Astra GTE 16V REBUILD

That looks ace

Cheers bstardchild. It’s come a long way.

delorean problems

A little while ago I managed to get a quick drive in my old Astra. It was good to drive it after all those years. I only took it down the local bypass but it felt pretty quick. The Quaife gearbox is immense. With the low final drive ratio you fly up through the gears. It’s not been set up at all geometry wise but it felt stable enough. It definitely put a big grin on my face and Jones Junior (the younger’s) too, as he was navigating.

So what’s been done to it since the MOT? Well not a lot until this week. It has now got a plumbed in fire extinguisher fitted and a hand held one also. A FIA cut off switch has also gone in. A spare wheel tie down strap, door pulls etc and is now ready to be inspected for its MSUK log book so it can go stage rallying.















The plan is that he has entered a stage rally at Brawdy Military Base in Pembrokeshire on July 4th. But there are 2 problems. The first is that the navigator he is using is a complete novice and has never read pace notes in his life. He also gets travel sick very easily-sometimes even when he is driving himself, so he’s going to be completely useless (it’s me).

The second problem is that we’re currently 10th reserve. So for us to even get a run, 10 people have to drop out. I doubt this will happen as surly everybody’s cars must be fuelled and ready to go as there’s been no rallying in Wales for over a year.

If it comes off, great. If not, I’ll just have to wait until the next opportunity to be sick in my nice new crash helmet.

Throttle bodies and a reversed head would help with the BHP deficiency,pleased to see it being used in anger after all the time invested in it.Have a good one:)

Yarp, no throttle bodies homologated until mk3 astra "kit car" (F2)

The most powerful group A gte back in period was malcolm Wilson Manx spec engine, 230bhp but reportedly used to crack the block.

(again these are not inherent issues with the engine itself, just issues with making 230bhp with homologated components)

After a particularly poor nights sleep, the alarm sounded at 04:15. I’d been popping travel sickness tablets that I bough back in 2007 for the previous couple of days so rammed a couple more in. It was dry and by 04:30 I was on my way over to my brothers house to pick him up as he was servicing for us and my younger brother in his Chevette. I realised at my brothers I’d forgotten my coat so dashed home to get it. We arrived at Brawdy which is an RAF base near St David’s at about 06:30 and started setting up.

The cars had been taken down the day before and had already gone through scrutineering and signing on was done electronically. So up went the gazebo and down came the torrential rain. This was bad in that we would get wet, but good in that it would put us at less of a disadvantage against the BDA Escorts. Tires were changed to wets on the front and softs on the rear.












So with the car ready and all spanner checked before coming, I downed a couple more travel sickness tablets and jumped in the nav seat. Having never navigated before and knowing I suffer from really bad motion sickness, I was a bit nervous. With the helmet, Hans, harnesses and the bucket seats, it’s virtually impossible to see anything other than what’s ahead.

So up to the startline and the timing gear starts counting from 30seconds . The fastest 25 seconds of my life passed and it was 5,4,3,2,1 GO. I’d told Sean to drive off the line to help stop drive shaft breakages. He did and then we started accelerating round the first sweeping right hander followed by a long straight down to a 90 left. The gps says we were doing 90mph before Sean braked for the corner. The trouble was Sean decided to brake later than I have ever seen anyone brake. Ever. But brake it did with the car stopping on a penny. Sean reports that the brakes are brilliant and the tires are giving good grip. Good to know Sean, good to know! I think I would have taken that first 90 with a bit of caution to see how everything felt. Not Sean, it was total commitment from the off. If he’d rallied the car for years and knew exactly what it was going to do, I’d have felt fine. With his only seat time being a couple of car shows and a trip to McDonalds, I was pooping myself. We had a couple of minor indiscretions but made back to service in one piece.

I did my best calling the corners looking at the map and looking where we were going. I didn’t feel sick which was a bonus but I did curse word myself at virtually every corner as I don’t think we went around any of them with the car pointing in the right direction.

Stage 2 was much the same with the car arriving back in one piece. We were 3rd in class.

Stage 3 was much the same. Starting to feel a bit iffy towards the end- more tablets. I think this was when we changed the front tires from wets to mediums as the wets were dead. The wing mirror knocked off on a bush but clipped back on.

Stage 4 we had a bit of an incident on the first 90 left. We entered it too quickly (all the other times were too quick also, but this was even too quickerer ) and hit a couple of tractor tires sideways not hard but it did break the front bumper.









We drove off with minimal time lost, but then the alternator threw its belt. This meant the power steering also stopped playing and left us with 2 loops - over 12 minutes of driving- with the car totally undriveable. Did this slow Sean down? Not really. He fort it all the way and we did loose nearly a minute, but considering it was pulling all over the place with the LSD and the torque steer, he did well.

Back in service the belt was replaced. One of the brackets was loose and lost a bolt or two. These were replaced and loctited in. A spanner check revealed one of the rose joints on the front wish bones was also loose so this was loctited also.

Stage 5 was mental. The car was darting everywhere on the faster runway sections. I said to Sean that there was something mechanical wrong but when it came for breaking for a hairpin and the car kept going it was obvious it was just so slippery (others commented on this also). We entered the hairpin backwards and exited over the grass but no major time was lost. I guess it was just aqua planing. At one point I couldn’t work out where we were and Sean pointed it out on the map without taking his eyes off the road. Was I even a necessary part of this outfit? With only the wing mirror knocked off again (glass broke this time) on a bale we arrived back at service.

A spanner check revealed that the 3 bolts holding the back of the front wishbones to the shell were now loose so these were loctited in too. I’m convinced the cause of all this loosening was Sean changing down and revving the engine to twelvty thousand rpm at every corner.

Stage 6 was completely different. The rain had stopped and there was a dry line around a lot of the track. No major incidents only knocking the wing mirror off again on the same bale as last. To show us how much slower our car was compared to the BDA Escorts, on a fast long left hander the car that won our class passed us as if we were standing still when we were on the dry line and he was out in the slop. But this was the best stage for me I was even telling Sean to pin it rather than shouting for him to slow down like on all the other stages.

We arrived back in service and had finished 3rd in class and 26th overall. My brother (Sean’s father) had 1st in class and 18th over all.















It was a fantastic result for the car after its 16 year retirement and “small” rebuild. I think around the right stuff anyone would have struggled to keep up as the car was nimble and Sean was brain dead. Where it struggled was the runways. The car although accelerating quickly was really out gunned by the more powerful cars.

It was also a fantastic result for Sean for first time out in the car and having a pretty useless navigator. I did thoroughly curse word myself. I know a lot of swear words and I’m sure I ran out of them whilst braking into most of those corners. But I also thoroughly enjoyed myself. It was good fun and good to be back in a car that I used race all those years ago.

Would I do it again? Probably not. The feeling I’ll, even just slightly, is not something I like. And not being very good at navigating puts you off a bit as you don’t want to curse word up and be the cause of someone smashing their car up.

Sean has put a video of stage 6 on YouTube if you want to watch it. Search for Sean Jones Brawdy. I don’t know how to add a link but If someone else can add one, that would be fantastic 👍

Thanks GSP. The suspension is already up to the works spec but has not been dialled. It is sitting a couple of inches higher than other Astras but that’s how he likes it. I don’t think he intends to do much development on this, or if he’ll even keep it as he wants to build an MX5 with a Rover V8 to rally instead.

Thanks Hairdoo. There’s more to come if he spends more money! Which I doubt he will.