Cavalier GSI... who remembers?..
Discussion
cerb4.5lee said:
Saw a Cavalier Turbo at Trax yesterday I really wanted one years ago & went to look at a few but I do remember them having a reputation for costing a few quid when they go wrong but I still have a serious soft spot for them, lovely Q car I always thought.
Bit of a myth these days but yes, back in the early days itw as the transfer boxes that were the car's ultimate failing. They have a stupid viscous coupling with a pressure acumulator and crap like that. People would run mismatches tyres, wind the boxes up and blow them to kingdom come. Replacements were up to £5k courtesy of your dealer. That plus vague steering and floaty suspension meant they were better suited for long distance cruising than B road blasting. I got mine in 2000 when it was 7 years old. Blew the box a month later and spent £1100 getting one of the first 'locked boxes' fitted. Basically it does away with the variable pressure / torque splitting rubbish and locks the front to rear 50/50. Since fitting it I've done 100,000 miles in the car and it's been superb. These locking kits are now available for £150 and fitting isn't too challenging. Most 4x4's will be running these or will have had the 4x4 removed completely. Mine transformed the car, or at least it did when it had Bilsteins fitted and had the steering poly bushed. Still crap by todays standards but that's half the appeal!
s m said:
I dare say a lot of the Turbos are fairly quick still these days!
A standard one will keep pace with a lot of newer metal but given most have been tweaked, there's quite a few modern cars that will fall foul of them. Mine is circa 275bhp which is about the limit of the standard KKK turbo due to it's relatively small size, but there's very little lag. Mine was doing mid 13's and 60 in about 5.8 seconds. Lots of grip off the line helps but it tends to run out of puff once simply due to the turbo. Start spending cash on the C20LET engine and 500bhp is doable. Shoudl really get mine rebuilt and back out!
Edited by Davie on Tuesday 10th September 20:37
My dad got a brand new burgundy J plate 4x4 GSI as a company car. I had only just passed my test and he used to let me use it when he was overseas working to run the mileage up (got a new car every 60k)
Felt like a rocket ship when your 17! Raspy exhaust sounded great, I remember me and my best mate trying a top speed run late one might and it wouldn't go over 125mph, didn't realise it was bouncing off the rev limiter in 4th! I had never driven a car with 5 gears! Think we had some mad rave music blaring we couldn't hear it!.......those were the days!
Felt like a rocket ship when your 17! Raspy exhaust sounded great, I remember me and my best mate trying a top speed run late one might and it wouldn't go over 125mph, didn't realise it was bouncing off the rev limiter in 4th! I had never driven a car with 5 gears! Think we had some mad rave music blaring we couldn't hear it!.......those were the days!
Davie said:
cerb4.5lee said:
Saw a Cavalier Turbo at Trax yesterday I really wanted one years ago & went to look at a few but I do remember them having a reputation for costing a few quid when they go wrong but I still have a serious soft spot for them, lovely Q car I always thought.
Bit of a myth these days but yes, back in the early days itw as the transfer boxes that were the car's ultimate failing. They have a stupid viscous coupling with a pressure acumulator and crap like that. People would run mismatches tyres, wind the boxes up and blow them to kingdom come. Replacements were up to £5k courtesy of your dealer. That plus vague steering and floaty suspension meant they were better suited for long distance cruising than B road blasting. I got mine in 2000 when it was 7 years old. Blew the box a month later and spent £1100 getting one of the first 'locked boxes' fitted. Basically it does away with the variable pressure / torque splitting rubbish and locks the front to rear 50/50. Since fitting it I've done 100,000 miles in the car and it's been superb. These locking kits are now available for £150 and fitting isn't too challenging. Most 4x4's will be running these or will have had the 4x4 removed completely. Mine transformed the car, or at least it did when it had Bilsteins fitted and had the steering poly bushed. Still crap by todays standards but that's half the appeal!
s m said:
I dare say a lot of the Turbos are fairly quick still these days!
Your not wrong - although mine isn`t an orignal Turbo mind - its an 8 valve SRi saloon with Turbo running gear (no IRS or 4x4,) circa 1150kg with 380+ bhp makes it capable of embarassing a lot of more modern machinery.My mum had one like this, saloon as well. C481 FMG was the reg; loved the Commander
My boss had a Magenta GSi, I thought it was incredibly fast back in the day (early 90s).
steviegunn said:
J4CKO said:
These were everywhere back in the day,
My boss at my first job aged 17 used to have a 1.8 GLSI Cavalier, at the time it felt rapid, was 114 bhp so the same engine as the SRi but without the sports garnish, we used to have to drop documents off round the airport and we used to take that, it got properly spanked, he was talking one day and I heard his say he was thinking of taking it in as he kept smelling burnt rubber, oops, the night before my mate and I had practised some full bore starts.
Very rare to see any Cavalier nowadays, even early Vectras have dissapeared, come to think of it, dont see (or notice ?) the later one either.
I had a Commander Saloon:My boss at my first job aged 17 used to have a 1.8 GLSI Cavalier, at the time it felt rapid, was 114 bhp so the same engine as the SRi but without the sports garnish, we used to have to drop documents off round the airport and we used to take that, it got properly spanked, he was talking one day and I heard his say he was thinking of taking it in as he kept smelling burnt rubber, oops, the night before my mate and I had practised some full bore starts.
Very rare to see any Cavalier nowadays, even early Vectras have dissapeared, come to think of it, dont see (or notice ?) the later one either.
My boss had a Magenta GSi, I thought it was incredibly fast back in the day (early 90s).
Crafty_ said:
SnipsSt said:
My first job was at a large company (ICL mainframes).
It was one of these 3.0L, 4x4 models, with every bell and whistle going. It even managed to stand out from amongst all the many rows of standard Cavaliers (though it had a special parking space, of course).
Vx never put the 3 litre in the cavalier. They did put the 2.5 V6 in late on, but that was only 2wd (and beam axle at that, rather than the gsi IRS setup).It was one of these 3.0L, 4x4 models, with every bell and whistle going. It even managed to stand out from amongst all the many rows of standard Cavaliers (though it had a special parking space, of course).
Carlton gsi was 3 litre ? straight 6, not V. 12v and 24v versions.
I know people at www.mk2cav.com, who've used the 2.5 Cavalier ancillaries attached to a 3.2 V6 Omega engine, and stuck it in a mk2 (madness really, but hey if you can, why not) as it's more or less the same block, and there are people on www.vxon.co.uk who have taken the 2.0 8V 4X4 mk3 cavalier, and stuck a 2.5 V6 into it, running the full 4x4 system, so why not a 3.2 24V 4x4 6 speed mk3 cav ?
Davie said:
New POD said:
so why not a 3.2 24V 4x4 6 speed mk3 cav ?
Dougie (ex editor of Total Vauxhall) has a Bordeux Red GSi2000 with a 3.0 V6, 6-speed box, 4x4 and fully functioning air con. It works very very well, lots of grunt and lot of grip plus very good for distance. All home built.
I have fond memories of my silver GSI. J897 CCL De catted and a full custom stainless exhaust
Had many a noon in that and normally 4 up. only problem i had was the original cylinder head was porous so had to get another one, after that it was reliable.
Part ex'd it for a 2.5 phase 1 Vectra GSI in black
Had many a noon in that and normally 4 up. only problem i had was the original cylinder head was porous so had to get another one, after that it was reliable.
Part ex'd it for a 2.5 phase 1 Vectra GSI in black
I remember sitting in a mates 16v GTE Astra doing an indicated 140mph, an other mate passing us at waling pace in a GSi Cav doing (what he said later) an indicated 145 and then him getting passed my someone I didn't really know in a GSi Astra doing an indicated 150mph. Crazy cars that seemed to be able to do speeds their power outputs shouldn't have ever been able to achieve.
crossy67 said:
I remember sitting in a mates 16v GTE Astra doing an indicated 140mph, an other mate passing us at waling pace in a GSi Cav doing (what he said later) an indicated 145 and then him getting passed my someone I didn't really know in a GSi Astra doing an indicated 150mph. Crazy cars that seemed to be able to do speeds their power outputs shouldn't have ever been able to achieve.
Edited by DKS on Thursday 19th December 22:13
crossy67 said:
I remember sitting in a mates 16v GTE Astra doing an indicated 140mph, an other mate passing us at waling pace in a GSi Cav doing (what he said later) an indicated 145 and then him getting passed my someone I didn't really know in a GSi Astra doing an indicated 150mph. Crazy cars that seemed to be able to do speeds their power outputs shouldn't have ever been able to achieve.
Hoplessly inaccurate speedos but yes, all big block performance Vauxhalls of that era seem quite good at going quite fast. Book for the GSi2000 was 135mph (I think) so yes, it'd happily go off the clock. Calibra Turbo's always impressed me... 152mph. Not too bad for a 2.0 16v coupe born in the early 90's I suppose! My brother was a bit of a Cavalier nut when he learned how to drive. He had a MK2 E reg 1.6GL (I think) for about three days (had crank-case compression, he took it back), the guy who sold it to him swapped it for a 1.6 'Classic' saloon. Then he had a MK3 GLSi, followed by another when the previous one threw it's gearbox.
My mate also acquired a MK3 J reg 2.0 GL, for the price of a headgasket. The mileage stated 90k but it had easily done double that.
He ran out of talent one day and slammed it into a brewery, then cut a raised gas main clean in half.
(Apologies for the crappy image, VGA camera phones were all the rage back then)
My mate also acquired a MK3 J reg 2.0 GL, for the price of a headgasket. The mileage stated 90k but it had easily done double that.
He ran out of talent one day and slammed it into a brewery, then cut a raised gas main clean in half.
(Apologies for the crappy image, VGA camera phones were all the rage back then)
I'm a youngin' (27) and wanted something to learn how to fix cars with, so I got a 1.6 L Saloon off the classifieds.
Here she is; http://i.imgur.com/dT0hIual.jpg
It wasn't quick, and it had no creature comforts, nor is it a GSI. But it had wisdom, simplicity and hoonability. The skinny 13" tyres would get out of shape on perfect roads, it pitched and rolled like the costa concordia and worst of all the direct cable linkage from the loud pedal to the carb throat has ruined modern cars for me. No car I've driven since has had a throttle response that sharp and it makes me sad.
Here she is; http://i.imgur.com/dT0hIual.jpg
It wasn't quick, and it had no creature comforts, nor is it a GSI. But it had wisdom, simplicity and hoonability. The skinny 13" tyres would get out of shape on perfect roads, it pitched and rolled like the costa concordia and worst of all the direct cable linkage from the loud pedal to the carb throat has ruined modern cars for me. No car I've driven since has had a throttle response that sharp and it makes me sad.
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