R18 sedan body mods?

R

Renault17

Active member
Fellow Frogger
Joined
May 11, 2001
Messages
314
Location
New Zealand
Hey guys,
with moving house I have had to flag the idea of doing up a fuego- they had to go to the wreckers as we couldn;t afford to move them all half way around the country! So I am back to using my r18 turbo for daily transport.

Does anyone know of any reasonable body mods to do it- I have a fuego bumper that I am thinking of modifying to put on it, also the lower front fuego spoiler that the turbos came out with.

I am also wary of trying to make a 'silk purse out of a sows ear' so to speak... I am mainly after some cheap advice for the grille/front bumper area..

Any thoughts would be appreciated....
Cheers Ben
 
16s and an inch out of the ride height will do wonders :D ....it does to my fuego, and they look kinda similar.....
 
Hey,
yeah I agree Mistareno, I am getting some coils made up shortly- but probably no lower than 1" as you suggest as the car has to travel along country roads too. The wheels are 14" BBS alloys that come on the fuego turbos over here standard. I'd love to stick 16" or 17" wheels on it, but can't justify that at the moment, so am gonna just have these BBS wheels sandblasted and repainted.
Cheers Ben
 
Mistareno- just wondering I have tried other Jappa wheels on my 18 before and they fouled the calipers - did you have a hard time finding wheels that cleared the brakes? If not- where they the standard renault offset?
Cheers Ben
 
Hi all,

I have a spare fuego turbo bonnet- with the large hump in the middle- does anyone know how hard it would be to make it fit an 18? The other thought I had was to essentially 'cut' the hump from the turbo bonnet out and get it stitched onto the conventional 18 bonnet? I don't want to end up with a Frankenstein- but I need more space- the blowoff valve just hits the bonnet as is.
The other thing is that the bonnet on it is rough, and I have another spare one that is clean- any idea?
Cheers Ben

ps. and I had always thought the 'turbo' bonnets on the fuegos looked pretty damn good!! approve
 
Mate, you'd be pushing it uphill to make a Fuego bonnet fit a R18. That should be pretty obvious, especially if you have both parts available for comparison.

Cutting out the hump is probably a better option, but I guess you'd still have to be pretty good at panelwork to get it all to fit properly...

Is there no "aftermarket" bonnet mods that could be fitted? I'm thinking something made out of fibreglass - you could cut a hole in the bonnet and fit the "hump" over it...
 
Ran across it with a measuring tape. The fuego bonnet is the same width as the 18 bonnet - but slightly longer. It also has a slightly different profile at the windscreen end and on the grille end. I am starting to wonder if I can find the surrounding brackets for headlights of a fuego, as everything else is a pretty close fit. That would mean fuego bonnet, grille, headlights and bumper. I have the later series ? grille from a fuego that is half painted/half black plastic, so it doesn't look too bad.
Will have to have a fiddle and more measuring before I consider chopping anything up.

Cheers for your thoughts, Ben
 
Renault17:
Mistareno- just wondering I have tried other Jappa wheels on my 18 before and they fouled the calipers - did you have a hard time finding wheels that cleared the brakes? If not- where they the standard renault offset?
Cheers Ben
Click to expand...
Sorry for the slow reply,

I forgot I posted on this thread.

I have had both 14 and 16 inch aftermarket rims on my car, and both have cleared the caliper with no problems. The caliper may be different on an 18 turbo???

I'm getting 2 new tyres fitted this week, so I'll check the offset while the wheels are off...

Another suggestion to help minimise the loss o suspension travel is to cut about half an inch of the thread on the bottom of the shocker.

This means the lower spring saddle sits lower and hence the whole car sits lower. as the shock sits roughly halfway down the wishbone. Half an inch will make about an inch difference to the ride height at the gaurd.

I also replaced my bump stops with softer ones of th rear of a R19 (the standard ones are like having steel blocks instead of rubber)

BTW - I dont think the Fuego bonnet idea will work. The 18 has a ridge down the center of the bonnet (I think) that the fuego doesn't have. This will make grafting the bulge onto the 18 bonnet quite difficult (and costly)

A cheaper soloution could be to fit an after market scoop, or one of a Nissan Patrol Turbo Diesel.

Regards,

Richard.
 
Hey,
I didn't actually mention a loss of ride height travel- but the 1" drop via the bottom of the shock mod might be a good one to have on hand. I will be putting lower springs in it shortly as it is still a little too softly sprung for my liking- with far too much dive when under hard braking.

As for the bonnet thing- the fuego and r18 bonnets are identical - from side to side- (and the 18 bonnet is dead flat), the grille end is simple to change- just use the fuego grille , it's the windscreen end that is slightly different. Although the fuego bonnet has too much metal- which would be easier to mod than too little wouldn't it?

Cheers Ben
 
Hmmm,
yeah you might have a point, I may have to stick to just a small vent to allow the blowoff valve room from hitting the bonnet. i will still try and modify the bumpers though, as I have done a trial fit and it looks good- just need some custom brackets..
Cheers Ben
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top