MK4 SRi Astra

[MurrayM_]

Awryt, been on the site a while now but not really said much so think its about time i didlmao 17 in a couple months so been looking into cars, was wanting vauxhall and astras had always caught my eye. Was originally after a mk3 but insurance wasnt so keen on me having a gsi as a first car Came across this on pistonheads and all looked well so bought it last week:
Its had a couple modifications done:
Straight threw stainless exhaust
Lowered 80mm all round
De-badged grille
Engine cover
Airfilter
17" TSW alloys



Not keen on the tsw wheels, so i've put the standards on for now. Dont really like the plain slated grilles either, so i put on a oldschool vauxhall badge untill i get an irmscher crosshatch grille Gave it a wash and put some flaps on so heres how it looks the now..


All going well it should go like this..
Plans:
either SRi-t/Gsi backbumper, Gsi spoiler,
irmscher skirts, irmscher roofspoiler, irmscher crosshatch grille, irmscher eyebrows
doorstrips colour coded, tinted front lights, euro style rear lights, wind deflectors.
i'm looking for astra mk4 gsi snowflake alloys, having no luck though
While its off the road im intending on painting the underneath,innerarches etc.. then giving it a coat of clear waxoil.
Havn't treated it to a polish yet so just considering on what products to buy?

I'll keep it updated anyways, let me know what yous think

[DANGRAY]

Looks much better with the tsw wheels on it

[Steve!]

Looks much better with the tsw wheels on it

don't talk daft man

[DANGRAY]

Does lyk and there not sxi wheels fool

[MurrayM_]

I've actually sold this car now, i'd completely forgotten about this thread tho. trying to remember back i'll go through everything i did to the car. First thing i did was put the sri alloys back on, then put mudflaps on. After that i was on the alloy wheel hunt, bought a set off 5stud momo arrows. Was a blind sale mind, i thought the 5stud were the same as 4 stud but they didnt suit the car enough for me to keep them. So i never got round to even getting tires and putting them on. Next thing i did was depo'd the front lights like GSi ones, as i did this i goosed the bumper brackets. Not exactly sure how but it didnt look great, wasnt fussed tho as the car was in the garage getting the timing belt done the following week so i got the bumper brackets done aswell.

The car was high mileage when i got it, around 111k i think*-) only paid £1450 for it tho, and although it was high mileage it didnt let me down once in the 8months off owning it. The gearbox was still reasonably tight, and it started first turn off the key everytime.The 2 things that put me off was the eml light was on, this was due to the lamda sensor or something. Also the car had the famous 'ecotec tick', serviced it in hope that it would fade the tick out a wee bit but had no luck.

[MurrayM_]

Next to the car i fitted a laguna splitter, also sprayed between the foglights black instead of red to give the bumper a bit of a change. After that i fitted a cross hatch grille, then put the irmscher badge on to top it off. After that an irmscher rear bumper in flame red came up for cheap, only paid 20bucks for it. Postage was around 50 tho, was delighted with this bumper tho.. got it and it was in reasonable condition, only flaw being it was missing the tow cover. The next buy was a new front passanger side hub, bearing was starting to howl and 2studs had snapped outa 5 :-\ Then i colour coded the doorstrips myself, finish wasnt the best but i sourced another set of doortrims to re-do (never got round to doing tho) All this was done within feb-april, the 30th of april i was 17 and started learning to drive.. 6weeks later, 21rst of june i passed my driving test. This was great, but on the 19th the cars mot had ran out! Buzzing to get on the road, i took the expensive route off just throwing it to a garage and saying 'do whatever it needs, and get it mot'd. This resulted in a 4hunner buck bill, new brake lines were fitted all round and a ball joint.

[MurrayM_]

next thing i fitted to the car was a set off wind deflectors, a 'total vauxhall' sunstrip and a set of cut plates. Then my mate tinted the rear lights to make it look like the later style mk4 rear lights. Car was starting to take shape now. Next thing i bought for the car was a set off 18" diamond cut vxr reps. Bk999s i think..
Anyway, the deal was money his way and a set of 17" tires for his snowflake alloys and in return i'd get the vxrs and his 40mm springs as my own astra was on corsa springs with hucked shocks! after fitting the snowflakes to his car, it handled completely different even with the 40mm springs, so it made more sense for me just to give him some cash his way and buy his new coilovers.

[MurrayM_]

That week i got a puncture on the 16" sri alloys, and as i had the vxrs lying doing nothing i just put them on instead. So the car was sitting around 80mm on 18s, looked sweet.. handled shyyyt tho. was almost an uncontrolable bouncy, so a couple weeks on i had the 'raceland' coilovers fitted. This changed the cars ride completely, it was absolutely solid on the road. For cheap coilovers, i'd recommend anyone the raceland ones. set the car about 40-50mm on the coilovers on the 18s. next on the list was window tints to the car, and what a waste of money that was. got the rear windows done and it just looked shyyyyyt, dont think they stayed on the car for anymore than an hour. too pernigidy to keep doing, creases appearing and things so that didnt go ahead. the worst mod i did to the car was tint the rear lights again, afetr seeing mk3 astra phs1 gsi style lights with the dark tops and light bottom i thought this would suit my car. It probably would have had it come out good, but the finish was nothing special.

[MurrayM_]

Next thing i bought was a 7" flip out dvd player, had this wired into a button instead off handbrake.. was a smart mod. Still have the dvd player. Then after fitting the coilovers to the car, it sent the wheel allignment well off. So got the allignment done again, then had a enw lamda sensor put in. EML light was off for a couple of days, At this point i'd just bought my mk3 astra (project ugg) on here. As i'd bought that i put the car for sale on pistonheads on the sunday night, the monday night going to my mates to pick up leather interior for the mk3.. disaster, The car lost all power, was misfiring and making a hizzy sound. The car could barely pull 50mph on open roads and wouldnt rev over 4k revs.. was just getting worse if anything. First thing i'd thought was maybe the timing had jumped, but that woulda bent the valves? The following day i took the car to my mechanic, the fault reader came up with7 faults.. eml light was back on! the car was misfiring on all cylinders :-\ thought this was game over, XE bound but took it to another garage and it turned out that the car had been 'over fueling and this had caused an explotion in the cat, the cats insides then had caused a blockage and the fumes had no where to go'. Was either offered to buy a cat for something like 300£ or just have this one burst out, easy choice.. had the cat burst out. After that tho the car sounded like a complete tractor, it had lost the lovely rasp and popping it had before from the stainless. By this point i'd spent about 3-4k on the car, and really didnt wanna spend anymore. So the car was sold with 124k miles to a mate for 1800. Not much has changed to the car now, its fitted with a slated grille and standard exhaust system centre section back to quiten it down a bit. Miss this car as it was my first but couldnt really spend much mroe on it.

[MurrayM_]

fitted with arrows:



Heres the finished product (had no sideksirts on at this point):

[MurrayM_]

A month into having my license, if that.. I entered the car into a local drag. Not because i thought my 1.8 mk4 astra was insanely fast or anything lmao lmao
The car ran:
16.869 / 80.6mph
So as i said it was far from insanely fast lol, reckon it would have been slightly quicker without traction control. there was no switch on mine so this held it back a bit on take off, all the same tho was a good laugh and the funds raised go to local charitys
Heres a couple videos off the mk4 esss arrrrrr aye in action..

YouTube - stornoway drag race focus vs mk4 astra

YouTube - stornoway drag race mk4 astra vs escort

Raced a scooby, veccy v6, astra mk4 gsi turbo, escort 2.0 and focus 2.0. Fair to say i only bet one, being the veccy v6............... which was an automatic lmao

Got plenty more pics off the car which ill upload later

[Joe-2LT]

What mudflaps are they mate?

[MurrayM_]

on the standard bumper it was just a set of rubber standard ones, pick a set up on ebay for around a tenner. with the irmscher bumper i got 'paraflex' mudflaps tho, they're the same sorta design but slightly bigger and indestructable. they're slightly more flimsy so wont make any horrible grinds if they rub off the road.

[Joe-2LT]

Can you get any more pics of the mudflaps on the Irmscher bumper?

[MurrayM_]

yeah can do, working the now but i'll upload some later