Pauls Astra Mk2 rallying adventures

[RallyMarshal]

Rally-Barbados-2015-11.jpg

Have had various build diaries open for the various cars Ive built cars over time, but thought it would be a good idea to amalgamate them into one as they get changed and developed and to incorporate some of the other bits I end up buying etc. The story so far....

2011 - Built a Mk2 Astra to take to Rally Barbados and have competed with it since. Fitted with a 1400 8v engine affectionately known as Old Faithful, its had various upgrades and changes over the past few years but is essentially still the same car we built and is next in line for some love...



Full build thread is at http://www.astra-mk2.com/forum/forum...-shell-upwards for anyone that wants to catch up with the full build..

In late 2012 I bought a cheap rallycar from Ebay, then promptly rolled it on the first event I did in it. That was very quickly and roughly reshelled in early 2014 into a tired stage rally shell to make a road rally car to allow me to do night events. It was originally going to be a stage car for the wife but she lost interest quickly...



Full build thread is at http://www.astra-mk2.com/forum/forum...r-for-the-wife for anyone that wants to catch up with the build..

After doing that project, I started on the most ambitious one to date - the Tarmac Astra build.. I was offered an unused shell that I just had to buy, had collected a redtop, SBD engine kit, Quaife box and Proflex along the way and we built that from mid 2014 to April 2015 into an awesome car for Rally Barbados 2015..



Full build thread for the new car is at http://www.astra-mk2.com/forum/forum...rallycar-build

So thats where we start from... A roadrally Astra GTE, a stage rally Astra 1.4 8v and a stage rally 2.0 redtop..

[RallyMarshal]

F20GTE - the Tarmac build, has just arrived back into Portsmouth from its voyage from Barbados and will be collected at the end of the week but we decided to do an event - The Flying Fortress Stages - which my club organises next weekend so brought the 1400 car - F2GTE out of the garage and gave it some love.

Sumpguard off, suspension off, brake pad cleanup, oil change..



Then changed springs from 8" 275lb on the front to 9" 250lb to soften the car a little.



Refitted to the car and reassembled all the suspension, slackened off the ARB and give full spanner check along the way.



Then changed the rear springs from the Eibach tarmac ones to gravel springs more ride height and lower poundage and softened up the back end dampers



Which means she is nearly ready for next weekend.. Just fuel, brakes to bed in and a couple of small things to finish on Friday.



As the weather was decent, I started a job I havent had time to do.. I bought a redtop Calibra SE2 last year and hadnt had time to get it stripped so started on that.

Started with this "beauty"..



Complete front end subframe removal...



So I now have this stored..



Not a bad weekends work really.. The plan is to fully rebuild this engine for the roadrally car - not sure whether to go dizzy or keep DIS though. The car has to keep its standard inlet tract but otherwise engine is free but you cant do too much to them on std inlets.

Paul..

[RallyMarshal]

Busy end of week and weekend for us..

Wednesday evening I picked up another Mk2 Astra shell. This is going to be a parts donor for some bits I wanted.



The early start on Thursday down to Portsmouth to collect the tarmac car from the port after its Rally Barbados trip.



Then emptied that on Friday and put all the spares etc into the truck and loaded the 1400cc car to go down to the Flying Fortress stages



Then helped set up the venue on Saturday in glorious sunshine and then it pissed down overnight so was a damp start to the rally on Sunday



We started very well and took fastest class time on stage 1, encountered various issues but mainly a bad oil leak but kept the lead all morning. Incurred a 30 second penalty for hitting a chicane on stage 3 so were joint class leaders going into the afternoon.

In the afternoon, the weather improved and the rally just got better and better for us although an engine fire due to the oil leak on stage 5 was a little frightening but didnt damage anything luckily. We swapped onto well used Dunlop tarmac tyres for the afternoon and managed to eek 3 stages out of these before they were too worn.. Think its fair to say Ive had my moneys worth..



We finished 22nd overall (from 58 starters), 1st in class by 30 seconds and even beat all the 1600cc cars - not bad for a 1400 8v on carbs and dizzy! This was the engines last event as its having a 1600cc 16v motor built for next season to see how well we can do.



Nice little class winners glass award to go on top of the cabinet :-)



Paul..

[RallyMarshal]

Lots of plans afoot for the 3 cars..

The tarmac car is now first in the queue again - and will have a std diff fitted this weekend to make it drivable again. Then its time to start mods - gearstick and cable shift changes and positioning comes first.

The 1400cc car will then be partly stripped to a shell - engine and box out, suspension off, partial clean and repaint of certain parts and conversion to run a 1600cc smallblock 16v engine on throttle bodies. That means an additional fuel line being run, different tank fitted, new high pressure fuel pumps and various other changes as well as a decent rebuild too.

The roadrally car is last in the queue but needs some work to the door (badly bent due to an incident with another car), change of fuel tank as we think its leaking, fuel lines as theyre porous and will eventually have a new decent redtop built to go in it.

Paul..

[RallyMarshal]

Had another good weekend of tinkering... including much needed help from Harvey.

Started on the tarmac rallycar to get the various bits repaired so its drivable / moveable again.

Stripped the driveshafts and diff from the car and replaced the oil seals before fitting a standard diff to get it moveable.



Then rebuilt the driveshafts with new inner CVs..



Did an oil change and removed the ARB as it has pulled the threads out of the bulkhead on the passenger side so no easy fix for that.

I also fitted a different gearstick. I had noticed that the Astra H m20/m32 stick / unit was physically shorter so ordered one of those and fitted that. Vectra C is shown on bottom and Astra H is on top. This helps shorten the front / back throw a little - around 15mm.



Also started making an F17 short shift kit for the gearbox end. The idea is to shorten the distance between the pivot point and the cable pivot. The issue is leaving enough clearance for the cable end against the body of the selector unit. Started by straightening the arm.



Will take a photo of the finished item when finished but I think it will reduce the throw to approx 100mm in total.

We also stripped the rest of the parts from the Calibra and took it to the scrappers. Shame really as solid shell but no-one was interested in buying it and I dont have the space to keep it indefinately.



Paul..

[astra216]

your rally car looks amazing now since i last saw it paul, youve done a great job on the build.
lovin the paint scheme, the colours suit it really well.

[RallyMarshal]

Not a huge amount to report recently...

Went to Billing for the weekend with both rallycars - F20GTE to the right of the Astra Mk2 stand and F2GTE - the 1400cc car still dirty from its last event further to the left.



Then stripped a rotten 16v shell for parts. Pembo needed various bits which happened to be decent so out came the angle grinder



Then stripped the Proflex from the rallycar and swapped for std uprights to keep the shell movable



These can now go back to proflex for checking as the seals are leaking.



Also washed the dirty 1400cc car so its nicer to strip down. This car will be getting most of the attention over the next 12 months.






However the tarmac car needs finishing first ready for MSA logbooking and its next event which will be Donington in October.

Paul..

[RallyMarshal]

Quick update..

Proflex sent off for rebuild.

Black Rallycar given some love. Fitted and bonded in rear window seals and opening rear windows again and started door / wing repairs after a little accident meant that the door wouldnt open and close. Not perfect but will be good enough start and will be fine after some more filler, sanding and paint.



Also added another one to the collection...



Paul..

[RallyMarshal]

Bought a shiny new multi-battery charger and a pair of new 4ah batteries for my power tools as the 2.4ah ones have been hammered for the past few years and wallmounted it.



Then finally got back to working on the 2.0litre car. Have to get the modifications I want done to test the car at the Astra Mk2 trackday in October.

The main one is solving the gear cable issues I had in Barbados. However I also have an issue with the gear lever to seat position which means 2nd gear is really uncomfortable to go into.

To resolve both of these needs a multi pronged approach but started like this:

Bought a new M20 / M32 gear lever change unit - nice and new means no slop in that unit.



Cut off the plastic ends of the gear lever cables and welded on some small rod ends - to give a solid unit that wont pop off the shifter as happened in Barbados



Cut, shortened and rewelded the swivel arm on the cable shifter to shorten the forward and back throw of the gear lever



Removed the side to side pivot and drilled out the ball



The old and the new throw pivot arms. The new one is approx 10mm shorter. Ive also welded a bolt in place of the old ball.



Trial fitted the cable rod ends onto the pivots using some misalignment spacers.



Fitted to the car



This has now reduced the front to back throw to approx 100mm total and means I can move the gearstick unit forwards towards the dashboard hugely helping with the spacing issue.

The next steps are going to be to rerun the cables, move the drivers seat a little sideways towards the centre of the car and reposition / remake the mounting bracket for the hydraulic handbrake and the gear lever to alleviate the issue as much as possible.

[RallyMarshal]

Wifey was working at the weekend so managed a fair bit of garage time..

Front proflex arrived back. These have now been checked for leaks and the top swivels replaced. Also bought some 250mm 60nm springs for the front.



Rebuilt them into the front uprights with the 60nm springs and some tender springs to try to get ride height correct.



Then removed the standard diff we had fitted to keep the car rolling



We have rebuilt the TranX diff with a new clutch pack and a new casing - the inner CV had milled out the casing on the diff and the threads were pulled.



Because the casing in these diffs are thicker, the standard length crownwheel bolts (26mm) dont pick up a full thread in the diff casing. So I imported from the states some ARP bolts that were 30mm long so that they would help the threads..



Also managed to swap the speedo ring without too much damage to it.



Then moved onto the brakes - pads out and roughed up, discs cleaned and roughed up.



Then refitted everything in the car - diff, shafts, uprights, brakes etc



I then spent 4 hours tracing a slight water leak. Wasnt much of a leak but needed solving. Was from a gasket underneath the throttle bodies and had to remove a load of things to get at it.

Then onto the rear of the car. It had 350mm 35nm springs fitted but I wanted to go harder so used the springs Id removed from the front which were 300mm and 45nm



Swapped them on the car and wound the spring platforms up a little so the springs sits tightly in its caps.



Then spanner checked the rear end and refitted the wheels etc



Then pushed it outside to check the ride height



I then started back on the inside, removing the drivers seat, gearstick and handbrake mounts.



Then decided to clean up and temporarily fit some carpet tiles Id been given to see how they would work in the garage as a floor to work on.



So all in all not a bad weekend. Important things crossed off the to-do list.



Paul..

[Black Magic]

coming along nicely that. Hows the shifter now feel that youve put them mods onto the linkage system? out of interest, whats holding the nylon bushes in place in the bulkhead?

[RallyMarshal]

I cant give a definitive answer on the shift until the gearstick is fixed in place. Its short and direct but expect it to feel a little notchy if Im honest.

There is nothing in the bulkhead - just a round hole and a grommit for the cables to pass through. The ends of the outer cables clip into the gearstick unit inside the car and on a bracket mounted to the gearbox on the engine bay side of the car.

[RallyMarshal]

Treated myself to a new toolbox set from Halfords and had a bit of a tidy up of the bench.



Seems like very little progress over the last few weeks but had lots of niggly jobs to do.

I started by moving the seat position towards the centre of the car. The build position had the seat mounts tight against part of the tunnel so that was initially sliced



Then gently tapped to give clearance to check



Then checked - gained just under an inch of sideways movement towards the centre of the car to improve the position.



Then spent a day trial fitting the gear lever, seat, gear lever, seat etc etc to try to get the optimal position without hitting the dash with my hand and being able to operate the hydraulic handbrake.



Once I was happy with the position, I made another mounting bracket with the new dimensions. This also helps with 2 other problems - codriver seat clearance and cable handbrake clearance.



I also remade the MBE mounting bracket with a flat plate bolted to the bottom of the dash and 2 big cable ties more solidly mounting it but allowing quick swap if needed.



I had sourced a brand new M20 gear-lever unit so fitted that (as reverse is in the same place as on an F20 series box) so no sloppy play



and I finally refitted my seat in its new improved position



The seating position is a bit better, the gear lever operation is now better, the actual gear shift in the garage is very direct and short front to back with only a little slop which is across the box from the selector.

Then I started on the black roadrally car. Got a night rally event in 2 weeks so put it in the garage and gave it a very quick check over..



and found this hole in the drivers sill..



So plate made up



Welded in, ground it back a little and quick paint and hopefully good enough for MOT. Not worried structurally as the car has a full cage so its quite rigid anyways



MOT booked for tomorrow morning for this one. Wont be surprised if it fails but hopefully not to much. It has been laid up in the garage for the last 15 months.

Paul..

[DarrenH]

those tool chests arent half bad. i have a black pro bottom half like yours, but top half is the red non ball bearing type.

[RallyMarshal]

Darren - Ive got a brand new top half to match still boxed if your interested :-)

Paul..