Yeah mate i can guess it might have lost abit of power over the years, but unless its been totally thrashed and has done silly miles, i bet it won't have lost too much and will probably still go pretty well.
It is indeed supprising a few bits can soon have a decent gain for the money you'd spend, but N/A tuning can actually go along way, my brother (i think ive said before) is still in the process of building his engine for his corsa, and hes putting it on throttle bodies, with normal aspirated engines on these things, they can get some real power and tourq from low down the revs. Hes hoping he'll have fastest N/A Corsa in the UK when its finished, and i think hes gona achieve it too. I think hes hoping for somewhere in the region of 240BHP all in all, in a front wheel drive car thats gona be plenty considering its size and weight, and the ammount of tourq its gona have. So far though hes spent quite a sum of cash on it, could have deffinatly put a 2litre turbo in it for much less, but hes gone for complete rebuild with forged pistons, conrods, and crank which is rare for this engine. We are in the process of sorting stuff out still, but hopefully in the distant future all will be good.
I always have quite liked the R5 turbos, but my main worry now is their age and reliability, and of course the fact its a renault isn't good in my books... Clios are the same story if you ask me..
Still none the less, i always have loved the look of those, a few tasteful mods and they can go a long way aswell.
I'd have deffinatly considered putting 16's on (though i reckon they'd look far too small on the car) but the problem is i was after a big brake conversion, i'm considering getting some wilwood 4 pots for the front, and they won't go under 16's so i need at least 17's+
To be fair though in particular on the front end at the moment, shes fair slammed on the front end, and it scraping to hell on speed humps and stuff.
Thats also quite a tidy looking GTI mate, shame you aint got the money for it at the moment. It looks like a good example as best as you can tell in the pics. Which i'd guess are gona be hard come by now days as they aren't getting any younger.
You'll have to let me know when you pick up a GTI though and show us some pics
