Brett's Astra GTE 16v Turbo Trackcar Project

**Brett** · 02-06-2006, 17:43

Heres my thread to keep those that are interested up to date on the progress of my MK2 Astra GTE.

I was offered the shell in August 2005 by Chip, after a day or so of umming and ahhing I just thought sod it - rust free GTE in yellow, I really had to have it!! I trailered it back from near Oxford one sunday and since then Ive been busy on it. Ive been at it nearly a year already so Ive included dates for you!

Of corse its best known as Gary Pooles old car, it was featured in the first issue of Total Vauxhall back in September 2001. A big thanks to Gary for all the times he has helped me out when Ive PM'd him with little queries!

When I got it, Aug 2005;

strip down carnage, I gave the engine and box back to chip in early September 2005, XE and F20 no use to me

Mk2 Astra nudity...

At this point i needed to raise more cash. Time to do one things I never thought would happen, strip my old GTE 16v.... hard thing to do I loved that car

I was also working on bits and bobs for the yellow shell..
home made dash

I started going through my wiring loom and removed any wiores I didnt need. This involved learning how to read wiring diagrams, unbelivable handy skill!

after a few nights I had removed
So far Ive removed;
Brake pad wear sensor wires
rear speaker wires
trailer loom (7 wires!)
lights on warning buzzer loom and relay
front fog light wires
headlight height adjustment wires
analogue clock wires
dual horn relay and wires

lots more ended up coming out but it was october last year and I cant remember! Ive completly redesigned the whole thing to hide as much of the loom as possible in the engine bay.

Ideas were really starting to flow by this point, I wanted to out the brake lines in the car, totally strip it, paint it yellow inside. I decided that although it was a trackcar I also wanted to present it as well as I could. From here on in progress slowed night closed in and the weather went down the pan!!

December 2005 - moving it to a garage at last! Id been working on my driove and unable to touch it for a while so a mate let me use his garage.

I bought a this Cally T in december for its engine and box.

The car hadnt been used regularly since April 2004 when the TXB blew, the owner was very sentimantal about it and wouldnt sell it to me first time I asked about the car. He planned to store it untill he needed it again. It failed an MOT on some small things and he e-mailed me telling me to make a reasonable offer, I did and it was mine. I sold its pitiful remains for £100 last weekend to someone who wanted the 4x4 parts.

the rest of my posts I will coy accross from astra mk2.com and put the date I posted at the top. Summarising is taking f***ing ages!!

**Brett** · 02-06-2006, 17:44

POSTED ON 22/01/2006

Things have been progressing really well of late, the car has been consuming lots of my time which is why I havent been around as much as normal of late. Now its in my mate Craig's house in his garage, Ive been able to crack on in the dry (if not warm!) at least. Ive also been buying plenty of bits and bobs for it.....

sorry if its a long thread, and also sorry for the poor pictures, most of the time I cant be arsed to stop for some silly pictures, but I know if I dont I'll only regrett not having them to look back on!!

as it was on arrival at craigs...

Before any welding was done I cedided to trial fit my roll cage into it to see if it lined up with the existing plates. It did which was great, but the A pillar mounts need replacing, the bolts wont tighten up

next we tackled the engine bay. There were some rust holes I wanted tidying up, and also some plating needed on the inner wing on the passernger side. Its a testiment to how well Gary kept the car in that the only other place Ive had to repair rust is the traditional spot, drivers side floorpan wishbone mount area. Craig welded for me, its like art when craig welds, its just so damn tidy!

here we are filling a large hole that had been cut by holding a peice of copper on one side and welding the other side.

an example of the finished welds - this one is on the chassis leg to the inner wing passengers side

turrett

In the end, I elected to go for a mix of seam and stitch welding. We seamed the chassis legs and engine mounts, and stictched the suspension turrets to the inner wings, the sterring rack box sections to the bulkhead, all round the wishbone mounts too.

Next we fitted a new slam pannel as I wasnt happy with the lack of strength in it, lots had been cut away. This turned out to be a bitch of a job, findng all the spot welds, drilling them out, lining the new panel up and holding it there while we spot welded it back in. I wont ever do that job again!

next job on the list was getting it ready to be sprayed, and this is on going. I knew it would take this long but I have cramp in my arm Ive been sanding so much filler in places!!
Engine bay is noe done, baring a few more holes I have decided to fill. Here it is in primer awaiting the top coat....

tidying repair to the wishbone mount

finally started nasking up last night, still some fillering and prep tp do but all being well that'll be done by the weekend.

I bought a litre of Pineapple Yellow two-pack at the weekend, along with the thinners and hardeners needed. Craig has a compressor and we have a spray gun, so in a weeks time I should be able to report the car is yellow all over. I plan on leaving all that to properly set for a week before I go climbing around in it, first job will be to re-wire the whole bloody thing. Cant wait

Ive been buying lots of other bits too, heres some of the interesting stuff...
Bucket seats - Corbeau Forza Sport 2000. FIA homologated too, although no idea if they meet current regulations!

Frontera 2.8TDi FMIC

Digital AFR and Boost guages, and the face plate Ive made up for them to sit in the extra pod I have on my custom dash

and a chrome SP cover. Im going to paint it black but leave the wording on it chrome

rocker and cambelt covers are going to be yellow.

Finally this turned up opn E-bay last week, I wasted no time LOL!

I have also liberated the LET from the lump of lead it was attached to (AKA Calibra Turbo shell) I've also found the time to fit the bumpers from that to my Calibra 16v runaround along with vectra doorhandles and the Trip computer for the turbo.

I've added this thread as a reply in my diary in the restoration section, so if you've been following it there fell free to reply there LOL!

Brett

**Brett** · 02-06-2006, 17:46

POSTED 12/02/2006

Finally, after what feels like months (actually 5 weeks) I sprayed the car today, pineapple yellow to match the exterior paintwork...:bananajump: :bananajump: :bananajump: :Banane44: :Banane43: :Banane42:

how things began this morning....

I tidied up, moved the shell into the centre of the garage using our new skateboard method. I sprayed it with 2-pack using my mate Craigs compressor. It was my first ever attempt at spraying using a proper spray gun, it took me a while before I was happy with the way the gun was dispersing the paint but once that was sorted, I was off. I bought a litre of paint (makes 1.6l when you've mixed in hardeners and thinners) and it was exactly enough. I really enjoyed painting it, took 4 hours and I only got 3 little runs! Its come up a bit more orange-peely than I'd have liked, but its a mainly going to be a car for driving not showing off and it doesnt have to be perfect.

anyway, some pics of the finifhed effort!

engine bay..

inside...

Best moment of the day? when I peeled back the masking tape to check the colour match. Its spot on

gary told me it was red undernatch and the paint was slightly darker, hence the red primer. Worked a treat

and me by the time I went home, a nice yellow hue... (I should add yes I was wearing a breathing mask, and I didnt go to bed till 5am last night and was up at 9 this morning, Bath rocks for a good night out!!)

Anyway, it feels great now its done, and its something else on the car that Im proud to be able to say I just got on and did it myself

Really motivated to get one with hammeriting the underside and wheel arches this week now!

**Brett** · 02-06-2006, 17:46

16/02/2006

last night I began to refit a few parts to it. Back in went the rear windows which need to go in as once the roll cage is in you cant get to the scews. I undersealed the front inner arches and painted the front crossmembers black. I sprayed the handbrake and pedal box too before refitting tonight.

one job Im not looking forward to will be refitting the sunroof, the bloody scilicone that was on the roof already will not come off, so it might leak

its REALLY yellow now all that masking tape and newspaper has been removed, and the paint looks better than I thought so all in all, delighted with that job!

**Brett** · 02-06-2006, 17:49

POSTED 18/03/2006

I did a 16 hour day working on it yesterday, arriving at 8am to paint under the scuttle panel, refit the heater motor, wiper motor and arms and the winscreen washer bottle which is re-located behind there. Ive modded the route the wires for these take so they are all hidden too, coming up through underneath the wiper motor. The original hole for this loom has been fillered and sprayed. I soldered all the connectors back on to the loom and plugged it all in.

Next up craig helped me fit the arb Links, I havent bothered with poly bushes, tbh I dont want a really harsh ride because Somerset have some of the most appaling roads in the country. I used all new links and new rubber bushes, then we torqued it all up to haynes manual recommendations and set the ARB link bushes to the 38mm setting.

Next up the manual rack (massive 4.2 turns lock to lock btw!) which Ive painted up got lobbed on so I could fit the servo. The one Ive used came from a GTE 5dr me stt and I broke about 18 months ago, so had the damper on there. I decided to leave this on as I hate the steering wheel dancing around over bumps and so on like manual racks are prone too, and this should eliminate that at least partially. We had to mod it a bit to make it work with the bump steer modded arms but it all lined up with a few adjustments. I did all that and painted it the other night and so all that was left to do to this was fit it all on, which which wasnt hard as I've taken the column back out. Im thinking about using a non adjustable one because its lighter

I took a break from the Astra at this point and helped craig remove the engine from his Corsa SRi, its spun a bottom end shell

Simon (stt on here) came over at lunch time to do the brake lines. He'd got all the unions and copper pipe for me as he knew exactly want was needed for it all which made my life much easier. We used bulkhead adapters where the pipes come into the car and also where they go back throught the floorpan at the rear. This took a fair old while, simon made templates to start with before going on and making the brake lines from scratch. I've never seen this done before and bloody hell, its clever stuff!! around the master cylinder looks fabulous with all those fresh copper pipes. Lets hope it works just as well! We used the normal clips for holding the brake lines to the underside of the car to do the same job inside, after craigs mum kindly cleaned them for me!! As you can see from the pics the lines run down the centre of the car, under the gearstick, up over the fuel tank and back underneath the car there. We ran outof copper to do the bottom of the car but Simon wants me to fit the Mk2 Cav Estate rear beam before we do that part. I'll be using goodridge braided hoses instaed of the rubber flexi hoses as per the norm.

Pics from the day... You can see here what else has been done, mainly the loom is nearly all back in now.

Last job of the day we attacked a noisey F20 steve had given me to get the speedo sender and ring out of for use in the F28. It didnt want to play ball, so in the ned craig and simon went at it with an angle grinder and got the diff out that way. Steve, I owe you an F20 mate!

I left at about 11.30 PM after tidying the garage!

Yesterday Craig and I went scrapyarding, I needed a seat belt before I could fit the cage. Allarmingly, there were only about 2 Mk2 Astra's accross all the 5 we visited, all said they just crush them now

Simon had spotted an Renault 19 16v in one of them the day before so we returned and relived it of this...

..... an electric water pump. Pretty useful for a Turbo that will be used pretty hard. Not sure how best to activate it yet, be it tempreture or timer based, but I'll ask those in the know like most things with this car and them implement what I think is best!

After that we went down to Simons farm where he pressed in a new wheel bearing for me. We grabbed his sand blaster and headed back off home. Im going to sand blast me 17's before I spray them, and I like to try most things myself so it seemed like the ideal thing!

Today I was going to do that, but even though I wasnt driniking when I was out last night, Ive had the headache from hell all day and this is the first thing Ive really done all day. I get these quite a lot and its the 3rd consecutive saturday Ive lost to this, its really ****ing annoying but Ive been getting them since I was a kid and theres no simple cure

Anyway, this week our attention will turn to the C20LET and F28. Painting, converting and so on ready to fit as soon as we can. Im off to the VBOA sapres day in warwickshire tomorrow with Simon, armed with cash for anything that grabs my attention.

I owe major major thanks to Simon and craig for all their help over the past 2 days, cheers guys I appreciate it loads!

ps. sorry for the long reply. I accidentally deleted this reply once, as I was upploading the water pump picture, so Ive written it twice, you only have to read it once!!!

**Brett** · 02-06-2006, 17:50

POSTED 23/03/2006

Been working on her since lunch time today.

first I swapped on the poly anti roll bar bushes stt gave me. Just the ones for where the wishbone bolts to the bulkhead, not the links. figured poly here probably will five some improvement over rubber without causing any of the other side effects.

Next I cleaned up the callipers ready to paint them. They are from an Mk4 Astra GSi so are fairly new, when I cleaned them up it was obvious they didnt need painting so I set about putting the front legs on. First I had to refit the steering arms. No major problems here. On went the legs followed by the discs. Glad Ive dont the 5 stud conversion now becuase its so much easier to refit a disc thatr hasnt been redrilled, and theres the added bonus of the locating screw lining up!

At this point I noticed there seemed to be an awful lot of play in the wheel bearing we pressed in last saturday. I was a bit worried by this, but I carried on fitting the calliper and finally the wheel. Gave it a shake, theres loads of play, if the car was going to be driven it would be lethal. I soldiered on and did the other side, before trying to jack it up to remove the axel stands.

then the jack broke. by this point I was juct about sick to the back teetj=h of delays and problems. After a few minutes trying to fix it I admitted it was ****ed. I used the engine crane to lift it of the stands and set it back down on the ground.

I then gave the car a shake to have another look at the wheel bearing, this time even with the wheel on the floor it was wobbling all over the place. Either the bearing autovaux supplied is faulty or they supplied the wrong one. There is the possibility that I ordered the wrong bearing for the legs based on the wrong information I suppose.

so with no jack and no one wanting to help anyway I couldnt do anything with the beam. The drivers side leg is going to have to come off all over again and have another new hub. The digi cam then packed in AGAIN when I tried to take some pictures, I got a few but not many.

so, Im feeling pretty fed up about pretty much everything just now. I'm not sure if anything was achieved today! Castle coombe end of this month I can forget about for sure. I'm going to forget getting it ready for any show or whatever, It'll be done when its done and not before then.

At least I wasnt spuing up and having unexplained headaches this weekend

pictures of todays efforts! (bit random I know, but as I said camera was playing up!)

308mm discs really fill even the 17's!

ok, yes they are really ****ing large!

yes more brake pictures

**Brett** · 02-06-2006, 17:51

28/04/2006

Finally got my MK2 Cavalier Estate beam painted ealier so here are some pictures, showing the difference I know of between it and the Astra 16v beam, I know people have asked in the past!

Main difference is the way the rear shocks mount, clearly much more substantial tham the Astra 16v beam.

I've now managed to get some Cav V6 rear hubs etc from Stt, so when I go down to colect them there will be nothing stopping me putting it back on the pineapple and finishing her brakes at last!

**Brett** · 02-06-2006, 17:52

POSTED 13/05/2006

been busy today....

quick pic of the hole in the beam now its been enlarged...

Went over to a mates and used his pillar drill to redrill the backing plates, as per Mark T's guide I need to reverse them so the handbrake cable is at the top, not the bottom. got home, bolted it all up to check I'd drilled it all correctly, after some filing on 2 of the holes I'd drilled it all when on fine. Took it all apart again and gave it a lick of paint to freshen in all up. The discs and pads are virtually new too!

Will take it all over and refit to the car on tuesday night now!

**Brett** · 02-06-2006, 17:56

well thats about up to date so far!

When we put the beam on last weekend it didnt fit, so thats now coming back of for loads of mods to make it so! I've bought a Quaffie ATB from steveboyslim too recently

Im really sorry if this is bitty, theres a 17 page thread on astra-mk2.com and I have scanned through it picking out the basics of what I have done so far.

The full thread can be found here: http://www.astra-mk2.com/forum/showthread.php?t=2292
Its got all sorts of scary in-depth Mk2 Astra knowledge being displayed by the usual mk2 astra owners. Thanks to them for their help too

The car is coming home soon as TBH now the wather is good I cant be arsed waiting for someone to be in at my mates so I can work on it!! I got given a H reg 1.4 3dr L the other night to help out with bolts and so on so thats got to be shifted from my drive too.

I'll update the thread in line with the mk2 astra.com one from now on. Cheers for reading and fair play if you are still awake!

Brett.

**LEE69** · 02-06-2006, 18:01

Nice one mate,coming along nicely.
Them 308's looks really nice.

Neil Adams · 02-06-2006, 22:40

Cracking thread mate! Wont be much longer and this thing will be pushing Scoobs around!

**Benn** · 03-06-2006, 06:05

great rebuild,
love the working going in to her..

**Brett** · 07-07-2006, 16:32

I took the car home from my mate Craigs a week ago on tuesday. Well STT did it for me on a trailer! cheers Si! since it came home ive been dying to get to work on it with re-newed vigour and I had today off so set to it just after lunch...

turned back to finishing off the front electrics, this mainly involved wires that need swapping to fit the LET.

First job was to sort out which wires I needed to wire into the 3 little plugs by the LET ECU. this was done last night with the help of a few of the lads of here Astra-mk2.com

Got to it lunchtime, started by fedding the loom that runs through the bulkhead back into the engine bay, and set about picking out which wires I needed to move from joining the ECU loom through the round X5 plug to the 3 little plugs back inside the car as mentioned. I established this was the fuel pump black/red, a blue/red and brown/yellow for the fuel computer and the brown/blue for the engine managment light. the other diagnostics wires were hanging from a 2 pin connector found in the loom near the brake light switch, the temp guage blue which comes accross from the main car loom harness in the passenger footwell. I rerouted them through the loom so they all came out in the same place. I then positioned the whole lot to get wire lengths and soldered it all up...

footwell is looking much tidyer after all that!

Now I was bored and wielding a soldering iron.. so I decided yet more loom modifications were needed! I looked at what I could get out of the engine bay, and decided on moving the diagnostics plug itslef into the passenger footwell, and also re-route the outside air tempreture to the front of the car along the same route as the headlight wires now take, conceled behind the passengers wing.

this means much less wires in the engine bay!!

havent looked at the round X5 plug yet, it needs the one from the Cally T soldering on and I havent really looked at wireing that up yet!

mattcoupturbo · 07-07-2006, 16:43

Cool project, will be very tasty when its done.

coolamasta · 07-07-2006, 20:07

Fookin excellent mate, progressing well

Don't forget to give me a shout when you are ready to put the LET in and i'll come give you a hand with it and the wiring etc, nice job with the water pump for the turbo, could be interesting

**Brett** · 07-07-2006, 23:38

Im not sure where the car will be having the engine fitted yet mate. The engine is going down to stt's for a week or so to get cleaned and serviced and theres more space down there than at mine.

leesturbo · 08-07-2006, 06:25

trackday car or show car

bloody hell thats concourse.

**Brett** · 08-08-2006, 21:03

I havent updated recently, but I have been cracking on with the wiring, which is coming along very nicely!!

I decided, looking back, that I wasnt happy with the way I'd worked the wiring at the back of the car. Only one thing to do then, get the cutters out and remove the whole lot and start again. I elected to rewire everything from the rear wheels back

the 1.4L I got for free gave up an unmolested bit to solder in. Being a carb model, it dodnt have the fuel pump wires, so I decided to re-route them using nice fresh wire. I soldered it all in, including a new mothod I thought of to get power to the 3rd brake light in the spoiler - utilising the connection pad that removing the rear wiper has left redundant. Its a much better job this time, less joins in the wires. Ive refitted the plastic cover to the boot panel now too.

next up, I looked into what could be done with the wires that come through the bulkhead and into the engine bay just above the clutch pedal. I didnt like this - looks untidy and I'd done so much re-routing that there are only about 9 wires left!! It seemed to make more sense to move them so that they come into the engine bay in the same place as the engine loom. Im going to join the round X5 connector to this and it should then be put of sight behind the inlet manifold.

a little gromit seals up the hole where the loom originally passed through...

with all this goin on in the drivers footwell, I looked into moving the bonnet release handle. Moving it to the passengers footwell seemed easy enough, and would mean I could fully hide the cable in the engine bay, which wouldnt have been possible with it left on the driver side. I reversed the mounting to make it all point the right way, then resized the cable. It works perfectly. The cable still runs inside the engine bay, but its out of sight tigh up on the inner wing secured by P clips.

Ive since been going through the loom and making sure all the joins are properly insulated, making sure its all earthed properly and checking for silly mistakes, of which there have been the odd one - I hadnt insulated some permanent lives, what a tit. Made me pararnoid and I did the rest with a fine-tooth combe. I also joined the stereo loom back in, noticed I havent included any wires for the side repeators, hadnt re-wired the fuel pump and hadnt joined the round plug. STT still has to finish the headlight setup and fan override switch, and he'd also going to oversee the fitting of the battery box, coz doing that alone I could well end up frying myself lol!!! That should be done next week hopefully.

The beam is currently being modified so it will fit, I've got to take the brake lines back out and change some of the unions too. Tomorrow night the car loom will be ready to have a test fitting of the dash and components, it wont do to tidy it all up and then find that they wont reach the switches!!

Some of you may also know I bought a quickrak about 18 months ago from RSC Motorsport through Rob_S, well he left and it never turned up - its all a pack of lies and currently in the hands of trading standards trevor's accusing rob of embezzeling money out of the business. Well now another company has managed to pick up the racks which were eventually manufactured and Ive bought my rack again. On a car like this 4.2 turns was so dissapointing I just bit the bullet and paid all over again. Hopefully trading standards may one day recover my money from RSC/Rob/Trevor whoever the real criminal is - I dont know anymore.

more again soon.....

Brett

coolamasta · 09-08-2006, 08:14

Still coming along nicely then mate

Pisser about the quickrak though

If I do pop over on Sunday i'll have to have a look

**LEE69** · 09-08-2006, 08:35

Looking good mate.

**Benn** · 09-08-2006, 09:52

soz have missed abit,
why the cav rear beam dude?

**Brett** · 09-08-2006, 14:05

The Cav mk2 estate rear beam is 10mm wider, and has far stronger shock mounts and some stronger welds have been identified elsewhere. I found a Mk2 Estate in the breakers one day and thought why not have the beam. Also you can use the standard flexi for the brakes hose which Im tolod you cant using a Mk3 cav beam.

I painted it all up, welded on the handbrake brackets from the original 16v beam, fitted the eibach ARB and poly bushes - only to find it didnt bloody fit. The shock mounts are about 10mm per side to close together, so the shock fouls the inner arch. I'd come to far to bin it so a mates dad is cutting of the brackets and welding them back on further apart - which should also allow me to fit the external 16v ARB too.

***Astra Dan*** · 09-08-2006, 16:11

Sod that, a mk3 rear beam sits rather nicely on my mk2, and also benifits from the increased camber that the mk3 and GTE 16V had to help it corner. No handbrake cable issues either, obviously.

Stunning project though Brett, nice one!

**Brett** · 09-08-2006, 21:53

I'm planning opn putting some washers between the beam and hub backing plate to recover the lost camber tbh Dan... I'll see what its like when I get it back, the Mk3 Cav beam may end up going on if it fits that nicely - I heard its 20mm wider though so could also cause the wheels to foul the arches

more pics from tonights efforts -

first job was to put all the dash etc in to make sure the loom was the right length and would sit right. It did mainly which is good news and the modifications I had to make were only small

Was the first time I'd seen the car with a dash in nearly a year so it felt pretty good!!

wiring all in a pickle. It'll be tidied up only when I know its all correct and working.

few pics of the bonnet release cable move to the passenger side I did the other night too.

cable all hidden from view...

I then took the dash back out and packed it all away again, next time it ll goes in will hopefully be the last time!!

I was planning on attacking it tomorrow night too, but I was driving the Calibra pretty hard up the gorge an hour or so ago and something made a really loud bang as I was going through a fast left hander. Now theres a really loud whine coming from the NSF corner whenever I go round a right hander. Its almost as loud as a gearbox whine - so I'll have to check that out instead

Wouldnt have happened in my old GTE 16v

the cally aint half the car

**Benn** · 09-08-2006, 23:42

ah i see,
and its looking and sounding very good!