I bought the car in Nov 2004 off a mate as a standard turbo with dealer fitted Irmscher body kit and full service history. It had 83k miles on the clock and had apparently been a Vauxhall demo car for the first couple of years of its life.
The only jobs needing doing were a new passenger front wing and new tyres all round (both included in the sale). Also the clutch was on its last legs, slipping in 6th on boost.
I got the wing and tyres changed straight away and fitted a Cat 1 alarm and immobiliser to keep things safe.
I used the car everyday as it was until July 05 when I set about changing the clutch myself with the expert help of mates Daz and Mike who know these engines inside out so was a steep learning curve for me.
The car was great with the new clutch, a Sach Uprated item and a XE flywheel, using full potential of the car
Unfortunately while changing the clutch I forgot to undo the transfer box temp switch and managed to snap it off. So ran the car in 2wd from then as found it hard to track down a new switch.
The car ran great then until Nov 05 when in heavy traffic, getting hotter and hotter, the accumulator decided it had had enough and promptly blew its seal and leaked all the PAS fluid out. Running the car without fluid then damaged the bearings in the PAS pump causing it to jam and snap the aux belt.
(snapped belt pic to go here)
At this stage I had quite a few jobs mounting up to do as well as new parts to fit so took the decision to take the car off the road so I could concentrate on fixing it all and also upgrading to phase 2!
Parts I had ready to fit!
The car was sitting outside my house at this point and on the 2nd Jan 06 was broken into . They broke the door handle to get in and popped the bonnet to try and silence the alarm. Fortunately I was awake at the time (1:30am) and came running out the house to see them ripping the wiring out of the siren. They legged it empty handed and fortunately little damage was done. I already had new handles to go on and got a new siren loom from an alarm dealer.
From then on the car has lived in my locked garage which was actually good motivation to get started on the project.
Here are the upgrades I have done to the engine for phase 2 spec;
I had a problem with my fuel pressure reg not working properly with boost and also getting the car through the emissions test.
So the car was put back on the road ready for billing running standard chips and boost. It made it there without a hitch the only annoying problem was the starter motor overheating and not working.
On the MIG stand
The next 3 weeks I got 600 miles under its belt without issue until I made the mistake of fitting a powder coated rocker cover and missing some of the powder stuck in the drainage plate… this of course made it into the engine and jammed the oil pressure relief valve resulting in no oil pressure damaging a big end bearing, And also breaking a piston ring.
So… rebuild time! I placed my orders for new bits;
ZLET steel head gasket
Head stud kit
86mm pistons rings
Big End shells
New oil pump
8v baffle plate
Plus loads of new bolts / washers / seals / gaskets / o rings……
Head off
(pics of rings and barings to go here)
I finished the rebuild and after a few oil pressure probs got it started. Only to find the new oil pump leaking! Turns out I missed a bit of the old gasket, doh
At that point the tax and insurance were running out so it got put on the back burner....
but since the cold weather is nearly past....;
The pump is all back on now and sump etc… Just left is the cam belt to put back on.
Over the winter period iv bought a few new bits for it including;
VMAX Evo 5 Software
VXR Injectors
Uprated fuel pump
XE cams
Vectra 288 disks
New vectra calipers
Green stuff pads
Front wishbones
Front ball joints
Front track rod ends
Front drop links
plus other stuff i cant remember at the mo....
Now I need to finish off putting it back together and run it in.
