Vauxhall Corsa 2.0 XE Club

[DaveB]

Well, the Integra went a couple of weeks ago and I was carless for a few weeks; bus travel royally sucks.

Last weekend the MD at work offered me a company car; after 24hours consideration I accepted, and on Monday took delivery of a Mk5 Tdi Golf; lovely daily hack IMO

My decision then was whether to try and aim for a straight line/highpowered LET car or for a more rounded fast road/track car. I opted for the latter, and my search began for an XE converted mk3/corsa.

I spent hours each day scanning the forums, and sent numerous PMs and U2Us out. After seeing a bargain XE corsa turn up over on CS I called to look on my way back from being on-site with work; the chap lived in deepest darkest Norfolk.

It was pretty dark when I arrived but the car looked tidy enough; very 'used'. The interior was totally stripped bar a dashboard, 2 buckets and pair of harnesses. Off we went on the test drive; I was very impressed...more so when he proceeded to aim for the limiter in 5th

A deposit was left, and a deal done. I returned on saturday morning and collected the car; the interior that had been removed from the car was stuff in the 'boot'

I drove home with a massive grin on my face; sunday would be spent cleaning. The car had been stood for some 2-3months, and on a farmyard so the exterior wasn't at its best.

How it Started






Boot Emptied


Seats Out


Started Removing the Remaining Sound Deadening


<don't have any further pics of the floor with no sound deadening> As cool as no carpets are; I'd rather have some carpet under my feet for when the car is used in wet weather; so once the inside had all been washed down, the front carpet went back in.


The inside will be painted Arden Blue, so I sanded down the back and primered it all ready for paint


Now the inside was something like, I started on the outside:

SnowFoamed


Dried Off


End Result after Claying and PCing (bonnet isn't shut before anyone starts)




Sooo, all was good. Absolutley loving valver power in a little car, and successfully popped the limiter in 5th last night on the M62

Anyway, so that brings us on to tonight. I set off to run over to Wazpazs to pick up some servicing items from Autovaux. Coming up to one of my favourite roads when there's a misfire, the rev counter reads zero
Another misfire the management light is on, I pull over.



Everytime the car is revved the management light comes on. A call to wazpaz and we both reckon crank sensor is the fault. Waz turns up in his 12v workhorse corsa full of spares.

We change the crank sensor - car won't start
We change it for another one - car won't start
Check for fuel - yup
Check for spark - yup
Dry the plugs off - now it starts again

ECU light constantly on. Somewhere in the middle of that was a phonecall to JFisher Vauxhall support and the RAC. I was getting bored playing with it at the side of the road, so the RAC sent someone to tow me home.

We waited....

...and waited some more...




..and my evening ended like this:



...so i've broke my new car within 48hours

Car now starts on the button but ECU light is on all the time; I'll read the codes off in the morning and get it up and running ready for some abuse over the weekend.

[DaveB]

Spec@
Engine Mods: C20XE, Rebored oversize with new pistons/rings to suit, Crank reground under size with new shell bearings to suit., ARP big end bolts., motorsports oil pump and pickup pipe, Head stripped and chemically cleaned,ported and polished, lifters stripped and cleaned, motorsport oversize valves, lapped in and new valve stem oil seals fitted.
Transmission: F20
Suspension: FK Highsport Coilovers
Bodywork: FK Automotive grille, DEPO Smoked Headlights, De-Locked Handles, All colour coded, Etec front top strut brace
Interior: Stripped Rear, Corbeau Forza FIA fixed Bucketseats, Sparco 3 point Harness
In Car Entertainment: none
Security: Clifford Concept 300
Wheels Vauxhall Tigra 5Spokes
Tyres Goodyear Eagle F1 (195/45)

[astragsi]

looks tidy, im sure it will be something simple when you get the codes read off.

how much was it then?? what was the reason for selling the ted, im still loving vtech and i think the civic is either getting rotexed or staying N/A and getting a pair of cams.

[DaveB]

Cheap enough

Teg was sold to free up funds for other things - I still have plenty money left over, now have a company car and a weekend toy

[Kev_cav]

try coolent temo sencor,

im pritty sure its that from what you have said

[Rick Draper]

Terrible panel gaps in that picture dave .

Anyhow it looks a nice example, sort of regret selling mine now. Was a right laff when giving it some. Shud have fitted a F28 and kept it.

How are you finding the PC? Not used mine yet, still a bit scared.

[spanishfly]

nice car. Good correction work.

[CraigGreen]

Looks cool. Yucky cheap bucket seats though!

[DaveB]

Originally Posted by Rick Draper

Terrible panel gaps in that picture dave .

How are you finding the PC? Not used mine yet, still a bit scared.

Ram it

PC is ace, love it to bits. Still need loads more practice though before I'd start charging; at the moment I'm still testing on friends/family cars. I don't think I'm harsh enough with it. Definate improvements on all the cars I've done though

[spanishfly]

Originally Posted by DaveB

Ram it

PC is ace, love it to bits. Still need loads more practice though before I'd start charging; at the moment I'm still testing on friends/family cars. I don't think I'm harsh enough with it. Definate improvements on all the cars I've done though

Just go for it, I practiced on my Sisters AX, they have crap paint coverage, and it has laquer damage, so thought, no loss. Came out superb and even to this day ( year and a half later) It still shines when clean, same as my dads Astra.

[Tom Williams]

Car looks good Dave.

Whats PC?

[Benn]

About time you posted a pic,
its very nice,love the colour...and the smoked headlights,
glad you see your putting the carpete in.

where did you get the snow/foaming wash from?

[Benn]

Originally Posted by Tom Williams

Whats PC?

mini polishing/buffing mop,

[Tom Williams]

what to actual polish of the device used for polishing?

[Benn]

Originally Posted by DaveB

Spec@
In Car Entertainment: the sound of giggling like a school girl while roahing past everything

edited your spec for ya...lol

[DaveB]

Well, tonight was going to be a fault finding exercise.

I wanted to change the oil/filter on the car anyway so figured I'd make a night of it - I started at 7.30pm and finished at 11.55pm

First job was to throw the first coat of paint in the back of the car. I used a full car, and thinking back should have concentrated on one area rather than sporadically painting everywhere. Nevermind, will buy a few more cans tomorrow and make sure it looks all spanking for the weekend



The next job was to read of the ECU fault codes. Obviously this is normally an easy task in a car that's meant to have an XE fitted to it; or alternatively if you've done the conversion yourself-then generally you wire things in/put things in a place that makes it easier to access at a later date.

The wiring on the car has been carried out to a high standard, however I couldn't for the life of me trace where the damned brown/yellow wire went behind the fuse board - so I tore down all the wires from under the dashboard:


A quick call to JFisher Vauxhall Support and I began to read off the fault codes:

15 - CTS sensor voltage high
31 - crank sensor, no signal
66 - c02 potentiometer
93 - hall sensor

I mentioned to JF that when buying the car I was told the CTS needed replacing, so discounted that for the moment. JF wasn't convinced that there was a sensor problem; he said it sounds like a dodgy ground. I went straight to the fuel rail grounds and this is what they looked like:



Look pretty normal? Well not really - they were both finger tight for a start, and the fuel rail has been painted with silver hammerite, everywhere. I removed the grounds and scratched the paint away from around where the grounding bolt goes. I then roughed up the surface with some wet/dry paper, and refitted the grounds.

While it was still light I then decided to start the service; so up it comes...



..damn low corsas really; didn't expect the back wheel to come up that high either

Since buying the car its had a terrible rattle at 2k-2.5k rpm...I very very bad rattle. I knew it wasn't inside the engine, so wasn't worried too much but it was soo annoying. While the car was in the air I slid under and had a look for anything that could be catching. Low and behold I find the manifold support bracket still bolted (all be it loosely) to the manifold.

I remove the offending item, and throw it away- happy that I'll have both cured my rattle, and saved some weight

So, back we go inside the car. The wire that I've put on the brown/yellow to now read codes off gets put infront of the fusebox for easy access in future I then spent the best part of 2hours routing, and re-routing the cables above the drivers footwell - to keep the power steering working the standard 1.0 12v ECU is also up there, meaning space is minimal, and unfortunately leaves only one place for the XE ECU to go, and means its on show


Back under the bonnet and I start putting the few inlet bits back on when I notice a split in the vacumn hose from the FPR to the throttle body. The split went down the entireity of the connector, although the picture doesn't show that too clearly.


A quick route through the garage and I found some dump valve silicone hose that I had lying about after my brief RST experience . I fitted that as a replacement:



..and that's where I called it a day. I still need to get a new CTS (might aswell as they're only a few quid) and check the wiring for it. I'm pretty confident that when I turn the key tomorrow evening though it'll fire up into life

[DaveB]

Well the car fired up last night with the first turn of the key. No ECU light

It was running very rich though. Bits from Autovaux will be purchased on friday and I'll see where we go from there Going to throw a set of plugs in it at the same time.

My 5kg flywheel from vxlgsi arrived yesterday aswell, and I'm currently waiting on a steering wheel from gsijay

[The Simps]

Looks like a cool little project. Knew you'dcome back vaux!

Can't believe you came all the way into Norfolk and didn't stand on the top of a hill and hollow for the Simps?!

Whereabouts was it anyway?

[Benn]

good work dude,
whats the red wire running across the back of the bay?
i love your inspection lamp too...

[DaveB]

Simps; didn't know you were from there tbh. It was about 5 miles north of Boston
I knew I'd come back to vauxhall aswell; I just had to try and go jap, and turbo I don't think there's a boosted engine in the world that could take stand to take the abuse though

Red wire is for ECU or fuel pump relay. They're both wired in with FIA stylee switches in the centre console of the car; it'll be moved soon enough once things are actually working, lol.

I broke my other inspection lamp previously in the evening, and that was the closest to hand

Bought a set of wheels this evening; big update tomorrow

[Mark_F]

Originally Posted by DaveB

I broke my other inspection lamp previously in the evening, and that was the closest to hand

Jeez Dave, nothing is safe when you're around, is it?

Loving the write-up.

[DaveB]

Ram it. Sell me your white wheels

[Drizz]

Nice!

[vxlgsi]

good work fella, colour coded jack? thats just showing off..!

[ainsley_brader]

Originally Posted by The Simps

Can't believe you came all the way into Norfolk

He didnt its a lincolnshire car!