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Thought I better get round to doing a thread like this!!! I dont regard the car as a project really, I'm building with bits I see and like, and to the job I want it to as best as it can. Its being built for me and not for attention, but read and enjoy. All comments are welcome.
I bought my F plate GTE 16v in November 2003 for £900, 4 previous keepers, 3 from the same family. The car has never been owned by anyone outside of Somerset and was sold at new by my nearest Vauxhall dealer. It still wears the dealer sticker in the back window. Best of all it had only 68k miles on it and was standard except for 60mm PI springs. Sadly I dont have any pictures of it as I bought it.
In the first few months of having it I did the usual, 16" Team dynamics Tornado's, Manifold back exhaust and a filter. I followed this up with the addition of some quad headlights and some brembo brake discs. About this time I had it RR'd at 164bhp@fly and 131@wheels. Next up I swapped the whole interior for a mint Black one I bought from 'stt' £100. This included the dash and took me 3 days from starting to strip the donor car to finishing mine. SO the whole Easter weekend then
About the same time I fitted a load of powedercoated goddies and some strut braces, planning for a track day I fancied a bash at.
April 04 saw Castle Coombe, when my whole outlook on cars and car modifying changed... I went on the track. Suddenly the interior seemed unessecry despite having been in for less than a month. I was hooked In May I had to repair all the stuff I broke at Castle Coombe, along with track rod ends, the traditional sump gasket leak was cured with a 8v rubber gasket. Then it got broken into, what little stereo I had went bye bye. gutting. New locks and a door followed. Ive never bothered to replace the stereo with anything good!!! (note to all Mk2 Astra owners - your car doors are made from foil. Never, never loose your temper and kick them!!)
In June I bought a magnex manifold for it and the show season kicked off PVS and Castle Coombe... I came back from Coombe again and this time binned the interior. It just had to go!!! Instantly the car felt more nimble, it was EVEN faster and handled better although the back end could be a bit skitty and the back brakes prone to locking. I spent the next month or so perfecting the inside, I sprayed all boot plastics body coloured as I dont like the exposed 'webbing' and the boot floor was scrapped clean of all the tar and sprayed. I also got a private plate for my 21st birthday which was looks pretty cool! Weight was down to 960kg's.
In August I decided that the time had come to get the one thing I missed from my old car (Calibra 16v) and that was the front seats. Ok not in keeping with the stripped out theme but I use this thing everyday and Im a sucker for comfort. Again stt came good supplying a mint set at a very good price. I obtained some LHD fog light switches from Astra Dan to operate the heating off for them. Joey helped me fit them and wire it all up. You cant beat them in the winter!
September arrived and Billing came and went. There I managed to find an Opel Monza trip computer, which fits in place of the clock and provides useful info on fuel consumption as well as being an unuslual and little known mod. Then the cambelt slipped - although by some miracle it slipped on notch and did no damage. The car was off the road for a week, and my god I missed it. Stt again came to the rescue coming to mine to do the job late one night:beer:
In October a mate through MIG decided his Astra's days were up, and he had a roll cage. Within about 30 seconds of seeing the add the I was on the phone and the proud owner of a Saftey Devices 6 point bolt in. It then failed the MOT on rust. Stt welded her up for me but by now it was becoming obvious the first half of 2005 would see the car getting a long overdue rust irradication programme. I was at this time saving up for insurance and road tax so it was a question of running the car. As you'd expect the service routine fell around now so I did that. Just couldnt help but tinker somehow.
In Noverber I contented myself by making a custom dash board, which cost me about £60 to make and is something Im really proud of. I've extended the instrument binnacle and will be running some guages in there. Its 'Flocked' to give it a nice finish which is really adds to the whole motorsprt look, and stops all those rattles!!! I also sprayed the roll cage Mistral grey to go with the bodywork.
In december the time came to fit the cage, its the single best thing Ive ever done to a car. I cant reccomend it enough. Again a huge thanks to stt for fitting it for me.
The main reason for fitting it? Donington Park, my track day dreams all rolled up into one an incredible experience that has firmly stamped my interest in this activity. I managed a best lap of 1.33.55 on a car which has only been modified to the degree I've said here. Standard brakes and suspension really. nouthing more. Even in that state the car was amazing to drive. Now I cant wait to see what its like when its got more done to it.
Well that brings it up to date. This scratches the surface with what I have done to this car, In the interior the only things that are there from when I got it are the rear view mirror, the handbrake and the electric windwow switches. Thats not an exageration. in 2005 I'll be doing some bits and peices but the bodywork needs attention so hopefully around May It'll be in the bodyshop being sorted out. I plan to take ot off the road for the winter and transplant in a LET. Im on a pretty tight budget hence the relatively slow progress of mods, especially in the suspension and brakes department, so I cannot justify the cost of TB's.
Couple of people I need to thank from on here, mainly Joey (Gander) and Simon (stt) without whom, this car would not be what it is today.
I'll keep this updated as I do more mods over time
I bought my F plate GTE 16v in November 2003 for £900, 4 previous keepers, 3 from the same family. The car has never been owned by anyone outside of Somerset and was sold at new by my nearest Vauxhall dealer. It still wears the dealer sticker in the back window. Best of all it had only 68k miles on it and was standard except for 60mm PI springs. Sadly I dont have any pictures of it as I bought it.
In the first few months of having it I did the usual, 16" Team dynamics Tornado's, Manifold back exhaust and a filter. I followed this up with the addition of some quad headlights and some brembo brake discs. About this time I had it RR'd at 164bhp@fly and 131@wheels. Next up I swapped the whole interior for a mint Black one I bought from 'stt' £100. This included the dash and took me 3 days from starting to strip the donor car to finishing mine. SO the whole Easter weekend then
About the same time I fitted a load of powedercoated goddies and some strut braces, planning for a track day I fancied a bash at.April 04 saw Castle Coombe, when my whole outlook on cars and car modifying changed... I went on the track. Suddenly the interior seemed unessecry despite having been in for less than a month. I was hooked
In May I had to repair all the stuff I broke at Castle Coombe, along with track rod ends, the traditional sump gasket leak was cured with a 8v rubber gasket. Then it got broken into, what little stereo I had went bye bye. gutting. New locks and a door followed. Ive never bothered to replace the stereo with anything good!!! (note to all Mk2 Astra owners - your car doors are made from foil. Never, never loose your temper and kick them!!)In June I bought a magnex manifold for it and the show season kicked off PVS and Castle Coombe... I came back from Coombe again and this time binned the interior. It just had to go!!! Instantly the car felt more nimble, it was EVEN faster and handled better although the back end could be a bit skitty and the back brakes prone to locking. I spent the next month or so perfecting the inside, I sprayed all boot plastics body coloured as I dont like the exposed 'webbing' and the boot floor was scrapped clean of all the tar and sprayed. I also got a private plate for my 21st birthday which was looks pretty cool! Weight was down to 960kg's.
In August I decided that the time had come to get the one thing I missed from my old car (Calibra 16v) and that was the front seats. Ok not in keeping with the stripped out theme but I use this thing everyday and Im a sucker for comfort. Again stt came good supplying a mint set at a very good price. I obtained some LHD fog light switches from Astra Dan to operate the heating off for them. Joey helped me fit them and wire it all up. You cant beat them in the winter!
September arrived and Billing came and went. There I managed to find an Opel Monza trip computer, which fits in place of the clock and provides useful info on fuel consumption as well as being an unuslual and little known mod. Then the cambelt slipped - although by some miracle it slipped on notch and did no damage. The car was off the road for a week, and my god I missed it. Stt again came to the rescue coming to mine to do the job late one night:beer:
In October a mate through MIG decided his Astra's days were up, and he had a roll cage. Within about 30 seconds of seeing the add the I was on the phone and the proud owner of a Saftey Devices 6 point bolt in. It then failed the MOT on rust. Stt welded her up for me but by now it was becoming obvious the first half of 2005 would see the car getting a long overdue rust irradication programme. I was at this time saving up for insurance and road tax so it was a question of running the car. As you'd expect the service routine fell around now so I did that. Just couldnt help but tinker somehow.
In Noverber I contented myself by making a custom dash board, which cost me about £60 to make and is something Im really proud of. I've extended the instrument binnacle and will be running some guages in there. Its 'Flocked' to give it a nice finish which is really adds to the whole motorsprt look, and stops all those rattles!!! I also sprayed the roll cage Mistral grey to go with the bodywork.
In december the time came to fit the cage, its the single best thing Ive ever done to a car. I cant reccomend it enough. Again a huge thanks to stt for fitting it for me.
The main reason for fitting it? Donington Park, my track day dreams all rolled up into one
an incredible experience that has firmly stamped my interest in this activity. I managed a best lap of 1.33.55 on a car which has only been modified to the degree I've said here. Standard brakes and suspension really. nouthing more. Even in that state the car was amazing to drive. Now I cant wait to see what its like when its got more done to it.Well that brings it up to date. This scratches the surface with what I have done to this car, In the interior the only things that are there from when I got it are the rear view mirror, the handbrake and the electric windwow switches. Thats not an exageration. in 2005 I'll be doing some bits and peices but the bodywork needs attention so hopefully around May It'll be in the bodyshop being sorted out. I plan to take ot off the road for the winter and transplant in a LET. Im on a pretty tight budget hence the relatively slow progress of mods, especially in the suspension and brakes department, so I cannot justify the cost of TB's.
Couple of people I need to thank from on here, mainly Joey (Gander) and Simon (stt) without whom, this car would not be what it is today.
I'll keep this updated as I do more mods over time
but that could just be from a mild/heavy tune? I suppose if you keep the power down below 250 bhp you shouldnt encounter such problems but it really put me off a let and back onto carb's and tb's!
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