not a vectra but thought you might like a look

[sbd16v]

i have a vectra c as a daily driver but i also have a ''toy'' in the form of a mk2 astra, thought id share some pics etc and let you all know a little about it

ive owned the car for 6 years now and its been apart and back togther countless times lol

few enginer pics and general ones

engine and block have both had alot of work done to them

the block

new mahle pistons 86.5mm, machined for lower compresion
steelrods
early gte crank (standard bearing size)
all new bearings and pumps etc
oil pump is fitted with sbd nylon release valve and steel pump gear
under piston oil squirters
cometic 1.9mm head gasket
arp 2000 rod bolts
arp head studs
arp mains bolts
arp flywheel bolts


pistons fitted but before i painted the block silver



block painted and arp mains fitted









head

ported and polished by gary poole
chamber work to bring cc of head back to standard after skim
xe inlet and exhuast cam
vernier pullys
double valve springs
steel valve caps
steel valve platforms
1mm oversized wasted stem 1 piece inlet valves
1mm oversized 1 piece exhaust valves
bronze valve guides
new valve seats

only pic of the head




and some of the random other bits

ecu


downpipe, external wastegate and manifold



fitted




the inlet on the turbo is 4'' just to give you an idea of size

and here she is all fitted getting ready for a start up

[/quote]

[sbd16v]

few pics from billing this is after she was cleaned these were taken back in the summer a few weeks after it went back on the road

[sbd16v]

ive had alot of teething problems and this ment some custom parts

when you build these cars it is always the case that some things get rushed first time around.

one of these things was my trigger wheel for the engine, on my engine i run an external trigger wheel, when i first went for mapping crank sensor errors stop'd the mapping and this was put down to a poor disc.

the dimensions of the original one was a tooth that was 4x4x4mm but the autronic is more happy with a 8x8x8mm tooth.

this was the original



at the start of august my training moved onto machine shop work PERFECT, so after a few weeks of learning lathe work it was time to start building my own stuff

first of was the trigger disc.

started with a lump of metal



and after some measuring and maching it begain to take shape.





the old trigger disc was totally flat that ment that the only thing that centralised it was the 2 bolts holding it on this was not good enough so this time i make a recess to hold the pully onto the disc.



i then drilled all 6 holes to hold it onto the crank bottom pully, on the vauxhall engine all the bolt hole spacing is different so the disc can now only ever go one one way.



next the teeth were milled using a dividing head to make sure the teeth were perfectly 180 degs opposed.

im afraid ive lost the pics of this .


but by then i was getting the hang of this machine work.

good job really as 2 days later i lost the ablity to release the cluth, because im running a twin plate cluch the release bearing needs to travel more than a standard clutch now when i was fitting the engine i had to make a temp fix my fixing 2 release bearings together.

this ended in tears LOL

upon taking the box off this is what i found





so back onto the lathe a new bearing was purchased.



again this needed to be extended but this time i had new skills.

so fired up the old lathe again and made a spacer to space the bearing..







this bearing set up works perfect im very happy with the feel of the clutch now .

[gregc]

nice bet it shifts, lots of hard work but bet you have enjoyed all of it

[sbd16v]

september 2008

with most of the mechanical work done it was time to get the car ready for its first track day. one of the most important thing for me was to get the F/G bonnet on, due to it being a manta 400 rep one it has massive cut outs above the turbo which will help alot with keeping everything cool.



i also spent a few days tightening things up which has made a massive difference to the feeling from inside the car it now feels alot more solid less vibration and rattles.

onto the first track day combe eurofest.

suspension was setup with a tape measure as he ran out of time (was still bolting the gearbox on 3 days before and only got the tyres on that morning etc)
the engine was running a whopping .7bar of boost, and was in limp home mode due to a faulty MAP sensor.

chip det checked it with in-the-ear headphones hidden under my crash helmet ON the track.

however the day was a massive sucess, the car performed better in both handling and straight line speed than i expected it would, the handling is more like i expected it to be once set-up so for it to perform with the most basic of set-ups, was a real treat.

some pics of it on track







little wheel cocking going on

overall very impressed with the car, best lap of the day was a 1m24 not bad for a first day at combe.

couple of videos of the day


http://www.vauxhall-sport-forum.com/rob-combe.wmv

http://www.vauxhall-sport-forum.com/chip-combe.wmv

[big rich]

that is lovely m8, nice work there....here is a pic of my 300+bhp astra

[sbd16v]

sept 2008

After a fantastic time at the weekend (eurofest at combe) i really wanted to know what power the car was putting down.

i was not to intersted in the actual number just what the number was for how it felt, just to give me a indication of what to expect when i get to the power figure i would like of 400.

i booked the car in for a power run session at jkm in portsmouth a very good set-up and the guys operating the rr know what there talking about and what there doing, very impressed with the set-up and the way they run it and id highly recomend them to anyone.






the car was run in 2 different boost settings the first was what i really wanted to know what it was at the weekend so the first run was done with .7 bar spring pressure as i have been driving it around.

this made 273bhp and 280ftlb of TQ these are both at the flywheel.

this was a little lower than i expected purly due to how the car drives, althou im not disapointed as the car goes very very well for what is such a low power reading.

we then made a very pikey boost controller (bleed type with a hole in a piece of brake pipe) this enabled us to achive 1.2 bar and another run was done at this boost level.

this made 309bhp and 330ftlb of TQ again at the fly. (261.3bhp and 280ftlb TQ @ the wheels)

some graphs of the day

BHP vs Torque



BHP vs boost



BHP vs AFR's




as you can see the car had no problems holding the boost and it makes the boost at a nice early rpm, im very happy with how soon it makes 300ftlb of tq (the final value we would like all across the range)

however due to the fact this is still a basic base map, with most of the adjustments being just making sure the car has no det, in part the timing has been removed to much this shows by how fast the TQ falls instead of there being timing in the map to bring this back up the map is far to retarded, this will however change once the engine is mapped.

it is also shown in the afr graphs how rich the engine is dropping well into the 10's above 6000 rpm.


so overall quite a bit to come from the mapping and obviously the fact it will just get more boost,

overall im very happy with the car at the moment the jigsaw is finally starting to come together.

[rob 2.2dti]

great to be able to make parts like that, I wish I could.

[sbd16v]

the car has since been run at 1.4 bar and made 329 bhp and 352 ftpl of TQ


i was not happy however with how much it was falling off at the top end, one of the things this was atribuited to was the inlet manifold so it was time for a change and some new parts/ more money into the pit lol
here are some build pics there are 4 main parts to the manifold.

first is a head flange this is cnc cut on a milling machine, out of billet alloy



in this pic you can also see one of the runners that is the 2nd main part to the manifold

next is the base plate for the plenum



the ''lines'' are just machining marks that look worse because of the camera, you cannot feel them to touch.

this plate has built in velocity stacks for proper air flow.

and the final part is the plenum.

add all these bits together and you have



cannot wait to get it fitted now and get it back on the Rolling road to see how it effects the power output

some pics of it all fitted up (with one bolt lol)




the engine is now running at 1.8 bar on the new inlet and althou has not been back to the dyno yet is somewhere in the region of 400bhp

pulls very hard untill the limiter tested in every gear apart from 6th and will happly go to 7500 in 5th

[ditchp]

think i remember droooooling over your car at billing matey, it look's awsome, and the stages after with the 400 replica bonnet are just great to, looking forward to seeing the final output with the new set up on and running, video of her would be nice as i bet she sound's as good as she look's