Bulgarian - ish Nova GSi Time Attack / Trackday car (C16SEi)

[Benn]

Impressed with the front end swap.

[uh60]

So it was Friday morning 8AM , 24hrs befoure our first race, we got the spare engine out , hooked it to a battery so we can measure the compression, it was not started in about 6 months now, the 1st cylinder gave 11, the rest were at 10.5 but gradually going up so we knew it was in perfect health.

The old engine block still in the car with the transmission



The engine loom still was everywhere so we can be able to double check possible problems



Taking the head off the spare engine





The whole garage was a freakin' mess



One is assembling the new engine, the other repairing the engine loom and packing it with isolation tape, while the third is grinding the car to prepare it for black primer







So it was 4 PM and we finally managed to start it



The sound was very healthy, measured compression again and it was 12 on all cylinders so it was a good healthy engine now.



But now the difficult times came, I put back on the spare bumper I got, together with the rear lights and rear bumper and number plates all around.

at 11 pm we left the engine to run and the radiator leaked, so got the other spare GSi radiator , we swapped it and it leaked again.

While we were checking that , we also tried bleeding the brakes, no matter what we did, there was hardly any fluid going to the back wheels, we were doing this for the next 2 hours until the brake pump decided to give in and started leaking, so again, spare pump, another lost hour, it was already 1AM we have stayed quite a lot working the whole day on the car, Stanislav came in to see how we are we doing (he was going to drive the car in the 1.6 class as I hooked him up on those track day races) I sent him off home to get some sleep and told him I will pick him up at 5:30 AM to go to the track and be on time for the scrutineering stage at 8 AM. Little did I know ...

So new brake pump fitted in, we started bleeding the brakes again and it was the same, no fluid going to the back wheels, I had now changed everything apart from the front tubes, I have replaced the back tubes , all hoses, all cylinders either new or revised on each wheel, everything was new, but it looked like this pump was also not working okay, at 4 AM while bleeding the brakes, one of the front tubes gave in and started leaking, one of my mates was already on the brink of an emotional breakdown, it was that horrible, I got the spare tubes out, turned out, the one we needed was broken So we tightened the current one we had as a last resort and miraculously it stopped leaking and finally managed to get some fluid at the back, so it was 4:30 AM, the car was starting and running fine, cooling fans switching on and off, no leaks, we packed up and I got on my way home to take a shower and pick up Stanislav.

I had not driven the car in more than 3 years so I floored it to see how it goes and with a big surprise on my face nothing happened, it was that slow, very sluggish and would hardly accelerate under full throttle, it had a new fuel pump fitted with the injectors from X20XEV and the throttle body from C26NE but it was still running the smaller 1.6 AFM but we did not know it would cause the problem back then.

So, 100 miles later and we were on the race track , passed scrutineering , passed the instructions and all and at 10 AM the car hit the track having hardly been driven before that

[uh60]

Was still smiling after a very long all-nighter.











Needless to say it never went to an MOT or front axle alignment so we did everything using some old school methods .



The car looked very funny though, really high, but really balanced through the corners with a very slight body roll.








So I finished last in class 2.0 with 3 seconds off the pace from the guy in front and 15 seconds off the pace of the leading Hondas

Stanislav actually managed second to last, leaving a Corsa B GSi behind his back, still to this day I do not know what was the problem of the car behind us as we were a disgrace regarding trackspeed.

More to our on track stories later.

[uh60]

So we finsihed okay in Plovdiv, on the second session the alternator gave in and stopped charging the battery. Meanwhile I nearly fainted while waiting to go on track as I had not slept apart from during the travel to the race track and it was 25 deg outside in mid - September.

We decided to skip the 3rd session and packed up and went home, I left the car in the garage and then the starter gave up. This car clearly had a mind of its own, I never had a Vaux in my life that broke down so many things in such a short time but I guess its because it was just sat for a very long time.

So fast forward 3 weeks later, all the problems fixed, starter replaced, car went through MOT with a new properly revised brake pump and now braking excelleng, alignment done and we had it bang on, apart from one of the front wheels beeing 5mm off but I think I will sort this out this week as the camber bolts were not placed propely and the washers on them are also misplaced.

The alternator problem turned out to be a broken main supply wire, so replaced that, meanwhile we spent 2-3 days solving the problem with the power, so fitted a new fuel pressure regulator that is running 4 bar instead of 2.5, fitted new AFM from a C20NE and now the car goes like mad for standard 1.6 internals .

We spent early October Thursdays and Fridays on a local abandoned go kart track, we did about 100 miles on it without technical hiccups and on on 8th of October we went on the way to a military airport that is used as a race track during the weekends, yeah, it sounds mad right ? A bunch of guys driving around the track while next to us Mi24s and MIG planes responsible for our Air Defense sitting right next to us, well I think those guys can't even fend off a pack of geese but that's another story.



So we did 5 hours of driving and the only technical issues we had were the brake pads giving in (they were Delphi, the cheapest ones I could find :D )

And also the tyres were very worn on the inside because of the cambers and high speed corners.





The team













Also the lower front Wiechers sway bar came in so we fitted that as well before the weekend



So only positives around that weekend, we were much closer to the cars in front but we were still near the back of the grid because everyone else was running semi slicks and there was just one other 1.6 Saxo that was behind us, All the others we Hondas and Astra Mk3 GSi which were everything but not standard so we did not have a good chance for a good result.

But overall we achieved our goals to have a consistent and almost faultless car that can be competitive.

More info later on ...

[totalnova]

Loving the story so far, keep the updates coming.
Nick

[Jonesfach]

Fantastic story to this. Thanks for sharing.

[uh60]

So, we got back from Pleven and had some minor issues with the car, we replaced the front brake pads as the old one were overheated a lot and the car did not brake very good resulting in the backside always sliding due to more brake force applied at the back. All 4 of us managed to control the car really well and 3 of us were running identical lap times of 2:44 with about .5 of a second difference due to different driving styles and approach. One of my mates did not like the handling of the car, went out, hit 3 cones and took out the rear bumper, easy fix though, we sorted it out very quick so no real issues there. With the help of Ben I lowered the rear of the car and managed to fit narrower standard Vauxhall 15" rims at the back that do not rub at the arches and also fit withing 1-2 mm distance between the tyre and the spring, its a very very tight fit at the moment :



So I swapped wheels and the Stilauto ET30 7J went on the front of the car in order to allow me drop the front with 4 threads on the GAZ Coilovers for our last session at Plovdiv

This time we prepared well, the car was all done on Friday afternoon around 3 PM, got the alignment done at 4 PM running -1.2 camber on both front wheels and the toe out set as standard per Vauxhall specs.

We got the spare parts and tools into another car and hit the road.



Scrutineering went well but due to wet track Stanislav came out on the very first corner as he carried too much speed, he came back in the pits for us to check the car instead of continuing which I still to this day tell him it was a mistake as he missed the rest of the 10 minutes in this session. Everything with the car was fine and it was time for me to jump in.

I put ourselves the goal to come home with a lap time of 1.22 which would give us a medium result regarding the pace that the pack makes in the 2.0 class and I managed to do it in my very first lap, after that I hit traffic and I did not manage to improve my time of 1.22.5.











So time came for the second session and I got rid of the headlight to allow for more cold air to come in as sometimes the car was struggling with power coming out of some of the corners on third gear and then with switching to 4th there was a sudden surge of power.

We left the front suspensions settings of bump / rebound to 15 clicks and altered the rear from 7 to 11 clicks, also tyres were running F 2.2 BAR , R 2.0 and we altered that to F 2.4 and R 2.2 BAR and this now resulted in much better handling, the car stopped surging under 3rd gear but still we got a lot of horrible wheel spin coming out of the corners.

Stanislav got a best time of 1.21.4 in his second session so the game was on, I had to improve as well.







So with my turn behind the wheel I managed to take the lap times down to high 1.20s with a best result of 1.20.466.











So, we had a break and I lowered the front suspension with 4 threads to test how the car is going to behave as in some corners we had some oversteer after hitting bumps.

However "Irmena" once again had a mind of its own, it started cutting off the ignition , losing the fuel pump relay, losing the ignition coil, it hampered us both on both of our 3rd and last sessions and together with dropping the front the car was not as responsive to the cornering any more resulting in 1 sec slower laptimes for both of us.

So we got the car into the pits, I tried to see what the problem was checking all the connections and I noticed that when I shake the wiring harness during ignition ON on the key, the relay started clicking on and off so at least I managed to trace the fault.

We got on our way back, did 100 miles and just about 10 miles away from home the car started developing the same problems, no matter what I did it constantly lost ignition in town during traffic and cutting off right before the lights going green, the last 10 miles took us 50 minutes until it finally died at front of my home, drove it the past week now with no signs of the problem after again shaking the wiring harness ... weird thing that , I tell you ..

Anyway got another wiring harness plug cut off as I have traced the wiring plug between the chassis and the engine to be the problematic piece so will replace that now but overall there will hardly be any updates on the thread this winter until February as I will put the car in the garage and work on the XE Nova during the winter to prepare it for next season as well.

Thanks for the interest in the thread and I hope you guys enjoyed it so far.

P.S. Another problem I stumbled up on was the camber bolts coming loose and undone so I have put thread-locking seal on them now.

Here is a link to our YouTube channel with onboard videos of our 2nd sessions in Plovdiv :

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEV...GbYKWqQRKihB7Q

Overall I finished 10/14 behind a Corsa B XE and an Astra mk3 GSi XE just about a second in front of me, with the leading Honda Civic 5gen about 9 sec in front of me (240bhp tuned B18C Type R Integra engine) , Stanislav finished 6/8 trailing two Honda Civics 6gen 1.6 in front of him with less than 1 second.

[Benn]

I've heard of a few people having the camber bolts move. Dont forget your putting alot of force on them. Might be better to bin them and go adjustable top mounts instead.

[uh60]

I am worried that the shell will not hold up with adjustable mount as it does not have a roll cage, only has the roll bars fitted. I have got the mounts at the garage though.

[Benn]

I dont think they would put that much pressure on the shell. Loads of people use them with out cages.
If you worried weld around the turrets.