Hi All
Got a bit of a passion for big Vauxhalls although the last decent car they made in RWD format was in 1993 anyway I've been running a Opel Monza GSE in Std set up as a track day car/weekend car for years and it badly needed more power and a birthday........
Just thought I'd introduce myself and stick a few pictures up of the GSE
Monza GSE B580 UPR
1985 5 - Speed manual with ABS
Brief history and a few photos
The day I collected it – yep I drove nearly 400 mile round trip to collect a free dead Monza – one point to note is that at this point I had already jet washed the car down on the trailer removing a lot of green mould…….
Current Mileage - In excess of 200,000 miles - Original Engine, Gearbox and Diff (on it's second clutch)
Okay just a bit of history about the car
I am the second owner - "purchased" the car November 2000 (more about that later). The Previous Owner - David Sanders - was a "bahnstormer" club member bought it in Germany while serving in the forces. This is why the windows are etched with BPU 57B (this is the forces plate allocated to the car) - he brought the car back to the UK when he left the force and had it registered here. He used it for a couple of years comuting 120 miles a day but then he got a job in the far east so put her into storage. The bill for putting her back on the road when he retuned 4 years later was £2714.65. The storage conditions apparently hadn't been ideal! He then used her again every day for a year putting about 30K on her clock making a total of 180K before he was allocated a company car. His intention was to use her as a weekend car but due to lack of time as a result of work commitments and a rapidly expanding family she lay dormant outside his garage generally getting in the way and growing copius quantites of mould inside and out. David contacted me to ask if I knew anyone interested in the car - it had to go and go soon as he knew if it wasn't worked on it would never be recoverable and after some long conversations about condition and I was hooked - I borrowed an EX AA Transporter and made the long journey from Norfolk to Southampton to collect the car - no cash exchanged hands the purchase price of the car was the cost of Diesel to collect £87.67 to be precise.
So what was it like when I got it home - All four brakes seized as well as the handbrake - winching the car onto the transporter left long black lines from the driveway to the cab. The engine hadn't been run for over a year. It was covered in green mould due to the shaded nature of its parked position. The interior didn't look much better and absolutely nothing electrical worked even with a brand new battery. There were other faults found during the course of getting her back on the road but bottom line was it took me a whole month to get the engine running and over a year before she passed an MOT. The intention was to use her as an additional summer car and maybe finish of a few of the odd jobs that needed doing like the mechanical odometer on the digital instrumentation pack didn't work. (well it racked up a mile or so in a months worth of use and thats it)
So she was finally on the road and expenditure amounted to just over £1000 - battery, radiator, water pump, tyres, brake pads, discs, handbrake shoes, header tank, hoses, headlights, indicators, body parts, serviced items and a not unreasonable ammount of welding.
The same week she passed the MOT another "bahnstormer" club member locally had a major problem with the engine on his Carlton GSi and due to a financial commitment elsewhere he could not afford to repair the engine so I loaned him the GSE - FOR 6 MONTHS - I saw it everyday tho..... He commuted 60 miles a day 5 days a week which would have put 7000 miles on the odometer if it worked!!!! I got it back and continued to put miles on the car for 2 years without more than 50 being recorded on the dash (i'd bought another intrumentation unit but that had the same fault!!! Then amazingly enough the odometer started working and seems to be happily racking up the miles now.
I use her for everyday commuting - track days - car shows and occasionally because the hatch back arrangement is so handy when the seats are folded flat carrying awkward or large items.
It actually became less daily use and more track day/show (please note not concours type shows more gatherings/curse word-ups)
It's last run out was a track session at Trax2005 and as well as getting ragged stupid on the track it had to suffer a run on the mobile dyno as a before (after will be a long time later) benchmark
Dyno run video footage if anyone is interested
Run up to speed
www.lotuscarlton.co.uk/DSCF2123.WMV
Power run (this exhaust is a tad loud but to me sound perfect even the lass running the computer put her finger in her ears)
www.lotuscarlton.co.uk/DSCF2124.WMV
It was the last time as a 12V just to see how down on power she was and 163 bhp from something thats done over 200,000 miles most of them not exactly sympathetic either!!! Down from the Manufactures figures of 180 bhp but still respectable!!!
The track side pics were good
So in November 2005 I took it off the road and started work on and heart transplant and a general refurbishment
First take a second hand 24V lump and rebuild it - add salt and pepper tuning to taste
Had a few bits powder coated (bear in mind here I want this engine (24V) to sit in a monza and look like it was made to be there so bright silver and red it isn't gonna be)
I might polish a few bits but black is back
24V sump (black - it might be alloy but it's black now) shot blasted and powder coated
Exhaust manifolds (shot blasted and Sperex'd - 1250 deg C)
Inlet manifold - (normally silver it might be alloy but it's black now) shot blasted and powder coated
Had a load of other ancilaries done (all shot blasted and powder coated - err black!!!
Fuel rail and cover plate (yes it's an opel one)
Rocker cover and spark plug cover plate - normally silver and red respectively - now black and black.... don't worry bit of detailing will brighten it up
Like I said a bit of detailing can work well
Bores honed and ready for the pistons
Block painted silver (I know it's not black - I did one before black and you couldn't see an oil leak)
Pistons All balanced up to within 0.2g (pre polished)
1-3
4-6
Here’s where they remove material to balance them
1-3
4-6
Rods and crank have been blanced too
And the flywheel (although that’s because it's been made from scratch EN24T Billet steel)
Pistons installed before the crank
Crank installed and all the big ends closed down
Both ends of the con rods had to have a bit of shaving to balance them up - one had nothing removed all the others needed plenty taken off to get down to the same weight
So once the bottom end was completely built
Chains fitted
Front timing cover and water pump in
Front pulley on - remind me to tighten the bolt!!!
Sump on (can hardly see it cos it's black!!)
Valve throats opened out to maximum & seats cut to 0.5mm Inlets and 1.0mm Exhaust
Inlet Ports opened and blended
Modified alternator Bracket and tensioner fitted belt!!!)
(Reason is to reduce the width of the engine/alternator so I don't have to cut the chassis rail to give the required clearance - this set up is 20 mm narrower than std)
Errr... Spot whats been removed..... Compression ratio would have been too high with the combustion chamber left as it was with both block and head receiving a shave
Head rebuild area - all parts prepped and ready
Had to shorten some 24v flywheel bolts so rather than DIY with a hacksaw I got an expert to do it!!
All back together, cams in and ready to rock and roll
Exhaust manifold heat shield - well I painted it!!
Black and silver - does it rock!!!
Old engine in
coming out
out
Yep defo out
Got a bit of a passion for big Vauxhalls although the last decent car they made in RWD format was in 1993 anyway I've been running a Opel Monza GSE in Std set up as a track day car/weekend car for years and it badly needed more power and a birthday........
Just thought I'd introduce myself and stick a few pictures up of the GSE
Monza GSE B580 UPR
1985 5 - Speed manual with ABS
Brief history and a few photos
The day I collected it – yep I drove nearly 400 mile round trip to collect a free dead Monza – one point to note is that at this point I had already jet washed the car down on the trailer removing a lot of green mould…….
Current Mileage - In excess of 200,000 miles - Original Engine, Gearbox and Diff (on it's second clutch)
Okay just a bit of history about the car
I am the second owner - "purchased" the car November 2000 (more about that later). The Previous Owner - David Sanders - was a "bahnstormer" club member bought it in Germany while serving in the forces. This is why the windows are etched with BPU 57B (this is the forces plate allocated to the car) - he brought the car back to the UK when he left the force and had it registered here. He used it for a couple of years comuting 120 miles a day but then he got a job in the far east so put her into storage. The bill for putting her back on the road when he retuned 4 years later was £2714.65. The storage conditions apparently hadn't been ideal! He then used her again every day for a year putting about 30K on her clock making a total of 180K before he was allocated a company car. His intention was to use her as a weekend car but due to lack of time as a result of work commitments and a rapidly expanding family she lay dormant outside his garage generally getting in the way and growing copius quantites of mould inside and out. David contacted me to ask if I knew anyone interested in the car - it had to go and go soon as he knew if it wasn't worked on it would never be recoverable and after some long conversations about condition and I was hooked - I borrowed an EX AA Transporter and made the long journey from Norfolk to Southampton to collect the car - no cash exchanged hands the purchase price of the car was the cost of Diesel to collect £87.67 to be precise.
So what was it like when I got it home - All four brakes seized as well as the handbrake - winching the car onto the transporter left long black lines from the driveway to the cab. The engine hadn't been run for over a year. It was covered in green mould due to the shaded nature of its parked position. The interior didn't look much better and absolutely nothing electrical worked even with a brand new battery. There were other faults found during the course of getting her back on the road but bottom line was it took me a whole month to get the engine running and over a year before she passed an MOT. The intention was to use her as an additional summer car and maybe finish of a few of the odd jobs that needed doing like the mechanical odometer on the digital instrumentation pack didn't work. (well it racked up a mile or so in a months worth of use and thats it)
So she was finally on the road and expenditure amounted to just over £1000 - battery, radiator, water pump, tyres, brake pads, discs, handbrake shoes, header tank, hoses, headlights, indicators, body parts, serviced items and a not unreasonable ammount of welding.
The same week she passed the MOT another "bahnstormer" club member locally had a major problem with the engine on his Carlton GSi and due to a financial commitment elsewhere he could not afford to repair the engine so I loaned him the GSE - FOR 6 MONTHS - I saw it everyday tho..... He commuted 60 miles a day 5 days a week which would have put 7000 miles on the odometer if it worked!!!! I got it back and continued to put miles on the car for 2 years without more than 50 being recorded on the dash (i'd bought another intrumentation unit but that had the same fault!!! Then amazingly enough the odometer started working and seems to be happily racking up the miles now.
I use her for everyday commuting - track days - car shows and occasionally because the hatch back arrangement is so handy when the seats are folded flat carrying awkward or large items.
It actually became less daily use and more track day/show (please note not concours type shows more gatherings/curse word-ups)
It's last run out was a track session at Trax2005 and as well as getting ragged stupid on the track it had to suffer a run on the mobile dyno as a before (after will be a long time later) benchmark
Dyno run video footage if anyone is interested
Run up to speed
www.lotuscarlton.co.uk/DSCF2123.WMV
Power run (this exhaust is a tad loud but to me sound perfect even the lass running the computer put her finger in her ears)
www.lotuscarlton.co.uk/DSCF2124.WMV
It was the last time as a 12V just to see how down on power she was and 163 bhp from something thats done over 200,000 miles most of them not exactly sympathetic either!!! Down from the Manufactures figures of 180 bhp but still respectable!!!
The track side pics were good
So in November 2005 I took it off the road and started work on and heart transplant and a general refurbishment
First take a second hand 24V lump and rebuild it - add salt and pepper tuning to taste
Had a few bits powder coated (bear in mind here I want this engine (24V) to sit in a monza and look like it was made to be there so bright silver and red it isn't gonna be)
I might polish a few bits but black is back
24V sump (black - it might be alloy but it's black now) shot blasted and powder coated
Exhaust manifolds (shot blasted and Sperex'd - 1250 deg C)
Inlet manifold - (normally silver it might be alloy but it's black now) shot blasted and powder coated
Had a load of other ancilaries done (all shot blasted and powder coated - err black!!!
Fuel rail and cover plate (yes it's an opel one)
Rocker cover and spark plug cover plate - normally silver and red respectively - now black and black.... don't worry bit of detailing will brighten it up
Like I said a bit of detailing can work well
Bores honed and ready for the pistons
Block painted silver (I know it's not black - I did one before black and you couldn't see an oil leak)
Pistons All balanced up to within 0.2g (pre polished)
1-3
4-6
Here’s where they remove material to balance them
1-3
4-6
Rods and crank have been blanced too
And the flywheel (although that’s because it's been made from scratch EN24T Billet steel)
Pistons installed before the crank
Crank installed and all the big ends closed down
Both ends of the con rods had to have a bit of shaving to balance them up - one had nothing removed all the others needed plenty taken off to get down to the same weight
So once the bottom end was completely built
Chains fitted
Front timing cover and water pump in
Front pulley on - remind me to tighten the bolt!!!
Sump on (can hardly see it cos it's black!!)
Valve throats opened out to maximum & seats cut to 0.5mm Inlets and 1.0mm Exhaust
Inlet Ports opened and blended
Modified alternator Bracket and tensioner fitted belt!!!)
(Reason is to reduce the width of the engine/alternator so I don't have to cut the chassis rail to give the required clearance - this set up is 20 mm narrower than std)
Errr... Spot whats been removed..... Compression ratio would have been too high with the combustion chamber left as it was with both block and head receiving a shave
Head rebuild area - all parts prepped and ready
Had to shorten some 24v flywheel bolts so rather than DIY with a hacksaw I got an expert to do it!!
All back together, cams in and ready to rock and roll
Exhaust manifold heat shield - well I painted it!!
Black and silver - does it rock!!!
Old engine in
coming out
out
Yep defo out