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Mk4 Astra Gsi Project

18K views 63 replies 14 participants last post by  Peteshood 
#1 ·
Here is my first project. I picked up this beast for £1,800.. 164k miles on the clock suspected faulty turbo, and rear wheel bearing gone, on the test drive the turbo still hit boost okay, grinding noise when it comes of spool and didn't seem to be over heading at all, and no cream in the head! I don't mind about the miles its going to get rebuilt and turned in to a track car.

my plan is to forge the engine, hybrid turbo, aiming for 330bhp, stripped out, roll cage the lot.





no messing about had the car a few days and its up on axle stands getting stripped!



On further inspection this appears to have a vxr turbo! this should save me some money on the hybrid!



every bloody bolt was rusted to shit had to drill them out!





just

Just a few hours work in preparation to get the engine out tomorrow!
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/528/img3902l.jpg/
 
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#58 ·
17th Feb

Ignore me, Ive decided to take a chance. I'm completely changing my direction and I'm going to build my car, my Dad has kindly donated me his seats, harnesses and mounts from his rally car until I can afford some more, and with help of Rabbid lend me some parts, and Robbin gave me his cracked manifold so I can trade in a broken turbo for a new one, I'm going to assemble the car as it is. May not be the monster I wanted but it will be freshly rebuilt with a forged engine and vxr turbo. I am also looking into starting my own company, and doing private tuning, rebuilds, repairs etc.. stay tuned.

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19th Feb

As I said above I changed my mind, so I started putting it together! First I cleaned my VERY mouldy dash and bits. Then I started assembling my block. I have two weeks to get the car built and through an MOT... Hmmmm....





















The rods had a very long tightening procedure, but we did it by the book, its torqued up and turned at the correct angles. and still spins freely!

21st of Feb

The other day me and Rabbid installed new valve stem seals, re-seated the valves, and did a leak test to make sure we did a good job! we only had about 2 hours as I was at an interview he started without me but at least we go all 16 valves in!





I hate hate hate collets!



The valves are a bit coked up, but they wont stay in there for that long after a few pay check ill be getting new valves and valve springs, I just need to get it running asap! 13 days left....



all 16 done



We wanted to get the head torqued down that day but we realised I didn't have the dowels to align the head, gasket and block! These were probably lost when the head went off to get skimmed. So we will save that for another day, here's a pic of my shiny new gasket anyway!



Also I got paid on Friday, and as I'm no longer worried that much about not getting paid next month because I got a job lined up now... I went shopping today! I just bought 2 Vredestein ultrac sessanta, the other two have loads of life so don't need replacing, and they are toyo proxes 4, will replace them with vreds in due time. I bought a balancer shaft deletion kit, underdrive pully, vx220 short belt, cool running thermostat, oil and filter from Courtenay. I picked up bought a second hand vxr turbo, vxr spark plugs, heko wind deflecters, new tinted front lights and smoked sides, and new bright led lights all round from BenG
 
#60 ·
Yesterday I went to my dad and he gave me his seats and some harnesses, seats go with my car quiet well!

Had to rearrange his whole life to find them though!



but there they were at the back of the loft! (will need new ones if I ever wanted to compete in anything as they are far too old)





I realised that the mounts wouldn't just bolt straight to the floor...





So I went to B&Q and bought some metal. Then cut it down to size.





I only got one of the mounts in before I had to head to London to pick up my girlfriend. I used two bolts to space the metal bar from the floor, I would of used the metal boxing but it is too thick. I may go back to B&Q and buy some slightly smaller boxing, as I'm not sure whether it will pass an MOT like that.



So then this morning I had 1 hour to kill before my interview... so to calm the nerves I got the drivers seat fitted!



 
#61 · (Edited)
Here is what we have all been waiting for :)



Timing up









Air con delete kit





So engine completely assembled and ready to go into the car but as it was 2am and about -2 we decided to call it a night.

The next day! 9am! wondering what to do with this amazing piece engineering :)



15 mins later



and we are off.

http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/580/59892110151276474665957.jpg/[IMG]

new lights as mine had seen better days

[IMG]http://imageshack.us/a/img547/8741/55979810151259941240957.jpg





then a few days later my turbo, JS water feed, and alloy rad came.

http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/405/41773310151276474805957.jpg/[IMG]

[IMG]http://imageshack.us/a/img845/330/64422110151276474470957.jpg



filled it up with water and it leaked out of the thermostat.. we called it a night, we also don't have my deletion kit yet...



good job we had a new seal, popped it back on and it didn't leak, filled it up with gearbox oil and it didn't leak, then decided **** it why wait i need to a oil change in like 100 miles anyway.. balancer shafts in! oil in... it didn't leak!! battery in... OH ****. no keys in the ignition and the battery and handbrake light were flickering... ignition on, no chance, no response from light or anything... **** it call it a night.

Then the next day we found some plugs disconnected, found an earth missing. tried again.. no dice same symptoms, Richard called Warren G and he told us there should be 3 earths on the battery and we only had 2... hunted for ages and couldn't find the missing earth, then I realised that my mum has a gsi parked right behind me! we checked it, there was the 3rd earth, back to my car we go, follow a cable.. SUCCESS the missing earth, connect it.. the alarm goes off :D must be a good sign. Stick a tank of V power in. pop the spark plugs out, pull the fuse for the fuel pump.. first crank it turns, be it very slowely, compression test it gets 150, 140, 150, 155psi pretty happy with that. :D
 
#62 ·
Just a shot of my second hand turbo I picked up for a mere £240 off he forums, seems okay so far, Only annoying thing is that the turbo fitting
kit I bought had the wrong manifold brace, I think the one I had was for a corsa vxr.. so I had to use my old one, so not as shinny :(



I got a new 640A cold start, 70Ah which is for the diesel astra, so a bit more beefy then the standard one, only problem is its a little tight now as its an inchor so bigger.



This is the compression test that we ran before we actualy tried starting it, sorry about all the dribble im saying! notice how slow the engine turns over?



This is it starting up for the first time! first attempt!

 
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