Frequently Asked Questions FAQ's About Renault R5 Turbo

The information on this page is not an official Renault explanation. If you know of better information please let us know. If you have questions for us or others please post them to:     E-Mail to Sun       (Rev. 04/99)

What's the difference between the Turbo 1 and Turbo 2?
TURBO (1)
Officially, it doesn't seem that there was ever a designation "Turbo1" The first version of these cars that were made for rally homologation were called Renault 5 TURBO. They were made 1980 through 1982. This first version had the wild interior which covered everything inside, unique dash board with lots of instruments, usually aluminum doors, roof and rear hatch, difficult engine cover latches, no electric windows and came in Grenade (759) red metallic w/ color Grenade (760) red (bumpers and trim or Olympe (405) blue metallic w/ matching blue Olympe (496) trim Later in the run the body colors were also Gris Galaxie (625) silver metallic, Noir (622) black metallic and Nacre (158) pearl white metallic and an additional trim color of Bronze (614).
Later in the run were steel doors w/ electric windows. Never any sun roofs.
Really large fuel tanks.

Turbo 2
The second version was introduced at the 1982 Paris Auto Show. This was a less expensive car. The interior was straight out of the typical European R5 (Le Car in USA), steel doors, electric windows as an option and some different exterior color, but  leaving out the original Grenade and Olympe colors of the Turbo (1). The interior was usually beige. A few interiors were red.  Never any sun roof. Fuel tanks a bit smaller

Both versions had exactly the same power train. Same engine (except as explained below) and same transaxel. The only engine change that we have noticed was later in the Turbo (1) series the oil pump was upgraded.

What is the special 1985 Turbo 2 version with chassis designation 8221?
Apparently to homologate the MAXI 5 Turbo for the World Rally Championship it was necessary to make 20 of the rally version and 200 road versions that incorporated the engine displacement change and an aluminum roof.
These 200 road version cars can be identified by the VIN VF1822100F0010???. And the engine identification number is unique. We'll supply that information later.

Official Engine up grade kits: 180 CV and 200 CV
There were only 2 kits officially commercialized by Renault Sport. These kits were all installed by dealers or independents. They were never installed at the Alpine factory. The Alpine Centre, Paris had a special version that included a different cam that would raise the power to 220 CV. If someone is making claims for these kits they should substantiate the claims with receipts especially since many of the parts are internal and not visible. An expensive part of the 200 CV kit was the special cylinder liners and a cam. There was a racing kit of 285 hp.

How much maximum power can I expect for street use?
Hum? The official kits for the street were 180 & 200 hp. We used an after market supplier, Pierre Ferry, Paris who had successful kits up to claimed 250/260 CV. These kits were expensive and well made. We were happy with them. Some time we'll publish the details. It seems to us that 250 is the practical limit for street use and even at that the cam made the idle high. There was a notorious modifier of these cars in the south East who claimed much higher power and also Export Sales Germany and Florida that even claimed a T300 version w/ 300+ hp. These solutions are frauds.
Keep in mind that the original Tour de Corse had maybe 240 CV and that was with a lot of expensive development and parts. Officially the factory was going up to 285 CV and later would have 350 CV in the Super Production version.
If someone claims XXX hp they should be able to back it up with dyno data and explanation of parts. It was far too easy to just advance the ignition and turn up the boost on these cars to give a thrill but .....  it won't last.

Defective ignition distributor drive gear, worn cam shaft?                                                                                           This symptom seemed to appear mostly on 1985 R5 Turbo 2's. At the time, all of the cars coming through Sun International were new cars and none of these cars were affected by this problem. It was confusing. Renault claimed to not be aware of any defect(s). Any of the cars that we serviced or modified were done according to the pieces and procedures in the Renault workshop manual and Renault Sport Bulletins. And no problem of worn gears on the distributor or cam shaft. We now have an opinion of the cause of the problem coming from other parts of the US: incorrect cylinder head alignment causing the ignition distributor and drive shaft to be out of position. Prevention: whenever the cylinder head is removed, for service or upgrade of some sort, when it is replaced it must be carefully aligned following the instructions in the workshop manual and the alignment tool or equivalent.