Opel Vectra Track Car

[Testament]

this is starting to look pretty positive brad! must have squizz when passing through town sometime

[mikuni]

this is starting to look pretty positive brad! must have squizz when passing through town sometime

if that is the case then I must be doing a good job of making it appear that way on the internet, because it certainly doesn't look that way in the steel.

[Spencer]

I think its coming together well, Im sure it just looks like a cut up shell with an engine on the floor in person!

I know you would have seen these but some others may be interested, I came accross it in my old bookmarks its a restoration of a 93 BTCC vectra. I love those front hubs!

http://www.ten-tenths.com/forum/showthread.php?t=109567

[Testament]

this is starting to look pretty positive brad! must have squizz when passing through town sometime

if that is the case then I must be doing a good job of making it appear that way on the internet, because it certainly doesn't look that way in the steel.

ok let me rephrase

"more progress than I am making on the 131 = AWESOME!"

[Spencer]

Hope you dont mind my babbling in your thread but some random questions/statements on that 93 car:

That fuel tank under the rear seat looks like its been lowered down allot form the original position? those fuel lines are pretty much touching the exhaust, also has a fuel cooler and that surge tank is fairly low.

It has a pretty massive looking exhaust ~3", big pipes in the 2-1 section also, no megaphone, just a big cat and muffler at the back

Doesnt look like it has a cabin adjustable blade swaybar at the back? Im sure all the others I have looked at have

Love those front hubs, how is it connected to the lower arm? there is just a pin at the bottom so rose joint? pretty small joint if so. Also love how its using pretty much all of that 18" rim to get the lower arm on a decent angle

In the later pics the engine looks flipped but seems super far forward? I thought the flipped heads were 94 for the Vectra

Be awesome to see some shots of later model cars 97+

[mikuni]

Awesome questions. I can answer most but busy doing work right now (just checking os while eating lunch) so will answer what I can tonight.

I have another build thread link that answers a lot of the questions you ask. The lower arm is a bit crazy though aye, I'll have to have another look at that because in most cases it is a strange connection. I think that part was universal or at least similar between a lot of the cars, like the axles and gearboxes in later years.

Early engine was only flipped for flow/packaging, it wasn't until the Volvo came in and the started pushing the engine back further in the huge engine bay that the other teams started doing it, as far as I have read. Around 1995.

edit: in fact, moving the engine so far back may have caused some issues with no weight over the front wheels, because Ford used to run around 30kg worth of lead in the front splitter/bumper to try and get weight forward and lower down? Will post a link later.

Also I have some pics of an Australian Supertouring Vectra from around 1997 where they stepped it up quite a bit. Will re-post those tonight too, if I get a chance.

[Spencer]

Yea this has made me re-visit all my old bookmarks from several years back, found some 96+ engine bay shots and its next level stuff allright. Subframe looks billet Alloy (or something more expensive) and carbon . Looks like the Honda pic I found has rubber style mounting on the lower control arms like F1 and lemans cars. Yea heard about the traction issues with moving engines, the cars were well below the weight limits at the later stages anyway. So I guess having the engine in a better spot for the COG then adding weight low at the front was deemed the way to go. Those late model cages are something special also

Was going to bump the BTCC thread but need to go back to work too

[slacker.cam]

Those vented uprights are pretty amazing. I'm surprised that they're fabricated as opposed to machined.

The front upright has that pin on the bottom. This will pass through a spherical bearing that's probably housed in an al/ti block that fits on to the two studs on the end of the lower arm (which can be seen in the pic below). It's not a rod end connection - you never put rod ends in bending...

[mikuni]

Link to carbon/lead splitter - It's a contradiction just putting those two words in the same sentence.

The Last Surviving NEW Ford Mondeo year 2000 Prodrive Front splitter !

Has approx 30 kilos of Lead stitched into ,dont even think about calling or e-mailing for this unless you have an original touring car !

I can't find any better pics of where the lower control arm mounts to the uprights, but those early ones just appear to have used a pillow block setup. Do you have any pics of the later model lower arms spence?

It's awesome seeing the changes over each year. Heres a link to a build thread on a Cavalier built in 1991 - the guy says it's chassis number 16 but that doesn't really make sense if No. 10 was built in 1993? http://www.migweb.co.uk/forums/projects ... -16-a.html

Obviously being rebuilt to a lower standard, I just like it because it gives good detail of the cage etc

You can see the subframe changes between the image Cam posted above and the earlier design.

In the road going GSi Cavaliers the fuel tank is in the rear, under the tyre well. The first BTCC cars continued with this layout, but they appeared to bring it forward under the rear seats in 1992 or 1993. My Vectra isn't a GSi, so doesn't have the independent suspension/subframe and as such, can have the fuel tank under the rear seats like the later cars for better weight distribution.

The exhausts on them are awesome. I have the specs that they were built to, it does go down to a small collection of 2.5 or 2.75 before growing back to 3". I don't really know why, probably just to get a higher velocity at the collector and then less restriction after the cat. Heaps of people run these spec exhausts on XE's, even when the engine is near stock. You can never have too much free flow, but the massive primaries must lose a bit of power on the 200bhp engines.

I pretty much have nothing to add. Had all these ideas but then went looking for pictures and ended up in a youtube loop watching early 90's BTCC vids and couldn't be bothered anymore

In a project update, I think I might just smash the original engine and gearbox in to get me going, after the cage is welded in, then spend some time working on the XE - Honda gearbox debacle while I break axles with the original setup. Yeah/nah? At least then I'd have some chance of getting it going within the next year. Still haven't heard from cage dude and the cash is burning a hole in my wallet.

[mikuni]

Actually check out this link, http://www.touringcarspares.com/Used_Pa ... _nuts_etc/

I think it shows the billet block that holds the spherical bearing for the uprights.

Lots of nice parts!

[My name is Russell]

That sway bays dope, with adjustable blade, you should make one.

https://www.google.co.nz/search?hl=en&s ... iAeQnsT1Cw

[mikuni]

Would be awesome, maybe one day. I'm not even going to run a sway bar to begin with. The factory one will do nothing with such hard suspension, so until I can get a beefy or adjustable one in there, there's no point running it. I also want to use the space for the custom control arms.

[Truenotch]

I wouldn't go as far as to say the standard rear bar will do nothing, but you won't notice the effects as much. Keeping the ability to test with it is a good idea, because I doubt you'd want really heavy springs and a huge bar too.

[mikuni]

I wouldn't go as far as to say the standard rear bar will do nothing, but you won't notice the effects as much. Keeping the ability to test with it is a good idea, because I doubt you'd want really heavy springs and a huge bar too.

Front. I'll still have one in the rear, it's a torsion beam so hard not to.

Ok it won't do nothing but it will achieve very little. When you look at the degree of twist you need to put on a standard skinny sway bar to achieve any resistance, I can't see it assisting very much until there is a big differential between left and right suspension travel. The other side of this is that when it does finally do something not only is it trying to push down on the loaded wheel (good), it is also trying to lift the unloaded wheel (bad). And it is particularly bad when that unloaded wheel that's lifting is also getting half of the drive going to it.

[Truenotch]

Fair call. Grant ran no front bar for a long time - not sure if he changed back before writing the car off, but it seemed to work quite well.

[Kaitaia_Lad]

Hey yeah. This is a really interesting read. I also have one of these and this has really inspired me to start work on mine.

I'm interested in the suspension set up you used. Did the DC5 struts and springs just bolt straight in or did you need to modify it at all to fit?

Again awesome looking car and keep it up because the car is looking very cool and hopefully mine will be up to standard as well sooner or later.

[mikuni]

Hey yeah. This is a really interesting read. I also have one of these and this has really inspired me to start work on mine.

I'm interested in the suspension set up you used. Did the DC5 struts and springs just bolt straight in or did you need to modify it at all to fit?

Again awesome looking car and keep it up because the car is looking very cool and hopefully mine will be up to standard as well sooner or later.

What model Vectra do you have and what are your plans? Seems to be more and more people playing around with them for some reason

Forget the DC5 stuff. While it would probably work without too much work, the ones I got seem to have a welded cast section on them which I don't think would pass certification for road use. I'm probably going to just go with some off the shelf cartridge style coilovers, likely from a BMW E30/36. It will need a little welding to make allowance for the steering and lower mount, but should give the best end product and the easiest to cert if you do want to use it on the road.

Cheers for the encouragement. Have stalled a little at the moment but finally have a little bit of money set aside, not enough to get it done but enough to have a think about where I should throw some money first, if anywhere.

Check out the opel forum if you haven't already. A bit of info around there and a decent base of parts for many Opels including C20XE engines if you ever need anything.

[mikuni]

So this thing got way too hard core for me at the moment. I'm still going to try most of what I had talked about, but to a much lower level and not flipping the engine/head around.

I cut the red car up into lots of little bits and took it off to the scrap man. Sad, but oh well. I'll just buy an ex-super touring car when I'm old and rich.

In the mean time, follow the lesser project at the link below!

http://oldschool.co....a-track-car-v2/

[ilikefire123]

Hey man a bit random but I have the factory emergency triangle and case and also factory first aid kit in opel box with everything still inside it if you dont have them.

[mikuni]

First aid kit sounds pretty lol/awesome. I'd be keen for that. I already have one of the emergency triangle things that I have no idea what to do with, so you can hang onto that. Cheers though. Maybe go leave it on the road somewhere and see what happens? /nah don't do that