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1.4 Litre Renault 4??????????

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Steve Hennessey

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Has anybody ever fitted a 1.4 litre engine to their 4GTL? Clem and I discussed the possibilities of this a few weeks ago. We spoke about the possibility of fitting the 1.4 pistons, liners, and cylinder head from the R5 Mk2 1397cc to the 1108 engine as both blocks appeared identical - i.e. the sierra five main bearing engine.

If nobody has looked at this possibility before, has anybody fitted a 1.4 engine from a Mk1 R5 into a 4GTL? I've just bought a 1.4 litre R5 Mk1 automatic with 22,000 miles on the clock and plan to fit this engine into my 4 at some point. Physically, I can see no reason why it won't fit and mate up to my gearbox as long as my flywheel will fit the 1.4 crank. Although I have yet to collect the car, from photos it appears to have either a large single choke carb, or a twin choke. It's a project that is causing me a degree of excitement :D. My current runaround is a 1.4 R5GTL Mk2 and this goes like the proverbial off a shovel, so I anticipate that if I can put a 1.4 lump into my 4, it would prove to be an interesting driving experience :twisted:

Steve
 
Hi Steve,

I'm also persuing the 1.4 option - Mr Jelly very kindly let me have his 1397cc engine and 5 speed gearbox from a Mk1 R5 TX.

If you've got the same carb as me it'll be a twin choke. The autos have the same 63bhp power quoted so chances are it'll be the same. It's a pretty cool looking carb - and my normal extensive research on the net suggests that the opening of the second choke is quite noticeable.

My installation should hopefully be easier than yours as I don't have to worry about the gearbox mating issues - maybe someone will know whether the R4 gearbox fits. For me - the R4 top cover should fit my gearbox, although I've yet to look inside to figure out how the 5 speed gearchange works - there's a suspicious looking lever at the bottom of the gearbox.

All this is a job for next year for me - I seem to be booked up until then.

:clementi:
 
Hello Malcolm,

Might be a good idea to swap notes at some point. Are you sure that the 'lever' at the bottom of the box is not a pivot point to hold the gear linkage? It is on the 4 speed R5 box.

When I pick the Auto R5 up I will give it a good once over to check compatability of the parts. The only thing that concerns me is that the crank may be different because it's an auto. Some of the older British cars used different cranks for their auto versions so I'm hoping that Renault may be more sensible in this respect. I did have a crazy idea about making the R4 into an auto by fitting the whole lot in, but I don't know how reliable the Renault auto box is. That idea has now faded into oblivion anyway.

I will use this R5 as a spare car for a while so it will give me a chance to get to know it.

Steve
 
The Mk1 R5 auto is the same engine as the TX but the automatic and GTL 1.4 derivatives were set up more for economy than performance in terms of carbs etc. The TS and TX had a 'performance' carb if I remember rightly. If you can ever find a 1.3 engine from an early 5 TS (about 76 - 80) then they are even better, more driveable and just seem better somehow. Rather rare these days though!

The 'lever' under the gearbox will be the gear linkage I think, I can't remember 100% though.....

Steve, whats the rest of the R5 like and what are you planning to do with it, I'm restoring an R5 so if you end up breaking it then I might be interested in any decent panels.
 
Incidentally, I've seen a GTL with a Gordini engine in it and an F6 van with the 1.4 but not a 1.4 GTL. I rather fancy the idea of big (well relatively) power in a late F6 van, with it having a rear antiroll bar it *should* be a bit better at handling. I remember my van was quite good to throw about, much better than the TL I had. With a rebuild and a relatively mild performance cam, 100 bhp is possible from the Mk1 R5 1.4 engine. :shock: :D
 
Mr Jelly, I'm picking the car up next Saturday so I'll know more then. From the item description on ebay and speaking to the owner, it's a 2 owner genuine 22,000 mile car taxed and MOT'd with no rust. I also have a 1981 TL manual with a 35,000 miles on it, so I plan to drop the engine and box into the auto body if it's as good as described and keep the 1.4 lump for my 4GTL and sell on the auto box. I will send you a private message when I know more.

Steve
 
A guy in Adelaide put a 1.4 and 5 speed into his R4. It goes like hell. Can't recall his name off the top of my head. Probably will as soon as I send this. From what I recall pistons and liners were a new set for a 1.4 Renault 12 which used to be quite popular here. The gearbox was a 5 speed out of a 5 but I understand there might be a few different sorts of different overall lengths. The 5 gearchange and top cover came off the box and according to him the 4 top cover and gearchange dropped straight on. The biggest problem I gather was the front mount- not enough room and he had to cut a hole in the front crossmember to bury the mount in there and get the space he needed. Don't know what that would do to strength or crashworthiness.

By the way, regarding interchangeability you can figure out a lot from the parts manuals for the 4 and 5, as even if part nos for two things are different if all the interfacing parts are the same its a pretty safe bet they will fit. Your friendly Renault parts dealer ought to be happy to print the odd page of "dialogys" out.
 
Thanks Pieter and all, The 5th gear does seem to be bolted onto the front of the gearbox in much the same place as you'd normally find the gearbox mount. The mount for this gearbox is thinner, but doesn't look thin enough to fit in without some work on the front of the chassis.

Frontal crash performance shouldn't be affected too much by crossmember modifications - seeems Renault forgot to fit a deformable crash structure (other than the bumper), so the engine will just get pushed backwards into the cabin in an impact.
 
I like that- oh so casually said "just get pushed backwards into the cabin".
Mano a Mano, it is the manhood thing.
The Adelaide guy's name is Nick Davies. I'm trying to find some contact details I had somewhere.
 
Am I ever going to fulfil my dream of a 1.4 Renault 4? Went to pick the car up on Saturday, nice bodywork, good underneath, went in and paid the money, filled the necessary details in the log book, went to say goodbye, started the engine and either a small or big end was making an interesting noise. The owner had set the tickover high (presumably to may sure I did not see the oil light on) and said he had not noticed the knocking but asserted that their mechanic had said there was nothing wrong with the engine. His wife said the engine had been 'reconditioned' recently and a load of other crap besides.
Gave him his ebay fee back and went home. What a waste of a Saturday and damn these sellers who are less than honest about their cars and who think their buyers have less IQ than they have - and to be honest, the owner of the the car could easily been one of Aldous Huxley's Epsilons.

The search goes on...................

Steve
 
Steve Hennessey said:
... We spoke about the possibility of fitting the 1.4 pistons, liners, and cylinder head from the R5 Mk2 1397cc to the 1108 engine as both blocks appeared identical - i.e. the sierra five main bearing engine...
Click to expand...

I'm afraid the 1397cc version, although identical superficially, has unique innards: The way the bottom ends of the piston liners are anchored and sealed in the 1397cc block differ from the other Sierra-blocked engines. Whereas the "original" 956/1108/1289cc versions have paper bottom seals, the newer 1237/1239/1390/1397cc versions use rubber o-seals. Also the mating faces on the liners and block are machined differently, so 1397cc liners can't easily be fitted into a 1108cc block. :(

Therefore, the way to go is to obtain a whole engine from a 1397cc R5 mk1 (pre-1985). And it should specifically be a mk1 R5 with the longitudinal engine (whether "normal" or Gordini), not the later mk2 with the transverse engine and 'box.

To my knowledge, all other 1397cc applications (R5 mk2, R9/R11, R18, Volvo 343 etc...) have protruding corners at the camchain end of the block for engine mounts or such. These protrusions will foul the narrow "block bay" in the firewall/chassis of an R4 or R5. Therefore, you'd have to angle-grind these protrusions off from a non-mk1 block. This "angle-grinder treatment" was given by factory to all Sierra blocks destined to R4/R6s or R5 mk1s.

---------------------------

I've seen a Dutch R4 conversion with a 1.4-litre Gordini engine running on LPG. Can't remember whether it had a 4- or 5-speed 'box, but I do remember that it had an interesting-looking modified steering axle with 2 or 3 UJs, as it otherwise would have fouled the exhaust manifold. Naturally this wouldn't be a problem for a UK rhd car, although I'm not sure how it would be with the inlet manifold, then?

---EDIT---
Dug up a piccie I took from the converted Dutch car. Looking at the picture, it would seem that the steering axle conversion (not visible) may not be to clear the exhaust manifold after all (it might just clear the standard rigid steering axle), but to clear the added brake servo and its fabricated mount?

Anywho, here's the piccie:
r4alpine.jpg
 
Thanks for the info Iglooman. Hey, pardon my ignorance but is the twingo engine essentially the R5 Mk 2 engine? What capacity is it? Could you potentially modify a twingo engine to put into an R4?
 
Thanks for the tip Mr Jelly. Shame it has not got the carb and manifold with it, and Poole is quite a distance from me. I'll have to keep a look out in my locality, but I would prefer a complete running car.

Steve
 
Pieter said:
Thanks for the info Iglooman. Hey, pardon my ignorance but is the twingo engine essentially the R5 Mk 2 engine? What capacity is it? Could you potentially modify a twingo engine to put into an R4?
Click to expand...

As Mr Jelly already wrote, early Twingos have essentially the same good old pushrod 'Sierra' (or 'C', for 'Cléon') engine as 1.2-litre R5 Mk2s. The exact capacity of the Twingo version is 1239cc, the engine code C3G and the output 55 bhp. These engines had a cat and single-point fuel injection.

The current Twingo/Clio engine, the so-called DIET (or 'D'), has an exact capacity of 1149cc and is available as both 8- and 16-valver, 60 or 75 bhp respectively. The 8-valver code is D7F and 16-valver is D4F, both have distributorless ignition, multi-point fuel injection and composite inlet manifold. For some market (can't remember which) there's also a one-litre version of the 16-valver, code D4D (like the Toyota diesel!).

I too wouldn't consider fitting the modern 'D' engine into a 4, already because of differences in the engine mounting: the old 'Sierra' engines have mounting points down in the block and conventionally rest on their mounts, whereas the rh-side of the 'DIET' hangs suspended from a so-called 'pendulum' mount bolted to the cylinder head.
 
Hi all!

I have an R4 with 1.4-litre engine. I believe the engine is 1397cc R5 mk1 engine with 4 speed gearbox (I haven't driven the car....). The car has also disc brakes in the front. The car is a 1968 with a sunroof. I bought the car in the autumn. The car is currently under a restoration. The chassis was badly rotten, fortunately I managed to find a new/repaired chassis.
I was thinking about to change the engine to Gordini/Alpine engine with 5 speed gearbox from R5 Alpine.

I'm very interested about info and pic's. There has been a dutch web page about Renault 4 Alpine, but it exists no longer.
 
Iglooman said:
...To my knowledge, all other 1397cc applications (R5 mk2, R9/R11, R18, Volvo 343 etc...) have protruding corners at the camchain end of the block for engine mounts or such. These protrusions will foul the narrow "block bay" in the firewall/chassis of an R4 or R5. Therefore, you'd have to angle-grind these protrusions off from a non-mk1 block...
Click to expand...
The Volvo option is likely the 2nd best to a Gordini. Volvo 343s were abundant in scrapyards (especially those with Variomatic gearboxes, for obvious reasons) and they were tuned for higher horsepower, to comply with Volvo standards. I don't recall if this was due to higher compression or to the dual-outlet exhaust manifold or both

http://www.autoevolution.com/engine/volvo-343-1978-14-70-hp.html

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More:

http://www.volvo300mania.com/forum-uk/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=8815&start=30&hilit=clutch+cvt
 
amazed to read this old thread dated 2004 !!!!! (how far back are posts kept malcolm ?)
the recent post mentioning volvo engines is interesting but be aware all renault/volvo engines that have water pump timing chain end need heads modding b4 pump can be used the other end
also using the neccesary longer camshaft from a standard r4 1108 will drop power back due to different valve timing
 
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