brucers GT/LET wip.

[Southie]

What a shit car, bloody terrible colour, awful engine and what a waste of time...


















... you know I'm talking bullshit, bloody love it

[brucer]

What a shit car, bloody terrible colour, awful engine and what a waste of time...


















... you know I'm talking bullshit, bloody love it

HAHA, thats more like it.

[brucer]

Update

I kept it quiet that I was taking the nova for mapping as I was uncertain if it would come back in one piece. Lol

It was a 4 hour drive down to see Rabbid Remaps, he set about working his magic on the car so he could put a ‘tune’ (American voice ‘toon’) in the ecu.




As I fitted the 875cc injectors the night before, it rendered the car immobile as the map currently installed wouldn’t let it start. He added a file to the ecu to accommodate the larger injectors and the 90mm MAF, this allowed him to start it and get it onto the rollers.





A test run to see how well the engine was working along with all the sensors, at 10psi which was gate pressure gave me 259bhp at the flywheel. Not too shabby.



A bit more fettling




And the final figure for the day was 308bhp and 300lbft @ 1 bar of boost. I was a little disappointed as it appears that either my actuator is faulty or the penny valve isn’t sealing correctly not allowing the turbine to make any more boost. Nether the less it’s a good starting figure and there will be plenty more to come later on in the year.



Although I wasn’t grinning like a Cheshire cat, once I parked it back in the garage and gave it a rev it soon made me go ‘oh my dayzzz’. The poppin’ and bangin’ on lift off is a great noise, this made my day. Lol



Here’s a couple videos of the last session on the rollers.

https://youtu.be/fpJA_QZ9m8c

https://youtu.be/ZaKM_yV3A-E

I had noticed that I was getting blue smoke on overrun, I think the stem seals may have gone hard sucking in oil under vacuum. This will get addressed at some point, as for the lack of power I think I may just use it for this year and try and fix the fault later on. If I alter anything now then theres a good chance id have to take it to be mapped again.
Thanks for looking

Brucer.

[carls nova sri]

Nice run mate love this car

[Phil_d]

Just read through start to finish, what a machine, remember reading this back in about 2012 when I was actually working on mine, toyed with the idea of the same blue for my loon but I never got any further, great to see how far it's come since then ��

[brucer]

Nice run mate love this car

Cheers pal

Just read through start to finish, what a machine, remember reading this back in about 2012 when I was actually working on mine, toyed with the idea of the same blue for my loon but I never got any further, great to see how far it's come since then ��

It's for ever evolving in some way, the bodywork stays the same though.

[brucer]

update

Few things have changed since the last update, I bought a standard actuator rod to fit and to double check all the internals of the actuator.

I found the internal piston had actually come loose from the rod, in turn undoing any preload on it. I have now loctited it in place.
I also forgot that I had the strongest actuator spring forge make inside it, the red spring is rated 17.5 - 20psi of gate pressure.




Actuator fitted with half a hole of preload.



After inspecting my actuator fault I found that the plastic sheathing that I used on the lambda and crank sensor wiring had melted due to its close proximity to the turbo/manifold, I bought some heat resistant sheath that should be upto the job.

I used lock wire to hold it in place.


I also did the headlight wiring across the top of the radiator and a few other bits of wiring close to the manifold.



Since I have the roll cage and the electric sunroof, ive never had a rear view mirror. I was unsure what model of car to get one from, but a corsa b one looked like it would do the job.

I got some sticky pads from a windscreen company (which turned out to suck balls) to fit the mirror in place. (no pics of it fitted yet)




When the car was on the dyno I noticed it had a small oil leak, which I thought was from the dipstick tube, but it turned out to be the dizzy blank. I had previously put sealer on the seal as it was past its best, but this obviously didn't work. Que a new seal, this was listed for an e16se dizzy.



Head checked for tightness, this was just the final stage torque of 70lbft IIRC, all were fine and none moved at all.

[brucer]

As the hawk eye four wheel alignment threw up dodgy readings last time I checked (out of calibration which has now been fixed), I wanted a way to check my camber/caster in my garage instead of having to take it to work. Ok, it may be crude but atleast its a reference point.

So I bought one of these.



And then I learnt a friend had this.



I tried the sealey one first as it had the caster already on there without having to turn the wheel and mess with nobs, but it wouldn't fit between the wheel bolts so this was made redundant.

I then calibrated my one to be level.



And then mounted on the disc to check for camber, which gave about 1 and 1/4 degrees.

Next onto the caster, I made a very very very rough calculation of 20degrees with some card. Turned the wheel 20degrees one way, mounted the gauge and set it t 0. Then back the other way with the steering 20degrees to get my caster reading. As I imagined from a previous go on the hawk eye, I have little caster on both sides. Not good. I think i'll have to invest in a rose jointed setup to get some extra adjustment.






I'll be taking the car to work on Thursday to give it the once over again and give it a clean as its filthy!

I have another mapping session on Friday and Race wars on Saturday (mile long drag/top speed run). All being well it should be a productive week.



Thanks for looking.

Brucer

[brucer]

update


Thursday

Prep for Z20let Lovers Race Wars.


At work Thursday bright and early.



I began by getting my 6th cesaro painted to match the other 5.

I bought another pair of yoko ad08's for any wet occasion that may arise, as the weather looked a bit bleak it wasn't a bad idea to have a back up pair of tyres instead of the a048's. These 2 went on my spare wheel and now this 6th one.



Also, my a048's were second hand when I got them, still having 3.8ish mm of tread, I spun them up on the balancer at work to notice they wernt quite true. As I planned to do 140+mph with the nova, I didn't want to take any chances.

So a new pair got fitted to the front wheels.



When I weighed the car at the quarry last year, I always wondered if that was the true weight. (940kg no spare wheel) My boss had bought a set of scales for his own race cars, so a perfect opportunity for me to get a correct figure for the nova.



Car on all corner scales.



no spare wheel and 25-30L of fuel. 930kg




With me in it.




Pretty happy with the outcome as it was a little lighter than I first thought.

After all prep was done (fluid levels, visual check of components and most bolts checked for torque), I then spent the afternoon washing, polishing, waxing etc.




And then it rained, the tarp had to come out as the spray that comes off the Vectra ruins the front end of the nova.

[brucer]

friday

Drove the 4hours to Rabbid Remaps again for him to work his magic and get me all the power I can have, I was feeling confident after fixing the actuator fault that I could see well into the 300+bhp.

On the rollers the car looked much more alive, when it came on boost (around 3500rpm) it sounded powerful and started to lift out of the rollers.

We went and had a ponder out side to which he followed shortly and said it looks like the actuators playing up again. After some visual inspection, I couldn't see anything wrong. He got a pump and put it on the actuators nipple, bad news was that it wasn't holding pressure. The diaphragm must have popped causing boost issues.

A little peeved, nothing could be done without changing the diaphragm. He mentioned that I could still use the car at Race Wars, with roughly the same power as the original map he done. This one had a little less boost and more ignition.

We left there and made our way up to Leicestershire to stay in a Travelodge the night ready for the next day.

Saturday Race Wars

Arriving at endrew Barracks all nervous and excited to use the car, its first use in four years
Being greeted with astra upon astra. All the folk were friendly and it was a cracking day.

The morning sessions were timed runs, which we got 3 goes each. The cars got fitted with a camera and a GPS box to measure top speed, 0-60, 0-100 and quarter mile times.

Each car had to do a sighting lap with a marshal to make sure we were safe, this was a good exercise as it got me used to the car and how it felt. I planned to make my first run a slow one, but this sighting lap got it out the way so I could concentrate on going flat out on all 3 runs.

First run- Launched off, car felt good. Pulled super hard from 3rd onwards, my speedo wasn't working so was unsure what speed I was doing (although it only goes to 120mph). I got into 6th at 6200rpm and then backed off 2-300meters before the line. The usb stick was taken into the building to watch back and see what top speed I got, what I didn't know was that the figure that counts is the one across the finish line, not the top speed anywhere within the mile. Boo!

I did 151mph, but 101mph across the line. But I did get a 5.39s 0-60.

Second run- Now I know the score, ill just got flat out! So I did just that, except 100meters before the line I heard a pop and the engine cut out. Rolled to a stop and the car wouldn't start up, looked under the bonnet and all was ok, looked under the car and a boost pipe had come off. Slipped it back on to get back to the pits to fix it.

I did do 155mph, but 146mph across the line

Third run- All or nothing now, launched off, again 3r gear and onwards it pulled hard all the way across the line. 6th gear at 6500rpm.

This netted me 157mph across the line!


The next half hour was nerve racking, is it enough for a trophy in my class? (250-400bhp)

The answer to that is yes! YES IT WAS!

1st place too!




I was over the moon, the cars first outing, an incomplete engine setup and I got me a trophy, my first ever trophy!

Here are the videos from the day.