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astra convertable turbo

push110

Full Member
That sounds cheap to me - AFAIK a £500 remap will give you 220bhp (Stage 1), you need a new exhaust for 240bhp (Stage 2) - Milltek seem to be the preferred option, and a Milltek plus remap is around £2k (That's what I'm thinking about for the VX)

You need charge coolers etc. I think to get to 270...... (Stage 3) then you can just go silly with Stages 4 and 5 for 300hp+

This is all according to Thorney Motorsport anyway, which, IMO, are the guys in the know when it comes to Vauxhall tuning....


Thorney are good but courtenay are probably the best vauxhall tuner, i forgot about the full exhaust system, thats another 1k easily if you go for a miltek, you right its a lot of money to spend for the power gains you get
 

Chris 16v

Full Member
Nov 10, 2005
261
0
I LOVE my Leon, i mean i think it looks fantastic, goes brilliantly and has a great interior, the handling is a little twitchy at times. Dont at any point think i dont love my car!! lol
 

push110

Full Member
Yeah, but it's a Vauxhall with a Lotus developed chassis and does 0 - 60 in less than 5 seconds. I'm not a massive Vauxhall fan but even that would make me pay attention.

Sooner have an Elise though........

The vx220 is just an elise with a vx badge on it, think lotus got a bit pissed off when vx were shifting more 220's than they were selling elise's

I love the look of my leon to, but an astra coupe kitted up properly does look pretty good, not like my old one lol
 

cupra r rob

Active Member
Oct 2, 2006
165
0
Vauxhalls arent all bad, i had a string of novas and astras prior to my accord and then leon, i am a car fanatic and the novas and astras had their merits.

Vauxhalls are cheap to buy, run and insure. Parts are cheap and easy to get hold of and they do have some very good engines.

My Nova and astra both had the Calibra Turbo C20LET's in them, they are a little crude but still for their time, they produce 200bhp and 200lb torque out of the box and are very tunable. I personally thing the astra coupe and gsi are great looking cars but agree dont have much soul to them.

However they are great value, my mates couoe i mentioned earlier is as quick as mine, has full leather, climate, xenons etc and cost 5k! A similar spec Astra GSi will cost no more than 8k and iisn far off LCR pace at all.

Granted they all need tweaking to improve the handling and the engine note is dire, however they are quick and cheap - a car for the masses.

The Leon is a fantastic package but by no means perfect lets face it.

Mates just bought a corsa b 5dr with the C20LET, he's running 280bhp! been in it once and it scared the life out of me. (and confused the driver in the lane next to us)

I had a corsa, granted it was only a 1.2. It had done 120,000 and suffered nearly 50k of pure abuse, a brief encounter with a wall and still ran very well when i sold it. (ive calmed down now btw). Miracle car we called it.

I no what you mean about lacking a bit of soul tho, they just feel a bit plain, so i bought an alfa to make up for it.
 

cupra r rob

Active Member
Oct 2, 2006
165
0
I love the look of my leon to, but an astra coupe kitted up properly does look pretty good, not like my old one lol

Looks good that, mates got a bertone (special edition) with same kit. Just had it re-sprayed blue and green flip with metal flake and his next door neighbor has reversed into it. Dont no if you can get the splitter and f.bumper from someware other than dealer do you. (i belive its a dealer kit).
 

push110

Full Member
Looks good that, mates got a bertone (special edition) with same kit. Just had it re-sprayed blue and green flip with metal flake and his next door neighbor has reversed into it. Dont no if you can get the splitter and f.bumper from someware other than dealer do you. (i belive its a dealer kit).

Don't believe what anybody tells you about the bertone being a special edition, bertone are a coachmaker / car designer from italy, the only special editions are the 888 and the edition 100.

Does the front bumper look like the one in the pic below

coupe1.jpg


If it does then its just the standard front bumper with the irmscher extensions on it, there's one on ebay just now, £180 for the bumper and extensions -

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ASTRA-COUPE-B...ryZ72206QQrdZ1QQssPageNameZWD1VQQcmdZViewItem

Hope thats some help to you
 

cuprablue

Active Member
Nov 12, 2006
201
0
The old Astra GTE (GSi) is a car I wouldn't ever get in. Just put one on it's roof, (and I don't mean in an accident - as in just turn it over), and it would colapse. The roof didn't have the strength to hold up the weight of the car. There were a good few reports of people being decapitated in them.

Cuprablue.
 

LiCkWiD

LiCkWiD EvOLuTiON
Nov 15, 2006
892
0
Essex
Flip and metal flake paint? Waste of money :/ and soooo 2001. Horrid resale value as well.. £6,000 for a Corsa C with near standard engine... why? £3000 of paint. Zzzz.

Anyway, can't stand Vauxhall. Bertone is a joke. It's like saying that Ghia is a performance variant of Ford. Which it isn't.

Drove more Vauxhalls than I get to remember while working in Luton. Not one was fun, not one appeared to have any real thought poured into it. Ugh. I'm done. No more :S
 

Platinum_mike

Guest
Thorney are good but courtenay are probably the best vauxhall tuner, i forgot about the full exhaust system, thats another 1k easily if you go for a miltek, you right its a lot of money to spend for the power gains you get

Maybe, but I'd always go to Thorney with the VX tho, as they basically developed the engine mods for Vauxhall that created the 220 VXR

Also they are approved for Vauxhall warranty work which is good, so that you can steer well clear of standard Vauxhall dealers......just had mine in with them and it ended up being sent back to the factory for 2 months to replace all of the body work, and various other bits and pieces under warranty to provide me with a 'brand new' 3.5 year old car!!:D

Also had a Vectra VXR to cruise around in whilst it was away........I used to think the LCR was the ultimate performance / comfort / practicality compromise - I've now been converted unfortunately:redface:
 

push110

Full Member
Maybe, but I'd always go to Thorney with the VX tho, as they basically developed the engine mods for Vauxhall that created the 220 VXR

Also they are approved for Vauxhall warranty work which is good, so that you can steer well clear of standard Vauxhall dealers......just had mine in with them and it ended up being sent back to the factory for 2 months to replace all of the body work, and various other bits and pieces under warranty to provide me with a 'brand new' 3.5 year old car!!:D

Also had a Vectra VXR to cruise around in whilst it was away........I used to think the LCR was the ultimate performance / comfort / practicality compromise - I've now been converted unfortunately:redface:

Am i right in thinking the vxr220 uses the Z20LET as well but has a hybrid turbo as standard.

I must admit the vectra vxr does look quite nice, there's a guy up here who has an arden blue one, think it must be 19 inch wheels on it. I'd have an astra vxr myself though
 

Platinum_mike

Guest
Am i right in thinking the vxr220 uses the Z20LET as well but has a hybrid turbo as standard.

I must admit the vectra vxr does look quite nice, there's a guy up here who has an arden blue one, think it must be 19 inch wheels on it. I'd have an astra vxr myself though

I think that's correct about the turbo - I know a number of VX'ers have had their turbo's replaced when having a remap etc. as it pumps out a bit more power - also I know of some getting free upgrades when the standard turbos are replaced under warranty....

As for the Vectra I had a silver one, but the blue one is then best I reckon.... As long as you can put up with a pretty awful fuel economy the mid and top end performance of the VXR is outstanding. And the exhausts sound superb!

I think the only drawback is that it is £26k for a Vectra which would be suicidal for a private buy in terms of depreciation - I'd say in a couple of years they will make brilliant 2nd hand bargains tho
 

cupra r rob

Active Member
Oct 2, 2006
165
0
Hope thats some help to you

Yea, nice one. I think he'll be intrested in that.


Flip and metal flake paint? Waste of money :/ and soooo 2001. Horrid resale value as well.. £6,000 for a Corsa C with near standard engine... why? £3000 of paint. Zzzz.

Anyway, can't stand Vauxhall. Bertone is a joke. It's like saying that Ghia is a performance variant of Ford. Which it isn't.

Drove more Vauxhalls than I get to remember while working in Luton. Not one was fun, not one appeared to have any real thought poured into it. Ugh. I'm done. No more :S

Who said anything about bertone being a performance edition?

Looks like i hit a couple of sore spots there LiCkWiD. Im not overly keen on vauxhalls but don't think there as bad as your making out. Cheep, reliable cars at the end of the day.

The flip and metal flake is on the astra and it looks really good, its very subtle with very little flake. 2001? (Got to be better than a red car has'nt it)

I may only be 21 but since i was 16 ive been into car styling/bodywork and i no what looks good (Im very good at it). Ive even helped mates modiefy cars that have had features in magazine's. Having a unique car is an expensive thing with little cash return as im sure you no, but for some people its there passion.

Ive drove many performance cars (p1, evo's, pulsar, rs turbo's etc) and quite a few vauxhalls, I admit there not at the top of the performance tree but there far from boring. If you think there no fun at all you either cant drive properly or havent drove the 2.6 v6 or astra gsi.

I dont mean to be a tw*t and rant on a bit, but i just wanted to get that straight.
 
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