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[grim_d]

grill looks great man, but now you got to de-badge the boot

[rms2001]

Interesting car. I saw loads of them around the UK and Europe. Good to see GM is doing well overseas. Would be an interesting car to have here in America if they would release it with a diesel. I can imagine the mileage now, probably give a Jetta a good run for its money.

[twistedsymphony]

Looks nice man...  

I've been playing catch-up with my 240... hopefully once I get my truck crap settled I can start gearing up for the engine swap.

so what's next for you?

[Dano2k0]

QUOTE(grim_d @ May 15 2008, 10:47 AM)

grill looks great man, but now you got to de-badge the boot

Haha yeah i do, i think i'll eventually remove the vauxhall badge, not sure if theres a small hole behind it or not though. In the event there is it'll have to wait for abit as ive got more important things to do before that.  

Thanks for the feedback on the grill though, glad you like it. I'm very pleased with it at the moment.

QUOTE(rms2001 @ May 15 2008, 11:08 AM)

Interesting car. I saw loads of them around the UK and Europe. Good to see GM is doing well overseas. Would be an interesting car to have here in America if they would release it with a diesel. I can imagine the mileage now, probably give a Jetta a good run for its money.

GM is doing extremelly well over here, in England there is a ton of Astras, you see them everywhere lol. In general Vauxhall does well here.

QUOTE(twistedsymphony @ May 15 2008, 03:20 PM)

Looks nice man...  

I've been playing catch-up with my 240... hopefully once I get my truck crap settled I can start gearing up for the engine swap.

so what's next for you?

Cheers mate, glad you like it. Yeah ive been reading your truck issues. Hope you get that sorted out soon mate.

I think the engine swap should go quite well for you, if youve got an engine crane etc all should be good I'll be joining you too in the near future when i come to fit the Z20LET, theres not much point in tuning the engine ive got in much at the moment, i figgured i might aswell wait for the bigger better turbo engine and tune that, i'll get much better value for money in general.

Whats next? i don't know lol. Ive got a GSI spoiler on the way, infact it'll probably be here tomorrow, then ive got to go and get some paint mixed to spray the spoiler with and get the time to paint it up. I got a good buy on the spoiler though, and it'll be much better than just any cheap fiberglass replacements. I just want to make sure its right when its done so i spent the bit extra.

Ive also got some wheels in the pipe line that i'll be getting second hand. I'll need to give them abit of a refurb though as Grim did, though i'll be doing mine in a dark metalic grey. With the big wilwood calipers in red behind them on a red car i think it should look spot on.

Also ive still got to finish the refurb job on the Wilwood calipers, they were second hand and in crappy condition when i bought them, hence the price i paid, but i got a good buy. Theres nothing wrong with them as such other than they looked crappy. Someone decided it was a good idea to paint them gold, and all the paint is chipped and rubbish so ive been sorting one of them out and been spraying it with red temp paint. Infact i'll do a little update below with some pics and details for everyone to see.  

-------------------------------------------------------------

As i was just saying to TS above, ive been working on one of the Wilwood 4pot calipers, they are the superlite calipers and weigh very little!

When i originally got these, i got them second hand and some fool decided it was a good idea to paint them (doing a crappy job aswell) in gold, they have been kicked around abit and alot of the gold had chipped off etc.

So what ive been doing is refurbing them, ive been giving them a really good sand down, clean and spraying up in a red heat proof paint. I'm not 100% sure on the exact tone of colour though, but i think if i paint the text back in, using some black paint then they'll be looking good.

When i do get my wheels sorted and paint them in the dark metalic grey, these should look amazing behind the wheels!

Anyway heres some pics, you can see the one ive been working on thats now red. Ive photographed the other so you can get an idea as to what they originally looked like.







Oh and heres a shot of one of the bells and rotar, other than the sheer size of these things, they don't look too impressive so i'm really considering getting some new rotars aswell, i was hoping for some drilled ones or something as i think they'd look stunning with the rest of the setup.



You can see from the picture these things are big.

I'll hopefully be doing some more work on these shortly, and i'm hoping soon i'll have the wheels sorted and these sorted aswell so i can get them straight on the car.

Cheers everyone

[bucko]

nice work, you must have a lot of experience in this you look like your doing a good job on well everything. I really like the sat nav display you did.

[grim_d]

i dare you.

(IMG:http://www.hormiga.org/fondosescritorio/wallpapers/Vehiculos-Motor/Opel-Astra/Opel-Astra-Xtreme-Concept-6.jpg)

failing that, you shud try get a gsi kit, saw one earlier, cool looking.

(IMG:http://www.celtictuning.co.uk/images/customercars/Vauxhall%20Astra%20GSi%20Turbo.jpg)


This post has been edited by grim_d: May 22 2008, 10:38 PM

[Dano2k0]

QUOTE(bucko @ May 21 2008, 09:05 PM)

nice work, you must have a lot of experience in this you look like your doing a good job on well everything. I really like the sat nav display you did.

Thanks mate, ive got a decent ammount of experience with car modding, and general work so i do my best when it comes to the stuff on my car. When you get your car you should buy some nice parts too to be honest the majority of what ive done so far is straight forward and easy. I enjoy making my car what i consider better looking, increasing performance in almost any respect, and of course getting the customised look to how i like it.

QUOTE(grim_d @ May 22 2008, 11:12 PM)

i dare you.

failing that, you shud try get a gsi kit, saw one earlier, cool looking.

Oh man, the first pic the touring car type is crazy, as much as i'd love a nice wide arch, i think its a little crazy for road use. Other than that, theres no way with how low mine is it would take that kit lol. It would scrape the road where ever you go and rip bits off it ive no doubt.

Also, raising the car is a big no no unless its urgent    I love how low she is at the moment, and i'm going lower on the back end soon too, being as ive got adjustable coilovers, i can go abit more on the back end yet so i'm gona slam it on the back, might aswell go with the rest of whats left.

Oh, and for the GSI, my dad has a GSI at the moment, fantastic car, and thats the engine i'm after, Z20LET, 2.0 turbo, should be a reasonably easy conversion from first looks so later this year / next year i should be dropping that engine in. Theres not alot of point in tuning the 1.8 in my opinion, a 2.0 block is a good starting point, and a config for a turbo on such a block i think is an ideal place to get good power, and of course tuning is going to see good gains unlike when running N/A.

I do agree with you though, the GSI is an amazing looking car in real life, i do want a GSI bumper or a SRI turbo bumper, though i'd prefer the GSI one, the rear one isn't all that special, and has an exhaust cut out for a single tail pipe so no oval one could easily fit, so i'd stick with the bumper ive got already i think.

Also ive got a GSI genuine spoiler already work has been started, hoping to get some paint within the next few days and get the gun out and spray it up to match my car, i'll shoot some pics at some point soon and post them up for you to see mate. For a standard spoiler, i think the GSI one is great, not too big, and deffinatly not too small.

[lostboyz]

just saw a Saturn astra on the road today and thought it looked familiar. Good looking car

[bucko]

A CD player and a CB radio is about as far as i will go on modding, have no experience but my mate has a CB radio so were gonna have some fun with that (no license needed now for CB). I'm hoping to get my first car before the year is out, providing petrol doesn't go toooo high.

[Dano2k0]

QUOTE(lostboyz @ May 23 2008, 12:01 AM)

just saw a Saturn astra on the road today and thought it looked familiar. Good looking car

A Saturn Astra? Never heard of such a thing, i wouldn't have thought it would be the same type of Astra as mine though? especially as its made by Vauxhall (or Opel) Unless i'm missing something obvious i didn't think you have anything like this over there?  

QUOTE(bucko @ May 23 2008, 01:04 AM)

A CD player and a CB radio is about as far as i will go on modding, have no experience but my mate has a CB radio so were gonna have some fun with that (no license needed now for CB). I'm hoping to get my first car before the year is out, providing petrol doesn't go toooo high.

Oh man you can't stop there. I never knew you didn't need a licence anymore for the CB, used to have good fun on those going back a good few years. You know you want to start an extensive list of modifications once youve done a few mods you won't be able to stop, it becomes a passion to improove virtually everything.

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On a side note as a minor update, ive been hunting around for some wilwood rotors and pads for my new brakes, which i'm still in the process of sorting out (pics to come soon)

I finally found someone who deals alot with wilwood and can get me more or less anything i want if i have the part numbers (rally designs is the company)

Anyway, i ideally wanted some drilled rotors, but it looks like that idea is out of the window unless i do some work on the caliper mounts aswell, but i think i'll throw that idea out of the window for now as thats alot of hassle. Ive managed to find some high spec rotors however that have grooves cut into them, and ive been told are most deffinatly ideal for fast road use, they are part of the GT series.

Wilwood brakes are a pain unless youve got a good setup already on your car because there are so many differences and limitations, i need a few specific things to fit my rotors to the bells ive got at the moment.

Anyway, basically i got a price for the rotors and a new set of pads for fast road use (you have to specifically order a left and a right rotor aswell for air flow reasons)

My total price excluding shipping totalled up just short of £300, while thats alot of money i don't know if i should just buy them and fit them, or use the ones i currently have for now and wear them down a little (got alot of life left on them) and swap them in the future, but i ideally wanted the brakes and wheels done pretty much together.

I'm going to have a think about what to do for the best now, i need quite alot of cash shortly soon aswell as i'm going on holiday and the car is going with me so i want to finish up a few odds and ends and have enough cash to take for a good holiday aswell.

Besides that, all is currently good, and ive bought my paint for doing my new set of wheels when i get them, hopefully i'll have them in a couple of weeks now, and i can get to work on them.

Anyway, enough rambling on, just thought i'd keep those of you interested up to date.

Cheers.

[slimgrip]

Looks good m8, love them headlights!
Been thinkin of getting an angel eye kit for me beamer.

[lostboyz]

(IMG:http://files.windingroad.com/newsuploads/2007/02/08-saturn-astra-013-600.jpg)

08 saturn astra

saturn is just another gm company, and all american car companies like to bring cars here that do well in europe and asia (see focus, gto, etc.)

[grim_d]

Hey dano mate was looking up some car pcs earlier and found this nifty build in an astra.

end result looks great.

http://www.custompc....blogs/davemark/

[Dano2k0]

Sorry i didn't get back to any of you sooner, ive not been in this section too much lately, had alot to do so been very busy!

Grim mate, not a bad looking mod that guy has done, ive seen a few people do some simillar stuff, very interesting, though i think he could have done a little bit better on some areas but all in all its deffinatly a nice mod, would be excellent for use with some ECU's if youve got the right software.

----------------------------------------------------

Time for a long needed update, ok well a few weeks back i got completely fed up of the power from the 1.8, don't get me wrong its not a slow car by any means, but the power i'm wanting this doesn't even come close to cutting it.

As ive said a few times in this thread, ive been wanting to drop a Z20LET in place of the current engine (2.0 turbo engine)

Ive been looking for one of these engines ever since i got the car, as this has always been my intention, they only made these GSI turbo spec engines till 2004, so thats as new as i can buy second hand really.

After much research i finally found a guy that lived 200miles from me who had exactlly what i wanted, the engine came from a write off nearly 2 years ago and had been sat in storage since as he didn't end up using it, best bet is its come from a garage with a receipt for guaranteed mileage.

Basically ive got the engine, gearbox, turbo, ecu, wiring loom, drive shafts, hubs, brakes, steering rack etc etc basically everything from the front end of the car for complete conversion, minus a few things such as radiators, intercooler etc.

The engine has genuinely only covered 7,000 miles from new, so the engine has barely ran in at the moment.

Its still sat in the back of my garage, but i'm piecing together everything else i need and will hopefully start making progress with fitting the engine in the next 1-2 months.

Heres a couple of pics i snapped, also note you can see my new wheels stacked up there in the pics, though i need new tyres on them, and still need to paint them, so they are still not on the car as of yet!

(IMG:http://i71.photobucket.com/albums/i159/Dano2k000/PICT2679.jpg)

(IMG:http://i71.photobucket.com/albums/i159/Dano2k000/PICT2676.jpg)

Ive got alot of confidence in this lot, in the future i'll be doing many mods including bigger turbo, inlet cam, etc etc.

Oh and heres one for Grim that said the car needed a good polish, it did indeed and now it looks a different car again, sadly it rained on it before i got to take any pics, but you can see how good the paint looks now, its very shiney and reflective, personally i think its one of the best reds ive seen on a car! Sadly the rain doesn't do it any justice and really does take away from the look when dry.

(IMG:http://i71.photobucket.com/albums/i159/Dano2k000/PICT2681.jpg)

(IMG:http://i71.photobucket.com/albums/i159/Dano2k000/PICT2687.jpg)

Took those pictures down at my fiancees house by the way for those that will release its not on my drive.

Enjoy the pictures and we should be seeing good progress in the near future.

PS, thinking of getting a full Milltek catback exhaust system for when i drop this in, front de-cat pipe and a sports cat in place of the second one. Also trying to source the parts for a front mount intercooler setup along with some other odds and ends should make a solid setup (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

This post has been edited by Dano2k0: Aug 18 2008, 04:01 PM

[bucko]

Nice mate, the polish looks really good. Looking forward to hearing that 2.0 turbo