Corsa b enigine change

[grease monkey123]

Corsa B 1995 engine change for 1.6 astra multi point injection engine, looking for some pointers changing engines and what i will also need to change.
What type of cam i can put into it (what people think is more better one) any information would be very helpfull, thanks.

 

[obi_waynne]

Hello there and welcome to TorqueCars, good to have you along.

For a cam profile I would stick with a fast road profile around 165-175 duration.

You will need to have the ecu from the donor car. Depending on the base cars engine you may well also need to swap the gearbox. Suspension and brakes will also need to be uprated to cope with the extra engine weight.

What is the base cars engine size?

 

[grease monkey123]

Its a 1.2 8v carb fed

 

[obi_waynne]

Sorry I'm taking so long getting back to you. Things are pretty mental here with the server upgrades I'm planning.

You my friend, have quite a bit of work ahead of you. You will need to uprate the suspension, brakes, steering. Plus the gearbox would need to be changed. (You might get away with a 1.4 gearbox which would have a closer ratio) but ideally you want a 1.6 gearbox.

Also get the wiring loom and ecu from the donor car. It is usually best to buy a whole car, strip it and then sell on the interior and other bits you don't need and this will often cover a lot of the cost of the parts in the first place.

 

[pikey motorsports]

to be honest with you the 1.6 mpi from an astra isnt all that great. go old skool with a 1.6 8v from a nova gte, or just redtop it. you'll spend a fortune on the 1.6 to get any kind of decent power out of it, whereas a redtop can be bought, rebuilt and fitted for less than 600quid and will come with 155bhp straight out the box.

 

[scoop]

Any MPI head is better than the SPi head,due to better shape and position of the inlet ports, look for SE engine codes. all of the vauxhall small block family of engines will slide in nicely, wouldn't worry about cam upgrades unless your going to do something with the rest of the motor, exhaust,mapping,etc,etc.
Think the rebuild costs of an XE (redtop) will be substantially more than £500 but yes 150 + BHP easily obtained with one of these (got one, priced it now decided to sell it)
Easy brake upgrade is to fit Astra GTE calipers / discs then install a decent set of pads.

Gearbox will defo need to be changed, buy a donor engine with box, linkage should be ok as long as yours is 5 speed, believe it or not the 4 speed gear lever is slightly different to the 5 speed.
suspension get the engine mods done then decide if it needs stiffening or not

 

[pikey motorsports]

doing the work yourself there is absolutely no reason why a rebuild would be anywhere near that expensive.
if you did redtop the suspension would be a neccessity as makes front top heavy. stiffer springs/shocks, ARB, strut brace (you'll need to run an ecotec induction pipe or powercap instead of sfi airbox due to clearance issues) and as said you'll defo want the astra gte brakes

 

[scoop]

If you start putting cams into a redtop you can kiss goodbye to 300 immediately, couple that with a decent pair of vernier pulleys to sort out the cam timing and theres another 100. with buying a lump to use as a base and by the time youve bought gaskets and everything else 500 looks a bit skinny in my opinion.
putting a stock as bought xe in will be cheaper, so long as you know what your buying, look for coscast head usually found on early GTE astra, later gm heads had porosity issues.
I bow to your superior knowledge on the power cap stuff, I have never played with any of that stuff, prefer to stick to twin webbers and a dizzy.
As for suspension you are right about the weight of a redtop, the nice thing about the Corsa is with a smaller lump it remains a really well balanced car.

 

[pikey motorsports]

i wasnt suggesting cams or any other kind of upgrades to the redtop, just a rebuild in terms of gaskets,seals,o rings, etc etc.
a redtop lump and f20 box can be had for anywhere between 180-300 quid, and id reckon on about £150 for a full rebuild kit...
a standard corsa weighs somewhere around the 1100kg mark, so 155bhp = roughly 150bhp per tonne. thats more than enough in a corsa believe me!
my old astra gte weighed in at 998kg kerb weight and was quick enough on acceleration to surprise a lot of newer more powerful cars thanks to the power to weight ratio.
stripping the corsa out (properly, not just removing the rear bench!) should get you down to around the 900kg mark, which would make you very very happy!

 

[grease monkey123]

Thanks for all the Info, i think the redtop would be a better idea cheers. =]

 

[pikey motorsports]

just had a thought, you'll need the 2.0 fuel pump and fuel lines too (just take from donor car). and as its a 1.2 i believe you may have to weld in new engine mount points. im not 100% sure, its either the 1.0 or 1.2, but that in itself is a piece of cake, just cut em out of a scrap 1.4/1.6 etc and weld em into yours. make sure you add extra strengthening around them though, as engine mounts are the last thing you want to snap while your doing 70mph round a bend!if you need any more info just ask