Project Stealth

[Carneyste]

I First got my astra sxi in sept 2006. I bought it pretty much standard with 70K on the clocks. Things soon changed - basically the whole look of the car and also the engine (engine number one blew up lmao). Originally I modified the 1.6 a bit and eventually got bored with that and decided to go zlet. This is how it started;

So it all started when I got bored one day. I wasnt really a fan of the standard look so I set about looking for some bits and bobs for it. Luckily enough (for me anyway) someone I know managed to write off their astra which I managed to aquire a few bits for. namely kamei grille, full powerflow exhaust system, smoked irmscher lights, wheels and tinted windows and lowering springs all for pretty much nothing. This is it after the above parts were fitted:







It also came with full leather interior. they are heated seats but as of yet I still havent got round to wiring them in: This image has been resized. Click this bar to view the full image. The original image is sized 1024x768 and weights 394KB.

[Carneyste]

I soon got bored of it how it was - the 3 problems were 1. I hated the wheels, 2. It was still far too high and 3. it needed colour coded side skirts and bump strips

So a good refurb to take out the battle scars and several rattle cans of gloss black later the wheels were soon shiney black and also got some colour coded side skirts and bump strips:








I got invited to a rolling raod day and unleashed the "beast" on the rollers haha. Came out with 107.5bhp which I was happy with as the engine was pretty much standard bar catback and induction kit and it was running on poverty spec tesco fuel

[Carneyste]

Then Came the 60mm Lowering springs and a few other new bits - new exhaust and decat de-cat which was all nice and heat wrapped, polished rocker cover, removed front tints (big thanks to local police for that mod ), and also took the headlights to bits to spray the lenses black and some german stlye plates:

[Carneyste]

SInce then there hasnt been much done to it really. This has mainly been due to the crap summer and me being on holiday for most of it. I put new disks, greenstuff pads and goodridge braided hoses on. Other than that the only thing of note really is I've sprayed the side repeaters completley black, sunstrip has gone for an all black one and basically anyting else non-black has been made black or removed except the carbon footprint sticker above the exhaust (which endlessly annoys my hippy neighbour who hates the car - the only real reason it is still there), Most recent pics:

[Carneyste]

So that is how the car is now. I hadnt planned to go all black when I got it but it just sort of happened that way. Over the next few weeks it should be getting a mantzel style powerbox - just waiting for parts to arrive for that and to go with it its getting a CDA air box filter thing and possibly some coilovers if santa is kind at chrismas lol

[Grim Reaper]

that looks very very tasty lookin...the mods are very nice and subtle...me likes

[Steve!]

You know what would look better.... a Black and White theme!??!

Those back lights look gash though.

[Grim Reaper]

You know what would look better.... a Black and White theme!??!

seen my project thread??

Those back lights look gash though.

i think the lights look fantastic for the theme...if he went euro then all red lights would suit better, but this aint euro so...

[Steve!]

it's that first pic... they just look wrong... like they have been sanded down... not shiny or not black enough... oh I don't know, just wrong somehow

[5tox]

like the new look, wheels are definitely better black

i may be missing something but i cant see the difference between the previous plates and the german ones though

good work all round

steve

[Carneyste]

it's that first pic... they just look wrong... like they have been sanded down... not shiny or not black enough... oh I don't know, just wrong somehow

i see what you mean from that top pic but when you actually see them they are shiney dark and not matt. I had a set of the darker red ones on for a while and they looked ok but with the rest of the car being black i went back to the smoked ones

[birchieboy]

what a difference the colour of the wheels make!!

[Carneyste]

Well, a little update

Some shiney bits turned up today, namely a x16xe lower inlet manifold (big thanks to gaz86 ) and also my new mantzel style powerbox thing. Im really impressed with the box, the build quality seems excellent and it came the day after I oredered it so all good really:




And the powerbox:

Fitments and stuff:



and instructions for an "easy fit" haha


SO i put the two bits together and fitted the egr blank and so far so good. bring on the weekend when it goes on the car:

[Carneyste]

bad times at the weekend. I knew the throttle bodies off the xe and xel were different but the mounting holes are the same so I was hoping that the cutout slot you can see on the powerbox was the same. It turns out it isnt so needless to say the manifold is still sat in the garage so its either gonna be a pikey job to fit a blanking plate and fit my throttle body or I might actually have to spend some cash and buy an xe throttle body . Then to top it off one of my brake cylnders has burst AGAIN which pissed brake fluid all over one of me wheels and has taken most of the paint off.

But, on the plus side, I have coupe side skirts oredered and onn route

[humbucker]

bad times at the weekend. I knew the throttle bodies off the xe and xel were different but the mounting holes are the same so I was hoping that the cutout slot you can see on the powerbox was the same. It turns out it isnt so needless to say the manifold is still sat in the garage so its either gonna be a pikey job to fit a blanking plate and fit my throttle body or I might actually have to spend some cash and buy an xe throttle body . Then to top it off one of my brake cylnders has burst AGAIN which pissed brake fluid all over one of me wheels and has taken most of the paint off.

But, on the plus side, I have coupe side skirts oredered and onn route

i love the look of the german plates, are they street legal though? i thought you had to have registration plates in a defacto standard typeface in the uk?

[Grim Reaper]

ah mate thats such a shame will all pick up soon dont worry

as for gernam plates, they are legal as long as they have the address on them of where you got them mate (example, if style dynamix made them then they have to have the style dtynamix address printed/stamped on the plate)....also you can no longer have a D/EU/S etc etc on the plate, you can only have GB...i wanted S for sweden for my tank but i cant now

[Carneyste]

i love the look of the german plates, are they street legal though? i thought you had to have registration plates in a defacto standard typeface in the uk?

the ones I have arent legal. I keep the proper ones in the boot so when i get stopped I say that its been to a show and I havnt had time to put them back on yet. Doesnt always work though - ive been made to take them off twice but after I got the producer stamped at the garage on both occasions I accidentally slipped with the german plates in my hands and they stuck back onto the car lol

[Carneyste]

not updated for a while so here goes. The powerbox still isnt on because Im still waiting for my mounting plate to be made up

but there have been a couple of new updates on the going faster and slowing down quicker front. Firstly, i got some red dot disks for a bargain price from work so I stuck them on the car and the brakes are 1000x better. No pics fitted but its not too interesting tbh.







The next bit was I was awoken thismorning to a knock at the door with a suspect package waiting. Turns out its the ebay special exhaust manifold;









and sort of put together





All I need now is some heatwrap and an exhaust manifold gasket and ill get it fitted. More to follow

[Grim Reaper]

ohhh nice and shiney will look even more track slaggish with heat wrap you have got to upload a video once you get that exhaust on

[Steve!]

sexy

[Carneyste]

The new manifold has now been added but the old one was a right **** to get off, ALL of the bolts were rusted on so much swearing and shouting later the old one was off. The bottom bit needed cutting as with mine being the X engine it doesnt havea joint under the car. the 1st cut was about 5 inches too short so it needed cut further back. For anyone fitting this on a X16XEL, cut the old exhaust just after it bends back across. The bit in the pics below is the origina and needs to be more cut off than that.



.


The next problem was the lambda sensor wouldnt come out. I decided the solution was to "gently" tap it loose with a hammer. After a good 10 mins of bashing the old manifold the sensor came out but a little bit broken. The car now thinks its running lean eventhough its actually really rich and the eml comes on randomly




So with that sorted the new one went in;



And while skid was bolting that in I set about putting my gauge pod in - big thanks to glasgow_stu for that mount. Yes, I know its not a turbo but the boost gauge also runs on vaccum which is handy as ive had issues with no vaccum which = no brakes so it gives me advanced warning of when they are going to pack up and has helped me out a few times;



I also put a new dash clock bulb in so a nice early 120,000 mile present lol




I took a few pics after it was fitted but when I drove it the colour changed to a blue/purple and looks pretty cool so Iv uploaded these instead








And these are the videos. I only have 1 outside atm and they are all short cos my cam is gash and only does 15 second vids at a time. My mate has some quality driveby vids and stuff that il upload at some point to go with these. The ones inside the noise isnt coming thru properly but turn the speakers to full and sit an inch away and its not far off lol

[Grim Reaper]

that sounds baaaaaad i played it to my mate and hes convinced that its a skyline lol

[Carneyste]

Well, seems like I forgot about this thread hence the time since the last update. The car has changed quite a bit so Il start from the start . I cant really be bothered to type all this out again so its mainly copied from my thread on AOC so sorry if anyone has read this on there. As I mentioned earlier on I had bought a mantzel style powerbox off ebay and this is how fitting went;

well it seems Im finally getting somewhere with the manifold. My TB wouldnt fit so I was going to get an adaptor made to fit it. But at work I saw a tap and die set for next to nothing, so bought it and with some guestimation unleashed a drill onto £180 worth of manifold and tapped in some new threads which surprisingly worked and the TB fitted

[Carneyste]

Right, work on the manifold has continued. Its getting there

So I didnt bother depressurising the fuel rail and just took it off. It pissed a bit of petrol out but no too much tbh

SO here is the old one with TB and tubing off


Wiring harness coming off


Old one off:






I took the old manifold to bits and the reason why they are so restrictive is pretty obvious tbh. The red arrows show the airflow in thru the throttle body, down into the bottom half where it has to go back up over a ridge, round the bottom loop, back up into the top and over where it comes in before going back down into the engine - all in all a right **** of an inlet route lol





So this is the new one complete with fuel rail ready to go on



And with the top box back on but you can see the problem - the throttle body is going to hit the brake fluid resevoir so my dads work are making up a nice bit of metal that moves the TB 3 inches further forward so it can fit past the resevoir.





So hopefuly the mount will be made up today and it should all come together by the weekend.

The fitting wasnt as simple as I had originally hoped. The wiring harness needs the EGR sensor plug extended and both sensors for the TB extended to fit. There are a few coolant hoses that needed extending and various other breathers and vaccum lines all needed the length changing. Aside from that the old manifold was aweful to get off lol

For anyone interested to fit one of these to a X16XEL in an astra you need a x16xe lower manifold and fuel rail (injectors are the same, fuel rail isnt) and a mount made to avoid the resevoir along with extended wiring and hoses,

[Carneyste]

Well, after much arsing around and various set backs I finally got everything sorted. 1st thing today was putting the holes into the mount my dads place made (they can probably do a few more of these if anyone decides they want to do the same). The two flanges were ground from 15mm to 10mm each and the tube was cut from a square block :O. Just as well they are quiet lol.




Then I extended some bits of the wiring loom, namely the EGR valve plug, Idle control valve plug and throttle position sensor plug



Then it all went together, filter on, tubing in place and coolant in along with new shiney white engine cover and richbrook polisehed oil cap thingy and my favourite bit - the dr pepper bottle catch tank until I get something made properly







And then the moment of truth. Would it start...



The answer was yes eventually. Some epic ammunts of smoke as the **** that was in the ports burn off but after that all was good. 1st drive was a bugger as it wouldnt go into 2nd, 4th or 5th. Turns out id dropped a spanner and it was sat wedging the gear linkage so quite literally a spanner in the works. In terms of power tho its a bit better bottom end but after 3k rpm its much quicker. It even got a "**** me thats better" from paul in the passenger seat and it starts to spin once it hits 3k in 2nd gear. Im happy - now for a remap.