Astra H

[Nimraynn]

Hi guys

Sorry, not posted on here in aaaaages.... Been living on other forums most of the time. I thought it would be worth posting up the latest on my Astra

I recently sold off my Astra H SXi 1.6 in part exchange for a same year Astra H SRi XP 1.9 CDTi 150

This is how she looked when I bought her:









Fitted some VX velour floor mats:



...and an LED interior light:



Debadged some of the rear:



I broke some of the dust caps, so got some nice VX logo ones:



Colour-coded the V-grille:



Color-coded the boot strip after removing the rest of the badges:



Fitted some shiny new badges from an Astra J:



Started to fit my piano black interior:



Will be buying the rest gradually. Also had cruise fitted:



Sprayed interior door handles



And finally today, painted all the brake calipers blue



Loads more planned for it

[Nimraynn]

Bit more to update

Had an SMD conversion done on it by one of the guys on Astra Owners Network

Before:



After:



Here she is on the Astra Owners Network stand at Trax 2010 on Sunday







And I've just fitted a set of wind deflectors:



Much more lined up. I think I'm looking to get a bit more power out of it soon, but might carry on with the piano black interior, or sort out a new stereo first.

[truevip]

really like the look of this car there not bad to drive either

keep the post coming mate

[Nimraynn]

Wow, it's been a while since I last posted on here...

So where do I start? Last update was wind deflectors... Here's a better picture of them fitted...



Mods went on hold for a short while, as I moved house so had more important things to be spending my money on... Then I got a free mod... covered the car in snow :lol:



Once I was settled in and all the snow had gone, gave the car a quick detail...





Next up, I bought the car a little Christmas present...



And then fitted it:



A big step towards getting the piano black interior fitted

As you can see from the pictures above where I'd given it a good clean, the painted grille was getting very chipped and it was beginning to annoy me...



I was getting a bit bored of the really subtle look with it being the same colour as the car... Works well on some of the bolder colours, but moonland isn't a very bold colour to start with, so I decided it needed something to make it stand out a bit more... So I sanded down the grille, primed it, painted it and lacquered it...



...in black sapphire



I also did the same with the rear boot strip, and the wing mirrors (As you can see above):





After having one of my dust caps nicked, and another one I just lost after forgetting to put it back on after pumping the tyre up, I went and got a new set. Not 100% happy with them as I prefer the old style griffin as opposed to the new one, but these are still quite nice



I decided it was finally time to sort out at least some of the exterior lights... so I went from this:



To this:



And this:



To this:



For a while, I'd been having some problems with the EGR valve on the engine... Heaps of black smoke coming out the exhaust, along with about only 10bhp below 2000 RPM... then all 150BHP bites your head off as soon as you get to 2000RPM... occasionally it would decide to go into limp mode...



I managed to do a temporary fix on it, simply unplug the cable that goes to it... but I needed a permanent fix as the EML was permanently on, so off it came, and this was the state of it:



Cleaned it all out with some Wynns Carb and Intake cleaner, whacked it all back on the engine, started her up and I've still got the EML. After a few tightening of bolts and a few start ups, the EML went out, so I was a happy chappy. Drove it for about 8 miles, nothing on the dash and it was as responsive as I'd ever seen it...

Next day, goes into limp mode again. P0400 codes again... then the EML comes back on, so I unplugged it again and it was happy (bar the EML light)... so the next weekend, I took it off and gave it another clean out. Same thing happened again. Was happy for a short while, then it started to go into limp again...

So I got royally pissed off with it, bit the bullet and bought a brand spanker on eBay for £80, which is a damn sight cheaper than Vauxhall wanted. Popped into Vauxhall and got some new gaskets for it as well, seeing as they're only a couple of quid.



This was a comparison of the old and the new:



I'll be honest. I thought it was actually supposed to be black on the inside... just not full of crap... turns out I was wrong! :lol:

So I fitted it to the engine, after breaking a bolt and completely rounding off a nut, being a complete novice mechanic (Also known as an IT tech :lol... but once fitted, I nearly cried as the EML light was still on. Took it for a run, and 75 miles later, the EML light finally went away... and touch wood, I've done 3000 miles on it since, and had absolutely no problems!

So next up, I bought myself a set of these :





Gave it another good clean a few weeks ago, and went to take some photos of it up until now:









My latest addition, and probably one of the best additions I've done so far... was something to almost complete the piano black interior, as well as upgrade the ICE setup



For £260 (plus about £60 to HMRC, the robbing b******s), I got myself a Eonon D5108E head unit as part of a group buy on Astra Owners Network. The unit is piano black to match the dash, and to be fair, it's a pretty good match, but if you shine light on it, like really bright sunlight, or a camera flash, it looks a bit dull and grey, but I don't really notice that when I'm in the car. Feature wise, it has FM/AM radio, CD player, DVD player, USB, aux-in, SD card audio, bluetooth audio and hands free, European sat nav and one or two other cool features. I'm really happy with it. I changed the sat nav software from Sygic to iGo Primo, as I thought the Sygic Drive software was a pile of crap :lol:

So all I need now to finish the piano black setup is a set of heater controls, and a bottom steering wheel spoke!

[Mikey_g]

This is odd lol turns out i now own your old black sxi astra got it 3 weeks ago lol. Odd

[Benn]

Nice work, i like the paint boot panel, i'd have kept it de-badged tho. Like all the LED lighting too. Are you gonna replace the grey fan/heater surround with black too?