Mk3 Cavalier Owners Club | Vauxhall Cavalier Dot Com

Greetings to all

On sound advice to join a network of like minded Cav enthusiasts, ive came here to hopefully share with you my build and get some positive feedback and enjoy myself.

purchased the car from a well known guy to most of you almost a year ago now, since then the car has been undergoing some serious engine work at Noble Motorsports.

Spec is as follows:

The shell has been resprayed in Astra GTE Champion red, including all door shuts, inner wings, and all inside the boot area to make a proper job.
Spec
C20LET Forged Engine Rebuild
decked XE block
Under piston oil jets
MBE 9A4 ECU with Motec 3 Bar Map
One off full Custom Arrow C20LET Con Rods (unique part)
Omega 86.5mm Pistons
ARP 2000 Stud head bolts
Cometic Steel Headgasket
C20XE Steel Sump with drain plug from Alloy catch tank
Evo 8 TD05 turbocharger, Standard Replacement turbine housing, 16G compressor wheel, TD05HR Turbine shaft and wheel. As part of the overhaul, the unit also received replacement bearings/oil seals, in addition to a replacement thrust Assembly
custom 1 bar actuator with modified rod end
Aqua blasted Tubular Manifold
Mocal oil catch tank
Mafco Pro HT Leads
Bailey Evo Dump Valve
10.6 Lire Custom made Front Mounted Intercooler
HKS Air Filter with custom made stainless pipework
Dewis Motorsport inlet Plenum with billet fuel rail
V6 Throttle body
SBD fast road cams Custom ground profile
Kent cams vernier pulleys
Reconditioned Coscast cylinder head, stripped, pressure tested, valves re seated and head face machined
Double valve springs with correct machined shims to match
Siemens 630 cc injectors
Sard adjustable fuel regulator
Silicon hoses for boost and water.
Cav16 Sports Uprated Transfer Box with Locked Rings making this permanent 4x4
Transfer box accumulator all removed
Sachs racing 4 paddle clutch with uprated plate
TTV racing steel flywheel
F28 6 speed gearbox
Power Steering Pump Removed
Corsa EPAS Steering column
Hi-Spec Monster 4 Front calipers and 335mm Front Discs
Eibach 30mm Lowering Springs
Top Adjustable Koni Shocks front and rear
Full Custom Made Stainless Exhaust inc downpipe
Rear Poly Bush camber kit
poly bush front wishbones
Front and Rear Strut Braces
17" Team Dynamics Alloys
Pirelli P-Zero Tyres
Morrette Twin Headlight Kit
Front wings Welded to remove the indicator
Battery Moved to the Boot to make space for air filter from new turbo setup
Astra gsi bonnet vents
Opel mudflaps
Chrome bonnet lifters
Gsi front grill
Vector ade locked door handles
Full Black Leather Interior
Door card Inserts painted to Same Exterior colour
Electric Windows front and rear
Electric Sunroof
Momo Steering Wheel
Snap Off Boss
AutoMeter Boost Gauge
Autometer Oil Pressure Gauge
Innovate WideBand Lambda Gauge
Intercooler ACT Temp Gauge
Momo pedals
JBL speakers
Alpine head unit
Clifford Concept Cat 1 Alarm
Performance
348lb Torque 340BHP at 23PSI at last RR at Noble Motorsport

This is how the car was when it went into Noble over 7 months ago

Put her on the rollers and had some interesting results

Nice new shiny bit! Td05 turbo refurbished with all new parts correct to spec, uprated oil seals and uprated bearings plus a new actuator set to 15psi. The manifold also back from being port grinded and polished so should spool up nice and fast. Once this is all back on the car the work on the ECU and Dewis inlet can start.




Then had a Dewis inlet made for the cav (cheers Adam) very happy with it and started to remove engine for a nosey inside.

Brake calipers went to HI SPEC for refurb and look great. Now engine is out and going to have some work done to it should be able to tidy up the engine bay somewhat. Will post pics but if you look on Noble Motorsports facebook page they are banging a few pics up too.

Engine out and stripped for full assessment before the forged rebuild.


Engine stripped an assessed, bit of work to be done it seems.












Also sourced a genuine coscast head that's covered a genuine 30,000 miles and never been skimmed!, this will go away to be machined and be married up with a set of new cams to suit spec. All for the greater good

Right here's a bit of an update, block acquired and away for fitting of oil jets head back from overhaul and awaiting cams springs and spacers. Con rods under construction from arrow and should be ready in a few weeks time, exhaust manifold back from Aqua blasting and looks pretty damn good to me. Anyway here's some pics.

In middle of sorting order for cams, springs, flywheel and clutch, Cams are Regal Autosport hydraulic profile, ground on new blanks by Kent Cams, clutch cover is Sachs racing with uprated plate, Flywheel is TTV racing steel option. I have spoken at length with Chris at Regal on what requirements are needed for the cam profile and they have done a reasonable amount of testing with the profile say it will suit my needs. The cylinder head has been stripped, pressure tested, valves re seated and head face machined. Crank is back, re ground, prepped and bearings to suit, Block has been bored to rough piston size, just needs to be plateau honed to piston clearance once they arrive, but in mean time block is on route with courier to have oil spray jets and will final hone and face block when back from spray jet fit. Arp head and main cap stud kit's arrived, have got 3 bap map sensor and MBE 9A4 ECU. Just waiting now for the Con Rods which I have been given a date of 13th April (takes time to customise a rod!) then all parts will be ready for building her back up.

Decided to go a bit more "stealthy" with the car





So nearly all the parts together now, just waiting on con rods still and block to come back. Another bundle of parts arrived this week.....loves new shiny bits!!!

















Head looking great with fresh skim, new seals and valve cuts, double valve springs with correct shims made for it.

Also had replacement standard grille installed to tone down and get more sleeper look< im going to be doing the same for the gold alloys too with a nice satin black.

new cams arrived too!

well new rods arrived from Arrow. These rods have been specifically designed to suit the LET engine, not to be mistaken for other Arrow rods produced.
i am very happy with the end result and a great piece of mind for reliability.













And this is how far i am at now. engine block is away for final hone and face etc then the build will commence.

Wow that's one huge spec very very nice!
The graph looks like the car is very drivable with the boost coming in quite early. Does the car hit the limiter before 6k or did the tester stop.
I can't see any obvious gains for the cams but there again it's better to see a before and after on the rolling road. Hydraulic cams don't do much in my opinion

dycie wrote:On sound advice to join a network of like minded Cav enthusiasts, ive came here to hopefully share with you my build and get some positive feedback and enjoy myself.

Welcome back, Darren! Thanks for sharing 'the story so far' with us. Top project, and I look forward to seeing the car in the flesh when we head out for our European road trip in August.

btcctroy wrote:Wow that's one huge spec very very nice!
The graph looks like the car is very drivable with the boost coming in quite early. Does the car hit the limiter before 6k or did the tester stop.
I can't see any obvious gains for the cams but there again it's better to see a before and after on the rolling road. Hydraulic cams don't do much in my opinion

Thank you mate this was all on the previous set up so let's see how different the next graph will look. As for cams mate the only reason I changed is because the profile on these will work when I want to push the power to 500 as they have been produced as such. Cheers for the input mate and nice to meet you

humbucker wrote:

dycie wrote:On sound advice to join a network of like minded Cav enthusiasts, ive came here to hopefully share with you my build and get some positive feedback and enjoy myself.

Welcome back, Darren! Thanks for sharing 'the story so far' with us. Top project, and I look forward to seeing the car in the flesh when we head out for our European road trip in August.

Thank you mate and August can't come quick enough! Cheers for getting me back here to enjoy my build

Ah right well that makes sense.
I was thinking 400plus when I seen the spec.
Be interesting to see how drivable the power is. High power from a small engine can compromise how it drives on the road as you are most probably aware.
Love the car pal you must have a big budget for it

btcctroy wrote:Ah right well that makes sense.
I was thinking 400plus when I seen the spec.
Be interesting to see how drivable the power is. High power from a small engine can compromise how it drives on the road as you are most probably aware.
Love the car pal you must have a big budget for it

Thanks for the positive comments mate, let's see how it drives when I'm stuck in traffic lol clutch knee!!!!! Looking forward to it all coming together and at long last getting some miles under me, roll on August with Humbucker haha

If anyone is interested in spec here it is from Arrow

For you info the LET rods come with –
Beryllium copper small end. As fitted to 90% of our charged rods.
ARP Customage 625+ bolts, again high spec.
The Beam is thick by 0.5mm over the XE rod. That is the ‘H’ at the top of the drawing.
Under the small end, the beam is wider by 1mm.
The Material will be the same as all the other rods, which is EN24.
The LET rods hardness is ‘X’ condition.

We do not stock LET rods.
We only stock XE rods.

Let me know if you need anything else.

Kind regards
Aaron

Well happy to say the block came back today! so from Monday the engine build can now finally begin. oi jets fitted, bored out to 86.5 and final hone.

Bit more work on block and away for a little more honing to increase piston to bore clearance. cleaned and prepped gearbox with fresh lick of paint!

What did you paint the gearbox with, looks fantastic

Looks sweet!

just cleaned prepped painted and lacquered again to breath new life into it, came out nice though.

btcctroy wrote:What did you paint the gearbox with, looks fantastic

Hammerite Direct To Rust is good. I scrubbed/cleaned/stripped the 3.2 V6 lump out of my Irmscher MV6 project before applying two coats of solid black (second coat went on this morning). It really does look the mutt's nuts. I'm going to buy some 'smooth silver' DTR to paint the gearbox this weekend. Pics will follow on my project thread. The finish is only as good as a the prep work, though!

exactly mate, you only get the finish you want by making sure the time and effort goes in first, hence the finish on this build.

well she came back today from having new alarm and immobilizer fitted, which along with removing distributor and coil has tidied up the inner wing somewhat. maybe that washer bottle will go now too.......







Nice to have her back! block also came back from final honing and its now go time for sure!!