Right then, i've got a little explaining to do! :roll:
As many of you will know, at the end of last year, my car went into Courtenay Sport for the developement of tuning the 2.4 inlet manifold and 2.4 TB to the z22se engine. It has been an interesting developement program and has certainly produced some challenges along the way. But Jon & the chaps have been working on this on a long term basis as other work obviously flows thru' the workshop and they have lots of customers. There have been many hours of work & frustration from the chaps at Courtenay and a lot of the members on this site have been pulling there hair out over the 2.4 TB issue and as we all know there is still no hard and fast way of overcoming the problem just yet.
I would firstly like to thank Jon, Sarah, Mark Watts, Mark Ashford, workshop Mark and David (Percy) for all their efforts in seeing the developement along the way and also organizing the Group Buy along with our very own Neil (Vocky). Their help and resolve on this have been second to none.
Secondly............
As you also may have noticed, around about 3 weeks ago, Jon mentioned in a 2.4 TB thread that he had lost his test bed to the workshop. This was my fault.
When I went to Courtenay back in December I was introduced to Mark Watts' supercharged Astra. He took me for a run out in it and all of you that went in it on the RR Day back in March will understand what I say when I tell you that its unbelievably quick. Very smooth power delivery with a big dose of torque everywhere in the rev range. On my return home, I was in turmoil about if I should ever choose to SC the Vectra. This feeling lasted several weeks but I fought it and put it to the back of my mind. On my return to Courtenay in March, those feelings and anxieties resurfaced and again on my return I was pulling my hair out over what to do, so much so that I was being a little 'too quiet' as the wife pointed out. She thought something had happened whilst I was away at Courtenay. I confessed my problem to her and she gave me a solution............'Do it then!'
I thought about it for a day and then plucked up the courage to call Jon and ask him for a price on converting my car to the same level spec as Mark Watts with the re-routing of the wiring loom to accomadate a battery on the opposite side of the engine bay. After a few hours, Jon called me back and gave me a price for the conversion. I slept on it over night and was madly writing down figures before I went to bed to see how I could raise the cash for the conversion.
I worked out that if I worked 7 days per week from 6am - 5pm (Minimum) Mon-Thurs, 6am-4pm Friday and then 6am-4pm Sat & Sun, I could achieve the goal. This would be over about 8 weeks. The following morning I called Jon and the deposit was paid. Over that 8 week period I had 3 days off. 2 at Easter and 1 day on April 14th when the conversion was started.
Consequently, the 2.4 TB testing on my car stopped on April 14th. You will probably notice if you look back thru' the posts, Vocky took over testing from home.
So that's about it really upto now. The car is now complete and is producing a handsome power figure of 260bhp and 230 lbs torque.
The car itself drives perfectly. Under normal driving its as well mannered as a standard spec car, but if you venture into boost then the car is a whole different animal. I drove home from Courtenay on Friday night with a fixed grin on my face. Power is delivered from the moment you start till the moment you change gear and then another dose of power pushes you in the back thrusting you along the road. The unmistakable whine of the charger gets all your senses tingling too. After Jon took me out for a run, he handed me the keys and told me to go and have a play. I went out for about 20 minutes and on my return I felt giddy and had to have a few cups of water and a sit down, it was a lot to take in. The car is fantastic. Techieboy (Matt) was also at Courtenay having a long range fuel tank fitted to his vx220. After i'd had chance to calm down, I took him out for a run in it too. I think he was impressed but i'll let him comment on that! ;-)
After all the paperwork was complete, I bid Sarah and Jon farewell and set off to meet up with Timmee. I got to have a go in the lesser spotted Vectra ST200. What a car! First time i've driven a V6 Vectra. (Thanks for that mate!) Handled like a dream and the steering felt very precise. We took a lap around his personal test track and I was well impressed. It sounds amazing! On return back to his house, we went back out in mine. I think the grin on his face said it all within the first 200 yards!
I eventually set off home at 8pm and it was joy all the way home. I arrived back on my drive at 12:15am this morning. Unloaded the boot of lots of parts, brandnew American altenator and spare belt, old inlet manifold, complete SRi suspension and my Hoffmann SS downpipe with 200 cell cat. I put it all in the garage and then put the car away. Got into bed at about 12:45am. Then back up for work at 5:15am. Took the car to work but went the long way round today! pmsl..
I asked Courtenay to keep this SC conversion quiet as I wanted it to be a bit of a suprise. There were a couple of individuals in the know as some of them visit or visited Courtenay whilst the work was being carried out. But other than that it was a bit of a black out.
The car has the american pulley system setup including double sided ribbed belt, ZZP Modular 3.1 drive pulley and also a new american aircon compressor. There is a rather large front mounted chargecooler designed by Jon and the boys and produced by Pro Alloy.
Finally........it just remains for me to say a massive thank you again to Courtenay Sport for ALL the work that has been carried out on my car over the years and with the recent developement program of the 2.4 inlet & TB. Also thank you to Timmee for keeping me sane thru' the last few weeks and encouraging me to have the conversion done, Vocky for his help in conjunction with Courtenay on the 2.4 developement and Matt Worthington and also Matt (Techieboy).
There are a lot of pictures below at different stages of the conversion, thanks to Jon, Mark and Timmee for providing me with the update pics!
Enjoy chaps!! thumbup
