Vauxhall Omega track car - yes, really!
Discussion
MarvinTPA said:
Hi, I have a complete set of 2004 Monaro Cv8 calipers and ( rusty ) discs sitting in my garage. If you'd like them, let me know and I can box'em up and send'em. No charge, as they might as well be used as opposed to sitting gathering rust.
I'll have to go and check the boxes and their current state, as they've been there for at least 3 years.
I'll have to go and check the boxes and their current state, as they've been there for at least 3 years.
Wow, yes please!!! That would be amazing and once again shows the generosity and power of PH!
Sincere thanks from both of us, as mentioned above would you like a donation to any favourite charities in return?
csd19 said:
You do know an LS V8 will fit in that?
Had a hand in building on a good few years back using a 2.6 V6 which had previously been supercharged, use the standard left hand engine mount on the right and vice versa, spin the gearbox mount 180 degrees and the LS1 and T56 bolts straight in with a tiny amount of trimming for the steering rack to clear the sump. It's crazy how simple it is.Gearing is wrong with the standard rear diff though and an engine and box is mega bucks in the UK so it's not really viable unless you've got money to burn.
Interesting project and bookmarked good luck with it.
I've had 4 Omegas current one is auto estate 2.6 CD I don't do many miles so its perfect for me.
Engine wise clean all the breather pipes this should stop the cam cover gaskets blowing, coil packs and cam sensors always dodgy especially on early ones (different coil packs on the 2.6/3.2).
Fitting a new battery on mine fixed an alarm and central locking problem.
This thread reminded me of an amusing article in Evo way back when:
https://www.evo.co.uk/reviews/6544/vauxhall-omega
https://www.evo.co.uk/reviews/6544/vauxhall-omega
So I finally got to the garage in daylight and opened the boxes. The white bits appear to be some form of rust on top of the 'regular' rust. There is one slider pin out of 4 present on the fronts. I can bin the pipework if you like, it is worse than the picture suggests.
If you only need the fronts, that's fine too.
Anyway, let me know.
If you only need the fronts, that's fine too.
Anyway, let me know.
Holy thread resurrection Batman! We apologise profusely for the radio silence on our part, and can only cite the same old lame excuses of too much life, not enough time....
Firstly, a couple of thankyou shoutouts are in order, I feel:
1 - To the PH team for making us Reader's Car of the Week, and subsequently shortlisting us for Reader's car or the Year! It's very humbling to see how much interest, humour and goodwill has been generated by our madcap, shoestring project
2 - To MarvinTPA, who true to his generous promise, sent us the monster calipers FOC. Read on for more...
So, what HAVE we been up to? Well, a lot has happened in the space of a year - as well as stepping up to a much increased workload in both of our jobs, Jimmy and I sat and passed our National B race licences after some friendly peer pressure from Synchromesh and McSam. This blossoming relationship has resulted in us both spending time and money racing their cars (as well as a larger group trip to the Nuburgring) instead of doing things to the Omega, but then again it is very fun to have a go in a fully sorted race car to get some perspective!
Nevertheless, some definite progress has been made on the car this year, and a lot of fun was had along the way. Here's a diary of events - and plenty of pictures...
20 Jan - HOW MUCH?!
We pick up the tale with the Omega languishing in disgrace at the workshop of my trusted indy - WMD motorsport, near Oulton Park. Upon inspection by them, the vintage clutch had indeed shattered... impressively so. A lot of ringing around later, it appears that OEM Omega clutches are actually not a very common item any more - but having had to go to the effort and expense of changing it, we wanted a quality item in there and not cheap pattern part to create another timebomb. Luckily, the guys managed to secure us the last Borg and Beck clutch kit in the country(!) and it soon found its way into the bellhousing.
Whilst they had the car to pieces, we opted in to have them fit the uprated camshafts Jimmy had secured - with a "suggested labour time" of 5 hours even for professionals, and the need to precisely time the engine back in, it was a job that would have been well over our heads. It turned out that this was a good move - whilst removing the timing belt, it was discovered that a previous monkey had snapped one of the 3 mounting bolts for the water pump, and the pump itself wasn't in the best state. Less than ideal for our projected high-stress usage...
New clutch, bigger cams, one new water pump, and fresh coolant - we could now be confident that the car was in rude health for its next outing. Just as well really, because after settling the £817.94 total bill, I certainly wasnt
17 Feb - Lubrication and Friction
Our first job on the to-do list was to give the car its first oil change since who knows when? Yes, we should probably have done this before the track day in November, but time had caught up with us in preparing, and the existing oil didn't seem alarmingly bad during the entirely scientific "fingertip rub test".
Well, now we'd know going forwards that what was in there was not only fresh, but the good stuff - I am a self-confessed shill for full-synth Ravenol and refuse to buy anything else
We always knew that the Monaro calipers would need to be sent away for refurbishing before we could use them, but in the meantime we desperately needed to do something to address our lacklustre existing setup - the obvious answer being to get some better pads and to keep them cool.
Simple, right? Well, not really....
After some recommendations from the Facebook group Track Time (thoroughly recommended for advice and ideas for anyone who partakes in track days or amateur racing), we plumped for some Ferodo DS2500 pads. Supposedly these are "pretty damn good" and more importantly they were available in the correct fitment for an Omega. They weren't cheap though (can you see a theme emerging here?).
The pads duly arrived in the post... uh oh. I knew roughly what shape they should have been, and it wasn't that shape. Comparison here:
Turns out, the wing type is correct for very early 4-cylinder Omegas, which share the Cavalier calipers. V6 and all later Omegas have a much more suitably sized setup which uses the rectangular pads. The more you know.....
Luckily, Euro Car Parts came to the rescue with a cheap and cheerful set of Brembos. Not quite a DS2500, but guaranteed to be an improvement over the Griffin-branded ones in there. Original production line fitment? Who knows - but it was definitely a very long time since those caliper bolts had moved - as evidenced by the penetrating fluid!
Next job - could we improve the cooling at all? It was the work of a moment to turn the "fake vents" in the front bumper into real ones, and in anticipation we had purchased some flexible ducting. Now, how to route it? Much head scratching, many cable ties and acup of tea can of Red Thunder later, we had what we thought was a pretty foolproof and secure routing:
Note how I said "what we thought"? Yeah, more on that later......
6 April - Caliper Comparisons
A brief but fruitful day on the car.
I was mightily impressed when I opened up the "care package" from MarvinTPA. They were huge! Yet, being aluminium, they weighed noticeably less than the cast iron calipers currently on the car. Talk about a win-win
The rest of the family, it has to be said, were much less impressed at me unboxing something quite so filthy inside the house.... turns out the combination of brake dust and corrosion can rival photocopier toner for its staining ability
Aaaaanyway...
Before we went any further, we deemed it prudent to double check the fitment of the carriers on the Omega hub. After a brief battle to remove the existing carrier bolts (their Loctite defeated our efforts with a 10" ratchet, but we couldn't jack the car high enough to wield my 3ft breaker bar), we were pleased to find that it was indeed a perfect fit. As the picture shows, we're talking a sizeable upgrade here!
A final quick but important job was to attend to the boot floor. After we removed the carpet in the first round of weight saving, we had been left with a series of tall, narrow and pointy metal locating studs welded through the floor in various places. Despite using layers of cardboard boxes when storing wheels and tyres in the boot, it would only be a matter of time before we ended up putting one through a sidewall, so they had had to go. Jimmy calls this photo "ChemicalChaos caught using Grindr"....
12 April - Drift Day!
Time for the first event of the year!
I consider myself extremely lucky that I live close to Oulton Park, which has the only low-friction tarmac rally stage that I know of in the area (possibly in the country? I'm sure someone will soon confirm or deny!). For those who haven't come across the idea before, the stage is made with special asphalt incorporating ground glass. The surface is incredibly slippery when wet, allowing wannabe rally drivers and drifters to practice their art at walking pace without the risk of a colossal accident if it goes wrong.
Of course, it's also very low stress on the car compared to normal drifting or track use.
I'd done a drift day years ago with Synchromesh, but Jimmy had never had a go before. Additionally, a friend of mine at work had also expressed a keen interest. With its long wheelbase and extraordinarily good steering lock, what better tool for drifting than the Omega? (As evidenced by its popularity with the Irish drifters!)
Synchromesh agreed to reprise his role as instructor for Jimmy and my colleague - due to the low-stress day and lack of need for cool-down periods, it would be easy for all 4 of use to get a decent amount of seat time.
Here we are, looking like we're about to drop a new rap album
(Jimmy and Synchromesh are slightly camera shy...)
And here we are on the starting lineup:
I think it would be fair to say the day was a roaring success! Everyone enjoyed themselves immensely, and the car held up fine (with much improved clutch travel, funnily enough). The only thing we did struggle with was gear choice. In first it bounced off the rev limiter whilst drifting, but in second it was quite difficult to initiate a slide as it was out of the power band. Opinion was split between the 4 of us, with both techniques being tried and debated throughout the day.
Another change we made over lunch was to replace the front ditchfinder tyres with the sticky NS2Rs we'd been saving until now (we don't want to run them on track days until we've uprated the soft suspension). The grip imbalance made it much easier to provoke the back end without inadvertently washing out the front when you come on the power - the most frequent mistake we seemed to encounter during the day.
We all got the hang of it in the end though:
That last picture was kindly taken and sent to us by PHer FelixP. That's his black Corvette C4 (a rare manual, too!) in the 2 prior pictures, which Jimmy and I - as Corvette enthusiasts and fans of 80s kitsch in particular - were most thrilled to be offered a passenger ride in. With a short wheelbase, brutal power delivery and very little steering lock, it was probably not the ideal drift machine but Felix certainly looked like he was having fun anyway!
Mmmmm, digital dash glory
Anyway, that's all for part one of this year's adventures...
We leave you with this gif of some fantastic sideways action, and we promise that part 2 will follow in a day or 2 when I've finished writing it up (I really mean it this time!
)
Firstly, a couple of thankyou shoutouts are in order, I feel:
1 - To the PH team for making us Reader's Car of the Week, and subsequently shortlisting us for Reader's car or the Year! It's very humbling to see how much interest, humour and goodwill has been generated by our madcap, shoestring project
2 - To MarvinTPA, who true to his generous promise, sent us the monster calipers FOC. Read on for more...
So, what HAVE we been up to? Well, a lot has happened in the space of a year - as well as stepping up to a much increased workload in both of our jobs, Jimmy and I sat and passed our National B race licences after some friendly peer pressure from Synchromesh and McSam. This blossoming relationship has resulted in us both spending time and money racing their cars (as well as a larger group trip to the Nuburgring) instead of doing things to the Omega, but then again it is very fun to have a go in a fully sorted race car to get some perspective!
Nevertheless, some definite progress has been made on the car this year, and a lot of fun was had along the way. Here's a diary of events - and plenty of pictures...
20 Jan - HOW MUCH?!
We pick up the tale with the Omega languishing in disgrace at the workshop of my trusted indy - WMD motorsport, near Oulton Park. Upon inspection by them, the vintage clutch had indeed shattered... impressively so. A lot of ringing around later, it appears that OEM Omega clutches are actually not a very common item any more - but having had to go to the effort and expense of changing it, we wanted a quality item in there and not cheap pattern part to create another timebomb. Luckily, the guys managed to secure us the last Borg and Beck clutch kit in the country(!) and it soon found its way into the bellhousing.
Whilst they had the car to pieces, we opted in to have them fit the uprated camshafts Jimmy had secured - with a "suggested labour time" of 5 hours even for professionals, and the need to precisely time the engine back in, it was a job that would have been well over our heads. It turned out that this was a good move - whilst removing the timing belt, it was discovered that a previous monkey had snapped one of the 3 mounting bolts for the water pump, and the pump itself wasn't in the best state. Less than ideal for our projected high-stress usage...
New clutch, bigger cams, one new water pump, and fresh coolant - we could now be confident that the car was in rude health for its next outing. Just as well really, because after settling the £817.94 total bill, I certainly wasnt
17 Feb - Lubrication and Friction
Our first job on the to-do list was to give the car its first oil change since who knows when? Yes, we should probably have done this before the track day in November, but time had caught up with us in preparing, and the existing oil didn't seem alarmingly bad during the entirely scientific "fingertip rub test".
Well, now we'd know going forwards that what was in there was not only fresh, but the good stuff - I am a self-confessed shill for full-synth Ravenol and refuse to buy anything else
We always knew that the Monaro calipers would need to be sent away for refurbishing before we could use them, but in the meantime we desperately needed to do something to address our lacklustre existing setup - the obvious answer being to get some better pads and to keep them cool.
Simple, right? Well, not really....
After some recommendations from the Facebook group Track Time (thoroughly recommended for advice and ideas for anyone who partakes in track days or amateur racing), we plumped for some Ferodo DS2500 pads. Supposedly these are "pretty damn good" and more importantly they were available in the correct fitment for an Omega. They weren't cheap though (can you see a theme emerging here?).
The pads duly arrived in the post... uh oh. I knew roughly what shape they should have been, and it wasn't that shape. Comparison here:
Turns out, the wing type is correct for very early 4-cylinder Omegas, which share the Cavalier calipers. V6 and all later Omegas have a much more suitably sized setup which uses the rectangular pads. The more you know.....
Luckily, Euro Car Parts came to the rescue with a cheap and cheerful set of Brembos. Not quite a DS2500, but guaranteed to be an improvement over the Griffin-branded ones in there. Original production line fitment? Who knows - but it was definitely a very long time since those caliper bolts had moved - as evidenced by the penetrating fluid!
Next job - could we improve the cooling at all? It was the work of a moment to turn the "fake vents" in the front bumper into real ones, and in anticipation we had purchased some flexible ducting. Now, how to route it? Much head scratching, many cable ties and a
Note how I said "what we thought"? Yeah, more on that later......
6 April - Caliper Comparisons
A brief but fruitful day on the car.
I was mightily impressed when I opened up the "care package" from MarvinTPA. They were huge! Yet, being aluminium, they weighed noticeably less than the cast iron calipers currently on the car. Talk about a win-win
The rest of the family, it has to be said, were much less impressed at me unboxing something quite so filthy inside the house.... turns out the combination of brake dust and corrosion can rival photocopier toner for its staining ability
Aaaaanyway...
Before we went any further, we deemed it prudent to double check the fitment of the carriers on the Omega hub. After a brief battle to remove the existing carrier bolts (their Loctite defeated our efforts with a 10" ratchet, but we couldn't jack the car high enough to wield my 3ft breaker bar), we were pleased to find that it was indeed a perfect fit. As the picture shows, we're talking a sizeable upgrade here!
A final quick but important job was to attend to the boot floor. After we removed the carpet in the first round of weight saving, we had been left with a series of tall, narrow and pointy metal locating studs welded through the floor in various places. Despite using layers of cardboard boxes when storing wheels and tyres in the boot, it would only be a matter of time before we ended up putting one through a sidewall, so they had had to go. Jimmy calls this photo "ChemicalChaos caught using Grindr"....
12 April - Drift Day!
Time for the first event of the year!
I consider myself extremely lucky that I live close to Oulton Park, which has the only low-friction tarmac rally stage that I know of in the area (possibly in the country? I'm sure someone will soon confirm or deny!). For those who haven't come across the idea before, the stage is made with special asphalt incorporating ground glass. The surface is incredibly slippery when wet, allowing wannabe rally drivers and drifters to practice their art at walking pace without the risk of a colossal accident if it goes wrong.
Of course, it's also very low stress on the car compared to normal drifting or track use.
I'd done a drift day years ago with Synchromesh, but Jimmy had never had a go before. Additionally, a friend of mine at work had also expressed a keen interest. With its long wheelbase and extraordinarily good steering lock, what better tool for drifting than the Omega? (As evidenced by its popularity with the Irish drifters!)
Synchromesh agreed to reprise his role as instructor for Jimmy and my colleague - due to the low-stress day and lack of need for cool-down periods, it would be easy for all 4 of use to get a decent amount of seat time.
Here we are, looking like we're about to drop a new rap album
(Jimmy and Synchromesh are slightly camera shy...)
And here we are on the starting lineup:
I think it would be fair to say the day was a roaring success! Everyone enjoyed themselves immensely, and the car held up fine (with much improved clutch travel, funnily enough). The only thing we did struggle with was gear choice. In first it bounced off the rev limiter whilst drifting, but in second it was quite difficult to initiate a slide as it was out of the power band. Opinion was split between the 4 of us, with both techniques being tried and debated throughout the day.
Another change we made over lunch was to replace the front ditchfinder tyres with the sticky NS2Rs we'd been saving until now (we don't want to run them on track days until we've uprated the soft suspension). The grip imbalance made it much easier to provoke the back end without inadvertently washing out the front when you come on the power - the most frequent mistake we seemed to encounter during the day.
We all got the hang of it in the end though:
That last picture was kindly taken and sent to us by PHer FelixP. That's his black Corvette C4 (a rare manual, too!) in the 2 prior pictures, which Jimmy and I - as Corvette enthusiasts and fans of 80s kitsch in particular - were most thrilled to be offered a passenger ride in. With a short wheelbase, brutal power delivery and very little steering lock, it was probably not the ideal drift machine but Felix certainly looked like he was having fun anyway!
Mmmmm, digital dash glory
Anyway, that's all for part one of this year's adventures...
We leave you with this gif of some fantastic sideways action, and we promise that part 2 will follow in a day or 2 when I've finished writing it up (I really mean it this time!
)Thanks for the enthusiasm gents!
Is it just the perspective, or does that Berlina look all out of proportion with an almost hearse-like roof height?
Another update here, finally finished after a few late nights and a drams of Bourbon (maybe that's why these things always take so long to write and format!)
1 June - Post-Event Casualties
After the success of the drift day, the car was firstly given a thorough wash (with the wet surface - dirty from mud being dragged onto it when people go off - and spinning wheels all day, the cars end up looking like they've been rallying!) and then put to bed for a while.
I had some free time during a solo day at the workshop a couple of weeks later - and after taking a few more minor trim bits out and looking over the car in general, I quickly inspected underneath. Oh dear....
We thought we had a careful and clever routing of ducts, which emerged into the wheelarch right in the bottom front corner, and ran along the inner wall. Unfortunately, we hadn't realised just how tight the dynamic clearance was between tyre and inner arch - ie when the car was on full lock and the suspension was compressed. Had we only been using the car on track, this would likely have never been an issue - you generally don't apply more than half lock, if that. For drifting, of course, one tends to use the full steering rack when catching "dem wikkid skidz"....
There wasn't much I could do with what was left of the ducts, so it was a case of stripping them out completely and mulling over a better alternative. Again, more on this saga later....
Another casualty of the drift day was the jack adaptor for the car. Omegas (and Vauxhalls in general, if Jimmy's Astra was anything to go by), have a shaped jacking point that encompasses the bottom seam of the body, rather than a flat pad further under the shell. Each design has its own merits and that's for another thread - but it does mean unless you fancy using the comedy OEM screw jack, one needs something to prevent a trolley jack from crushing the seam and causing other damage.
An early ebay buy was the rubber puck on the right - literally, as it turned out, an ice hockey puck with a groove sawn into it
Unfortunately, the bottom of an Omega is not designed to international sporting regulations, and as such was marginally too small for the puck to fit properly into the gap. Oh, and that groove wasn't really deep enough, either. Result - the puck was now splitting further with every use and had practically fallen in half.
10 minutes with a piece of scrap 2x2 softwood and a chisel yielded a new adaptor, thinner in width and with a wider, deeper groove across, not with the grain - and I am pleased to say it has since worked perfectly!
14-16 June - A Very Busy Weekend!
The next outing for the car was for a guest drive. Myself, Jimmy, McSam and Synchro have a mutual friend whose work and other commitments prevent him having any track toys of his own - instead he pays a nominal fee to "rent" our cars and instruction for a day. He fancied trying some of the slo-mo drifting at Oulton, so what better excuse than to break out the Omega?
Being a Friday, I had to be in work, so I dropped the car off and left him under the trusted supervision of Synchro - who conveniently was passing by on his way from the South East to race his Locost at Anglesey that weekend. In comparison, my rig was definitely bigger than his
Anyway, another fun day was had by all, so I'm told. McSam's regular racing co-driver, also a friend of Synchro, also turned up and had a brief go in the afternoon as he lives locally. It's a small world!
This picture later emerged on a photography page, of our client just ever so slightly running out of road on one corner (it also illustrates my earlier point about how filthy the cars get during the day!)
When I sent the picture to our WhatsApp group, McSam replied with a cropped-in version showing the huge grin in evidence despite the "off", and the comment:
"Bahahaha not a single f
k was given that day. You're my idol"
The only thing brought up to me when I arrived back from work on the day was that the power steering felt quite heavy towards the end of the day and the car smelled hot in general. This was to be expected I suppose, given that it had mostly been redlined in low gears with very little airflow over the radiator. The constant cycling from full lock to full lock would also have got the steering fluid quite hot and consequently thin - however, given its indeterminate age and condition we did resolve to at least change it for fresh fluid when we next had a working day on the car.
And with that, it was off to Anglesey for Synchro - as well as Jimmy who had agreed to come along and spectate and help out as pit crew.
As they set off with the Locost in tow, I took the Omega home before joining them for a fun but chilly weekend. The banter was terrific but the racing didn't entirely go to plan - though that's for another thread.....
Never mind, at least Jimmy and I had some time to talk over our next plans, and to compare each other's road barges on their first outing together.
2 July - How ARDS Can It Be?
(©Synchromesh 2019 for that pun)
Continuing with the thread interlude, the start of July saw the culmination of a very anxious couple of weeks of hoop-jumping, form filling, Blue Book revision and lap video watching - it was crunch time for our race licences. At Oulton park, naturally.....
The 208 GTI test car was quick, but of course it was nowhere near approaching the power and grip of the mighty Omega we were used to.
(OK, that last sentence was a total lie )
The day mainly involved a lot of tense waiting.....
.....but it was worth it in the end, as we both passed with flying colours!
7 July - More Pedal, Less Weight
A week later, and it was back to it on the Omega. This time, we were joined by PHer (and my best friend in real life) MasterVentris, who had fancied getting involved for a while as a build-up to his own much more daunting project. Again, that's one for another thread (can you see a theme here?).
Job one was to address the power steering concerns. The initial idea of a complete drain and refresh took a back seat when we realised it would have meant disturbing some high-pressure hydraulic unions that hadn't been touched in 20 years. Fearful of being unable to get them to re-seal ever again, we decided on a slightly "redneck" approach - using a suction syringe to remove the entire contents of the reservoir would give us about a 3/4 change, and repeating this after the next few outings should soon replace 99.9% of the fluid with next to no hassle.
Job two was to finally solve the overriding ergonomic issue that had partially led to the clutch explosion - that ridiculous pedal spacing. As mentioned right back at the start of the thread, the separation of the throttle pedal from the brake was about double what one would normally find, and it made heel'n'toe downchanging virtually impossible.
A brief visit to Demon Tweeks (again, handily local for me) netted just what we were after - a set of oversized pedal pads which would be used to extend our existing pedals:
Some careful measuring and drilling later (not easy on a pedal that keeps trying to move!) et voila. All 3 of us had a few test goes of the heel'n'toe motions and proclaimed it to be satisfactory - time would tell how well it worked in anger!
Something that still niggled, however, was a tiny amount of slack in the throttle pedal - the Omega being an old-skool cable throttle, as mentioned in the opening post. Not enough to affect the driveability of the car as in the OP, but just enough to be noticeable and thus irritating. But with the cable all taut at the throttle body, where was the issue?
Contorting himself up into the footwell, MasterVentris noticed that the "slave" end of the throttle pedal had a small bush between it and the ferrule on end of the cable. Over time, this assembly had worn/compressed ever so slightly to the point where it now had a little slop in it - movement that was amplified by the time it reached the "master" end of the pedal.
We decided to search for ideas by examining the "strategic fastener reserve" - the other half of the workshop I use is inhabited by a chap who has accumulated thousands of unusual, obscure and obsolete aviation fasteners and fittings, and who doesn't mind if I use the odd one occasionally. Quite a perk in such situations! Inspiration struck when we found some large "internal" grub screws. With the closed end cut off and a slot cut down the side, one could be fitted over the cable to replace the squashed bush and restore full tension.
Delicate hacksaw surgery completed, Ventris resumed his uncomfortable position and deftly installed our device - pictured here wrapped in yellow tape to close the slot and prevent it falling off:
Job done, and the pedal was now both perfectly positioned and perfectly tensioned. Satisfaction all round!
Do tune in soon for the 3rd and final installment of the year's adventures! In the meantime, here's a picture of mine and Jimmy's cars undergoing a bit of "bonding" in Anglesey
Fishy Dave said:
A good read, I was there at Oulton Park in my silver and blue RX-8. 
Ah yes, I think I do remember your car - was it the one that unfortunately seemed to be having an issue with oil burning?motomk said:
Cool, so the VT Commodore/Monaro caliper fits ok?
The Commodore/Monaro disc is 296mm diameter and 28mm thick, which from what I can find is the same dimensions as an Omega disc. The centre and wheel stud stuff is different.
Well Done to MarvinTPA !
VT Commodore Berlina Wagon!
Indeed, the major major advantage is that we can use the standard Omega disc without having to look for parts bin or custom swaps in a different diameter. When we do change the calipers for real, a new set of performance grooved discs will also be going on to replace the manky current ones. The Commodore/Monaro disc is 296mm diameter and 28mm thick, which from what I can find is the same dimensions as an Omega disc. The centre and wheel stud stuff is different.
Well Done to MarvinTPA !
VT Commodore Berlina Wagon!
Is it just the perspective, or does that Berlina look all out of proportion with an almost hearse-like roof height?
Another update here, finally finished after a few late nights and a drams of Bourbon (maybe that's why these things always take so long to write and format!)
1 June - Post-Event Casualties
After the success of the drift day, the car was firstly given a thorough wash (with the wet surface - dirty from mud being dragged onto it when people go off - and spinning wheels all day, the cars end up looking like they've been rallying!) and then put to bed for a while.
I had some free time during a solo day at the workshop a couple of weeks later - and after taking a few more minor trim bits out and looking over the car in general, I quickly inspected underneath. Oh dear....
We thought we had a careful and clever routing of ducts, which emerged into the wheelarch right in the bottom front corner, and ran along the inner wall. Unfortunately, we hadn't realised just how tight the dynamic clearance was between tyre and inner arch - ie when the car was on full lock and the suspension was compressed. Had we only been using the car on track, this would likely have never been an issue - you generally don't apply more than half lock, if that. For drifting, of course, one tends to use the full steering rack when catching "dem wikkid skidz"....
There wasn't much I could do with what was left of the ducts, so it was a case of stripping them out completely and mulling over a better alternative. Again, more on this saga later....
Another casualty of the drift day was the jack adaptor for the car. Omegas (and Vauxhalls in general, if Jimmy's Astra was anything to go by), have a shaped jacking point that encompasses the bottom seam of the body, rather than a flat pad further under the shell. Each design has its own merits and that's for another thread - but it does mean unless you fancy using the comedy OEM screw jack, one needs something to prevent a trolley jack from crushing the seam and causing other damage.
An early ebay buy was the rubber puck on the right - literally, as it turned out, an ice hockey puck with a groove sawn into it
Unfortunately, the bottom of an Omega is not designed to international sporting regulations, and as such was marginally too small for the puck to fit properly into the gap. Oh, and that groove wasn't really deep enough, either. Result - the puck was now splitting further with every use and had practically fallen in half.
10 minutes with a piece of scrap 2x2 softwood and a chisel yielded a new adaptor, thinner in width and with a wider, deeper groove across, not with the grain - and I am pleased to say it has since worked perfectly!
14-16 June - A Very Busy Weekend!
The next outing for the car was for a guest drive. Myself, Jimmy, McSam and Synchro have a mutual friend whose work and other commitments prevent him having any track toys of his own - instead he pays a nominal fee to "rent" our cars and instruction for a day. He fancied trying some of the slo-mo drifting at Oulton, so what better excuse than to break out the Omega?
Being a Friday, I had to be in work, so I dropped the car off and left him under the trusted supervision of Synchro - who conveniently was passing by on his way from the South East to race his Locost at Anglesey that weekend. In comparison, my rig was definitely bigger than his
Anyway, another fun day was had by all, so I'm told. McSam's regular racing co-driver, also a friend of Synchro, also turned up and had a brief go in the afternoon as he lives locally. It's a small world!
This picture later emerged on a photography page, of our client just ever so slightly running out of road on one corner
(it also illustrates my earlier point about how filthy the cars get during the day!)When I sent the picture to our WhatsApp group, McSam replied with a cropped-in version showing the huge grin in evidence despite the "off", and the comment:
"Bahahaha not a single f
k was given that day. You're my idol" The only thing brought up to me when I arrived back from work on the day was that the power steering felt quite heavy towards the end of the day and the car smelled hot in general. This was to be expected I suppose, given that it had mostly been redlined in low gears with very little airflow over the radiator. The constant cycling from full lock to full lock would also have got the steering fluid quite hot and consequently thin - however, given its indeterminate age and condition we did resolve to at least change it for fresh fluid when we next had a working day on the car.
And with that, it was off to Anglesey for Synchro - as well as Jimmy who had agreed to come along and spectate and help out as pit crew.
As they set off with the Locost in tow, I took the Omega home before joining them for a fun but chilly weekend. The banter was terrific but the racing didn't entirely go to plan - though that's for another thread.....
Never mind, at least Jimmy and I had some time to talk over our next plans, and to compare each other's road barges on their first outing together.
2 July - How ARDS Can It Be?
(©Synchromesh 2019 for that pun)
Continuing with the thread interlude, the start of July saw the culmination of a very anxious couple of weeks of hoop-jumping, form filling, Blue Book revision and lap video watching - it was crunch time for our race licences. At Oulton park, naturally.....
The 208 GTI test car was quick, but of course it was nowhere near approaching the power and grip of the mighty Omega we were used to.
(OK, that last sentence was a total lie
)The day mainly involved a lot of tense waiting.....
.....but it was worth it in the end, as we both passed with flying colours!
7 July - More Pedal, Less Weight
A week later, and it was back to it on the Omega. This time, we were joined by PHer (and my best friend in real life) MasterVentris, who had fancied getting involved for a while as a build-up to his own much more daunting project. Again, that's one for another thread (can you see a theme here?).
Job one was to address the power steering concerns. The initial idea of a complete drain and refresh took a back seat when we realised it would have meant disturbing some high-pressure hydraulic unions that hadn't been touched in 20 years. Fearful of being unable to get them to re-seal ever again, we decided on a slightly "redneck" approach - using a suction syringe to remove the entire contents of the reservoir would give us about a 3/4 change, and repeating this after the next few outings should soon replace 99.9% of the fluid with next to no hassle.
Job two was to finally solve the overriding ergonomic issue that had partially led to the clutch explosion - that ridiculous pedal spacing. As mentioned right back at the start of the thread, the separation of the throttle pedal from the brake was about double what one would normally find, and it made heel'n'toe downchanging virtually impossible.
A brief visit to Demon Tweeks (again, handily local for me) netted just what we were after - a set of oversized pedal pads which would be used to extend our existing pedals:
Some careful measuring and drilling later (not easy on a pedal that keeps trying to move!) et voila. All 3 of us had a few test goes of the heel'n'toe motions and proclaimed it to be satisfactory - time would tell how well it worked in anger!
Something that still niggled, however, was a tiny amount of slack in the throttle pedal - the Omega being an old-skool cable throttle, as mentioned in the opening post. Not enough to affect the driveability of the car as in the OP, but just enough to be noticeable and thus irritating. But with the cable all taut at the throttle body, where was the issue?
Contorting himself up into the footwell, MasterVentris noticed that the "slave" end of the throttle pedal had a small bush between it and the ferrule on end of the cable. Over time, this assembly had worn/compressed ever so slightly to the point where it now had a little slop in it - movement that was amplified by the time it reached the "master" end of the pedal.
We decided to search for ideas by examining the "strategic fastener reserve" - the other half of the workshop I use is inhabited by a chap who has accumulated thousands of unusual, obscure and obsolete aviation fasteners and fittings, and who doesn't mind if I use the odd one occasionally. Quite a perk in such situations! Inspiration struck when we found some large "internal" grub screws. With the closed end cut off and a slot cut down the side, one could be fitted over the cable to replace the squashed bush and restore full tension.
Delicate hacksaw surgery completed, Ventris resumed his uncomfortable position and deftly installed our device - pictured here wrapped in yellow tape to close the slot and prevent it falling off:
Job done, and the pedal was now both perfectly positioned and perfectly tensioned. Satisfaction all round!
Do tune in soon for the 3rd and final installment of the year's adventures! In the meantime, here's a picture of mine and Jimmy's cars undergoing a bit of "bonding" in Anglesey
RazerSauber said:
How does it feel now it has the "G" cams all around? I have the same engine in my Calibra and am wondering if it's worth throwing some in at the next timing belt change.
I’d say stronger at the top end but a bit flat in the middle. Depending on the gearing in the Calibra, it could be worth it. It might just feel flat in the middle *because* it’s stronger at the top Gassing Station | Readers' Cars | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff