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[Dano2k0]

Ok well i got me a new car, Vauxhall Astra SRI which is the MK4 (G) overall i'm really happy so far, ive talked about it in another thread here, so some of you may already be aware ive got it.

All in all i got a great deal on the car, shame it took the majority of my cash, i need more money for more mods  

As you can see in the pics, the fogs on the front are full of condensation, i need to dry them out, this apparently happened in the floods we had in the UK last year, so simple enough to sort those out, just need to find abit of time to do them, maybe this weekend.

Other than that, shes a solid car.

Ive already began the modding process by starting out with some FK coil overs, i don't know how much exactlly shes been dropped, but they can do 70mm all round, ive not done on the bank end yet, i just set it up like that as i had a somewhat heavy load to move, so will be dropping the back end alot more soon.

I can get abit lower on the front end, but then it starts scrapping pretty bad on full lock, so ive left it at this hight, still shes slammed, and if your not careful on speed humps, you'd rip the bottom off the car lol.

Anyway heres some pics:





And a few pics for people especially like grim_d to show shes slammed (please excuse the center cap not been on in the pic)







Well thats all ive got for now, more pics will follow as and when i get more stuff etc.

Ive got some stuff on order, a new bigger better spoiler as this one is cracking on where it goes from the up-rights along the spoiler flats if you get what i mean. Gona have to order some paint and get the spray gun out for it though, probably will do this in the near future.

Also ive got some angel headlights on order for it, hopefully they won't take too long.

Future plans are also to get some 18" alloys i know are available, the over-all wheel diamiter with tyre shouldn't be much different to what i have now, as the side wall is much thinner, so i'll get alot more wheel with less side wall, they are also abit wider too.

And hopefully i'm gona strip the engine down within the next few months, do a basic rebuild and check up, and i'm considering some performance cams and chipping the ecu to raise the limiter to 7k, i'd use some ARP bolts on the conrods though just to be safe. This is all only a temp matter though, as in a year or something time, i'm after fitting a Z20LET or simillar (2.0 turbo) and doing some major tuning on that in time to come.

Cheers for looking

[grim_d]

nice mate that is low, nice to see it in red too, instead of the common as muck silver.

do you get any scrubbing at the height its at the now? prob have to be carefull no to hit any bumps when turning, though the offset on those allows is pretty deep so i guess youl be ok.

looks good on its arse

looks solid and in good nick, only thing i would say is looks like it needs a good polish? but that might just be the lighting.

nice one and hopefully ill have a new car to show off in the next few months

[Dano2k0]

Cheers mate, nice to hear you like it, i'm dead happy with it at the moment.

By scrubbing do you mean as in the arches with the tyre catching? if so none at the moment, the back end needs winding down a good bit more yet, i can get it a good bit lower on the back end yet i reckon. I had it lower on the front end, but on full lock it was catching then, so had to raise it a few mm to clear better.

The front spliter can catch though if your not too carefull, and i'd guess you could probably rip it off if you got reckless  

Yeah i too love the red, i think once its polished up, in summer it'll look smart. I'm considering a carbon fibre bonnet too, i reckon against the red paint work it'd look quite tidy. I agree on the silver aswell, too many of them about and not really my choice of colour. My dad has an Astra GSI in that Arden Blue i think it is, thats a smart looking car when clean and polished up, and is considerably faster than my SRI lol, i'm after a Z20LET either later this year / next year, should be a reasonably simple enough conversion.

All in all shes a solid car in very good condiition, its on a 2001 plate aswell, but as you said, it needs a very good polish up, i reckon it'll take a while, in the pics the lighting is abit bad as it makes the roof look really faded, but its not, its not as shiney as the rest of the car but it doesn't look bad, i'm hoping to hell this weekend brings good weather ive been wanting to wax it since i got it.

Yeah mate, when you get your new car let us know, i'd love to see some pics of it mate.

Cheers

[grim_d]

yeah i mean catching the arches, ive seen it a few times, front end too low and catches a bump on a corner, makes a real mess of the wing, but its it aint catching all is good.

defo agree on a carbon bonnet, would look the nuts, shame ya aint up here in scotland, were having sum lovely weather at the moment, good for washing the car, even though i dont do that

put a sr20det in it  

[Dano2k0]

Yeah mate ive seen plenty catching on the front end in the arches on corners, luckily most ive seen have only caught the inner plastic guard so haven't come to anything major, however i did see one kid that had seriously buckled all his wing from it, which was much to my ammusement at the time lol.

Tell you what mate if it wasn't for the fact it'd get alot more complicated and time taking to fit a different engine in the car from another make, i'd deffinatly consider a skyline engine or something, you seem em go through on eBay, but it would take alot of time and custom fabrication.

I can however get a kit to fit a C20LET in for a few hundred quid, they are solid machines to start with, and there are a ton of parts out there for these engines, but i wouldn't know if its best to go with this, or up-rate a Z20LET, the only reason i'm really considering a Z20 is because it should be all reasonably simple to fit.

I wish i were in Scotland if the weather is that good, its been bloody crap here for ages, at the moment it keeps getting bright, but there are so many dark clouds it could rain any time so i'm not even gona risk it. I'm hoping at the weekend the weather will be good, then my fiancee can give me a hand too lol.

Maybe i'll give essex racing a ring in abit and ask em about their carbon bonnets, they are charging £350 for them, which don't seem mega bad considering its supposed to be all carbon, but i'm abit curious as to the structure of them etc so i wana talk to them first before ordering one.

Hopefully i'll have my black angel headlights soon, and i intend to order a different grill in the near future, those plus a carbon bonnet i think would look real tidy from the front end.  

Oh also, i'm considering a different exhaust, oval DTM i think it would quite suit the back end.  


Cheers mate

[Dano2k0]

Damn got some crappy news about that carbon bonnet i phoned essex racing and they have recently discontinued it and are removing it from their site soon. They were the cheapest aswell, so don't know what i'm gona do now, just have to keep looking around i guess.

[Dano2k0]

Ok well some good and some bad news today, firstly the bad news is ive got my angel headlights, but to fit them i really have to take off the whole front bumper, what a pain this is. The only other way i can think of is to remove the inner plastic arch guard and try this way, but none the less its still going to be a pain. Also my spoiler didn't turn up today, and ive been told it'll probably be next wednesday when i'm not even here...

Anyway, as the angels have turned up ive snapped a couple of pics for those interested in having a look, personally i think they look smart and will look great on the car.

Heres the pics:





Please note, you can still see the plastic protective film on them, i'll probably leave it on till ive got them fitted!

Cheers

[grim_d]

QUOTE(Dano2k0 @ Mar 19 2008, 05:47 PM)

Damn got some crappy news about that carbon bonnet i phoned essex racing and they have recently discontinued it and are removing it from their site soon. They were the cheapest aswell, so don't know what i'm gona do now, just have to keep looking around i guess.

i dont know what there is in the way of astra Owners club but you should see what you can find and see if there are any group buys on for bonnets. For instance there was a guy on one of the pulsar OC's doing pulsar bonnets with the cheesegrater and the 2 small vents for £425!! bargain.

i found this http://forum.astraow...read.php?t=3339 which you have probably seen, looks like group buy prices, maybe join up and send him a pm see what he can do. Was a few years ago though. Even if you can find someone who does custom carbon and the can make a copy of your bonnet, that way you can even chooe thickness etc.

edit : £449 here http://www.carbon-de...?...d=80&pid=16

angel eyes look good mate should look ace on the motor.

[Dano2k0]

Cheers mate, ive found another site or two that are selling the carbon bonnets too, but i'm abit unsure about them. I think most of them don't have the cut out for the front grill, so i'm abit unsure as to wether or not it'll look right. I'd guess it'll look nice and smooth, but the grill cools the top portion of the radiator when on the move so i don't know how much it'll effect cooling performance, i guess i'd have to look at it more.

Thanks for the link to that bulk type buy thread too, i might message the guy on there and see if he has anything to offer.

I'm still gutted about essex racing, they was only wanting £350 for a complete carbon bonnet, i was going to ask them some questions as to the build and quality before i orded though as it seemed an extremely good price for what you were getting, but sadly they no longer sell them..

Anyway, i managed to get the front end of the car stripped down so i could swap the headlights, i think its real stupid you have to remove the front bumper to actually swap them, but it all went well and was quite an easy job.

Heres the car with the front end stripped down ready for the front headlights to be swapped:

(IMG:http://i71.photobucket.com/albums/i159/Dano2k000/PICT2054resized.jpg)

And heres the finished piece, the side lights and dip lights are on in this pic, without the dip being on it has two angel rings, which i think look great.

(IMG:http://i71.photobucket.com/albums/i159/Dano2k000/PICT2059resized1.jpg)

(IMG:http://i71.photobucket.com/albums/i159/Dano2k000/PICT2061resized.jpg)

I'll try and snap a few more pics with just the side lights on etc so you can all get a good idea as to what it looks like.

All in all i'm very happy with them, i think it makes a real difference to how the car looks.

I also took the oppertunity to buy some of those ultra bright bulbs with the blue tint to them, i got 80watt bulbs for high beam, and 55watt bulbs for dip, and they are a serious ammount brighter than the standard bulbs.

Oh also, i repaired the air con radiator when i had it in pieces, i realised the bottom right portion was falling apart, luckily it hadn't leaked so the air con still works.

Cheers everyone (IMG:style_emoticons/default/beerchug.gif)

This post has been edited by Dano2k0: Mar 23 2008, 01:26 PM

[Dano2k0]

Ok well productivity hadn't stopped on the mods, but its been a little while since i last posted, ive not done huge ammounts, but still i thought i'd better post some stuff up.

Just a quick summary of what ive done:

Swapped out the center console and rest of the black trim down the center of the dash to the genuine Irmscher gun metal grey one that came out of a coupe turbo, also ive fitted some nice chrome Irmscher heater rings too, it makes a huge difference to the over-all look.

Ive also fitted my pipercross induction kit and blue silicon pipe, it looks good and makes a real difference to the sound, and does seem more responsive!

Oh ive also swapped the electric mirror switch as mine was broken, i didn't photo this though.

Also, ive spent alot of time running wires virtually everywhere in the car! removing trim, laying wires and re-fitting the trim is never much fun in my opinion though. Due to the ammount of wire my Avic requires to be just about everywhere, ive spent alot of time doing this and making sure its a good job, sadly i didn't really think there was much point taking pics of the wiring, but now i kind of wish i had. Ive still got some more wires to run down one side of the car for the power wire and remote signal for the amp.

Anyway, i'll just get on with posting the pics.

Oh also note, the original black trim was broke either side of the radio, but i didn't care cause i never had any intention of keeping the original black one.

- Also note i almost took it all apart without taking any pics, i'd already started then remembered!

(IMG:http://i71.photobucket.com/albums/i159/Dano2k000/PICT2116.jpg)

(IMG:http://i71.photobucket.com/albums/i159/Dano2k000/PICT2117.jpg)

(IMG:http://i71.photobucket.com/albums/i159/Dano2k000/PICT2146.jpg)

(IMG:http://i71.photobucket.com/albums/i159/Dano2k000/PICT2139.jpg)

(IMG:http://i71.photobucket.com/albums/i159/Dano2k000/PICT2143.jpg)

(IMG:http://i71.photobucket.com/albums/i159/Dano2k000/PICT2130.jpg)

(IMG:http://i71.photobucket.com/albums/i159/Dano2k000/PICT2135.jpg)

Thats all for now people, however i will be doing more soon enough.

Ive also got the leather sporty type steering wheel from a GSI turbo, but i need to fit that yet, also i should hopefully soon have the rest of the bits so i can finish off fitting my Pioneer Avic-X1. Ive also got the CD Changer etc for this in the boot, however i need to figgure out exactlly how i'm going to mount it as its currently loose on the floor!

Cheers (IMG:style_emoticons/default/beerchug.gif)

[hamwbone]

Nice mod moving the steering wheel to the wrong side of the car.  

[Dano2k0]

lol, yeah i guess thats going to look abit odd to the majority of people on this forum.

Oh and just to put it straight, its on the right side of the car to begin with, get it right hand side is right? lol

[lostboyz]

that arguement dosent work because the converse would also have to be true, and left hand != wrong side

most of the world is left why do you have to be different? (for once its not the US)

[yaazz]

That is a sweet car. I love the Console and headlights

[jimbobjim]

Lovin the centre console mate, looks about one million times better.

We brits drive on the correct side  I couldn't imagine changing gear with my right hand.