Vauxhall Cavalier GSI RestoMod Track Car

[Cocknose]

Huskyman said:

It’s great seeing someone doing something with a mk3 cav GSi 16v, a mate had one back on the day and it was lovely. Being really nosy what’s the plan with the red-top? I remember people back in the day getting around 190bhp on a decent set of throttle bodies and it sounded immense, do you have something similar planned?
I was going to swap a C20XE into a 1985 mk2 Astra back in 1997, mine was a boggo 1.3S that weighed naff all, it had just been restored with new sills and wheel arches and it got bummed by a dopey bint in a Sierra...

I’m enjoying this thread.

Thanks matey. Fast Vauxhalls were always the car to have when I was younger too so when this came up for sale, I couldn't resist.

I have a set of DanST ITB's for the engine, and a coscast ported and polished head. The rest of the engine work will be up to the engine builder, but I'm planning on honing and forged pistons at a minimum. I have a BTB exhaust manifold for it, which are meant to be pretty good, and a lightened flywheel. I'm hoping for somewhere around 200bhp but I don't really know what's realistic.

ITB's;

https://danstengineering.co.uk/Bike-Throttle-Body-...

And manifold;




Bummer about the mk2 Astra, I can't imagine there was a lot left after getting papped by the Sierra!

[Cocknose]

scottos said:

Brilliant, did you speak to Alan or Alistair? Both great guys.

A Firenza George Hill replica rally car and a genuine droop snoot supersaloon. The rally car won't be in all that long but the droop snoot has been in probably 12 years now, it's a long ongoing project restoring it but it got fired up at long last a few weeks ago!

Thanks for the kind words on the 2002. Naturally all machining/ modifications on the engine done by Amac!

Wow, that sounds immense! I'll have to have a nosey around if I get up there. 12 years eh, that's longer than I've been doing the Cavalier up for!

I noticed in your thread that you'd had work done by Amac, hell of an endorsement for their skills is that.

[Cocknose]

Huskyman said:

It was a foot shorter than standard...
That sounds like some lovely mods planned for your car, BTB exhausts are awesome, they have a deserved rep for decent exhaust manifolds. What type of system do you have planned?

Oof, dear me!

I've been slowly building parts up over time, the BTB exhaust was a great result when it appeared for sale online, brand new and never fitted. I'll be going for a 2.5" system, hopefully without a cat as it was pre August 92 and with some silencing to make it track day friendly. Maybe a 3 inch single round tail pipe.

Huskyman said:

Having machine work done by a decent shop will save you ££££ long term and save a lot of pain.
Keep up the good work!

I'm hoping so yeah, amac think that around 235 is possible with the parts I've currently got collected, which would be enough for me!

[Cocknose]

motorhole said:

Absolutely loving this. Proper historic, leftfield track car.

A BTCC Cavalier is a great looking thing too.

Top work OP and good luck with the project!

Thanks matey, I do like a super saloon. As mentioned in the first post, I've had 172 Clio's, MX5's etc and all would probably make an easier off-the-shelf track car. I think this is cooler though.

Cheers

[Cocknose]

ZX10R NIN said:

Great thread & amazing work I think a modern take on the white yellow & grey would be good, conversely I had a mate who bought a GSI that had a very special conversion carried out on it.

It had an uprated T3 using an RS Turbo Manifold & a Sierra Cosworth inlet Manifold & Cosworth (all this bolted onto the red top) engine management it was an very fun steer a proper sleeper unless you noticed the full Wilwood setup he had.

Thanks mate. That sounds like a very fun setup, I did wonder about going the turbo route, z20let or similar, but I'm a sucker for ITB noise!

[Cocknose]

Was sent this by a friend, love it!

[Cocknose]

Brief update, this lockdown has been pretty good for getting stuff done.

This part of the dash has been on my to do list for quite a while, it's made of foam and they disintegrate when touched. Since removing the dash for the cage installation, I've been pondering what to do with it. There's no NOS available, so I decided to use resin to harden up the foam and stop it collapsing any further, it worked a treat.



Next up was the rear brake shoes and a new handbrake cable. Cleaned up some of the internal parts with a wire wheel, and fitted it all together...




New handbrake cable


And then for the rear calipers. Time to turn a box of parts, into a complete braking system;

[Cocknose]

To stiffen up the rear end, and while I was tinkering back there anyway, I decided to replace my DIY effort at repairing the rear suspension bar damping block, with a GEMA Motorsport version, from Germany.

Old vs. New


Installed on the car. Fantastic piece of equipment, fitted well and is properly solid.


While I was under there, I also installed the spreader plates for the transmission side of the lap strap. The harness eyes, are screwed into the original seatbelt mounting points on the external side.

Seats and harnesses test fitted.


Pretty much got the garage finished off now too



Next job is to get the dash back in place and reconnect and test all the wiring, and then it'll be the engine.

I had spoken and received a good quote from AMAC, but with all this Covid st about, that's on hold for now. I don't really know what I'll do, I work in oil and gas and with the oil price being through the floor, it feels a bit foolhardy to spend a chunk of cash on an engine.

Sadly, I'll probably end up putting it back together with a standard bottom end, and just run it with the ITB's and the exhaust and maybe build a higher spec engine at a later date.

[Cocknose]

s m said:

If you like old media, have you seen this?









I have a friend who worked on the Cavalier touring cars for a while at Ray Mallock. He worked alongside a guy who had worked on them in the previous team

I hadn't seen that no, but fascinating reading. It's funny how the cult of cars develop isn't it, I paid £900 for this thing and have no qualms about stripping it down. Back in the day, the Cavalier and the E30 were rivals on track, but what would you pay for an E30 M3 now?! Mental!

[Cocknose]

T-bagger said:

This is absolutely awesome! Had a C20XE powered MK3 Cavalier which I bought inspired by watching them racing in the 90s. Fantastic build and attention to detail.

Thanks bud, very kind of you to say.

[Cocknose]

s m said:

It is interesting - they were quite well thought of as Touring Cars and there were some quick road cars as well, like the GSi, Turbo and V6. Wrong badge for PH though.
My friend worked at Ray Mallock cars preparing the Cavaliers for a while before moving to South Africa to work on the Nissans.
I had the Mk2 Astra GTE 16v for a while and one of the techs my friend worked with there had been working on Vauxhall Touring cars for ages - set up the geo on my car and it was superb

Am enjoying reading your project - the Cavalier Touring car was one of the few they tried out as rwd, 4wd and fwd in development

Thanks chap, appreciate that.

You're dead right about the badge, Vauxhall's have never been popular on PH, just a bit of fun to take out on track and things. It'll never be worth much now anyway, as I've modified it so far from standard.

I'd love to see a proper touring car in the flesh, especially the RWD one if there's any about. I think Cleland tested a RWD one in the UK somewhere. I've also seen footage of Colin McRae testing out a 4WD rally version, crazy!

[Cocknose]

s m said:

They actually raced a rwd one and a fwd one at the same race back when they were developing the car.

Was at my local track - Oulton - in the 1990 season. Chris Hodgetts was in the rwd version and John Cleland in the fwd. Obviously they could choose as the 4x4 Cavalier was out but they went with fwd in the end for the Touring Car. Remember Hodgetts having a bit of a fight on his hands

I thought it was at Oulton! I seem to remember seeing something on YouTube about it, I'll have a search. I can well imagine a RWD would be a bit of a handful, I wonder how successful it would have been vs. the M3.

[Cocknose]

s m said:

I guess history speaks for itself as they chose fwd and did ok with the car in the end. I guess fwd had its upsides for some circuits/conditions although I remember Cleland said he was always fighting to keep all 4 wheels on the ground
Even Mark Hales was quicker in the wet with it than in the M3 but I bet it took some learning

Good luck with your car - I keep watching the updates

Absolutely, I remember hearing that some tracks favour FWD and some RWD, but that Cavalier always looked a bit lairy, Cleland had some big off's in it.

Thanks for that, I'm really hoping to have it complete this year, the lockdown is having a mixed effect!

[Cocknose]

M22s said:

Followed!

This is awesome! Fond memory’s of the vauxhalls of this era to. The 16v & turbo lumps ended up in some brutal Nova’s and Corsa’s ??

Thanks bud, should be great when it's done. I remember a friend having a redtop Nova, loonie machine.

s m said:

Not sure if you’ve seen these OP but they might interest you

I'd not seen those no, that article about the Swindon engines is really interesting, 310 out of an NA 2 litre is phenomenal, no wonder they didn't last any more than 2 races!

the_stoat said:

Great project. I have spent several years developing the C20XE in my Westfield, with a focus on being easy to drive and reliability. But still be a bit of a spectacle when it comes to noise, etc. If you want any info on what I have done give me a shout, including what did not work or was not value for money.

Thanks mate, appreciate that. The engine will be going back in, in a relatively basic fashion but with the addition of ITB's and mild cam's for now, but hopefully I'll be able to go a bit crazier in the future.

dave2007bc said:

I've had two XE's over my life.

Both standard bar an SBD208 kit (throttle bodies) with MBE management. Aside from ARP rod bolts both made the advertised 208bhp and were great to drive. I then added cams to one which pushed it to 215bhp iirc.

Don't worry about major engine upgrades at this stage, the XE will take anything you throw at it with ARPs and a good map.

I'm planning on ARP rod bolts, ITB's, mild cams and the BTB exhaust, I'd love to get about 200, we'll see what happens mate. I've heard that the XE really benefits from ITB's and a good exhaust, so hopefully that'll free it up quite a bit.

Sf_Manta said:

If i recall, you can purchase that engine nowadays for about £20k, or a sleeved 1600cc version for £16k from Swindon.
Or at least this was a couple of years ago having spoken to a racer in rallycross whom ran the 1600cc version.

Bloody hell, 20k seems like good value when you consider the Millington blocks' are 25K!

Shakermaker said:

That;s quite an upgrade from standard, good work!

It really is, isn't it. There's hope for a decent output yet!

[Cocknose]

the_stoat said:

By mild cams I assume you mean keeping the hydraulic lifters. If so take a look at Kent Cams DH1014, using it on both the inlet and exhaust. With throttle bodies, decent exhaust manifold, ARP rod bolts and forged pistons to raise the compression I made 224 bhp. On my friends engine I built which was the same spec but on standard pistons it made 212 bhp. It did need the pistons pocketed to be on the safe side. Rev limits were set to 7500 rpm for the sake of the lifter reliability, so you start getting an interesting sound track.

The bhp numbers were on a known miserable rolling road, but the most impressive aspect is the low down grunt and linear nature of the power delivery.

I hate to disagree with the poster above, the reason for the cam swap in my friends is that the SBD 208 kit gave nothing like 208bhp in his car. It also had the SBD manifold and exhaust. I think SBD are brilliant and have many of their items in my current build, just in this case their 208 kit did not live up to the numbers.

Hope this helps.

Thanks mate, that's exactly what I meant. I've got a set of Kent Cams which look a similar profile to those. Good to know I'm going on the right sort of lines with it, I'd be over the moon with anywhere near 200, I mostly just want it to be usable. I've got a set of ARP rod bolts to go in, and I'm looking forward to the sound track with the raised rev limit

s m said:

Another track test

More interesting reading, thanks buddy.

Its Just Adz said:

The c20xe is a masterpiece of an engine.

A friend had a GSI when I was much younger, I could never catch him in my Nova SRI.

My dad had a few Cavaliers also including a face-lift SRI.

Great thread, really enjoyed reading it.

Thanks mate, appreciate that.

[Cocknose]

Jaaack said:

Brilliant build. I've just searched for it as I'm currently going through a bit of a Supertouring obsession. Last time I saw the thread was around the time the cage went in I think.

Car looks great, and I can't believe you managed to snag a GSi, especially in white, for £900! According to HML, there are only 15 GSis on the road now, frighteningly low considering they made thousands! All those Redtop Novas and Corsas have a lot to answer for.

I'm really wanting one tbh. I'm very much a Honda/Jap fan at heart but there's really something about these Cavaliers. Even more so than the Japanese entrants to the BTCC, although the black Primera of Keith O'dor was pretty amazing looking. Would love to get my hands on a running example in need of TLC, basically what you started with. Can't see me finding one for what you paid though!

If I do stumble across one, I've been thinking something like a Honda K20 would be the perfect engine to swap in. They start at 200bhp, with a few breathing mods and a mapping session you can take them to 250ish, add a set of cams and you're not too far off the Supertouring power levels! Probably not as linear in terms of power delivery, but they can be mapped in such a way that the VTEC engagement happens low down and doesn't produce a 'kick' as it does on a standard engine. Plus they'll easily rev to the Supertouring limit of 8500. Just seems the perfect solution, the best way to get as close to the Supertouring experience as possible, without spending Supertouring money. No good from an originality perspective, but I doubt you'd care when pinning it through the gears at 8000+ out of Cascades at Oulton! 6 speed box too, with plenty of LSD options either OEM or aftermarket.

This is probably my favourite of the Supertouring Cavaliers, raced in JTCC for a couple of seasons at the hands of Anthony Reid!








If I ever get my hands on one, I think that's the livery I'll be inspired by!


Look forward to seeing it finished! Are you planning on using it on the road at all, or just on track?

Thanks Jack, I've done a good bit since the cage went in, but it's not where I'd like it to be yet. I've moved house a few times during the course of the build and it's caused a few problems. The garage I was promised never came to fruition and the net result was that a lot of the work had to be redone. Cars suffer badly if they're made to sit in one place for long periods.

It's funny to think that in April 16 (when I bought this) you could still pick them up cheap, as projects of course. You're right though, the scarcity of them is pushing up the prices. I saw a nice (standard) one go on ebay the other day for a little over seven thousand. I've got no idea what mine would be worth once completed, given how much it's been stripped and altered from standard.

Projects do appear every now and again though, most seem to stay inside of owners clubs. The people looking to buy tend sit firmly in the enthusiast category. Most will need arches and sills amongst other things, 90's Vauxhalls aren't known for their rust resistance. GSI's and Turbo's are the ones to have from a performance/track POV as they've got the IRS rear end. Sri's etc are beam axle.

You're probably right about the engine conversion, I'm not sure that's been done before so it'd be very unique. Added bonus of a huge level of spares and engineering support, with a revvable engine and a lightweight car (relative to modern saloons) you'd be laughing. Another option to consider is the Z20let as found in Astra/Zafira turbos. I think they're 200bhp straight out of the box, there's a lad on here with a black VX220 and that engine, I can't remember what the horse power figure is but I think it's north of 500. Bonus with the Z20let is that I think it'll sit onto the same engine mounts.

I had planned to go for a decent spec NA engine build, circa 230 bhp. It's an expensive way of doing it, NA with ITB's, head work, cams, solid lifters, honing, larger pistons, balanced crank etc but it's what does it for me. The C20XE engine is very very well catered for when it comes to performance parts, as is the F20 box which my engine is mated with. There's loads of these engines being used in rallying and other club motorsport and as a result there's plenty of knowledge about.
My plan now is to clean the bottom end up, get a new set of rings and throw it back together with the standard bore size. Once coupled with the worked head, cams, exhaust manifold and ITB's it should be fun enough. I do have a spare bottom end which I may well go full retard on when funds allow.

I like the JTCC livery a lot, there's a lad on facebook who did a load of renders for a game, one of which was the JTCC colours. Would be really different and interesting to see one finished like that.

Apologies that it's not a better update, work has once again ground to a halt due to covid and funding issues. I did however get some performance parts for my birthday (ARP rod bolts etc) and am hoping to get started on the engine build very very soon.

Edited by Cocknose on Tuesday 21st July 07:07

[Cocknose]

This popped up on Facebook last night, didn't know if you'd be interested Jaaack.

[Cocknose]

Jaaack said:

I'm in a similar boat myself - bought a house at the back end of 2018, spent all last year and lots of money renovating it, hoped to have a nice big garage built by now but still have a crumbling old prefab concrete one that'll barely fit a car in. Just gotta keep building my savings back up and then hopefully blitz it in one go. Then start saving from scratch again

I did see a grey one on ebay at a salvage yard recently, wasn't that one was it? It had some pretty nasty aftermarket wheels but was otherwise pretty standard. Think it'd been sat for a bit and needed some work, not sure what it sold for in the end! I only found out recently about the rear suspension differences, it shows that the GSi is a bit more than just a range topping version, it's actually quite a bit different from a standard Cavalier.

N/A is absolutely the way to go IMO, turbo swaps will be faster but at the expense of the instant throttle response and brilliant soundtrack. Saab B204 is a popular conversion. With the Cavs having such a good Touring Car history, I think a high-revving N/A engine is the only thing I'd consider for one, wether that be the C20XE or K20. They suit the hooligan stereotype of the Cav GSi perfectly IMO Your plans sound good, it'll definitely be a fun car and should be pretty reliable. Are there many options for an LSD? It might be something you want to consider, having driven a FWD without and then with, it's amazing how much difference they make, even with only 160ish bhp (in my case)

Know all too well the hiccups that can come up. I sent my Accord Type-R in for a baffled sump last week as I want to start tracking it soon, doesn't look like that'll be happening this year, as they found some rot I had no idea about, and a possible head gasket failure. And that's not even meant to be a project!

I know how you feel. We had a doer upper for a couple of years that had a single garage. We sold that once we've finished the two year project, and then moved into military accommodation (that was meant to come with a garage). We're not out of the military and we're back in Yorkshire in a house where I've finally got a double garage.

It wasn't a grey one dude no, it was a metallic red one. Beautiful, standard example. It went for £7100 in the end, which surprised me given where I thought we were out with values. The gsi is definitely the one to have if you're going to track it. There's camber adjustment options for the back and they handle better being IRS obviously.

You're dead right about NA, it's been my plan from day one. Turbo's are great, I've had my share of Turbo cars but I think this thing would be far better suited to an NA engine. Funny you mention about LSD's, I recently (pre COVID) bought this...



They get good reviews and is probably a good compromise against a plated diff.

I just read your ATR thread, you've done a fantastic job. The paint after you'd finished polishing it was astonishing, really top job. I can well imagine how gutted you are about the rot, but at least you've caught it while it's salvageable. If you're after a decent paint for the underside, I did mine with POR15 and it's dried rock hard.

[Cocknose]

Jaaack said:

Bloody hell. I'm VERY interested

If only this had popped up in 6 months time. I really can't go buying another project right now due to the aforementioned garage savings. That seems a really reasonable price tbh, even if the welding and paint came to a couple of grand it's still considerably cheaper than just buying one that needs nothing. And it's white!

Sat here trying to do my best man-maths and find a way to let it enter the collection! I'm sure it won't be for sale too long at that price.

Completely understood, just thought it worth a mention.

There is a slim chance mine might be for sale at the end of the year, if some projected worse-case-scenarios come off. I hope not, but we'll see.

[Cocknose]

Update time. This last time off, I've been at the engine.

First things first, to clean up the stuff that was being reused. Pistons, bearing caps and the crank.


After some graft;



All of it done, ready for reassembly


Next up was the block. A thorough degreasing got me to this point


After far too long with a wire wheel, some metal prep solution and engine enamel, we have a nice clean block


Next up was deglazing the bores. Thankfully I have a good friend who builds and races motorbikes, who was happy to come and show me the ropes



Reassembly time! A stack of new parts waiting to go on. I'm going for a low spec build but hopefully one that will take a thrashing while I get the car dialled in, so I've gone with ARP head studs and ARP rod bolts, and then new parts for the belt train and a new set of piston rings.


Bottom end assembled

Edited by Cocknose on Saturday 29th August 13:18