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In a nutshell they had a pig of a time with the car; the shifter part of the work not really causing any problems, perhaps helped by my earlier prep work lol..?
They removed the carpet support completely, nicely, painted the floor and fitted what can only be described as a pretty professional looking quaife/race carstyle shifter using the astra linkage part i supplied. And using the hole imade; as mentioned earlier and as expected – raising the floor mounting so itcleared the steering rack.
During fitting:
Cut out support, raising floor, enlarged my original hole:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...r/IMG_4774.jpg
Fitted astra linkage bar, custom shifter:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...r/IMG_6460.jpg
Finished:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...1_04110010.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...1_04110011.jpg
Bolted to supplied connector at selector:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...10421-2000.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...1_04110009.jpg
Main thing is it works, nice and direct feeling – as it of course goes straight to the box selector itself.
Still a little to get used to it though.
So to the trouble-some bits. They struggled with the sump and manifold.
The sump first, successful with the pickup pipe (was shortened 20mm) they couldn’t work out how to avoid the top scraper baffle coming into contact with the crank counterweights. So in the end they just removed the top baffle, further modifying the other baffles so it all fit on. Seems the 1.6 sump is a very tricky to job to do to the 1.8; on top of that they did it still with engine insitu, in the ‘bay, overhead :-s
Then the manifold: basically with the new flange being fitted elsewhere, with no engine/template as a reference – it naturally got fitted a few mm ‘out’ so they needed to find those few ‘mm’ here n there; bodywork and amongst other jiggery pokery. Also took them a few attempts to get it on.
The end result though is a great deal more ground clearance. Not to mention i now have a better 4-2-1 design manifold thats 2.5” bore; they had to cone down to the 2” magnex system the car has so a bigger exhaust is on the cards one day. Also the car is now lambda-ready for mapping.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...SP_A1650-1.jpg
Retropower were going to MOT and TAX the car for me but the old rarely used ATE capliers on the car had seized. To keep costs down and not waste anymore of they’re time i got the car recovered back again, and after one or two hiccups (again as mentioned in technical thread of recent) with sourcing some used actual 256mm ATE callipers. Was incorrectly send smaller ones; ended up with a right plie of callipers now lol
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...10507-1514.jpg
Eventually won some off ebay for £1, collected and theyre correct, in good nick; but not yellow.. yet lol. Fitted them anyway, just to be able to get the car driven round nearby, for the first time in almost a year :-s Which of course was great fun.
Im now left with fuelling to sort. A basic mapping session. MOT/TAX. Then fit these newcam cams and verniers. Then one final full map session.
Oh also one or two styling tweeks on the cards.
However,i am also moving out of parents home again, into my own flat soon – and as a co-incidence my mate has done too and in addition is getting married this year;so with that in mind we’ve now moved out of the unit we’ve been in, back into cheap poxy ex. Council garages.. Feel like im 21 again lol. Kind of. So for the time being we have lost the space and excuses (lol) to do much of this remaining work ourselves (these garages have no power, no light). Hopefully the car will be at least legal for PV.
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Really like this car :) engine bay really is a work of art :thumb:
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Really liking that shifter arrangement! Pretty damn cool idea that!
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Top work on the shifter mate :thumb:
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well, thanks lol but i cant take much of the credit at all - barely did any of the work; was all them @ retropower.
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ahh that shifter arrangement is ace, plus that dash is nom nom nom nom :wisewood:
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They've done an awesome job of that! You had blue carpets in it before didn't you, are you going to attempt to keep those somehow?
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thanks for the replies; it is a relief with the end result, as it was a bit unknown what alternative there is to the o.e style linkage and the full blown quaife stuff.
But tbh ide seen a few astra mk1 setups fitted into novas and corsas so..
Iain, the carpets and seats are actually back in now. The under carpet sound proofing was easy to just cut around it all, but i was a bit more reserved with the carpet - all ive done for now is cut down the joins that normally live under the console/around the old gear stick handbrake area into two then tucked the excess under itself, if that makes sense. Its not super tidy but for now it will do; ill no doubt return to that issue in time and work something out. Probably just take my time cutting it around that new shifter setup.
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wow - Retro have really worked their magic, that shifter looks ruddy awesome, very hard-core DTM styleeee!!
Gonna have to come over and have a nose soon!
