Mk3 Cavalier Owners Club | Vauxhall Cavalier Dot Com

Here is my new purchase



It only has 62000 miles and is going to kept pretty much standard. Just a few upgrades.

I wouldn't mind fitting an 18E cylinder head to give a little more go if anyone has one?

Thanks

snowy wrote:Here is my new purchase

It only has 62000 miles and is going to kept pretty much standard. Just a few upgrades.

I wouldn't mind fitting an 18E cylinder head to give a little more go if anyone has one?

Thanks

Is that a simple conversion snowy? What's the difference between the heads?

Was the car a Christmas present to yourself? Y'know, 'Santa Pod'?!

I'll get me coat...

cavalier1990 wrote:

snowy wrote:Here is my new purchase

It only has 62000 miles and is going to kept pretty much standard. Just a few upgrades.

I wouldn't mind fitting an 18E cylinder head to give a little more go if anyone has one?

Thanks

Is that a simple conversion snowy? What's the difference between the heads?

The 18E cylinder head has bigger valves as standard and a better combustion chamber.

I did this conversion on a manta 18S engine which produces about 90bhp as standard. On a rolling road with the 18E head and cam I was getting 101bhp.

So it does seem a worthwhile change.

humbucker wrote:Was the car a Christmas present to yourself? Y'know, 'Santa Pod'?!

I'll get me coat...

lol

Well I got a few bits today from the scrap yard. A ream beam off an SRI, door looms for the electric mirrors switches etc and a dash with a rev counter.



So I decided to fit the dash. Which didn't go as smoothly as I'd like as I wanted to keep my speedo head. bit of faffing and soldering but here it is...





Thought I would also sort the battery tray out as when I bought the car the previous owner had snapped the battery clamp bolt. By the way does anyone have a battery clamp for a cavalier? Does a Vectra B one fit?

Is it worth asking what POD means (or stands for)?

It was a pod racer in a previous life, clearly.

Pahahahahaha!

colin1 wrote:Is it worth asking what POD means (or stands for)?

It's just what's on the number plate......

Yup - N468 POD

For a change I noticed the reg in the picture straight away...

Normally it would be me that misses the obvious - lol.



Returning to the topic in hand -

You should be able to use a battery clamp plate off any Vauxhall... Even the 2007 Astra-H that I worked on a week or so ago had the same clamp plate.

Just that, a plain washer and an M8 hex head bolt about 25 to 30mm long (13mm spanner) should be all you need.

Robsey wrote:Yup - N468 POD

For a change I noticed the reg in the picture straight away...

Normally it would be me that misses the obvious - lol

Double doh!

Fixed the drivers side interior light issue this morning. I ran a new cable in but found that it was a joint further down. See picture. I just cut this out and remade the cables at this point.



Obviously at some point this car has been wet under the carpet. It is dry now but the joint has just been sat there corroding.

The car also now has an electric sunroof. Not entirely happy as the guy I bought if from had cut out the retaining lugs for the inserts that hold the trim up. So I will be looking for another.

I like the electric sunroof idea. The rear beam is a good idea. Plenty of time to refurb it without the car being off the road

Serviced the car this weekend. Nice to find genuine oil filters etc on the car. Also replaced with genuine parts.

Managed to blank the egr. I did find the part numbers on here for the cover, gasket and bolts. But unfortunately you can get everything except the cover now. So I made my own out of 4mm plate I had lying around.



The engine bay needs a tidy and the car is showing signs of head gasket failure. I thought it was when I picked it up. But the body is straight so I don't mind a little mechanical work.



Also found an old mk1 cavalier battery clamp. Not quite right but it will do for now. At least the battery is secure.



Just some pictures of the car after I cleaned it...






Because the head has to come off and I'm pretty certain the clutch needs to be changed. The last owner changed the cable but I think it is definitely the clutch. I'm toying with a few ideas. Have any of these been done?

I want to keep the car standard looking but with a bit more torque. So here are some options;

1. I have an SEH engine. Put this in with my cylinder head. Might have to open the head up a little to bring the compression down.

2. Put 18E pistons on the SEH rods and fit the SEH crank, rods and 18E pistons into my current block.

3. Bore my current block to take the SEH pistons, rods and crank. Same as option one but I keep my engine number.

The only think I don't know yet and was hoping someone on here might know is does the SEH and N cranks have the same triggers for the crank sensor.

Thanks

Looking very nice indeed. Same interior as my LS.

Interesting ideas with the engine. Theoretically they should work. However you may find the improvements are minimal and not worth the effort as the main limiting factor of the C18NZ engine is the single point fuel injection head.

If you want to keep it a 1.8 I would suggest fitting the whole 18E engine for the extra top end power or just fitting the whole 20SEH which will give you much better power throughout the rev range. You will probably have to replace the gearbox and clutch to accommodate the extra power however.

James McGrath wrote:Looking very nice indeed. Same interior as my LS.

Interesting ideas with the engine. Theoretically they should work. However you may find the improvements are minimal and not worth the effort as the main limiting factor of the C18NZ engine is the single point fuel injection head.

If you want to keep it a 1.8 I would suggest fitting the whole 18E engine for the extra top end power or just fitting the whole 20SEH which will give you much better power throughout the rev range. You will probably have to replace the gearbox and clutch to accommodate the extra power however.

So you've done these things?

The 1.8 has the F16wr gearbox, the SEH engined cavalier had the F16cr box.

I'm not after huge power gains. Just a little more torque for easier cruising .

If I was going to swap the engine completely then I'd go X20XEV.

Thanks

I admit engines aren't really my field, Robsey is the one to ask here.

However, it would seem logical to me that your 2nd option would cause quite bad engine imbalance as the crankshaft and piston weights would not be matched. Unless you rebalance the crank.

Your 1st and 3rd options might work but you may run into under fueling problems at the high end with the single fuel injector.

Of course if you want to be the first to try it then go ahead. It would be great to know the results.
I'm just saying it seems like allot of effort to me for not much gain.

Also I'm confused when you say '18E' pistons. Do you have a 18E engine spare or do you mean the C18NZ that you currently have in the car?

Or put the 1.8SE manifold & multi point injection setup on your engine gives you approx. 30BHP more.

From my limited understanding...
The 18SE has a very similar BHP to the C20NE / 20NE. - Approx 113 bhp.

The C18NZ has a mere 89 bhp.

And you can definitely feel the difference with those 24 extra ponies in my NE

iangsi wrote:Or put the 1.8SE manifold & multi point injection setup on your engine gives you approx. 30BHP more.

I've done this in the past and the gains were about 10bhp not 30bhp. Not unless you go stand alone management and if I'm doing that I may as well fit the 20SEH engine and get more.

James McGrath wrote:I admit engines aren't really my field, Robsey is the one to ask here.

However, it would seem logical to me that your 2nd option would cause quite bad engine imbalance as the crankshaft and piston weights would not be matched. Unless you rebalance the crank.

Your 1st and 3rd options might work but you may run into under fueling problems at the high end with the single fuel injector.

Of course if you want to be the first to try it then go ahead. It would be great to know the results.
I'm just saying it seems like allot of effort to me for not much gain.

Also I'm confused when you say '18E' pistons. Do you have a 18E engine spare or do you mean the C18NZ that you currently have in the car?

The crank would not be out of balance just because I've fitted pistons that are very slightly lighter than the standard items. Don't forget standard pistons for the 1800 are 84.8mm and the 2000 are 86mm.

18E pistons are from the mk1 Astra GTE and possibly fitted to the mk2 Cavalier SRI. This engine had a compression ratio of 10:1 not the 9.2:1 like the C18NZ. I'm going to have to check but I'm 90% certain the extra compression is down to the pistons like the 20NE and 20SEH. You can still buy 18E pistons.

The point is that these cars are getting rare. So I'm wanting to modify it in a sympathetic way, which means it will still look completely standard. So being able to use the original engine block is good as the numbers will still match. But a bit more torque would be great as the 1800 isn't great on hills which there are quite a few of around here.

Robsey wrote:From my limited understanding...
The 18SE has a very similar BHP to the C20NE / 20NE. - Approx 113 bhp.

The C18NZ has a mere 89 bhp.

And you can definitely feel the difference with those 24 extra ponies in my NE

There is a rolling road right by where I work. So before anything happens I'm going to stick it on there and see what it is really putting out. As I doubt it will be anywhere near the 89bhp it's supposed to have

The extra power is nice but it is the torque that really helps. I converted an SRI from an SEH to an X20XEV a few years ago. 4bhp is all that is in it between those engines. But the torque curve on an ecotec is miles better than the SEH and it absolutely transformed the car.

I have other cars to go fast. This is just for fun. But I don't want to spoil it by moding it to death. The other option is to drop in the 20SEH and keep everything else for the day I want to put it back to standard.

I have bought myself this to go in the cavalier, I also have the F18cr gearbox to go with it. It needs cleaning up, but I already have a reconditioned cylinder head in the garage ready to go on.

Can anyone guess what it is??



Does anyone know if the early simtec ECU's had the immobiliser built in?



And one last question does anyone have the part number, or know where I can buy these clips for holding the sound deadening on?

Found the part number for the clips. It is 90218614 just in case it helps someone else