Aussie Corsa Sport C20xe Conversion

[rufion]

NB: I have done a post dump here from another site which brings it up to date, sorry for the confusion ... and size!

THE CAR

Make: Holden

Model: Barina GSi

Year: 1996

Engine: C20XE

Colour: Grey


MODIFICATIONS

Engine: None yet.

Brakes and Suspension: 2ltr Calibra front brakes, 22mm Whiteline rear sway bar, 40mm lowered springs with matched rate GMax Custom valved Shocks and Struts.

Interior: Standard

Exterior: Window Tint

Wheels: 15" Calibra Rims (195/45R15)

ICE: Head Unit + 4 x 6" Speakers


PHOTOS

I bought the car in Feb 08 as we needed a second car so I could get to work which was commuting from Sydney to Newcastle...went for another small car as petrol is one the rise and i had read up on this one's motor being easy to tune some more hp out with better airflow. Got this one at a middle of the road price of 5100, on its side was full service history and good body and interior, std everything.

Stock(pic not actually my car)



In the engine bay the throttle body is positioned allong way away from the airbox, it has a platic intake pipe routed to the rear of the motor and over the top, something like 6ft of piping to cap peak hp, a move my vauxhall to keep the astra more powerfull than the 1600.



Added 1st set Wheels

These wheel were a straight swap from the wife's 1.4 SB, the offset was too small at approx 40 and scrubbed badly on small bumps, forget if there were people in the back!





The new intake plenum

All the people in the uk say this is the real mod to do first, but expensive, found a guy on ebay who makes them cheap, got it shipped and landed for 450. The aussie dollar was pretty strong in March so saved hundreds. Fitting it was not fun..had to remove throttle body and piping, extend the loom, refit vacuum pipes etc dremel tb to fit plenum...had many dramas. Called the seller at 7am uk time for final instructions and got it going first turn of key 4 hrs later. The change was massive, even my wife thought it was a winner mod. very responsive and more power, the throaty induction noise was gone, more like an old school motorbike on carbs. NICE! Needed to replace mass air sensor first week too, had to get it towed home to fix it! For a while I ran a unifilter pod under the gaurd with the flex pipe from the tb, work pretty well but wanted it a bit quieter and stock engine bay look for police.







New wheels & 195/45/15 Tyres

Got sick of the scrubbing and had to get offset of 49 for future lowering, founde these at the wreckers $300 wheels, tyres were $118 each. Calibra boots.









New Brakes

Got these with the wheels $200, same size at 256mm as gsi but thicker and a larger caliper.





New SwayBar

From Superior Suspension Syd at $160 (took 3 weeks to arrive ), fitted in 25 minutes, really stiif now, keeps the front tyres on the road and alllows mid corner corrections and lift off oversteer like was never ever possible before. A must i reckon.



Lowered 40mm

Selby sport low at 260, std shocks for now, far from ideal but low on cash now.







Engine bay with Modded (legal) Airbox, ECU chipped and fed by 90mm Cold Air Intake (CAI)

Bought a chip from smartys on ebay from Lituania?? and really made the motor scream to 7100rpm with a higher rev limit and more aggresive fuel and ignition cost 110 landed and took 2 hours to install. from memory 28 pins to desolder and resloder in, brain surgery for my basic soldering skills.

Used the wifes airbox (when it got written off) and used 90mm air pickup with meshed scoop below gaurd into box with the unifilter pod enclosed. re did the wiring to throttle body too, heatshrink instead of leckie tape...



Bought today...just got to find out where to put it....

Ever since I bought the car I had been reading about the C20xe conversion from the calibra...150 hp and 145 ft pound of torque std with easy gains with the usual bolt ons. A big job for my skills and experience but now is as good a time as any for this one, (immenotu and the boys are keen and willing to help) so been reading up and an its happening, bought a 105 k motor calibra to pull it of and drop into mine, sold my motor to Cholly so stay tuned for some image dumps on the install, hope I haven't missed any important steps in the conversion guides, a long way form help in the uk as no one out here has recently done this to my knowledge.



Apparently a c20xe powered barina is good for sub 7 to 100 and sub 15 quarter. Thats 2-3 seconds faster than std, should be fun!

Please give a comment.

[rufion]

Some new parts arrived today...thanks Brian!

Engine mounts for the c20xe



Driveshafts and hubs for the larger CV's



Tarmac custom valved suspension by Gmax 40mm lowered and tuned to the spring rate and 2L motor.

[rufion]

Update:

Went to Sydney on the weekend with Bill and a borrowed ute and trailer (thanks allot Robbo!), picked up the calibra from Cabramatta (now there's a crazy place eh). The trailer and the ramps didn't marry up so took 2 attempts after the ramps fell half way up! Getting it off was a pain too, some heave ho and fuel lines broken later it was off.

Now sitting under the carport and we will start to drop the motor out tonight. Putting in an autovaux order for some bits to get the motor serviced and sealed ( sump leak ). All runs well though so happy!

Thanks to Ray in Penrith picked up lots of other bits too, will post them up when i get the garage open tonight.

[rufion]

Been working on the car the past couple of days...just bits of time here and there, basicaly getting the motor ready to pull out tommorrow. Here goes a photo dump.

This is the garage, filling up fast...



Time to pull bits apart...



They say its best to label the wiring as you take it out...Stella idea!



I have to get the engine loom out of the Cali for the Barina...







This is the full engine loom, the starting loom stays on the motor for now and gets swapped by the barina staring loom... then it all gets spliced back to gether with the barina body loom in the footwell, well thats what is supposed to happen.



To get the CV's out from the hubs, there is a big 30mm nut but first you have to lock the brakes on with a special tool that is from bunnings.



Another special tool from Bunnings...



Undo the tie rod end, and another supension bit... the CV's leave the hub for good.

[rufion]

Well hit mid thirties in Newcastle today...great sunset at the Ocean baths at about 7pm, gotta love this little city.

Anyways, my mate Aaron from syndye came up for a bit of spanner time so out came the calibra motor...

Got a hoist...(thanks Colin!)



..and an engine stand...(thanks Cameron...you will get it back...promise!)



Had to get cv's out, annoying job and manifold off first...







Had a spare left side cv, still got the inner section of the rhs cv to go... but the little suckers are out!



Up...



...up...



...get up!!!



and out...



actually was a tight fit getting it out, a little push and angle was needed.

All out and onm the stand.



Two happy, one relieved.

[rufion]

Pulled the Calibra out of the birthing Suite....



...and rolled in the GSi



Wasn't alone with Matt over, we got started stripping it ready...







The garage is looking pretty full now...gotta fit another motor in there too...

[rufion]

Well one of the things i have been dreadeding is the wiring bit...

So, have taken plenty of time getting the calibra loom ready, now the barina loom, I know I have to cut and solder...but to day I found three wires which have threatened to ruin the party...My concern is that when i swap ecu's over, the immobiliser hardware will not plug and play...

I rang Repeller car alarms and spoke to the tech there to see whether they were from the immobiliser...answer NO. which is fine in a way.

The problem is that the three wires go into the x16xe ecu, but the calibra loom has no such way of putting th ethree wires in, even if i did know which slot they go inot ( there are probably 36 holes ).

What do you think?

The loom



I cut this...



and join it to this...




But what do these do??



close view..



a black/green, a white and a black/blue...they go to the engine bay via the passenger side bulhead plug..

[rufion]

New pics this am...

The joining of the engine loom of the 2l to the loom inside the barina...

I just have to cut the plugs of both looms and marry up the colours..





Done.. this now plugs into both the c20xe ecu and the barina's wiring in the footwell...



The red spare goes to the pos battery, the black goes to ignition live both in the egine bay.... 99% done.

[rufion]

update:

Barina's lump dropped out today...

We felt go out the bottom was easier on this one as the cv's were being a pain and if the dont need to be removed then...



The trusty skateboard is always needed for this type of work... :thumbup:



The, just lift the shell...kinda like scalping maybe.



All ready for Cholly to pick her up on saturday...



The we can prep the barina for this to go in!

[rufion]

Some new parts arrived for the redtop service...

new outer cv's



new water pump



new sump, rear main and driveshaft seals



and timing belt kit...

[rufion]

Update:

Done little bits only...sore hands tbh! :scream:


Matt helped me tint the tail and side repeaters, cheers!





Cleaned and Painted the engine covers from this...



To this...




New Rocker cover gasket arrived!



Pulled the radiators out,



tidied up the bulkhead, removed a fair whack of the sound deadening to make as much room as possible for the intake nmanifold ( tight fit they say),



and trimmed the heater matrix tubes, another must do in prep they say... :thumbup:

[rufion]

ok new update... been busy with the spanners and also Hollandia beer is 29.95 a case.... :clap:

Custom driveshafts with new outer CV's with new wheel bearings all assembled with help from my professional mate Cameron, thanks mate!







You can see the size difference between the Barina hub and the custom big block hubs... (barina hub not attached)



Time to do the water pump...



The old one was pretty gunked up.





Now the timing belt..



Reset the timing mark on the bottom pulley for TDC of cylinder 1 to this marks...



All done!



Covers back on...



What do you think of the matt black?? :wave:



Did a few other bits and bobs today but went pretty well, had to drill out one bolt, used the screwdriver in flywheel method to undo the pulley bolt too, a day of firsts for me, unfortunately the truth of whether I did good tool time will be when the motor gets turned over not by my 1/2" ratchet but by the starter motor... :no:

[rufion]

Newsbreak... It fits!!!

I had big plans for yesterday and worked hard thursday so when Matt came over we might get a chance a starting the motor in the car... maybe a 20% chance but still worth a go.

Had to join the ignition live wire from the xe loom to the corsa plug in the foot well, did this nice a tidy while it was all out in the open.



Apparently its best to reomove 2 lugs on the gearbox for better clearance... gotta love the thin wheel it just cuts like a hot knife through butter...



Matt got busy grinder the ecotec adapter plate Col made up, was a bit rough and needed to better refined by grinding wheel...





Motor all ready to leave the engine stand...



The severe angle needed to line up the gearbox mount first...so I read anyways...(notice it is daylight)



The nearside gearbox mount was an absolute pain, these two bolts took 3 hours to get in from when it sat on the engine stand!! :scream:



Notice dark now...



The offside engine mount was easy to line up but the gearbox mount was a tight sqeeze and again a tricky combination of hoist and trolley jack position...






Finally Its In!!! :clap:







Pretty exhausted and dirty, about 11.15pm now, started at 11am.



Matt is a legend round these parts!!! Cheers

[rufion]

And it runs...

Started the day with the motor at this...



The intake was in, pretty relieved that the intake plenum and ecotec pipe fits without too much bulkhead manipulation.





Radiator and exhaust manifold sqeezed in..







All the coolant pipes fitted, wiring double checked, time for some fluids! :thumbup:



I will post the video shortly of it starting on the second proper turn of the key...after I connected the earths...and then turned the immobiliser off. Its alive we cheered!

Super noisy with just the exhaust manifold so it was time to pack up and start looking at the collection of exhaust parts we have to to make one goodun.

[rufion]

Video of the motor starting...

It was noisy as, so I only ran it for a bit untill we get an exhaust. As you can see, pretty relieved and stoked!

[Gaz86]

awesome progress, doing the whole thing properly by the looks of it, the a/c radiator cools really well but its a right pain to squeeze in aint it

[The big man]

looking good top work.

[DaveB]

Thats class. I'm so fkin jealous about the temperatures you guys have over there

[fennyLET]

Looking good. Top work

Were can i get one of them sway bars from?

[Melv]

streuth!

Am I correct in thinking that Calibras are still really expensive over in OZ?

[GDN16v]

Good write up and conversion pics Looks much better on the new wheels and suspension!

[WheelyBigCheese]

Fantastic, brilliant pictures aswell.

[Noodles]

amazing work. was a cracking read. making me want to go to Oz more tho as my brothers there at the moment

[rufion]

Originally Posted by DaveB

Thats class. I'm so fkin jealous about the temperatures you guys have over there

Newcastle is prob one the best places in Oz... the surf was epic this am, glassy barrels in the sun!

The swaybar is a whiteline product but now sold through selby suspension, cheap at 160 au.

Calibras go for between 2 and 6k for the na and 4-12 for the turbo. but i got this one for 750.

Hey and thanks for all your replies, tbh migweb was the inspiration and the source of much of the info I needed!

3 x 4 migweb

[rufion]

getting closer, now just waiting for some time with my mate with his tig welder...

gear linkgae is hitting the rack in 4th but it could be fine to drive, not sure yet. The alternator bracket is nearly touching the wing and may vibrate... sway bar fitted with brackets...gave up on the oil coller at this point and will get back to it later when it will be needed for prolonged high speed driving ( track days I mean ).

So close...