Dismay precedes some devilish delights
As we approached Blighty on our return journey from Geneva it became clear that our freshly rebuilt engine was no longer punching its weight – time for another visit to John at JL Engineering. His diagnosis? Turbo failure. Disappointing in extremis, both for him and us. The company that’d rebuilt it offered to do it again, but John had lost faith in them so sent it to another and, considerately, ate the fee.
Good comes from bad though, because removing our little Garrett escargot revealed a rapidly deteriorating inner manifold surface. If loose metal had broken off it could have wrecked the turbo blades – third rebuild, sirs? – or even worse. A dexterous bit of welding rectified matters and glorying in fortuitous relief we decided life’s too short, and spent more money.
The Devil exhaust system was a period option, so we were able to man-justify to ourselves that it wouldn’t compromise the R5T’S originality. Unfortunately, with our enlarged appendage in place we had to leave off the lower grille because it no longer fitted – time to source a replacement that can be adapted, and store the original.
On the hoof it was transformative. Our ethereal turbo whistle remained, but now joined by a proper snap, crackle and overrun-pop soundtrack – more in keeping with its original wild Group 4 raison d’être. In fact it reminded me of The
Beastie – my faithful old Fiat 124 Abarth – and that’s no bad thing at all.
Our new improved R5T was ready just in time to debut at the Renault Alpine Owners’ Club’s yearly Origine RS bash. A change of venue saw Brooklands host it for the first time, and that gave the organisers the chance to incorporate a bit of competitive action with timed runs up the hill and an auto test.
To get our car off the mark quickly you really need to spool the turbo up to 4000rpm, drop the clutch and fishtail away until the rubber bites. Recent new tyres were one thing, but the fresh clutch – and lingering tortured smell from those cars that’d already completed it – saw us making relatively reserved blasts up the hill, with the turbocharger not kicking in fully until halfway up.
On the auto test circuit it was a different story; even with a similar semi-pedestrian start, once spooled the little devil was off. First gear; second gear; weaving, turning and spinning like a dervish, it excelled. And the best bit? Oh lordy, did it sound good, as if old Beelzebub himself were sitting on our shoulders.