Here's my project thread from another site, to bring people up to speed on my Coupe...

As a select few know, I bought an Astra Coupe 2.2 Edition 100, it had come into my dad's work as a non runner (guess why :face::face🙂 having just had about £500 spent getting it through it's MOT the week before. It was a bit of an impulse purchase but it looked good and that was plenty good enough for me!
So, I got it down to my work (the unit was a bit full :eek🙂 and left it....

The plans at the moment are to get it running, then spend a bit time on getting it very shiny, possibly lower, burn the shitty grille and just use it as a bit summer bling before punting it on.

Now, onto why it doesn't run....

So I pulled the head off it.....

Doesn't seem to be any piston damage which is nice, but seems to be quite a lot of carbon which isn't nice.

Quite a few valves damaged, think I'll just be replacing them unless I can get a good head for cheapness but valves are cheap enough anyway.

That's where I am up to now, just need to get the parts ordered and hopefully get the car ready for Billing!

It lives!

Got the head rebuilt last night and got the engine built and timed today. It's the first timing chain I've done but it was actually fairly easy once I'd called up the Autodata sheets and found a very useful link on z22se.co.uk. It did take quite a while to start, I'd packed everything up and was just about to leave when I tried it the final time but it fired up, needed a bit throttle though.
It sounds good when it's held at about 800rpm all the way to high in the rev range but idles lumpy and will die sometimes. I'm hoping it's a combination of lying for a couple of months, needing a service, the battery totally goosed and the gay universal air filter. The small road test at work showed that it does drive nicely though and pulls well though.

No pics I'm afraid, seems I get more done when the phone is left in the pocket!

Well the great success was short lived, the idling issues were solved after a service and I was about to start getting the thing machine polished, glazed and waxed in time for Billing only for it to get a bit rattly, so off to the unit to see what the score was.

Cam cover off and find this on the exhaust cam.....

The far away screw has snapped inside the head and the nearest one was working itself loose. The head's a bit goosed by the looks of things as is the cam cap. From what it looks like the cam has been bent from the timing chain going.

Picking up another engine on Monday that the big end's away in, so will get the head off that and try again! Meanwhile Ubu needs to become shiny for her visit to Billing......

More to follow!