After joining the forum a few months ago due to thinking of buying another 5 Turbo I eventually ended up buying a H-plate Raider.
I previously had a white K-Reg Gt Turbo about 15 years ago and always loved it and have been thinking of getting another for the last few years. Back In November I sold my Megane R26 show car, paid off some debts and I started looking at all sorts of cars - nothing I really fancied though and always kept ending back up looking at Gt Turbo's. I wanted a car that is small enough to fit in my stupidly narrow garage that I can work on in the evenings etc - not interested in standard cars, in my opinion 5 Gt Turbo's are meant to be modded and thats why they were always so popular in the 90's so I wont be doing a back to stardard restoration - more of an OE+ look.
I was all set to buy Gibbo's organe car but at the last minute was offered the raider - the chap sent me some pics after hearing I was in the market for a 5 and as soon as I saw it I knew it was the car for me.
The guy I bought it off bought it as a project about 10 years ago - at the time he owned his own body shop so the car spent the next 6 or 7 years sat in there being worked on when he had some spare time. Over the phone the car sounded really good with over £15000 worth of reciepts for parts it seemed a really good deal.
All of the body work had been restored, was completely stripped to bare shell before painting and any panels that were iffy at all were replaced - new front inner and outer wings, new skirts, bodykit, sills, drivers side floor, rear wings, new glass all round, new seals, delocked, black bumper strips removed and smoothed over recess,
The guy explained what he had done to the car over the phone and it sounded too good to miss so arrangements were made and my mechanic and I travelled down from Cardiff to Southampton to collect it 2 days later.
Upon arriving I was amazed how straight it looked - bodywork is immaculate - looks like it has just left the body shop (was actually painted about 6 years ago!) - started having a good look over the car and found there was a lot more modified parts on the car than I had expected! Got the lad to take me out for a quick drive which didnt really show me anything other than it ran but didnt seem the smoothest of engines!
Deal was done and money transferred over so started the journey home. Agreed to stop at the first petrol station we saw but by that time the car had stalled about 8 times - idle was non existant and was a bit of a nightmare to drive, throttle pedal was very notchy and clutch pedal very high but gopt back to Cardiff without any issues and so the work began
I drove the car down to my mechanics garage the next evening and started having a good look over it - the seller included a new driveshaft and top shock mount bushes so fitted them straight away which stopped any knocking noises I was getting. Other than that just had a good look over it - both my mechanic and I were quite surprised and pleased and what we found. The whole underside of the car has been painted and sealed - not a spot of rust anywhere! every part of the front geometry set up has been renewed, Have fully adjustable AVO coilovers fitted which have been painted and again are in perfect condition, anti roll bars have been recond and look like new, could genuinely have thought I was under a 3 or 4 year old car instead of a 23 year old!
The engine looked very nice but was rough round the edges and the Carb was playing up badly - tried adjusting it but made no difference at all - still ran like crap. My mechanic quickly decided we needed to strip down the engine to work out what needed doing.
In the mean time I gave it a good wash and got some pictures - all these did though is point out that the front end needs lowering a bit more, does look clean though!
There isnt much that needs doing outside - need a new bonnet and grill but other than that is pretty much tip top. Going to renew all the lights just to freshen it up but all simple stuff.
Got loads that needs doing so ill update this thread as and when I get round to each of the jobs. Done loads already so ill try and post some pics of my progress in my next post and will try and write up a list of mods so far
It Fits!
Dodgy Halfords/Ripspeed Oz ultraleggera copies - also note the massive 291mm GT Tuning front discs - going to be fun finding replacements when these need renewing
Interior has been retrimmed but needs a tidy up