Astra Redtop with a twist

[Paul]

Sorry to start the thread like this, but not interested in any 'it wont work comments etc', but positive criticism is more than welcome!

I know its not ground breaking cause its been done before, but not common at all, in fact I only know of one other Mk2 with this engine in it. So, a good friend of mine currently has his car in my workshop.

Its a Astra mk2 which had a 2.0 8V Turbo in it, this has now been ditched in exchange for a Saab Turbo engine.

So we came up with the idea on Thursday night last week, phoned around a few places and managed to source the whole lot for the sum of 150quid.

Its covered 96k so we thought we better have a quick check on the shells, which are all good (sorry no pics).

I also have no pics of us taking the engine out as it was rather hot today and we're all sunburnt from the weekend so just wanted to get it done asap!

Anyway, a few hours later we got back to the workshop with this:



And we had to take this out of his car:



And shes out:



(incidently the 8V turbo manifold will be for sale soon, has a T3 flange on it)



Next up was to change the gearboxes over, so off came the Saab one, and on went the Vaux item. After trying for around 15 mins we realised the tyre that the engine was sitting on was in the fecking way :



An one Vauxhall gearbox on one Saab Engine:



Note you have to grind this off so that yucan get a water hose on the pipe:



We chose to use the Vauxhall gearbox so we can retain the standartd mountson it, and alsote standard drieshaft. Ideally the engine could do wth being closer the NS chassis leg, but this would make life moredifficult fr us in the fact that we would have to fabricate three mounts, fancy driveshafts and not be 100% sure that it was sitting straight and true.

So the new home for the engine:



And underneath ready to be winched up:





We got the engine up into position and had no hope of even getting the NS front moun on, so back down in went, after a bit of measurement we decided what need to come of the OS chassis leg:

[Paul]

And off:



This is going to get strengthened up, having a good think about how before we go gung-ho! Also the lower X member on these is paper thin as they run wishbones, so that will be getting made into a 4"x2" box section to add some extra strength into the front end.

So back up went the engine, and with the two gearbox bolts lined up, its in:



Fair bit of room at the back:



Nice bit of OS clearance:





Few more pics:





Basically the Saab engines run a multigroove system with the water pump, alternator, air con and rather large tensioner all on the auxillary belt of the bottom pulley. We are going to see what are option are with making everything V groove, if that isnt possible then we will frount mount the alternator.

We are going to use a similar engine mount as to what the Saabs do which comes from the OS Suspension turret. And also see if we can make a mount from the OS lower corner to the new X member or chassis leg, depending on what room we have.

Other than that there doesnt really seem to be any inital problems!

So more to follow soon

Paul

[Rich]

Interesting, dont really get many problems with those engines either!

What happened with the 8v turbo?

[Plug]

was hoping to do this to my m8s mk3 ashtray but he cant afford the saab now .

Suscribed to this as its the next big thing in the world of vaux i think.

Are you going to be splicing the saab engine loom to the vaux loom or using a aftermarket ecu??

[napalm_27]

hmm interesting
will make a nice read
keep up the good work mate

[Twistie]

What happened with the 8v turbo?

??????

[xe Dan]

when i picked up the nova i saw the astra spoke to you mate he seemed very clued up was a nice bit of home turboing that 8v lump hope this goes well to

[saloonwoody]

my m8 put the 2.3 turbo into his mk3 gsi and he had to chop loads out but its in , dunno wot it goes like cos its not wired up yet

[Rickyb]

looks spot on and you have a p.m

[corsa-xe1]

looks good! that manifold was a rs turbo on with a 2.0 8v flange welded in!!