My new motor.

Well, Unfortunately the Calibra is gone :( But on the flip side, i've now gt a family car I'm very happy with and quite surprised I got the deal to be fair. Payed £700 for the Calibra back in October last year, I've run the tax and MOT out and swapped it for this Vectra which was listed for £1500. Plus I got £200 on top as well which I was really surprised to be offered. But at the end of the day, an enthusiast bought it and he said he'll pay what he thinks it's truly worth. So deal done :):):)

Any who, shes a 2001 Y reg 2.6 Vectra SRi. Not 100% of the name of the colour yet lol but I really like it. Absolutely mint interior with no mark at all on the half leather. 96,000 miles with only 2 owners before me (last one had it 7 years). Came with 12 months MOT and 6 months tax was payed for and confirmed in the post by DVLA :) All rose bushes have been done along with a full new exhaust system, under seal, fuel and brakes lines and now she wants for absolutely nothing.

The 2.6 engine is the first of this kind I've had, even though it's my 4th V6. The torque is really surprising compared to the 2.5 GSi engine or even my recent 3.0. Kicks with quite a punch for a standard car.

The only thing I can say about it is that it's missing the black splitter from the front but I want to either put on a GSi bumper or a Laguna or SEAT splitter. Oh and it has a wide mouth bumper as standard as well. No mods what so ever but I still have my Miltek downpipes so might get them fitted along with a sports cat and de-centre section, lower it by 40mm and stick some nice Vauxhall 17's on it. Plans for the engine are quite simple. Set of 4 G cams from a 3.0 V6 (the GSI's only have 2 G cams) a nice 4 bar FPR, fuel pump and a remap. That little lot should see a minimum of 200-210bhp


Pics:-
This is what it looked like when I got it:

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Full treatment of meguiars clay kit followed by meguiars 3 stage system and now looks like so:

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Quick shot of the interior:
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I think it's fairly safe to say I came out on top once again lol. What ya reckon then peeps?
 
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nice mate, was looking at these on ebay, decent ones go from 800 +.
was thinking bout getting one then found my new beut. whats the ride like in these ?
my dad had a 1.8 sri vectra and it had a bone shattering ride at times on rough roads ?
but all in all a good looker.
 
The 2.6 Sri on 2001 plates are quite a bit more expensive. There was a 51 plate (later half of 2001) 1.8 SRi in the same colour that sold for £1900 so I knew mine was in the right price area, but the fact I got it for a £700 Calibra plus money my way means I could sell it cheap for £1000 and be well in pocket or sell for what it's worth and double my money:)

The 51 plate Vectra GSi he had was beautiful, but was £2900 and no way could I afford it with the second baby on the way. When I was searching for the car, most of the ones that were under £1000 were high milers, knackered bushes, rust which can be quite common if not looked after (mine hasn't a single blemish) so again I knew mine was priced quite sensibly.
 
charger69 said:
nice car, beautiful.
looks like it is saying:
tune me up!
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Well from my track record.... :rolleyes: hehe!

Thing's i'm gonna do will still make it look good, but also in keeping with Vauxhall. Irmscher styling i.e. gsi bumper. Tuning is easy with Vauxhall V6's if you know what you are doing and also can be very cheap for the most part. 17" GSi wheels or Irmscher wheels, plus suspension is first of the list, maybe some polyurethane bushes all round.
 
Theres a few nice things about the 2.6 V6.

- All 2.6 V6 engines are the same i.e. the sri is the same power as the 2.6 GSi.
- 178bhp and 202lb of torque as standard instead of 169bhp and 173lb of torque.
- 3.0 cams as standard.
- 308mm brakes instead of 288mm
- and titatium coloured dash was another standard thing.
- wide mouth grill on the front bumper.
- oh yeh and 100cc lmao!!

Theres a couple of other litte extras here and there. Great fun to drive. Considering they are family car they handle pretty well for standard.
 
lol, I'm not a fan of vectras to be fair, but that looks nice, especially the interior, it's brand new lol,

I think they upped the capacity from emission regs or something, but obviously you get more benefits than that, the torque hike in particular is impressive,

I would be tempted by an Eaton or Rotrex blower........ ;)
 
Neh mate, if i charge it it, it would be rotex or onr of Courtenay or Regals own chargers. I have already sourced 3 chargers from other vehicles that can be used with a bit of custom piping so to keep the costs right down. The best so far is a Merc SLK kompressor (german for supercharged) which can be mounted with just enough clearence. I would also cheat to allow myself to do it 2 stages. 1st would be, fit the charger with a lower pressure cog fitted so I can fit it with a max pressure of 9psi on standard internals and get around 240-250bhp. Then gather all things like uprated pistons, or cheat again and get a triple layer head gaskets and lower the compression that way. Both work well according to courtenay aslong as you dont want to go over 320bhp, then major work is needed for water ways, oil piping etc.
 
BAD63R said:
Theres a few nice things about the 2.6 V6.

- All 2.6 V6 engines are the same i.e. the sri is the same power as the 2.6 GSi.
- 178bhp and 202lb of torque as standard instead of 169bhp and 173lb of torque.
- 3.0 cams as standard.
- 308mm brakes instead of 288mm
- and titatium coloured dash was another standard thing.
- wide mouth grill on the front bumper.
- oh yeh and 100cc lmao!!

Theres a couple of other litte extras here and there. Great fun to drive. Considering they are family car they handle pretty well for standard.
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No they're not mate, the 2.6Sri was still 169bhp (170ps), but it had 184.4lbft of torque, a useful bit more than the 173lbft of the 2.5Sri. t

The 2.6Gsi did have 178bhp aye, and 200lbft, it was almost as fast as the old 2.5Gsi despite being 10bhp down, cos of the extra torque - the old 2.5Gsi only had around 184lbft too.

But aye, the mods you suggest should net you 200+bhp easy. One thing I would advise tho is sorting out the breathing too, get a BMC CDA on there, transforms the engine, lets it rev more freely.

2.6 engine is electronic throttle too, not cable.

I had a 2.6Sri, X-reg, from new as a company car, I did 50k in it without any problems at all, and it shifted pretty well. A little bit understeery aye but nowhere near as bad as that tosser Clarkson made it out to be. The V6 made a very nice noise. I stuck a BMC CDA on it (naughty with it being a company car), and enjoyed driving it a lot.
 
He he, should have mentioned the receipt (of which i'll get a picture of but it seems this was done at Vauxhall at the Greenhous Group) in the history for the GSI ecu (not sure what difference these are as I thought the ecu was the same but it has one lol) and 2 x A cams instead of the 2 x E cams (I know the inlet cams are 3.0 as standard). Isn't that the exact same set-up as the GSi?

Cheers for the advice the Hugguy ;) As this is my first 2.6 V6 and the fact i've never really took notice until now, i'm getting my correct info together on them now.

So from what you are saying then, the set-up I have isn't standard on the SRi but GSi's instead?

And also, which model of CDA do you recommend as I noticed there's more than one. I have put my sealed cone filter on it at the moment just to hear the sound but managed to tuck it down behind the light away from the engine and it works really good, well to be honest, it's the best response from a cone filter i've had on any car that is standard. All the others I tried this one before sorting intake and exhaust, just choked the engines. Must admit, very impressed with the 2.6 so far. Just love the torque hehe.
 
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BAD63R said:
Well from my track record.... :rolleyes: hehe!

Thing's i'm gonna do will still make it look good, but also in keeping with Vauxhall. Irmscher styling i.e. gsi bumper. Tuning is easy with Vauxhall V6's if you know what you are doing and also can be very cheap for the most part. 17" GSi wheels or Irmscher wheels, plus suspension is first of the list, maybe some polyurethane bushes all round.
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yea, irmscher has cheap stuff, but good too.
i think you mean about that front bumper with the side vents? those look cool.
 
Yeh it an Irmscher bumper thats on the GSi with the vents. Styled and tuned by MSD. One of the things that makes me laugh when peeps advertise GSi's as a "MSD limited edition" lmao. All Vectra B GSi's are MSD lmao.
 
exactly.
i had a tip for ya about the muffler.
there's a muffler styled for holden cars (which are same brand, GM motor company, including vauxhall and opel) that looks so cool on vectras, a guy had in my town one of those and looked so cool.
 
Bad63r aye, what you've got is not the standard SRI setup, but it sounds SWEET. Changing the cams on the 2.6 is a very common mod to release a lot of power.

BMC CDAs, I think from memory it was an 85-150 kit, but bob on vectrasport and ask there. I took a foglight out to attach the cold air feed to the hole. ITG Maxogen are good too, but a bit pricy.
 
Update time hehe.

Well the modding has started and just at a time where I hjave no spare time at all due to moving house. Moving to Cornwall in one week hehe. Can't wait.

I've gone and bought myself a FK Coilover suspension kit. Lowers from 20mm to 90mm depending on your prefrence. Also ordered myself the poly bushes all round (not cheap lol), 2 new front strut top mounts, 2 new lower arms and a set of phase 3 gsi wheels :)

Will get some shots as soon as it arrives and also some shots of it being fitted. I reckon I could do all of this in a weekend or certainly 2 days of next week. So the car should handle like it's on rails when I get thislittle lot installed.

Only thing I haven't got sorted yet is the new tyres but waiting to get some really good ones maybe Toyo Proxes as i've had them before on my scooby and are very good.

So watch this space lol...
 
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Well as mentioned above, about a week ago I decided to replace the suspension system as one of the rear shocks has dried out and making a hell of a creeking sound (i've already had the car checked over so I knew it wasn't upper or lower rose bushes). So after much searching I decided to go all out on a coil over kit :)

Reasonable price payed and was shipped from Germany and decided to go for FK coilovers. Heard good reviews and a few companies said they were a good supension so one week later this turned up this morning...

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Does anyone have any tips with coilovers? I've got the 2 spanners/wrenches to adjust the kit but can't see any markings for ride height. So just wondered if theres any tips on getting the ride height spot on or do I need to just fit and adjust on the car?
 
1 tip dont wind them fully to the top i did this on 1 and the nut came of the tread. so when i tried to wind them down it started cross threading:sad2:
so then i had to squeeze the spring clamps on and disassemble it and start again luckily it hadn't cross threaded that bad:bigsmile:

MA does it matter if the helper springs are on the top or bottom???
 
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Makes sod all difference. Most coilovers I've seen have them at the bottom, although I've seen some at the top too. Just put them where your instructions say.
 
They look very cool, one thing though, when adjusting them, make sure you have the spanners at roughly the same angle before you tighten, so as to try and keep the same revolutions all round. Also, put the car in for a full geometry adjustment as soon as the coilovers are fitted; you'd be surprised how far the wheels will be out.
Advice given to me by a wise and knowledgable man on such things :)
 
MasterAuron said:
Well, not as soon as they're fitted. Find the ride height you want first then get it done as adjusting the coilovers will put it out again.
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That's so true! had mine adjusted at the garage and was happy with the ride height and handling before it went in to have the geometry done!
If I had not done so, would have no tread left on the tyres now ;)
 
No insturctions in mine either lol. Gonna be doing a full service on the car today and after speaking to Petar last night, we are going to be fitting the suspension and other parts. So expect a few pics tomorrow evening aslong as all goes well :)
 
I'm Just up the M6 from you mate near Nuneaton, but wont be after the weekend as i'm moving to Cornwall over next week.
 
Yeh been going down there for 25 years since I was 3 and love it down there, plus i want a better life for my kids. This is why I went for coilovers as the roads down there can be alot of fun if you have a car that handles well.
 
Again bit of a gap in communicating lol. Well the move went very well and I now live 5 miles outside Newquay in Cornwall and loving it down here. The car is now slammed and handles superbly well and also loves it down here (the roads are great fun) Gotta get it washed though as it hasn't been done in 3 weeks due to moving but will be doing this today or tomorrow and i'll get some pics up of how it looks.
 
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