120mph 1.2i nova????

[tom_beverley]

ma mate has just got a 1.2i mk2 nova, shoved a 1.4 carb on it and reckons that hes had 120 out of it!!! this 2 me seems a bit far fetched but is it possible? the local straight where we race down comes off a nice hill and if u take the corner well u can be doin in excess of 100mph already even tho it does shit u up a lot coz u slide a bit n at that speed u dont want any thing to go wrong!!! ive got a 1.2 n the engine is as sweet as my balls but even drivin by myself can reach about 110 b4 u run out of road so will a 1.4 carb make this much difference? i reckon hes full of shit myself especially wen he sed he dusted a 1.4sri on acceleration!!!

[wisewood]

Well i certainly find the SRi part of that story hard to believe... very hard in fact. But as for the 120 i just don't know.

[Chris LR]

He may have beaten an SRi, but was the SRi trying?

I've beaten Golf GTi's, they just wern't racing at the time!

[mikeoxford]

He may have beaten an SRi, but was the SRi trying?

I've beaten Golf GTi's, they just wern't racing at the time!

my thoughts exactly :wink:

was it a very big hill or was the wind really up?

top speed he may be able to claim as true,

after 70 mph on a nova the speedo goes WAY out, bit of a hilll and a bit of wind behind or whatever he could quite easily think that.

RE racing sri, the SRi werent racing - u sure it werent even sri stickers!?!?!?

[Chris LR]

Mike when you say WAY out, do you know how much and which way +/-?

The last time I took My SR up to full I only managed 102, granted the head gasket failed less then 2 weeks later, but I was disapointed.

[mikeoxford]

i dont know exact amounts, i think i have a fair idea from a few graphs at home - ill av a luksy

[wisewood]

As i understood it the speedo is showing about 10% higher than it should so if it says 100 it should be 90.

[jim sri]

that speed is possible in a 14sr 8) but it does require a bit of a downhill section to get the speed up (private roads of course!)

[Alex]

i got a 1.2i with perfomance backbox, induction kit, decat etc and can get no-where near 120. 100 on a slight downhill. but 120 is not realistic

[wizz kid]

my first thought when i looked at this is like f**k and it still is that would mean he could keep up with a stanard elise

[brian]

i think yer right there wisewood. i always reckoned they are roughly that much out

[ade]

getting back to the question - he had a 1.2i and put a 1.4 carb on a 1.2i engine? Is this possible?

I think would require some hefty mods wouldnt it? I mean to add the 1.4 carb youd need a new manifold, head mods, youd need to remove all the injection stuff and change it all to carbbed - the fuel pump thats not on the engine would need to be added - 1.2i has injection (single point) aint got one (pump by the cam belt - correct me if I'm wrong) so to convert 1.2i to 1.4 you' need to ad one. Ignition timing etc would need to be modified, electrics - surely it would be easier sticking a 1.4 in it?

Again - I aint no engine wizard but thats what I've learnt from listening to Aragorn talk about converting an injection engine to carb (or was it theother way round???)

Even if it was done, at the end of the day youve still got a 1.2 - you might get 110 at a real push with a tail wind, down hill (I had 108 out of mine going down hill on the M6 round Shap - the engine was screaming!)

I personally dont believe it - like Wisewood says the clocks on standard dial novas arent that reliable for accuracy - the only way I would believe it is if the police had caught him on a gun/camera - but if he says he did it - who am I to shatter his ego/bubble!

I feel sorry for his engine.

On the clockspoint - how accurate is a digital dash at 70+ ?

Thinking bout getting one.

Ade

[Ben (lurk75)]

Are im glad you pointed that out whilst reading it was getting a bit worried that no one else had picked up on that point.

Digi dashes look very dated!

[jim sri]

but a digidash is better than standard clocks! you can always change the backlight colour on them to say blue, like the golf's. or any colour yoiu want really.
a mate of mine is converting a 2l 16v lump from injection to twin carbs, not too hard i think-but will let ya know how he gets on!will go like fcuk. :o

[Aragorn]

i had 100 mph outta my 1.2i this morning

there is a easy way to work out accuracy

i was sitting just at the peak on the digidash rev counter as it hit 100 peak is just over 5000 rpm

4 speed F10/4 box using the quaife gearbox program top gear ratio is 0.89

FD is 3.94

that should give a speed of 100mph at 5300 rpms using 145r13 tires (and almost the same with the 195/45R15's im runnign just now

which means at 100mph the digidash was very near 100% accurate possibly a fraction over reading - 5000 rpm should be about 95mph

not like 20mph out or anything silly

the 100 was downhill and would have prolly pulled a little further (rev limiter comes in at 6k which is 112mph - dunno if it would have got that far)

[Chris LR]

What exactly did you do to work out the speed?

I saw a number and got lost.

[Aragorn]

ook

quaife have a gearbox ratio calculator thingy

u use it to work out the ratios for quaife boxes

so i plumbed in the GM ratios for a standard F10

and got it to give a listing of the speeds in 4th

100mph comes in at 5300 rpm's

i compared this with my digidash's tacho and bingo

[Chris LR]

Cheers, now all I've got to do is find my haynes

[MC]

The 1.4 carb will fit if used with the 1.4 manifold. Not much else to it, but it will over fuel badly unless re-jetted.

MC

[wisewood]

yeah but MC - would it make the car do 120?

:lol:
Thats the question.

[Ste_Nova]

i had my 1.2i on the limiter in 4th

my 15yo gf had my 1.4sr up to 6900rpm in 5th (hill assisted) :roll: engine expired 48hrs later :evil:

[wisewood]

Ste - how old were you when you had this 15 year old girlfriend? :D
and why was she driving your car ??

[mikesri]

120 mph! What did he have, a max power sticker on the back window??? As for dusting the SRi, i find it very hard to believe as i've raced many 1.3's and 1.4's and have had to ease off cos they weren't as quick! I put a 1.3 twin choke carb on my 1.2 and it only really made a little bit of difference to the acceleration not top end!

[Ste_Nova]

Ste - how old were you when you had this 15 year old girlfriend? :D
and why was she driving your car ??

i was 20, cause she wanted to

[wisewood]

GOOD LAD!!! and Fair Enough. :lol:


Strange how Ste gets a GOOD LAD and sheep got a Naughty Boy!!! :lol:

[ydg27]

i know its not a nova but i was going down the a50 with my mate in his 1.4 astra expression and it was indicating 127mph & climbing, it must be speedo error!
and my 1.5 nova diesel had 100mph indicating on the flat after about 5 minutes of flat out driving (maybe more)
but it really struggled to get there!

[Nova-Boy]

Dont think so! Speedos lie and so do people!!

I wouldn't care if the top speed of my finished nova is 70-80 as long as it gets there nice and fast!

I still have no clues to what gearbox to use to get best accelaration out of my 1.2??

[Will]

ive had 125mph in 5th at 6600 rpm, not bad for a nova sting ;)

[Will]

p.s. good boy ste, i wudnt personally let my gf drive my nova but she was 15 so thats gota count for summit, pmsl

[Stuart]

i did a GPS test on my speedo over summer last year. my speedo reads 69mph when in reality im travelling 60 mph,

the gps said 30 and i was doing 33

never went further than 69 lol. it was tricky watching speedo, gps and road lol

[PE4]

I was driving down the M3 @ 109 in my 1.3 SR and my mate had a gps which read 105.

Since then I have fitted a weber 32/34 carb (on a 2E3 manifold) piperX filter and full ashley competition exhaust system including manifold.

My standard clocks read a speed of 127, but the gps said 119, but when I wired up the digidash it read nearly the same speed as the gps, and to make extra sure I had a friend drive beside me and both our clocks read the same within 3mph.

So if my healthy 1300 SR motor can only go that fast, I find it hard to believe that a 1.2 will do 120mph....but even if he did, it would have taken him 60 miles to get there...I can pull 80 in third, and thats what counts :)

[Chris LR]

55 in 2nd was the worst I put my SR thru, these days 55 in 4th(top) can be a struggle

[Davros]

Question for Aragorn.
I have a 2.0i 16v with a few trick bits which powers my twitching nova to 152mph (indicated on a 16v GTE digi clock) before hitting the rev limiter, going all light and making me soil the nice leather seats.
How fast would this be? I'm using 205 45 17 rubber.

[Ben (lurk75)]

152mph (indicated on a 16v GTE digi clock)

lmao dont go buy those clocks they are notoriously bad. You are also knocking your speedo way off with the 17"s. Saying that a 1600 8v GSi is capable of 130mph or around this figure, i would say that you were looking at probably 142-146mph.

[Davros]

i would say that you were looking at probably 142-146mph.

How'd you figure that? :lol:

[dan16v]

my 16v hits the limiter in 5th@ 148mph! with 16s and 16v digi which in reality is prolly less than 140mph, just coz your speedo says a reading doesnt mean its right! as wisewood says most speedos are out by 10%@100mph

[mowgli]

to check your speedo, drive down a motorway that has a measured mile on it..
For the uninitiated, you look for a series of discs on the embankment. the first is plain white, the second has 1/4 red, the third has 1/2 red, the fourth has 3/4 red and the fifth is all red. this is how the old bill check their speedos. you find these all over the country.
if you drive thru one at 60mph it should take a minute.
At 90mph (for example because I don't publically condone this sort of thing) it should take 40 seconds.

Happy Hunting

[Aragorn]

as replied to davros in PM

with the tires hes running (205/45r17)

at 6800 rpm redline with a top ratio of 0.89 and FD of 3.55 (which as far as i can tell is standard for a valver with F20)

he will be doing 155mph

meaning his dash is bang on

what u gorra remember is 16 and 17" wheels will make u go faster than the dials read in a nova, but the speedo drive in the F20 will be calibrated for the original wheels on an Astra so u might well find that 205/45r17 is almost exactly the same rolling circomference as the original astra wheels meaning the digidash will be correct

and as for the notoriously bad comment - ive checked mine out a few times and its almost bang on all the way to 100mph - ive never been above that cos the 1.2i dont like goin much faster (unless there is a downhill stretch)

[Davros]

Had an interesting run lastnight. I was out on my bike with a couple of mates. We all had a flat out run down a long straight road.
I have a new CBR600, mates have a GSXR600, 2 R6s and a ZX7R. All the 600s were found to have a very similar top speed, ie we were all pretty much neck and neck(between 162 and 174 indicated). My mate stu on one of the R6s was slightly quicker than the rest. Big up Stu!!!
Now book speed(tested by all the mags) for a R6 is 158mph while the speedo reads 174mph.(he might be squeezing a few more mph due to race pipes and a dyno kit)
We later did a little test with my nova and Stu's R6 and found that sitting flatout down the same straight i pulled an indicated 168mph on the R6 speedo.
This would tie in pretty well with Aragorn's figures and shows that the bigger rims must make a big difference.
Its incredible how much quicker that kinda speed feels in a nova than on a bike.