Sunday afternoon saw myself and many of the VxSCC Regional Organiser's go to 888 for a tour round the facility and the VXR Performance Centre.
Although not as big as first invisaged, it was very interesting to see the direction that both 888 race engineering and Vauxhall have decided to head with this range of 'goodies' for the Vauxhall range.
With the centre due to open in March 2006, all the upgrade details will be released by this time.
The upgrades will include, brakes, exhausts, intercolers, suspension, interiors plus much more.
No price's have been confirmed, but an indication price of around £575 for a 200bhp / 330lb/ft re-map for the 1.9 CDTi Diesel seems about right for the industry.
Each car modified by the VXRPC will carry a plate under the bonnet with a serial number, this number when presented to vauxhall will highlight what work has been carried out by the VXRPC so warranty work and spares can be sorted by your dealer.
Regarding warranty, anything not effected by your 'modification' will of course continue to carry your normal warranty, any failure caused as a result of your 888/VXRPC upgrade will be looked at on a case by case basis. So what they are saying is that although in theory you have modified your car, as it is done by 888/VXRPC it would be looked at carefully before any warranty claim is turned down.
I persoanlly read this as them stating that you should not have any warranty issues, but they can't say for fact that warranties are un-effected by some of the modifications.
According to one of the 888 guys, there will be 3 stages of Astra VXR upgrade with 888 exclusive mapping.
Suspnsion, 3 options will be available, the first being matched springs and dampers, which I experienced on a 200bhp 5dr Astra SRi 1.9 CDTi and the set up is simply stunning on the road.
Coil over set ups and full track race set ups will be offered.
Various brake upgrades with 4 pot AP or 888 branded calipers.
The eventual list of things will be huge, Vauxhall and 888 will also be doing many upgrades for non VXR cars once the centre opens.
Apologies for the way I have written this, there was so much informed to us that it was hard to put it in a decent order.
But I think the VXRPC will be a good port for tuning and upgrades over the coming years.
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