Dov's V6 Daily

[bigdov]

Yeah pretty much, the b8s are about 1" shorter than the b6s, not sure on the rates of either kg them as don't think Bilstien ever released them, but they are a great combination

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[bigdov]

Well leading on from my last update about the wheels, car didn't feel right when I left from home, joining the m90 south it felt better, but coming off the other end and joining the a92 the car completely changed, had a massive vibration and rumble, and the driver behind flashed his high beams warning me of something so pull off to the side on the slip road, stopping just before joining the a92, and the reason?



Yup, tyre had lost all pressure and had become detached from the rim, with the main reason being the crack on the weld, so phoned for recovery, sure as hell wasn't changing a tyre on a motorway. dual carriage way slip road, plus it cost me nothing and the space saver was fitted and was sent on my merry way, didn't take the car to work tho, screw driving at 56 mph, so came off at next slip, and swapped it for the vxr.

Was looking a little sorry for itself that morning.



Now being left in a bind as ideally don't want to be using the vxr for work, but at the same time don't have the funds to go and buy new wheels and tyres as they are all pretty much tied up in my trip to Germany, but help was at hand by @and181 who has loaded a spare set of wheels to keep me and the signum moving till such times( hopefully not long) till a suitable replacement set of wheels are found.

SO last night in the ****ing rain we got soaked right through, swapping wheels over from the TT to the signum and vice versa, while in the air the front coil overs were wound down slightly leaving just 3 threads on either shock( still seems to sit a tad high at the front so gonna leave ti to settle a bit more before looking at it again)



the rear will prop need raised slightly however as its sitting just a tad too low for my preference, doesn't need to come up much, but just enough fort he tyre to sit flush with the arch.



So atm got 2 options, I can either buy a new set of wheels/ tyres for the signum or on the flipside, buy a new set of lightweight wheels and tyres for the vxr and then put the 19s onto the signum which atm seems to be the best option.

[ST200]

Awesome write up so keep at it, as for the wheels go for option two being Astra>Sigbum & Astra>new rims

[bigdov]

well decided having the lop sided signum had gone on long enough, so decided to do something about it and bring it more level.

Starting off with actually lowering the fronts more( there was still a substantial arch gap there and wasn't like the car was struggling over humps) so wound the coil overs all the way down as far as they would go with the adjusters in and helper spirngs ect ect, was fairly straight forward, just needed jacked up then wound down.

The rears were a little bit more bothersome as couldn't get the adjusters free, then relised after removing one that there was a securing screw to stop them for coming loose, so raised them as high as they would go to see if i could least get the rear in line with the arch instead of the wheel disappearing into the arch )

And as will most things, its always the last thing that gives you bother, went to unto the locking screw which is a 3mm hex( absolutely tiny) and its just strip itself, which left me with an issue as one side was able to go up, and was up, while this side was still lower than low, so made an attempt to try and get the screw out, tried drilling it, and after 4 drills going blunt thanks to the steel used on the screw, had to try and cut it out with a grinder, did try the whole hammering in a larger hex but the metal was too hard and wouldn't take and when it did the screw was not for moving.

SO cut it enough to try and get at the bottom and then drill the last of the metal around teh whole out to pop the holding screw out, and it worked for the most part, but it did end up splitting the adjuster seat, not enough for it to fully open up, still screws and unscrews with a little force, but its fracture where the whole was, so will need to try and source a used or even a new one of those as don;t want to buy a complete set of coil overs just for one rear adjuster.

but anyways, got it free'd up, drilled and tapped another whole and put an m6 bolt with a 10mm nut on the end to stop it unwinding and put a cable tie as a temp measure around the seat to keep it together, plus the pig tail from the spring will keep it from opening up and sliding down, i hope anyway till a new one is found.

do like how its sitting now though compared to the arse down look, its still low to get rid of the arch gap, but not too low that it scraps on every speed bump.

Before on the front:



Now



its still looks low on the drivers side but its not as bad, you can kinda see the top of the tyre now, gonna see about getting it tracked now as well as does have a slight pull to the left, and just to ensure all tyres are pointing in the right direction.

DO have a few other issues to sort out as well, cruise still doesn't work, but dunno if its down to tracking, the way the car was sitting, faulty cruise stalk or switch or something else so got another clutch switch as did have something flash up momentarily about a clutch pedal switch fault on the CID but was just caught it as i turned the car off so wasn't able to see it fully.

Car seems to have a vac leak from somewhere, but its only apparent after its turned off, once its runnign its appears to be fine, but turn it off and within a few minutes the brake pedal goes rock hard till its started up or the ign turns on and the vac pump takes up the vacuum, did have the bumper off to check the vac pump piping and it looked fine so dunno where else to check, once runnign tis fine, but I know there's a leak its just trying to find it thats the issue.

I am going to start looking into some performance stuff for the car in the future, don;t get me wrong for 230 bhp its no slouch, but its always handy having that little bit more, only issue I am finding is there's not much out there for the z28's, like finding downpipes are a bit problematic, there are some hose kits from the likes of roose and JS so thats not a problem. Intercooler kits as well are few and far between unless you pay courts prices or take a gamble and go custom.

Brake wise still not sure what am going to do on that front, ideally want to go the 345 route, but doing a little research there's not really that much difference between the 314's and the 345's apart from the disk size( yes the 345's will handle heat better and have a marginal increase in performance) but the 314's ain't too shabby and fell better than the 322's that came factory fitted to the VXR, but then again it is a much bigger caliper than the astra one so bigger braking force can be applied? who knows if the right set of 345's come up and at the right price i'll prob go for them, but they seem to use the same caliper as the 314's just with a different caliper carrier, so may see how much the carriers will be on their own

[Dog_Book]

Well I went from 314 to 345 and noticed s massive difference, so I'd say go for it. Precat wise you should be able to use anything labelled as vxr I'd think?

[bigdov]

Yeah, front end tuning wise can use vxr stuff it's just finding it that's proving difficult as there doesn't seem to be much resellers out there.

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[ST200]

I am going to start looking into some performance stuff for the car in the future, don;t get me wrong for 230 bhp its no slouch, but its always handy having that little bit more

I can highly recommended the Courtenay Stage 1, the toque gain makes a massive difference

[bigdov]

Courts is an option( and been my main source of info on the hardware needed) it's just the distance to get there, been in talks with RnD about getting it mapped( was them that done my vxr and it's been awesome and only a 3-4 hour drive for me) lol

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[bigdov]

well found the vac leak, turns out the one way valve that I had fitted, the internals had fell off the spring, so opened it up and reseated the seal, and made sure it was proper tight as didn't seem that tight before, and the vac issues with teh brake loosing vacuum as soon as the car was stopped is now a thing of the past

not done much else to the car, ordered the parts needed to fit the travel assistant to the rear of the car, so can finally get that fitted and that knocked of my list of parts to fit, they will take about a week to be delivered as some parts are special order from germany but least they are ordered, also spoke to plasma about getting some looms made up so i can finally fit my elite heated leathers to the car as they've been sat in the garage since I bought the car and ideally want to get them fitted, and since i'll have the rear seats out while fitting the TA may as well just swap the half leathers over for the full ones at the same time.

Still on the hunt for a new set of wheels, not sure what I want, keep getting drawn towards the 18" penta's that the mk5 astra SRi XP's came with as seen a few vecs with them and think the sig would look decent with them, but need to get the suspension looked at first as still not got it tracked since fitting the joms, and the rear of the car feels weird, its feels as if a bush has failed( feels loose, as in side to side loose) but checking the arms and bushes they all look fine, so not sure if thats down to the rear camber being off, the crap tyres on the twin top wheels or something else, possibly not enough pressure in the wheels, think they are at 36-39 psi iirc.

[GSiFan]

Glad you got the vacuum leak sorted out.

I can't really comment on the wheel choice. It's such a personal thing.

As for your suspension, can you describe your car's symptoms? You say it feels "loose." Do you mean when cornering or when you rock the wheel with the car stationary? It may well be the usual rear upper control arm issue; the outer bushes fail really quickly. Yours being a later car, I think, may well have the much longer-lasting later rear UCAs fitted. These use the same bush innermost and outermost, I believe, and they do not tend to fail at all. This is what I have heard. You should probably start there, though.

Depending on the symptoms, it could be a faulty damper unit - one of your JOMs. When I first got mine, it felt really loose and would lurch sideways over ridges in roads when cornering quickly. It was the rear shock absorbers, confirmed by a 'corkscrew' action when driving over speed bumps. If it is a faulty damper and they are reasonably new, then you may have a warranty claim.

Paul