I currently own a 1986 Renault Encore (1.7 liter). I've just started looking into performance stuff and i was wondering if anyone knows of a way to turbocharge this car? Any insight would be much appreciated. I'm a bit of a newcomer to this sort of stuff.

I have been studying this topic for a time. The idea of equipping a standard F2N with a turbo was discussed here several times, so please check the archived posts for additional reference.

The history of doesn't know any 1,7 turbocharged engines sold in Renault 9/11, however a Volvo 460 and 480 were offered with turbocharged Renault 1,7 engine that is basically identical to our F2N's, so the simplest thing to do is to find such engine somehere in car recycling centers. --> that's the easiest way I guess.

Modding a standard F2N to meet turbo requirements is difficult, and it will certainly be expensive.. It's not only adding a Turbo, manifolds, pressure carburettor, intercooler and hoses. You will need to modify the engine inside, in order to:
- reduce the compression ratio - extremely important!
- install a "turbo" camshaft, pistons, etc.
- prevent excessive wear of the engine
- cool the engine more efficiently (including oil cooling)
- provide a lubrication for a turbo.

So to put that straight - I can hardly see any sense of equipping a "straight" F2N with a turbo - too many expensive modifications, and absolutely no guarantee of good result.
Things you can do to increase performance:
- install a turbo F2N from Volvo
- or install a turbo C1J from Renault 5/9/11 (it will be much easier to find than Volvo engine) that delivers 105 - 115 HP from a 1397 displacement (depending on version)- the mods you'd have to apply will be a piece of cake compared to those you'd have to do trying to turbocharge a normal F2N.
- tune-up your original F2N engine --> check the "tuning" section of Renault Freaks for additional reference:

http://med.pam.szczecin.pl/~wizard/tuning.html

perhaps you can find something useful to tune-up your current engine.

Artur
Renault Freaks

Artur put it quite right there, not very easy/inexpensive to turbo a non-turbo engine "from scratch".


Here in Europe if we want a turbocharged 1.7, the obvious solution is locate a scrapped Volvo 460/480 Turbo that has a factory-turboed version of the basically same atmospheric Renault engine found in R9/R11/Alliance/Encore.
What makes it a bit more difficult over the big pond is that - from what I've understood - the small Volvo 400 series wasn't sold over there. So finding a scrapped 460/480 Turbo in a scrapyard over there is highly unlikely. The solution would be to have a complete engine with all ancillaries including electronics shipped from Europe. I know big 2nd-hand American V8s are shipped to European hot-rodders, maybe there's some organized business doing the thing in reversed way, importing European engines to USA?
It WOULD of course be possible to ask some Volvo-guru what exactly is different from the Alliance engine and then special-order all those parts from Volvo USA and fit them to your existing engine. This, however, is more or less theoretic since I'm sure the cost would be in the region of US$ 10,000+ if I know anything about spare parts pricing...

The 1.7 turbo engine used in Volvos by the way uses a multipoint EFI system, not a carburettor. In true Volvo fashion, the unit is relatively low-boost, the idea being not to produce maximum horsepower but maximum torque. A non-turbocharged, fuel-injected Volvo 1.7-litre engine puts out 109 bhp, the Turbo-version 120 bhp. From that my conclusion is that the boost level must be relatively low, therefore perhaps not having necessated major internal changes to the engine. Volvo no doubt have thoroughly tested the engine to be reliable in standard tune, but what if you'd want to turn the boost up to achieve, let's say, 160-200 bhp? How's the reliability then? I really can't answer this because I haven't looked into the subject, maybe some Volvo club would have more knowledge on this?
What I do remember reading is that, with upped boost levels, the F2N-based 1.7 OHC turbo engine is (allegedly) more likely to loose the pressure from combustion chambers to rocker chamber through valve guides, compared to the R9/11 pushrod Turbo engine which is considerd relatively safe to about 150-160 bhp without any major modifications. This I read way back on the British Renault 5 GT Turbo Owners' Club website (the 5 GTT uses the same engines as R9/11/Alliance/Encore). Maybe you can search for their forum archives as well. Unfortunately, only paying members can post to their forum nowadays so it's not possible for non-members to ask questions. The address to their site is www.gtturbo.org


The original 1.4-litre pushrod factory Turbo engine from a Renault 9/11 Turbo is obviously the second option, but again for anyone living in America that's just as hard to obtain. In fact, from these two engines, I'd recommend the Volvo-version. The reason being that if (=when) you need spares for the engine, there's an established Volvo organisation in the US/Canada through which you can at least special-order spares for the engine, whereas for a the original R9/11 Turbo 1.4 engine you'd have to order the spares yourself from Europe since there's no official Renault network over there.
There are companies there that specialize in hot Renaults and apparently have channels from Europe, like www.r-sport.net in the US and www.alpine-america.qc.ca in Canada, but ordering parts from them might be expensive. Maybe worth giving them a shout, anyway?

Hi,

A friend of mine is suppose to make the swap this spring for a 1.4 Turbo engine in is R-9 GTA with Alpine-America, the project is suppose to cost aroung 2000$Us installed for the R-9 Turbo engine, front and rear supsension of phase 2 with the disk brake.

Alpine America already did the convertion of a regular GTA with the Turbo parts and he can is working on a 16 V (R19 engine) version. He is good but expensive.

That doesn't sound impossibly expensive at all considering there's the over-seas shipping!

Just goes to prove that if you can obtain complete units (2nd-hand as they are), that's always going to be more affordable than buying individual components separately.