufacturer / time period combo where that hood could conceivably be either factory finish or a DIY conversion.

The other sad thing is that car started as a coupé, they chopped the roof off at the factory, added a couple hundred lbs of metal into the floor to help SAAB syndrome and then put a fully automatic electric roof on.

Not what you'd expect from Renault's second cheapest model of the era.

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18 minutes ago, PhilA said:

The other sad thing is that car started as a coupé, they chopped the roof off at the factory, added a couple hundred lbs of metal into the floor to help SAAB syndrome and then put a fully automatic electric roof on.

Not what you'd expect from Renault's second cheapest model of the era.

 

Par for the course for any ASC (American Sunroof Company) chop-top conversions done in the 1980s.  Funny thing is this was actually better then most of their efforts at the time!

 

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Ah, ASC. Imagine what they charged Saab for this 'roof control module'. Chock full of non-replaceable relays and mounted in a totally OTT aluminium case.

I was really lucky to find a working replacement for £25 or so that fixed my rear window and rear boot release.

IMG_20211009_101135567_HDR.jpg

IMG_20211007_161636555.jpg

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3 hours ago, junkyarddog said:

Would be interesting to hear the back story on that car,how did it end up there with only 800 miles on it?

Do yards over there sell complete cars,or does it have to be scrapped?

I do wonder if it's unsold stock. Alliance wasn't a stellar success in USA. I'm sure @PhilA can give us chapter and verse on their story. But the summary is: French eighties cars + fussy American customers = warranty hell. 

Also, that 9 convertible is hilariously shit. I mean it makes a Yugo look classy. 

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3 hours ago, grogee said:

What are these white things? Dehumidifiers?

Screenshot_20220118-173717.png

Looks like a couple crappy speakers.

 

It could have been unsold stock, yes. People didn't really like the Alliance because a) it required maintaining and b) the company doing the maintenance disappeared shortly after they sold them.

Phil

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2 hours ago, Dick Longbridge said:

Are these basically the same turbo lump the Uk Renault 9s and 5s ran?

No. This is a spatchcock of the Volvo Turbo 1.7 block with the deck milled higher,  1.7 turbo head, then fitted with the Espace diesel crank to bring it to 2.0 and a TBI intake. F3R.

It wasn't fitted to any other vehicles, it was hacked together for this, much like the body pressings (11 front, 9 rear).

21 minutes ago, Datsuncog said:

True survivor, at any rate. Good to see it freed from under the garage, with not much in the way of damage?

 

Mostly ok, got a couple dings but the roof lifted up, not fell down on this side.

20220119_130726.thumb.jpg.ca2f7fb761c3e6c871c24e9867a0b462.jpg

Got it parked up on the driveway hardstanding now. Just need to get the Plymouth out now.

 

Phil

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1 hour ago, PhilA said:

No. This is a spatchcock of the Volvo Turbo 1.7 block with the deck milled higher,  1.7 turbo head, then fitted with the Espace diesel crank to bring it to 2.0 and a TBI intake. F3R.

It wasn't fitted to any other vehicles, it was hacked together for this, much like the body pressings (11 front, 9 rear).

 

 

Interesting.  I had always heard the 2.0 GTA engine was something of a Frankenstein unit, but I wasn't aware of it's exact provenance.  Am I correct in assuming this was based on the same 1.7 block that was available as an option in the Alliance/Encore from 1985-87?  I also seem to recall the GTA used the same suspension setup as the European Renault 9 Turbo.

My old four-door 1983 Alliance DL had none of these, unfortunately.  Just the 1.4 with the USA-specific single point throttle body injection.  At least it also had the 5 speed manual.  I can only imagine how painfully slow the three speed automatic would have been!

 

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4 minutes ago, Madman Of The People said:

 

Interesting.  I had always heard the 2.0 GTA engine was something of a Frankenstein unit, but I wasn't aware of it's exact provenance.  Am I correct in assuming this was based on the same 1.7 block that was available as an option in the Alliance/Encore from 1985-87?  I also seem to recall the GTA used the same suspension setup as the European Renault 9 Turbo.

My old four-door 1983 Alliance DL had none of these, unfortunately.  Just the 1.4 with the USA-specific single point throttle body injection.  At least it also had the 5 speed manual.  I can only imagine how painfully slow the three speed automatic would have been!

 

Yeah, the 1.7 was the regular 1.7 from everything French of the time. This one has a real mix and match of parts. Diesel timing belt tensioners, turbo head/block etc (has the drillings for the piston skirt oil jets).

All the suspension, brakes on this is from the 1.4 turbo, yes. Easiest to see looking at the rear arms, which have TURBO cast into them. It's got front and rear anti roll bars too. Has that typical compliant French ride, coupled with good handling, like Peugeot managed to produce.

Phil

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  • PhilA changed the title to 1987 Renault GTA :: Extracted
4 minutes ago, PhilA said:

Yeah, the 1.7 was the regular 1.7 from everything French of the time. This one has a real mix and match of parts. Diesel timing belt tensioners, turbo head/block etc (has the drillings for the piston skirt oil jets).

All the suspension, brakes on this is from the 1.4 turbo, yes. Easiest to see looking at the rear arms, which have TURBO cast into them. It's got front and rear anti roll bars too. Has that typical compliant French ride, coupled with good handling, like Peugeot managed to produce.

Phil

 

Ahh yes, nothing rides as beautifully as a French car.  I also had a 1985 Peugeot 505 Turbo and a 1990 405 DL Sportswagon (as Peugeot USA called it) and I still vividly recall the ride all the years later.  Such a pity the French gave up on America.

 

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5 hours ago, PhilA said:

No. This is a spatchcock of the Volvo Turbo 1.7 block with the deck milled higher,  1.7 turbo head, then fitted with the Espace diesel crank to bring it to 2.0 and a TBI intake. F3R.

It wasn't fitted to any other vehicles, it was hacked together for this, much like the body pressings (11 front, 9 rear).

Mostly ok, got a couple dings but the roof lifted up, not fell down on this side.

20220119_130726.thumb.jpg.ca2f7fb761c3e6c871c24e9867a0b462.jpg

Wow. She's a bit fruity then! 

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5 hours ago, Dick Longbridge said:

Wow. She's a bit fruity then! 

Factory rating is 98hp. They "detuned it" so it could compete in the SCCA sub-100hp compact class (that no longer exists). 

However, what it may lack in power, it makes up for in oodles of torque across the rev range. You can tell it's a long stroke engine, it gets quite thrashy above 4000 RPM. It's also got the gear ratios from the 1.4 which means it runs out of RPM before it runs out of gears. These had a habit of destroying engine mounts...

0-60 it's lacking a bit but 50-100 is impressive. On a rolling start in fifth it'll out-accelerate a big diesel pickup truck with moderate ease.

Phil

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14 minutes ago, PhilA said:

Factory rating is 98hp. They "detuned it" so it could compete in the SCCA sub-100hp compact class (that no longer exists).

I wonder how they did it? With the diesel crank and being nicely undersquare, how much power could you get out of it while keeping it naturally aspirated?

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3 minutes ago, Fumbler said:

I wonder how they did it? With the diesel crank and being nicely undersquare, how much power could you get out of it while keeping it naturally aspirated?

Soft cam.

The engine design limits the valve operation- at TDC the piston is flat level with the deck, and the valves are perpendicular which isn't great for flow but easy for cam design (the cam sits directly above the valves which are pushed down by it evenly- makes for a very tall head too, Austin E-series problems, which is why the block is canted over about 30 degrees).

I reckon with a hotter cam and multi-port injection it could see upward of 130hp, though they did set the redline quite low (5800). Lightened and balanced it would probably be good for 6500 or so but I'm not sure if running it faster would benefit much because the breathing in the head isn't wonderful.

Best bet would be to turbocharge it but then you could say bye-bye to the diff bearings. Dumping the clutch on this one runs the risk of it shafting the outside bearing and losing all forward motion (a common JB gearbox problem, that's what you get when it was designed as a 4 speed for a 1.1 litre engine and stretch it out to 5 speeds and double the torque/hp).

 

Phil

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3 minutes ago, Fumbler said:

Clever. Are the bearings machined with the camshaft or can you simply bolt a different one in?

The bearings are machined into the head material, but I dropped my cam into this one and after a few thousand miles all the caps were fine. If there was mega bad wear no, but at that point the head is going to be junk anyway.

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This thread is the reason for my particularly poor productivity yesterday, read it from start to finish! There's a brief article on the drop top version here:

https://www.losangemagazine.com/losange-magazine-no-16-winter-2022/renault-gta-convertible-1987

With reference to the owner having to change a bunch of hard-to-obtain parts.

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6 hours ago, mk2_craig said:

This thread is the reason for my particularly poor productivity yesterday, read it from start to finish! There's a brief article on the drop top version here:

https://www.losangemagazine.com/losange-magazine-no-16-winter-2022/renault-gta-convertible-1987

With reference to the owner having to change a bunch of hard-to-obtain parts.

Yup. His isn't all sun faded, and he has the wheel centers. Jealous. Those would do the classic American "bounce off into the distance" through potholes, never to be seen again...

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  • 3 months later...

Fleet rationalization time. 

Renault is up for sale.

It runs, drives, stops. Needs a new battery, this one is so dead it won't even charge. It's solid in the usual rot spots, the only rust on the car is in the rear corners of the rear windows, where several panels come together.

Needs a harmonic balancer, the tires have good tread, hold air but are sun-crazed. Steering rack leaks like a sieve. One of the CV boots split (crappy chinese rubber). Clock is missing, dash is cracked and both window regulator mechnaisms have broken. Windscreen is cracked from a rock chip and the hard freeze we had a couple years ago. Headliner panel is present but headliner material has fallen off. Paint is godawful all over the car.

I have all the Zender body kit panels, which are made from chocolate, so never fitted. They are hard to find.

$1200 obo. Clean Louisiana title in my name.

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  • PhilA changed the title to 1987 Renault GTA :: For Sale
  • 2 weeks later...
  • 4 weeks later...

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