My VX220 Project

[chrisr1984]

Hi, for those of you who are interested, i'm going to put up my progress thread on my track day car

 

[homeforsummer]

Looks awesome, though a bunch of the pictures aren't showing up for me! No red Xs, just no sign of the pics.

Presume you're going for the VXR220 look?

 

[chrisr1984]

well, so so, i think red and black look good, but i wasnt going to paint the mirrors black or anything..


regarding the pics, i'm having a bit of trouble with the links, but ill get em all

 

[chrisr1984]

so here goes., from the top

25 April 2007

Bought the car

then after about 23 hours the radiator went pop.. typical eh! so it was in the garage for a couple of days till i could get a new one put in.. i went for a full ali motorsport radiator.

and since it was sat in the garage, unable to move i gave her a polish

and painted the calipers.

changed the bulbs coz the originals were just utter ****e.

then i got the splitter slapped onto it.. its a seat leon cupra R splitter.. is there a car these dont fit!! and removed the V

then i figured out a way to attach the badge so i stuck that on pretty much the next day

got the new diffuser slapped onto the back end. makes a difference when cornering hard.

then finally today i bought some turbo side vents for £100 painted in anthracite.. very good quality paint job aswell!

anyway.. here is my day so far.!

got them home and took a pic to show reflection best i could.

wheel came off and wheel arch.

the thing im holding in my hand it the bit you have to cut off.

now this was the scary part, prising and ripping the plate off.

test fit.. all good.. little bit needed taking off the vent fo a flush fit.

still test fit, bt door shut

and that was it. some finished shots.

i am iching like a ******* now from all the fibreglass!!

all in all... good job i think

got the new turbo spoiler delivered

stuck the spoiler on last night but it was about 2mm off centre, so i took it off again and altered it.. job done in 10 mins.

Na Lights to Turbo Lights.

Just standard sat on the drive.

Just an example of the ****e that was in my lights.

Ok, first light is out.

Glass off! This was very scarey!

All masked up.

I wanted the same paint all over so primered it all

Then the matt black

Masking tape removed..

I scratched the black bit on this one, so i just resprayed it black. (you cant even tell now)

sticking back together.

Done.

The rears are still drying in the garage, and will leave them a couple of hours.

Because i didnt have enough grips, the front lights were tacky so i have stuck masking tape on them now holding them in place.

Black wheels just before the headlights were done.

during the painting process..

New number plate + Black windscreen suround

in all its finished (for now) glory

New HID's

and the coilovers have now been done

water got into the spark plugs so i made a ingress kit not pretty i know i will be getting some stainless steel ones sorted.

The whole reason for all of this was because when i changed the radiator months ago the jubelee clip shredded itsself so i had to sort that out and get some new coolant in.

clam finally off!

this is the part that wasnt connected propperly

what a state!

as the coolant was running in i cleaned the front wheels

and cleaned under the front bonnet.

put everything back together and gave a good polish!

pics taken on N95

well i decided to paint the suspension today, and the calipers are now black.. started at 9ma. this is how i got on

first things first.. clean ish from the other day

with the wheel off this is how it looked.

disc and caliper removed

all masked up

painted, 2 coats of temp paint, 1 coat of jet black 1 laquer coat.

pulled masking off and left to dry

disc and caliper back on. (yes i know there is paint on my disc, i went for a quick black and now there is none.

coilover back into place.

for those wondering what the red is, its to protect the thread from getting ****e in it.. they were a STATE! before i touhed them

good day all in all.. did both sides at the same time, jsut dont have pics of the other sides apart fromt he blue coilover.

Ok so do you remember that water ingress plate i made up.. well ive painted it, still looks shocking but ist doing a job at the min, quite succesfully.

then

now

and i bought new brakes for the front,

Hi Spec 325mm discs

i was fed up of the tacky plastic look of the silver interior.. some of it is brushed ali so nothing i can do about that.. but the plastic bits are getting painted.

here is the work so far

and now

they are very smooth.

1st December 2008

Heater Fix

When I first got the car back in April 07 the heater was poor, it blew lots of air so demisting wasn't a problem, the problem came when you tried to get some heat into your frost bitten fingers!. After reading the forums for a little bit the heater just seemed to be a known problem, either the heater matrix has packed in or the tubing had come dislodged etc. I came to the conclusion that my matrix was dead, so I left it.. I had to survive the winter days/nights with 30 jumpers 1,000,000 socks and a woolly hat. After the heater knob got stuck and I had a look under the bonnet to see why I couldn't turn it to hot, I noticed that the lever wasn't where it was supposed to be.. moved it over and I got hot air! it gets that hot now you start to sweat and strip (James May anyone!)

This is a picture of the lever in question.

Astra Engine Cover

I got this cover as a permanent solution to the temporary one here.

Some things bothered me with this cover, although it does act as a brilliant water ingress cover some questions popped up on the forum about heat temps and air flows etc.. coincidentally these are the same ones that I was asking myself. To answer these I could only do one thing.. and that was put it on and monitor the heat temps.

Sunstrip

Well what can I tell you about this.. well if you have driven a vx220 in the glaring sun you will of noticed there are no sun visors.. so I had to improvise, at the moment this is a temporary solution, I'm not that happy with the external look of it, I think its a bit 'chav' but it does server a purpose, and it serves it very well, so at the moment its staying.

This is from the inside

From the outside

Leathered Interior

The interior of the vx220 is very very basic, lots of bare aluminium and metal, personally I don't mind this look for track prepped cars, they have to worry about weight and not to much on comfort. Myself on the other hand, I like a bit of comfort, and other than that it also helps to keep the heat in and the noise out.

I don't have any progress shots but I do have some low quality finished pics.

2nd December 2008

TMS Carbon Splitter

I had the Seat Leon splitter up to now, and I got it mainly because of aesthetics, I wasn't keen on the front end of the n/a, looks very boring to me so I got the Leon one and was happy with the appearance.

When I was driving round the track at higher speeds '100+' I noticed the steering began to go very light and was very uneasy, it didn't give much confidence at all driving at the higher speeds..

I read up about the TMS one, which is made of carbon fibre and it has proved to give better downforce than the turbo splitters do, they also run this on their 2.2 race car. I managed to source one for cheap and fitted it without any problems at all.

The fit was very straight forward, the only hard part was lining the splitter up with the front clam, but was easily done.

Here are some pics.

5th February 2009

Piper 4-1 Manifold, 2.5" Downpipe and 200cell cat

I fancied abit of a change with the manifold side of things, since i did the inlet, i thought it would now be a good idea to explore the exhaust part of the engine..

Piper were kind enough to develop a new 4-1 manifold for the VX and a downpipe that has a better flow rate than that of the standard one, and coupled with the 200cell cat, its just better all round.

here is a picture of the items

downpipe

manifold

with the system being stainless steel it also weighs a lot less than that of the standard cast manifold..

these two items alone are proven to produce about 15bhp.


11th February 2009

Carbon Fibre Dash

I got this carbon dash to replace my standard item, doesnt give any weight saving, well maybe 1 or 2 grams but thats all, plus it does look much better.

25 February 2009

Piper 2.5" Backbox

just to compliment the rest of the system, and i got it with black tips just like the VSE.

and then the full system ive bought.

this is the graph of the standard car with just this system on (lilac colour)

total cost of exhaust system £1136.00 !!![/quote]

 

[chrisr1984]

25 March 2009

Rear 2Pot Caliper Conversion

i got the original rear calipers put on the rear discs, mainly to assist braking when the supercharger is on, now i know people will say its not needed and pointless but in my opinion evey little helps, and there is nothing wrong with having a smaller brake distance.

i took out the iphone with the dynolicious software on it and did some skidpan tests, i cant say its 100% accurate but i did the same before the calipers were put on and there is a difference.

Original Results with just the 4pots was

*ABS ON*
Max Braking - 0.85 G

first test was just that, to make sure eveything is zero'd in

*ABS ON*
Max Acceleration - 0.22 G
Max Braking - 0.79 G
Max Lateral - 0.54 G (Left)


2nd Test

*ABS ON*
Max Acceleration - 0.54 G
Max Braking - 0.91 G
Max Lateral - 0.88 G (Left)

3rd Test

*ABS OFF*
Max Acceleration - 0.54 G
Max Braking - 0.90 G
Max Lateral - 1.01 G (Right)


at the moment my brake setup is as follows

Front :

Hispec - 4Pot - Ferodo DS2500 - 328mm Ali belled Discs

Rear :

Standard Rear - 1Pot - Brembo Pads - Handbrake only
AP Racing - 2Pot - Brembo Pads - Standard Disc

I need to get some 1144's for the rear and new discs as im using the original ones atm and with the pad being bigger its running onto the rusted area, so i imagine its not doing the pad any good.

here are some pics of them mounted, i still need to change the colour, but im not sure which would be best

and painted

25 March 2009

Performance Tests Using Dynolicious

I recently bought some software for the Iphone called Dynolicious, this software basically measures the G-Forces that the car produces and calculates them in to acceleration speeds.. I don't know how it works in great detail, but many people have suggested that its pretty accurate.. Everyones knows that when manufactures quote performance figures they do so in such a way that the parts soon wear out, for example when testing the 2.2 vx220 they started in 2nd gear and I believe the clutch lasted 5 or so attempts before it was useless. Interestingly tho the Iphone software can read out by 0.25seconds up to 0.65seconds as proven here

Ok here are some of the 0-70 tests I ran.

Test 1

Results (in seconds)
0-10 MPH - 0.97
0-20 MPH - 1.87
0-30 MPH - 2.96
0-40 MPH - 3.84
0-50 MPH - 5.04
0-60 MPH - 6.63
0-70 MPH - 8.44

30-70 MPH - 5.48
30-50 MPH - 2.08
50-70 MPH - 3.40

Max Acceleration - 0.62 G's

Test 2

Results (in seconds)
0-10 MPH - 0.94
0-20 MPH - 1.73
0-30 MPH - 2.63
0-40 MPH - 3.82
0-50 MPH - 5.16
0-60 MPH - 7.41
0-70 MPH - 9.52

30-70 MPH - 6.89
30-50 MPH - 2.53
50-70 MPH - 4.36

Max Acceleration - 0.65 G's

Test 3

Results (in seconds)
0-10 MPH - 0.60
0-20 MPH - 1.31
0-30 MPH - 2.18
0-40 MPH - 3.25
0-50 MPH - 4.53
0-60 MPH - 6.22
0-70 MPH - 8.12

30-70 MPH - 5.94
30-50 MPH - 2.35
50-70 MPH - 3.59

Max Acceleration - 0.92 G's

Test 4

Results (in seconds)
0-10 MPH - 0.63
0-20 MPH - 1.36
0-30 MPH - 2.26
0-40 MPH - 3.35
0-50 MPH - 4.69
0-60 MPH - 6.49
0-70 MPH - 8.45

30-70 MPH - 6.19
30-50 MPH - 2.43
50-70 MPH - 3.76

Max Acceleration - 0.92 G's

Note* tests 1 and 2 were done on separate days
Note** tests 3 and 4 were done on the same day but inc passenger
Note*** all 4 tests were done starting from 1st gear and on a flat surface

At the moment the performance of my 2.2 is not too bad, the Achilles heel at the moment is having to change to 3rd gear to hit 60 which a remap should sort by taking the rev limiter to just under 7000rpm, my rolling times suffered with having a passenger with me in tests 3 and 4, but still managed to get better 0-60 times due to me trying a tad harder.


1st May 2009

New Expansion Tank

the old one was becoming warn and tattered, so it was time for a change

an engine bay shot.

just traveled to Nottingham and back for some shiny new wheels.

Team Dynamics 1.2 with Toyo R888 tyres..

and on the car

only problem is i've had to put the 308mm discs on as the wheels wouldn't clear the calipers with 325mm discs on ill get the discs machined back by 2-3 mm and then ill beable to use them again

here is a pic of the 308's

21 May 2009

MTech Short Shifter

I had the opportunity to get a short shifter for pretty cheap so i bought it and set about installing it..

I have no pics of my own atm, but these are two pics someone else took.

in short the shifter works as its intended, making the throw of the gear change shorter and it feels nice, but because its shorter there isnt as much leverage on it as id like so it makes the shifting of gears much stiffer.

over all tho, its good and i prefer it to the standard throw length, but i just need to get used to how much force needed to change gear.



14th August 2009

Hi Lift Comp Cams

i got these to go with the 2.4 manifold, they take the power from 3000 rpm through to 6800rpm, at the moment the limiter kicks in at 6200rpm so im going to have a remap done fairly soon and hopefully.... <key word should see about 190 bhp.

14 August 2009

Calypso Red Hardtop

only problem is the hardtop was stored in a garage for ages so the colour hasnt really faded, so its slightly brighter than the rest of the car.

im going to go get my mate to cover it in vinal to match my car and then if anyone wants to take the vinal off, they will have a nice perfect vibrant colour underneath

14th August 2009

Momo Gear Knob

when i cut my gearstick down to create a smaller throw i had to cut off the thread that the original one went onto, no matter as i bought this design from ebay for pretty cheap

14 August 2009

Alacantara Door Cards

no pics as of yet, but i got them for free so put them on

14th August 2009

550lb Rear Springs

there has been alot of discussion over on the vx220 forum about which springs are best for the car, and naturally me being me have had to try them all out to find the best for me, having these stiffer springs on the rear made the front end a bit more pointier, and the back end wants to come round a little more.

this setup with a slightly softer stiffness at the front gets my thumbs up

no pics


3rd September 2009

Tullet 2.5" Equal Length Manifold

well i decided that i would buy a different exhaust manifold on tuesday, so i ordered it and it will get delivered tomorrow 9am..

so i had this one

to this one

30th October 2009

Spitfire Toe Link Kit

I recently bought Spitfire's upgraded toe links for a couple of reasons the main ones being;

1. The original toe links dried out with it being in close proximity to the exhaust.
2. The threads on the originals were prone to snapping while using road slicks / heavy track day use.

This is a picture of the Spitfire kit

Just to elaborate on the 2 point above.

1. The standard units (here) were very susceptible to heat from the exhaust, which caused the inners of the ball joints to dry out which in turn created a knocking/clunking noise after the car had warmed up. This happened to me twice, while not technically that dangerous it became very annoying.

2. The original parts were fine for use with standard tyres, but when coupled with R888's, AO48's or similar it created stress on the threads, and you can see from the picture that the threads on the standard units are not really that thick. I recently watched a youtube video showing what happens when the tie rods do snap at speed, and its probably the main reason why I decided to get the kit ordered and installed.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LqKqJLU6pj4

I fitted the kit within 6 hours, the fitment was fairly straight forward, the major time consuming things were getting the diffuser off, taking the old tie rods out etc. When you fit the kit you will have to drill the chassis (4 holes each side) this was fairly easy on the drivers side but I had to remove the down pipe to drill the passenger side.

Original Kit

New Kit

30th October 2009

ScanGaugeII

The ScanGuage II is a clever piece of kit which does many jobs from reading your OBDII port.

I got this device as I could leave it plugged into the car and monitor certain aspects of the car while I drive, it also has a handy fault code reader built in, so no more breaking my back trying to plug the code reader in.

There is so much I can say on this but the best thing to do would be to list certain aspects that I like about it and link you to the scangauge site so you can read all the info for yourself.

The parts I like about the scangauge is I can monitor my real time MPG and Distance left in Miles, other things that are quite handy is the trip computer that monitors things like max revs, speed, mpg etc.. for example I could set it to zero, take it to a garage and see if they took it out without me knowing..


9th November 2009

RS Tuning Remap

I went into RS Tuning firstly to get a power run done to see what difference the mods have actually made to the car.. but then i decided to let them loose and do what they wanted

Problem with the cars ECU is that nobody has every really cracked it, and by that i mean noone has really ever had full control of the ECU parameters..

Paul managed to change somethings like fuel tables etc, but couldnt find the values of the Rev limiter, so i told him not to worry and that i would come back another day once i knew what the default parameters were so he didnt have to mess about changing them one by one.

Here are the Before and After graphs

Standard Car

After Power Run

After Remap

as you can see there are gains from start to finish, but the power increases right up until the limiter, this is because the limiter is set to 6400 and the cams i have are rated right up to 6800.

22 December 2009

Bits

first lot of bits to arrive.

z22se fuel filter

full set autobush bushes

3x new hubs

altenator belt

lightweight flywheel

still waiting on the clutch cylinder and the lightweight pulley, then its off to get fitted
cant wait

 

[homeforsummer]

Some great modifications there, glad to see it's all been done tastefully!

The photos all seem to work now too 👍

 

[Dave A]

Great to see you getting extra enjoyment out of your car. Good taste with the mods too 👍.

 

[Bram Turismo]

That car looks absolutely fantastic! I've always thought that model had some weird proportions. But man, those modifications are very neat 👍

 

[Paulie]

Sweet ride, seriously, and so nice to see something different to an Elise.

 

[YSSMAN]

Legit! As a GM fan, yeah, you can imagine my excitement for this thread. Yet, these are one of those cars you always see in magazines and in videogames, but never as something that someone actually owns. Let alone modifies.

Thanks for the story!

 

[Philly]

That's a pretty awesome Vauxhall there. I feel like I'm the only one who likes those. Good to see someone's building a pretty cool one.

 

[Jondot]

Love it 👍 Always liked the VX220s - there was a lightning blue one near me I used to oggle on the walk home, but the last few times I went past it wasn't there. Stupid recession.

Just out of interest, where did you order the ScanGauge from? I'm severely tempted to splurge on one for the instant-MPG and coolant temp features alone.

 

[chrisr1984]

i got the scangauge from a lad on the vx220 forum, its was £75, on ebay they are £120 ish

 

[Robin]

Your VX220 looks awesome! Lots of hard work, attention to detail and styled very cleanly.

Being a Vauxhall owner I've always wanted that car or maybe something else thats VXR'd. I wish they had made the Opel GT (the 220's successor) available in the UK because it would have been nice to have another Halo model along side the VXR8.

Robin.

 

[Watchman]

 

 

[mustangGT90210]

Very nice! Glad to see something a little different too, keep up the good work 👍

 

[-ultraflow-]

Wooooh that what I call a good work... 👍

 

[Rue]

I LOVE your car. I want your car. Seriously, it looks great. I think the black details with the bright red paint look perfect.

 

[zazaza]

Wow! Your car looks amazing!!!! Good work!! 👍

 

[chrisr1984]

I've got some more pics with the girlfriends car in also

they show off the hardtop a little better

 

[nobuffalo]

Holy hell, that MR sits up nearly as high as my Corolla did. They both look great though, bet there a blast!

 

[Cale]

Car look AMAZING. Great work.

 

[chrisr1984]

little update:

ive put in a final list of items needed for the supercharger conversion..

hopefully we should see 260bhp with 230ftlbs torque..

with 0-60 and 0-100 times being much better

 

[chrisr1984]

[quote name='chris_uk' timestamp='1276702268' post='1049232']
little update now...

I got back from france on monday afternoon and just couldnt face doing anything that night, so tuesday morning came and i started on the car.

First things i did was remove the clams, once they were off i started on the chargecooler, i got the larger one so the pipes were on the drivers side. Everything went fine in fitting it and its currently bolted onto the rad with some thick double sided tape inbetween.

next thing to do was run the pipes through the sill, this was supposed to be the hardest thing to do, and i think it probably is, i managed to get the pipes through by pushing a piece of plastic pipe through and pulling the chargecooler pipe back, worked a treat

next thing to tackle was the removal of the old stuff, the inlet manifold, throttle body and the intake pipe all came off, i removed the ECU and put them all in a box at the back of the garage.

i then started on the fuel rail and removed the injectors, (note, a little bit of fuel will come out) also take care not to let the little O ring come off the injectors and fall into the cylinders.

once they were out i started going about changing the altenator, i had a 120 amp with a suppressor before, so i installed the 100amp and noticed that it still needed a suppressor on it so the sc manifold would fit, i also grounded off the bolt so it didnt foul the manifold.

then i started bolting on bits, the pretensioner bolted onto the side of the altenator, the manifold was put in place (temp) so i could see that nothing was fouling it, i also put the 90 degree bend on the manifold (my brother wanted something to do so let him do this)

then it was time to fit the charger on top, once on i moved the top hose out of the way, then i moved the fuel pipes out of the way. bolted on the sc throttle body and made a new intake system out of my old one.

that was it for day one.

[/quote]

 

[chrisr1984]

[quote name='chris_uk' timestamp='1276703460' post='1049246']
wednesday

today saw me up early (again) and out to the drive, i first started by fitting the intake pipe i made propperly and so it fit snug.

then i mounted the ECU and plugged the harness into it.

i then replaced all the old injector plugs with the new ones

extended the injector loom and the MAP sensor

and thats where i am atm, i have run out of wire for the other sensor, and i cant really do much more until i get the header tank.
[/quote]

 

[chrisr1984]

[quote name='chris_uk' timestamp='1276778973' post='1049782']
some more pics from today

chargecooler is now in place and ready for the radiator to be piped up propperly

you can see here how much i had to cut into the front structure to get them both to fit propperly

overview of manifold

piped up

neater wiring

[/quote]

 

[chrisr1984]

[quote name='chris_uk' timestamp='1276801406' post='1049940']
today has been a busy day lol

i painted the toeing bar silver, but it looks sh** so im going to paint it black

rad cowling back on

supercharger fitted

[/quote]

 

[chrisr1984]

[quote name='chris_uk' timestamp='1276801424' post='1049941']
bunged up the hole in the top of the manifold with some tigerseal

fuel pipes moved well out of the way now so not to foul the belt

with the excess stikaflex i tried to reinforce the sides which tend to split

all wiring all neat and tidy

general overview of the install

1. fit header tank
2. plumb pipes from header to manifold to chargecooler - DONE
3. alter the throttle body wires to work with the 2.0 s/c TB - DONE
4. extend the MAP sensor - DONE
5. remake intake system - DONE
6. install relay for the chargecooler pump - DONE
7. install chargecooler pump - DONE
8. send off ECU for base map putting on - DONE
9. re-route fuel lines - DONE
10. mount ECU - DONE
11. extend injector wires - DONE
12. install fused relay for pump
[/quote]

 

[chrisr1984]

[quote name='chris_uk' timestamp='1276960442' post='1050568']
i gave the rocker cover a polish this afternoon, it will do for now until i decide exactly what i want to do with it.

[/quote]

 

[chrisr1984]

[quote name='chris_uk' timestamp='1277476208' post='1053388']
totally finished now.

[/quote]