30 years old, some mega-mileage Renault erm... Alpine?
Discussion
Watchman said:
One of my favourite car shapes ever. Looks so right from any angle.
What sort of power can be extracted these days from the V6 motor without spoiling the car?
Thanks. I've always thought they look better in the flesh than photos though, but yes works well from a few angles.What sort of power can be extracted these days from the V6 motor without spoiling the car?
Catching the last rays of September sun...
Re the engine. 250bhp is now pretty much accepted as a good level of tune and not stupidly expensive to get to (turbo, injectors and remap). 300bhp is within the limits of the chassis and makes for a very quick car. They're about 1100kg so same pretty much as the new A110. Contemporary tests put 0-60 at about 6 seconds (5.8 I think was the fastest Autocar recorded) so the ones running 250-300 bhp are now in the 4.8secs for the quickest and most powerful.
Good article here on one of the tuned versions - JL engineering's work on this example:
https://petrolicious.com/articles/paying-a-visit-t...
Pistom said:
Very nice. Very very nice.
How expensive was the refresh to make it as lovely as that?
Thank-you. I try not to count too much these days to be honest. How expensive was the refresh to make it as lovely as that?
Couple of things to be wary of, firstly the body is GRP and even the bad ones tend to polish up quite nicely. So all that glitters is not necessarily gold...
Mine is probably an odd example to use as a standard re costs as the mileage has dictated that money spent would be considerably higher than a low mileage example. Having said that, I bought it 23 years ago for 9K and it's currently insured for 15K so depreciation wise it's flat at least.
I would say good sorted ones are getting fewer and further between. A few years back you could pick up a project car for 3-4K quite easily (and then spend at least the same again getting it to a fair standard). Probably a good one with everything tight and sorted is maybe getting on for 12-15K I figure, if you can find one for sale.
Atmos (carb engined ones to everyone else) are a bit cheaper, but all down to preference really as they're very sweet when they're on tune. Watch out though as the carbs are rare and a big pain if you have issues.
Turbos are that bit more to buy, get better mpg and theoretically quicker (especially if tuned) but it's all individual preference really. The turbo just has the cool naming and 80s thing...
Le Mans are super rare but again a few people have built some very nice clones using differing engines including the rare 24v PRV.
They aren't very responsive to minor tuning, injectors and turbos are close to their limit at 200bhp so boost increases don't gain you much without upgrading (230ish tops). Standard ECUs are very basic and it's only in the last few years a couple of people have put in the time to make them mappable. Hybrid turbo with injectors and modified ECU will net 250-260bhp on a good engine running 1.1-1.2 bar. RATS in Derby have been selling this has a conversion for a few years now and it has proved quick and reliable. Quite a few cars out there on Emerald, Adaptronic and Megasquirt now too. Most powerful 2.5s we've seen in the UK are Martin Faulks home brewed engine build with 326 bhp which features cams, head mods and a big hybrid running big boost and another running 317 bhp and similar torque, again fully rebuilt with different cams , repositioned turbo, beautifully detailed, built by JL Engineering. Myself and 1 other have fitted Safrane Biturbo engines, mine runs with a single hybrid and Adaptronic and the other runs twin turbos and Emerald both make 300-320 bhp (but at substantially less boost than the 2.5s) but I need to run more boost on my single than the twin turbo set up to make the same power. The twin turbo car ran 0-60 in 4.5 and 100 in 10.5 at our annual Bruntingthorpe test day. Most cars won't match manufacturers times at Brunty as its up hill so that is very quick even for modern cars. They are very light - about 1200kg. There are 2 development engines that I know off currently being built and both are aiming for 400bhp and I have a project on the go with a 500bhp LS3 fitted in the back. They have a very loyal following despite them being a frustrating car to own at times but they are lovely to drive once properly sorted. For Darren to rack up 193k is massively impressive and a good 50k more than any other car I've seen in the uk.
Edited by Notanotherturbo on Wednesday 26th September 16:40
Notanotherturbo said:
They aren't very responsive to minor tuning, injectors and turbos are close to their limit at 200bhp so boost increases don't gain you much without upgrading (230ish tops). Standard ECUs are very basic and it's only in the last few years a couple of people have put in the time to make them mappable. Hybrid turbo with injectors and modified ECU will net 250-260bhp on a good engine running 1.1-1.2 bar. RATS in Derby have been selling this has a conversion for a few years now and it has proved quick and reliable. Quite a few cars out there on Emerald, Adaptronic and Megasquirt now too. Most powerful 2.5 we've seen in the UK is running about 310 bhp and similar torque. Fully rebuilt with different cams , repositioned turbo, beautifully detailed, built by JL Engineering. Myself and 1 other have fitted Safrane Biturbo engines, mine runs with a single hybrid and Adaptronic and the other runs twin turbos and Emerald both make 300-320 bhp but I need to run more boost on my single than the twin turbo set up to make the same power. The twin turbo car ran 0-60 in 4.6 and 100 in 10.6 at our annual Bruntingthorpe test day. Most cars won't match manufacturers times at Brunty as its up hill so that is very quick even for modern cars. They are very light - about 1200kg. There are 2 development engines that I know off currently being built and both are aiming for 400bhp and I have a project on the go with a 500bhp LS3 fitted in the back. They have a very loyal following despite them being a frustrating car to own at times but they are lovely to drive once properly sorted. For Darren to rack up 193k is massively impressive and a good 50k more than any other car I've seen in the uk.
I knew you'd be along soon! Did you ever do a thread on the black turbo? I know the LS3 one has been running a while.Not really, most of the work was done years ago before I ever went on forums. I did blaze the trail for turbo tuning on my own for a long time, first car with a chargecooler, first car with a 3 litre conversion, first person to breach 250 and 300bhp barriers, but I have had it nearly 28 years!
Gary C said:
Interior must have been terrible to be worse than my carrera 
.
Switches appear to have been thrown at the 1960's dashboard, the headlight washer switch isnt even on straight, and the electric mirror select switch is hidden on the underside of the dash ! The variable wiper speed is just a potentiometer mounted at random and operates totally independent to the stalk operated switch (and the blades of the wiper hang over the curve of the screen in the park position.
The heater controls are almost undecipherable some on the dash and one on the floor, and don't actually do much.
I love it
Love your alpine by the way, very nice .Switches appear to have been thrown at the 1960's dashboard, the headlight washer switch isnt even on straight, and the electric mirror select switch is hidden on the underside of the dash ! The variable wiper speed is just a potentiometer mounted at random and operates totally independent to the stalk operated switch (and the blades of the wiper hang over the curve of the screen in the park position.
The heater controls are almost undecipherable some on the dash and one on the floor, and don't actually do much.
I love it
So here we go, some more pictures of the old interior before I retrimmed the carpet and then with the new seats at the time they were fitted.
You can see how worn the old seats were. Oh and pre leather door cards:
Versus after:
Pic including the rear seats:
And after the carpet:
Plus re-trimming the engine cover etc:
Now all that peeling back of carpet also meant finding rust holes on the interior of the sills - so some professional (and expensive) welding to make good. Obviously this is after I'd stuck a big screwdriver in it to make it stupidly big. No point just carpeting back over!
There's a gap there between the seats and the carpet of several years, but this is a bit like Blue Peter and I've skipped that bit.
You can see how worn the old seats were. Oh and pre leather door cards:
Versus after:
Pic including the rear seats:
And after the carpet:
Plus re-trimming the engine cover etc:
Now all that peeling back of carpet also meant finding rust holes on the interior of the sills - so some professional (and expensive) welding to make good. Obviously this is after I'd stuck a big screwdriver in it to make it stupidly big. No point just carpeting back over!
There's a gap there between the seats and the carpet of several years, but this is a bit like Blue Peter and I've skipped that bit.
Around the time I did the seats I also replaced the dampers - swapping from the standard gas filled DeCarbons (which are very good but were well and truly worn out) to adjustable Gaz units with uprated and lowered springs.
Now the lowered springs look great (and the platforms could be adjusted to go very low for racing):
With mine it was now sitting like this:
Looks great but the rear springs were 400lb and I considered it over sprung and under-damped. So more fiddling carried out, including sourcing a good set of standard S/H GTA springs that had been powder coated. These were then combined with the Gaz dampers and everything adjusted accordingly.
To be honest the DeCarbons are good and probably very well suited for road use, but like many Alpine parts they were very rare, expensive and equally 20 years old - even if they'd been on a shelf in Dieppe. So typical path of the Alpine owner of upgrades being thrust upon us.
Now the lowered springs look great (and the platforms could be adjusted to go very low for racing):
With mine it was now sitting like this:
Looks great but the rear springs were 400lb and I considered it over sprung and under-damped. So more fiddling carried out, including sourcing a good set of standard S/H GTA springs that had been powder coated. These were then combined with the Gaz dampers and everything adjusted accordingly.
To be honest the DeCarbons are good and probably very well suited for road use, but like many Alpine parts they were very rare, expensive and equally 20 years old - even if they'd been on a shelf in Dieppe. So typical path of the Alpine owner of upgrades being thrust upon us.
Mike-tf3n0 said:
the thing that really deadened sales in the UK was the fact that Renault insisted it was badged as a Renault. Had it been badged as an Alpine I remain convinced it would have been a resounding commercial success.
I think you're correct about the name affecting sales, but my understanding was that Renault didn't "own" the Alpine name in the UK, & hence couldn't use it. Whether that was because Sunbeam/Chrysler/Talbot, the owners, wouldn't let them, or they wouldn't pay the price asked, not sure.Very nice, and good to see it get used. They are under-rated, and really nice things to drive.
I've got it's older brother, an A310 V6. I bought it midway through 1999, while living in NL, and brought with me when I returned to NZ. It's the only one here, though there are a handful of A110s and GTAs (which were actually sold here). I use it regularly, it fits the weekly shop and is enjoyable for the occasional commute. Everything else on the road seems enormous!
Some more pictures here.
I've got it's older brother, an A310 V6. I bought it midway through 1999, while living in NL, and brought with me when I returned to NZ. It's the only one here, though there are a handful of A110s and GTAs (which were actually sold here). I use it regularly, it fits the weekly shop and is enjoyable for the occasional commute. Everything else on the road seems enormous!
Some more pictures here.
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