The OBSESSIVE PERFORMANCE

	chip wrote: Fantastic to see you over here mate. Fingers crossed we can help you make that deadline for combe. Cheers Chip! Will have to cease my whining and put my hand in my pocket and buy the bloody Omex

	So this all began with a mad idea and a dead engine used to mock up in the garage. Then with a bit of time in the garage with more ebay purchases, cardboard, tape measure, some out-sourced laser cutting and lot of swearing we arrived here: Still got the bottom support bracket to finish - but it's getting there! As it turned out the outlet from the charger needed to change and the top bracket was a bit too wide, but we will get to all those problems later.

	As mentioned before I added a 3 gauge converted dash, which was flocked before fitting. To this was added water temp, oil temp, oil pressure gauges which are un-branded and come with a silver surround matching the SRi dash clocks. The whole centre console has also been flocked to match and the other parts carbon wrapped to blend in as we had some plain silver, some black, and some sri fakey silver carbon there. The gauges were tapped into the head using M14 1.5 threaded adaptors - an idea nicked from Lee and others using this engine as the sensors are the furthest point from the oil pump. for some reason the VX logo on the spark cover came out orange in the photo - but is red :doh:

	Got the new top bracket and the inlet / throttle adaptors from the laser cutter. Charger mount is 6mm steel so nice and strong and the adaptors are 4mm aluminium so nice and light.... Now looking back on this post the 4mm alloy used for the throttle body adaptors was probably too thin and could have done with being double that thickness - oh well live and learn! Had an aluminium adaptor welded up from the flange I had cut and a bit of 63mm pipe to convert from the Dbilas inlet. Will use a flexi hose to connect this to another alloy pipe down to the cooler eventualy (thanks to Adam - Dewismotorsport): Also designed and had the lower support bracket cut to mount to a couple of the air-con mount points. It's an odd shape to work around other pipes etc but should support the end enough and allow to mount a tensioner to adjust the belt. The bracket is in 2 pieces so need to find a mobile welder to weld in place.

	next job being some kind of tensioner to improve belt wrap over the charger. Started with one of these (a VW item) Cut down the mounting point and drilled a 12mm hole into the charger bracket to lock it into place. The roller part is removable so can look into larger 'rollers' to improve wrap and move belt and tension it if needed. Seems like the belt could be very close to the lump in the timing cover for the cam position sensor when running the belt over the engine mount. So may need to run the belt under the engine mount and use another tensioner to direct it. And then got busy with the red wrinkle paint to make all the black / silver / alu. parts look a bit more like one project Mini Bypass Valve turned up. Part Number is:11617568423 Costs around the 60 quid mark. Picture of it: [/size][/FONT]So last couple days been experimenting with the intake to the charger. Didn't want to start doing complicated stuff with custom alloy parts, so used a silicone reducer. A 90mm diamater hose will push right over the intake port and a jubilee clip will then hold in place very tight under the lip. A bit of trimming is needed to shape it around the old PTO plate. As we are sucking through, hope this will be secure enough. Also pulled the PTO plate off the back and the gears there were not mashed up as in some chargers. Going to remove this and replace with a blanking plate. On ebay a plate for this is best part of £50 ........ so off with a template to the laser cutter, having 5 made out of 4mm alloy. Should be here next week. Will the back end need oil though when blanked off? I guess there are no gears to mesh now, but will the oil seals there dry / perish without oil? Need to check that.

	So, after working away from home for a few days - I get back and find these waiting: Some nice PTO blanking plates which fit like so: Much tidier. but still got to work out if we need the oil fill hole for that exposed bearing. So, results of todays few hours of play time Drained down the coolant and removed the original thermostat housing and the pipe work to the rad as this is in the way with the charger brackets. and did a test fit of the brackets into the bay: Top bracket so we are definatley going to need to hack the slam panel about to fit the charger in - or remove and replace with a smaller steel strip and use some aero-catches (which I have) Lower bracket now I knew from measuring this was going to be close to the radiator inlet - but it ended up closer than I thought: Next job is to figure the pipe from thermostat housing to the rad around the lower bracket, allowing for a water temp sender in there. Also appears one fixing point for the bottom bracket on my block the thread is funked. So will need to get that re-tapped if possible asasp. So as usual - progress reveals more problems

	Bought a Teng tap and die set and and re-tapped the frigged m10 hole in my block so I could mount the lower bracket in place as it should be, and then threw the charger on for a test fit: The back half of the body just touches on the fan shroud. The put the slam panel back in place to see what clearance issues we have: Not too bad considering.... Did a measure of the belt around the charger as best as I could with a bit of string and that works out approx 1450mm, so got to find something around that size (or a tad less). Next issues to resolve: Radiator, moving forward is still going to be tight I think so may look into a custom job maybe 3 inches reduced in height. Hope then to run the charger outlet over the rad and under the slam panel down to the intercooler. Work out the charger inlet to clear around the dipstick and look at moving battery out the bay and use that space for air cleaner. Intercooler mounting, need to work out how thats going to mount up and how I can run the pipes back up to the inlet.

	Thought I would chuck up a pic of the low comp pistons so people can see the difference between a std and the Dbilas ones: As I copy this poste across I remember how these are still sat in a box in the garage along with some steel rods, arp bolts and acl bearings..... one day they will be installed.....one day..... Got hold of some DEI heat wrap and stuck that over the back of the charger to shield it from the manifold - although that is also heat wrapped: I'm gonna follow Daves idea and get an alloy rad modified to my spec to lower the core height. (relying on Adams skills again). Once that is done and in the rest of the parts can be planned around it. just as I finish one post, mr delivery man turns up with the victim of the planned cut'n'shut. Sent to Adam @ DewisMotorsport to hack up Skip along a few days and this happened Image from Adam: Rad mods all done Wanted to get the manifold off and done to sort things under the charger (and make getting the internals done later less hassle). Usual nightmare of siezed manifold bolts - but a bit of swearing left me here: after a quick clean up and lick of paint. Also in the process of replacing all the old studs with some nice new coppered stuff. Bit of a ball ache but the 2 nut method seems to work to get the old studs out. Then we will replace the old manifold with a nice new stainless de-cat blanketed in a nice itchy heat wrap Interesting point for those readers concered about weight, the old manifold was 6.5kg and the de-cat 3.7kg.

	Posted: Thu Jan 17, 2013 10:25 am
	Finished bolting up the new manifold to the head and then gave the head a bit of a clean up with the dremal and degreaser to try and remove 7 years of crap The found out I dont have bolts long enough to bolt the manifold to the 1st pipe - so need to order those So then thought I would rip the old rad out: bottom rad brackets are a bit rusty so going to clean those up and paint them before bolting them back in and trying the new alloy rad in place. looking at the pictures I now see how much of my car was held in place with cable ties Finished removing the rust from the brackets and re-painted those today - so chucked the new custom alloy rad on to see the clearances. Think it's enough room now Chucked the charger back on with the o2 sensor removed for now (I said for now - 4 months later its still dangling there) - measured up the slam panel and chopped a chunk out. Got some edging ordered to tidy it up a bit. Then started mocking up the inlet pipework around the dip-stick etc, plan is to remove battery and put the throttle body / maf around there. Then plan some kind of air-intake in the space left by the battery. Bit of a boring update, but had to get the car back together as I need it to work away again rest of this week. So spent the weekend playing around with a universal intercooler to see how that could fit (after blasting some matt black paint over it) Got some brackets from Wickes and re-drilled them and painted those to try and fit, as the MK5 washer bottle is right in the way of the cooler in / out. That's why the VXR coolers have the outlet facing up on the passenger side. Anyway, removed the lower grill and chopped back a bit of bumper with the older Dremel and covered the edge with a bit of edge trim. Thats all for now until the weekend and bolts / silicone pipes arrive to try and fit it. So spent a today working on parts for my revised outlet to go over the custom radiator. Bit of faffing with some cardboard to make a template and then transfer that to some 6mm aluminium. Also made an outlet pipe on a 22deg angle to level it off (as charger is angled to clear exhaust manifold): Just need to get the 2 bits welded together and I think that's it all done to mount the charger and pipe it up to the cooler. Adam welds up some parts and makes a new inlet for the intercooler Well you've got these to fit now

	Went out and fit the intercooler. First time I've had the bumper etc off so a bit of a learning curve as to what was under there Loads of room between crash bar and rad, but even so the bypass valve is quite wide so will have to check that out once I've got the charger mounted back in place. Cooler might be a little out of level, so will need to tweak it by bending the brackets a little . Made up the wiring for the 2 slim fans and got those mounted to the rad: Got the first part of operation battery re-location - so i can test fit the placement and bolt fixings etc and obtained one of these to use on a track day when I ever get done Not sure if it will be needed around the house first if the missus finds out how much this has cost so far Well at this point in time I was hoping to post a vid of either the charger spinning nice or exploding into pieces for the 1st time - but my feck up with the belt length has delayed that - my first measure up was a good 50mm out - how the feck did I manage that So last weeks progress. Made up the pipes from cooler to the inner car wing with what I had available to work with: Drilled the hole in the wing to take the pipes through to the inlet manifold: and connected the bypass pipe from the cooler back to the charger. did a bit of a paint up and clean up while at it. The new outlet plate is with Adam for welding so when thats back a new 90deg silicone bend will join it to the bypass valve. I cunningly positioned the bypass valve right under the hook for the bonnet latch so have had to point the valve down, which makes piping back to the inlet side more hassle - but will do for now. Need then to fit the Dbilas inlet manifold to figure out the alignment of pipes from that to me hole in the wing. Then we are job done in principal for the hardware build side. apart from.... moving the battery running wires for it moving the throttle body and all pipes'n'wires moving the air sensor working out an air intake ...will this ever end

	First run and a belt test of the charger.

mikej32

Post subject: Re: Supercharged MK5 Astra Z18XE Posted: Thu Jan 17, 2013 1:33 pm

Joined: Wed Jan 16, 2013 7:06 pm Posts: 128 Location: North Devon

Cheers Rich! Well after this point in the project (Aug 2012) things took a turn for the worse. I split the cambelt and bent twelve valves or so. My own stupid fault though, playing about with the upper plastic cam cover off, I dropped a washer and didn't give it a 2nd thought. Turns out it went down inside the lower cover and landed perfectly on the bottom cog just ready to jump the belt by a few teeth when I started So one recovery truck later and several 100 £'s to my local garage and that was sorted with a re-built and cleaned head.