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Author dewismotorsport's supercharged Astra coupe 2.2 race car build
dewismotorsport
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Registered: 16th Feb 08
Location: Coventry & Poole
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27th May 15 at 18:32   View User's Profile U2U Member Reply With Quote

Made a start on the spare rear boot lid, got the grinder out and let rip, managed to get it down from 13.2kg to 8.1kg so a good saving overall as its weight in the wrong area being behind the rear axle. I plan to weld up the holes and skim them over.



I plan to add a large rear spoiler and front splitter at some point so decided to do my homework on the subject, very interesting book and amazing what simple changes to angles etc can affect the cars drag, downforce etc


[Edited on 27-05-2015 by dewismotorsport]
chris_uk
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Registered: 8th Jul 03
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27th May 15 at 18:39   View Garage View User's Profile U2U Member Reply With Quote

its a good read that.. ive got the 2nd edition.
dewismotorsport
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Registered: 16th Feb 08
Location: Coventry & Poole
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27th May 15 at 18:47   View User's Profile U2U Member Reply With Quote

quote:
Originally posted by chris_uk
its a good read that.. ive got the 2nd edition.


Yeah gonna be a holiday read I think, there's a lot of info to take in
dewismotorsport
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Registered: 16th Feb 08
Location: Coventry & Poole
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5th Jun 15 at 23:48   View User's Profile U2U Member Reply With Quote

Had these bits of CNC billet alloy porn turn up all the way from Russia with love, massive thanks to SLON who gave me all the advice, info and got them made and sent over, also thanks to Nemisis (Ben) for recieving them and posting them on. These are the brackets to allow me to fit the Audi RS6 brake calipers and also rear plates to allow me to fit the vectra VXR rear calipers.


Had to machine the Audi discs slightly to fit, inner bore is smaller so took it out to 70mm


And once on I found they fouled on the inside on the carrier so machined a bit off the inside and then ground the lugs down slightly to allow myself some expansion room as well



Brackets on


Had to get new banjo bolts as the threads are different but could still use the standard brake line, new DS2500 pads in and bleed up


And done


Well until I realised the wheel fouled the caliper so had to go on the scrounge for some spacers and longer bolts, luckily my mate Nick came to the rescue with some 12mm BMW spacers and bolts (10mm would be perfect). They were 5x120 so I had to mark up my own PCD and trim down the lip to fit inside my alloy



After bedding the pads in my god there good, can almost stand the car on its nose, can't wait to use them on track with the semi slicks on.
Latest pic of the car, needs a clean before PVS
dewismotorsport
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Registered: 16th Feb 08
Location: Coventry & Poole
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25th Jun 15 at 22:23   View User's Profile U2U Member Reply With Quote

Finished the tailgate off by welding up all the holes


And before I left for holiday dropped it down to my mates body shop for smoothing, also got him to sand back the carbon bonnet and re paint them, sent me some progress shots


dewismotorsport
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Registered: 16th Feb 08
Location: Coventry & Poole
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1st Jul 15 at 14:03   View User's Profile U2U Member Reply With Quote

Got my bonnet and boot back from my mate Nick at Nuffield accident repair in Poole he did a awesome Job on them.

Really love the boot lid all smoothed


Bonnet on and not the greatest of fits at the rear but will live with it

chris_uk
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1st Jul 15 at 14:33   View Garage View User's Profile U2U Member Reply With Quote

Get rif of them headlight things.
dewismotorsport
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Location: Coventry & Poole
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3rd Jul 15 at 17:14   View User's Profile U2U Member Reply With Quote

quote:
Originally posted by chris_uk
Get rif of them headlight things.


Yeah not a fan of them either, they were originally bought to hide the hazed tops of the lights but now the who lights the same so when I get them polished back I will remove them
Jed D
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Registered: 15th Mar 11
Location: Durham
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5th Jul 15 at 09:17   View User's Profile U2U Member Reply With Quote

got much love for this coupe trouper
dewismotorsport
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Registered: 16th Feb 08
Location: Coventry & Poole
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7th Jul 15 at 11:53   View User's Profile U2U Member Reply With Quote

quote:
Originally posted by Jed D
got much love for this coupe trouper


Cheers Jed
dewismotorsport
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Location: Coventry & Poole
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15th Jul 15 at 17:36   View User's Profile U2U Member Reply With Quote

Big thanks to my friend Craig for sorting me out a pair of practically new depo headlights from the scrap yard for £20


Side by side for comparison and old ones are just awful


With both fitted it's a total transformation, and I won't be re fitting the eye brows either.

Emptied the catch tank, water was brown and loads of sludge, this is why I don't return it back into the engine
davegreen
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15th Jul 15 at 19:14   View Garage View User's Profile U2U Member Reply With Quote

head lamps look better
that's some gunk from the catch tank!
dewismotorsport
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Registered: 16th Feb 08
Location: Coventry & Poole
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16th Jul 15 at 11:55   View User's Profile U2U Member Reply With Quote

quote:
Originally posted by davegreen
head lamps look better
that's some gunk from the catch tank!


Yeah old headlights were a embarrassment when parked up at pvs.

Yeah not good, going to look into a better breather system for it at some point
dewismotorsport
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Registered: 16th Feb 08
Location: Coventry & Poole
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18th Aug 15 at 19:20   View User's Profile U2U Member Reply With Quote

Haven't done a great deal lately but have Castle Combe booked for Friday so thought I'd better get my arse in gear and improve a few bits and retro fit some others.

Put a few extra holes in the bumper to help with cooling and air flow


Decided to change the wet tyres over onto the lighter supertouring wheels, their 1.45kg a wheel lighter and are an inch wider so should improve the unsprung weight and pick up.


My least favourite mod was to have to remove the brakes and re fit the coupe turbo brakes, had to be done as I haven't got the spare funds to buy two new sets of wheels and a set of daily/wet track day tyres, don't want to use the 19"s as their too heavy.


Decided to do a track mod for the gear shifter, in the coupe it sits very low so wanted to make it sit higher for ease of reach like the quaife shifter was in my Corsa. So I made a new 3" tower


Fitted


Before:


After:


Trimmed the plastic underneath the surround and changed the location the gaiter sits on stick, looks almost factory, feels so much better and closer to wheel so gear shifts on track will be improved


Also finally got round to fitting the strut brace, few mods on the turret parts and fitted nicely underneath the gaz solid top mounts
dewismotorsport
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Registered: 16th Feb 08
Location: Coventry & Poole
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23rd Aug 15 at 16:27   View User's Profile U2U Member Reply With Quote

Well Castle Combe was a bit of a let down, did one session and the brake master cylinder failed and is wearing around the base and has turned out to be my air in the system cause, could of carried on but for the cost of a track day didn't want to write the car off if I went to push the brakes and they didn't work so called it a day and just acted as chief mechanic to fellow #YOLORACING members and enjoying passenger rides.



Love the look of the supertouring wheels


Currently looking at options for a repair to the brake master cylinder, I either buy a rebuild kit or buy a new one, not sure if their all the same throughout the engine range, anyone know?
dewismotorsport
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Location: Coventry & Poole
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27th Aug 15 at 17:53   View User's Profile U2U Member Reply With Quote

Driving into work today the alternator decided to pack up, luckily managed to drive to the workshop before it cutting out, quickly stripped it down and found the bush had melted its way through the casing so safe to say it wasn't salvageable. Luckily I have a few spares so not the end of the world.


While it was apart I took some more off the bracket as low down in higher gears if you planted it it would slip slightly, also fitted a new gates belt too.


Quick look inside the inlet and its spotless so really glad I blocked off the PCV and run the breather to the catch tank.
boylers11
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Location: Shropshire
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28th Aug 15 at 12:31   View User's Profile U2U Member Reply With Quote

Surprised this thread has had so few comments tbh. The fabrication work and knowledge that has gone into this is great. Keep up the good work!
dewismotorsport
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Registered: 16th Feb 08
Location: Coventry & Poole
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29th Aug 15 at 16:32   View User's Profile U2U Member Reply With Quote

quote:
Originally posted by boylers11
Surprised this thread has had so few comments tbh. The fabrication work and knowledge that has gone into this is great. Keep up the good work!


Cheers mate is really lost on this forum I think
Col004
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30th Aug 15 at 15:28   View User's Profile U2U Member Reply With Quote

That boot lid is fantastic work mate... Looks great all de-cluttered
dewismotorsport
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30th Aug 15 at 18:05   View User's Profile U2U Member Reply With Quote

quote:
Originally posted by Col004
That boot lid is fantastic work mate... Looks great all de-cluttered


Cheers Colin, yeah happy with how that turned out, looks really clean, less is more and all that
dewismotorsport
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Registered: 16th Feb 08
Location: Coventry & Poole
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27th Oct 15 at 20:31   View User's Profile U2U Member Reply With Quote

Not really done much on the coupe lately other than just use it.

Got a few maintence jobs I need to get through though.

First job was to repair the leaking manifold


Next up was to fix the wiper motor, I did a quick repair on this about a year ago by just bending the end over but slowly it started to not re park on the intermittent setting once screen was dry so made a new end piece and soldered it on. (Filed the solder down slightly after picture was taken)


Next up was a track mod, the rear camber and toe on the standard beams isn't very even or how I wanted it so set about sorting it with some adjustable camber/toe shims.

Measured up






A lot of head scratching and maths/conversions from mm's to minutes and degrees to minutes I had my ideal figures



I've set it up with 2mm toe in which helps to scrub the rear tyres which helps to put heat into them on track, the fronts obviously warm up first due to weight and drive so can lead to having a light back end for a few laps until they warm up. I've also made the rear to run -2 degrees rear camber to help with the hard cornering tyre contact area.

Unfortunately they are the wrong shims so need to wait for the new ones to turn up but I've done the hard part working out the settings part.

Just waiting on a genuine rear wheel bearing to turn up as the drivers side one is starting to grumble. Also waiting on a genuine brake master cyclinder to arrive as well as some new Motul RBF660 brake fluid.
dewismotorsport
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29th Oct 15 at 18:39   View User's Profile U2U Member Reply With Quote

New correct shims have turned up and have actually worked in my favour, the shim dial settings are the same so that's a relief but will allow me to run between 0.75-1mm more toe in due to the shim being thicker so will allow me to run more toe in to scrub the tyres. Will make the rear end even more predictable and allow me to fine tune the rear by using spring rates, damper settings and tyre pressures to gain the rear steer affect I like in the bends.


Got given a damaged standard LSJ pulley so set about straightening it up


Plastic mallet and a anvil got it close but then gave it a tidy up and skim with the lathe to get it back to being perfect


Quick blast of paint and it's good to go


The plan is to try this pulley with my current map, the map is so rich it's un believable. Example being in 5th on the motorway and plant it giving it WOT the AFR's go into the 11's as they should but then rapidly tick down into the 10's until they are a flat 10. I want to add the smaller pulley to run a couple of psi more boost to help lean it out when at WOT. Now depending how it's mapped it may work or not as it could just move to the next cell in the map table and still give me crap AFR's or it may lean the mixture out and improve the AFR's. Either way it's worth a try for less than an hours work changing it over.
daine
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Registered: 28th Feb 07
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29th Oct 15 at 19:18   View Garage View User's Profile U2U Member Reply With Quote

I think with your knowledge, ability and enthusiasum Adam!, the garage were you work needs to buy a rolling road, and set up like RS. Tuning in leeds.
the idea of the smaller pulley wheel is spot on, you need to start building cars for customers
dewismotorsport
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30th Oct 15 at 08:28   View User's Profile U2U Member Reply With Quote

quote:
Originally posted by daine
I think with your knowledge, ability and enthusiasum Adam!, the garage were you work needs to buy a rolling road, and set up like RS. Tuning in leeds.
the idea of the smaller pulley wheel is spot on, you need to start building cars for customers


Cheers mate

I'm actually a Metalsmith (welder fabricator) in the Royal Marines but I'm very lucky to have full use of the main vehicle workshop, I'm self taught mechanically, we do have a rolling road but it's only set up to test brakes else that would be awesome
dewismotorsport
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Location: Coventry & Poole
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4th Nov 15 at 12:48   View User's Profile U2U Member Reply With Quote

Decided if I'm replacing one bearing I may as well do both, so two genuine items ordered, didn't want any cheap parts as the quality can be hit and miss, will keep the good used one as a track spare. Master cylinder was the same only wanted a genuine part. After having the manifold off the other day the downpipe gasket was blowing so another to replace that.


I've bought some team dynamics pro race 1.2's with some toyo proxy T1R's on so collecting them on Friday, so I can finally get round to fitting my Vectra vxr discs and calipers while I have it all to bits to do the shims and bearings, so decided to give the calipers a blast of paint.............adds 50bhp FACT

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