Dan's
1600 CC Vauxhall Astra .
Dan's Vauxhall Astra 1600cc.
This car is effectively just a 1.6 L model. When you look
at the car this is all you will
notice. Then you start to realize that there are modifications
aplenty. Most Vauxhall boys go
for the more is best look whilst the Volkswagen boys
are in to the Euro look at the moment. The
Euro look is concerned with smoothing the lines of the
car and losing the aggressive corners.
With Dan's Astra the first thing to hit you will be the
alloys with the low profile tyres. These
are standard alloys from a Cavalier Cesaro but they complement
the car perfectly. The glacier white paint work is the next thing you notice,
a standard Vauxhall colour, which has
been flatted and polished to lose the orange peel. The
paint work has been
polished and t-cutted to lose any surface imperfections.
The wing mirrors have been re-sprayed to match the rest
of the car. You will notice on this car that the rub strips and stripes
have been removed. Removing the stripes is not a major task as a
hairdryer will warm the plastic and help it soften so
it just peels off. For the bump strips to be removed we had to firstly
go to a breakers yard so we could rip off the bump strips to find out if
they are riveted or stuck on as when we called a Vauxhall parts department
they were uncertain. Luckily we found they were stuck on with trim tape
and glue, if they had been riveted we would have left the job as copious
amounts of filler and paint would have been needed. With the aid of a hot
water kettle and plenty of brute force and ignorance Dan and I managed
to remove the bum strips. Whilst we were doing this we decided to remove
the badging again out came the hot water kettle. We managed to remove the
badges as well.
At this point I started to become decidedly worried the
majority of trim tape and glue was still
stuck to the side of the car. I could see it was going
to be a mission to get this glue and tape
off, and once it was off the paint protected by the rub
strips was going to be a different colour
compared to the rest of the car due to the effect of
weathering.
Oh well, we could not turn back now so we started to remove
the trim tape with a combination of
hot water and bug remover. I know it sounds spoddy but
it was all we could think off. I was
throughout this project more of a technical advisor liaising
between Dan and my mechanic Graham at Elite Motors, top bloke call him
on 01322 441282 for all your motoring needs.
At this point I decided to leg it and leave Dan to do
the hard bit and remove the glue. After
several hours Dan had only managed to remove half a doors
worth of glue. He then turned to meths for the answer; he stopped drinking
the bottle of meths and applied it to the door to remove the glue. Bad
idea it started to take the paint as well back to the drawing board, it
took several days to get the answer we needed. After speaking to a few
mates and Vauxhall we were no closer to an answer. Dan then decided to
e-mail the Nova mailing list. These top blokes suggested we use petrol,
I was admittedly decidedly against the idea, petrol !!!! But there goes
Dan like a mongrel that's been thrown
in a kennel full of pedigree bitches on heat.
Out comes T-Cut and copious amounts of elbow grease on Dan's part and he manages to blend it all in.
A set of clear indicators have been added to the car to set it all off.
All in all a lot of work but quite a result, the car to
a stranger would look different but it was subtle.
The engine mods are even subtler, well not so much subtle
but non existent. The breathing
has been improved by a K&N filter, which was taken
from my crashed Cavalier and modified to fit the Astra. I recommended to
Dan that he use some tubing to get some cold air
into the engine. The only tubing you can get is four
inches in diameter and that is what I
normally use and therefore it is what Dan used. With
the improved breathing taken care of by the K&N and tubing throttle
response had improved but Dan wanted more. I explained the concept of getting
more power out of an engine i.e. more air and fuel, he takes this information
on board and plans how to get more air into the engine. Whilst wandering
round the garage he discovers tubing destined for a tumble drier. He decides
to cobble this together and make his own Blackwall Tunnel , the tubing
he used had a diameter of at least 9 - 11 inches which forced air in from
6 inches above the ground where are is coldest and straight into the filter.
The timing was retarded and fuel mixture was reset by
Elite motors to get the most power.
The climb in power was only a couple of BHP but the throttle
response was improved greatly.