its on another forum that you have to be signed for to see but i'll get as much on here as i can as its a bit silly really

A few of you know of my love for Nova's' date=' having owned 5 of them I have just bought my sixth and last one (maybe). This one is going to be a belter!

The idea behind my love for these cars is both practical and more importantly my love for upsetting people with supercars.

Just imagine you have just purchased a brand new BMW M3 in 2005 and your driving down the M25 with your trophy blonde bimbo in the passenger seat. As your a BMW driver your in the middle lane for no reason apart from your a ****, and a white, F-reg nova GSi lookalike with a loud exhaust undertakes you at about 10mph faster. You pull up along side said nova and say something to wife along the lines of 'watch this love'. At this stage nova driver already have dropped it a gear ready for action, the BMW driver floors it and the nova driver matches his speed looking over at the wife smiling, BMW driver bottles it at a silly speed which for legal reasons is 70mph :twisted:

I got this situation ALL the time in the white nova and then totally wiped the floor with them, FQ EVO's, M3's, Scoobys inc. UK300 spec, a TVR 350R etc...

But what would be MORE embarressing than spending 40K on a motor only to have your *** handed to you but a rusty matchbox? What about a repulsive coloured matchbox on steel wheels?? - enter the Saloon of Doom mk2!!!

History of my novas:

1st was my first car, a faded red Mk1 1.0 base model with SR bumpers and grille.

2nd was probably the most famous one, named 'SEF' because of the number plate, starting off as a standard 1.6 GTE, it became a 2.0 16v, then later a 2.0 16v Turbo which is when most people would have know it:

Then I decided Saloons were the new thing, this started off when I bought a 4-door grey g-reg saloon which I bought off a Vicar for £20 during SEF's turbo engine conversion. It failed an MOT on a rear wheel bearing, which turned out to just require tightening. This thing was pretty rusty on the doors and arches though and required a whole roll of duck tape to get through an MOT. The structure of the car wasn't rotton however and I thought it would be funny to drop a 2.0 16v in from SEF's engine bay, I also lowered it and put a tow bar on it and use the car as a rather overpowered workhorse. Unfortunately the only image I have is when I removed the engine to scrap the car about 6 months later (note the gaffer tape hanging off the doors)

The saloon theme continued and a new breed of sick stupidity was in the pipeline - Introducing the Saloon of Doom:

A-reg and brown, it was almost totally mint! Unfortunately it got rear ended whilst I was stationary at Headington roundabout :cry:

After this I fancied a change and went to Calibras, Carltons and Senators.

But the time has come again, and this time I am going all in!!!

Ladys and Gentlemen, I give you the first image of the Saloon of Doom mk2:

Its BEIGE (official colour is called 'Parchment'), 2-door Nova Saloon, 1984 A-reg, 34K on clock (old granny owned and garaged for 20 years!)

A photoshop I have done showing what I want it to look like:

Big plans, no turbo 2.0 engine just yet :( , but I plan to use a 2.0 16v Redtop engine (155bhp) and make it rear wheel drive (engine in front, driving the rear wheels), huge drop using coilovers and 16" steel wheels off the new shape Vectra.

I will update this thread as I start work on it, this will be pretty slow as I plan to do the conversion all in one big hit at the start of April.

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first pics:

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Little update:

Got the engine and box' date=' its in the garage awaiting some checks (cambelt, rollers, waterpump etc...)

The little 1.2 engine is only going to be in the car till the 2.0 engine is fitted (Early April), the little engine runs very well apart from one issue. If the engine is under load for a length of time (if the engine is under a lot of load it doesn't have to be much time, if you use less load e.g 60mph cruise down the motorway it takes longer) the engine will splutter and loose power till you stop, let it idle for a few mins. Then its fine for a little while again.

My first thoughts were a semi-blocked fuel filter so the carb's internal 'buffer' runs down under load until it empties, when pulled over under idle the buffer fills back up.

But there is no fuel filter!!! Don't ask why!! I drove to my mates unit where we swopped the 1.2 carb for a twin plenium 1.3 SR race carb and inlet he had spare, after dialling the carb in we went for a spin - it went faster on this carb but the problem still existed!

My mate said it feels more spark related, so we changed, leads, dizzy cap/arm, dizzy itself, ignition coil with no success :cry:

In the meantime I fitted an inline fuel filter just after the fuel pump - its transparent and we noticed a lot of air bubbles mixed in with the fuel as its pumped out the pump. A fuel pump with a leak thats leaking air into the line?? This explains the fuel delivery problems if half the delivery is actually air!! We changed the pump for my mates spare race pump which is designed to pump more fuel and withstand high revs (as the pump is driven off the camshaft). We instantly noticed the fuel was pumping faster than before, but still had bubbles :(

At this stage I was so ****** off I gave up and drove home - but it didn't splutter till I got nearly all the way home. The problem was still there but the race pump could pump faster and keep the fuel going for longer. Then it hit me, inside the tank there is a fuel pickup pipe that enters the tank half way up and then angles down to the bottom where it sucks up the fuel. As the fuel sloshes about when its say 3/4 full the pickup pipe where its at mid level will sometimes be submerged and other times not - if there is a leak/crack in the pipe the air could be getting in there!

So I got back to Oxford and pulled into a petrol station, I popped the bonnet and had a look at the fuel filter, not a lot of fuel in it but lots of air (this is with 1/2 a tank of fuel). I brimmed the tank and drove about 1 mile down to my house, I popped the bonnet and the fuel filter has hardly any air and lots of fuel :shock:

So basically when the tank is totally full of fuel it doesn't matter that the pipe has a crack in it as its all submerged.

Although I am happy I have found a temporary fix to the problem, it means I have to make sure my tank is almost always full to stop it happening :(

There isn't much point in me changing the tank as its only got to last till april.[/quote']

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Little update:

The saloon has been delivered to the unit' date=' I went up yesterday to deliver more parts for the conversion. I was also hoping to get the nova into position and have it up on axle stands, but due to the weather the unit was choca full of cars as my mate cannot finish them due to the snow stopping parts deliveries :evil:

So most of the time was spend with theory and planning, we finalised the floorpan design, rear suspension and front engine mounts and all extra bracing we need.

Some pics of the gear:

The shell awaiting entry to the unit:

Vauxhall 2.0 16v 'Redtop' engine (156bhp):

Its rear wheel drive gearbox:

Loads of goodies, mainly engine ancilleries, RWD sump and pickup, set of front coilovers, Corsa brake assembly etc...

Now I know it doesn't look much but this is actually a 25K old Lotus Carlton diff!!

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Update:

Its time to strip!

Day1: After arriving late because I couldn't be bothered to get out of bed early we started work

We concentrated on engine removal - being a 1.2 Carb engine with no ECU and only a few wires it's a dead simple job and we had the engine out in about 2 hours:

1.2 engine:

Its starting to get a little dark outside so we pay a visit to the interior and start ripping it to bits' date=' things got a bit violent removing the dash as we won't need any of it, first came the dash, then the heater box with matrix, then the pedal box was removed as I am ditching the nova setup for a late-spec Corsa B brake servo and master cylinder which sit where the battery sits (much more compact setup that won't foul the engine):

Day2: Jamie's new apprentice joined us today to help out, Jamie and apprentice spend a little time on the engine bay removing the old nova brake servo, front anti-roll bar (won't be using one) and a few cables/pipes. They then went back to the interior removing carpets, trims and cards. I got the dirty job of draining the fuel tank and then removing it.

Engine bay emptied:

Interior is now very roomy:

I managed to get 30 litres of fuel (over 1/2 a tank) out of the old nova tank! I rigged a fuel pump with inline filter to pump the fuel out of the tank and into a storage container so I can reuse the fuel in the calibra :mrgreen:

The fuel tank was surprisingly easy to remove, none of the nuts were rusted on or anything!

Next update will be in a fortnight when I return to the unit for a really big step, its the point of no return as we cut out the front section of bulkhead and floorpan to install the engine/gearbox in place to see were we need to add bracing and panels!!!

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and so it begins....

All of what you see took 4 hours with mainly me on my own with Jamie helping with the engine installation part:

Johnny + grinder = serious bulkhead and floorpan section:

Hole:

Engine prepped:

Basic test fit:

Jamie attempting to fit the exhaust manifold:

Sorted!

This engine is the C20XE 155bhp engine I bought coupled to a Carlton 2.0 8v gearbox' date=' we have decided to use this engine for mockup only. The final design will be having my C20LET (turbocharged version) engine with Eaton M90 supercharger fitted with a 3.0 Omega gearbox (loads stronger).

The exhaust manifold in the pictures is one I bought second hand from a guy who used to run a throttle bodied C20XE manta (rwd car), each header pipe is 2" in diameter!!! (for reference a 1.2 Corsa's total sized exhaust system would be 2")[/quote']

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just got paid! that means more spendage!!

Mainly boring bits really' date=' needed a different steerwheel boss to make it compatible with the Corsa C EPAS column, bottom ball joints, track rod ends etc....

apart from this, thats right the beige theme continues inside the car too!!!

Alcantara trimmed reclining bucket seats.... ohhhh me pants!!!

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Good work Johnny.

Are you going to relocate the battery (to the boot)? Surely with the larger lump in there and all the gubbins you are going to be struggling for space?

well the battery would have gone to the boot regardless to help keep a good weight distribution' date=' I will most likely build a little recess (like the old mini's have) in the boot somewhere.

Update:

After the end of day 2 (where I put up my last update) I had managed to get the column seated where I wanted it with the primary brackets welded in place.

More problems! The original plan for the brake servo and master cylinder was to mount the entire unit directly above the pedalbox itself using Corsa gear. As this is now taken up by the corsa epas column there is no where to put it!! or is there??

Ironically the original setup which we almost ditched and threw away offered the solution. The original setup is a bit of a quick fix done by vauxhall for the UK market (RHD), the brake servo and master cylinder are placed on the nearside of the engine bay (passenger side), yet the brake pedal is on the offside (drivers side), so vauxhall made up a simple rotating bar which runs from the brake pedal, across the bulkhead on the inside and then a lever on the end of the bar pushes the master cylinder in. We had the idea of retaining the entire setup bar the original master cylinder and servo, we could mount the corsa servo and master cylinder directly above the bar/lever on the passenger side but carefully grind the welds off the lever and twist it about 90 degrees and re-weld it on. This would mean the lever would push upwards when the brake pedal is pressed, then it's simply as case of attaching it to the master cylinder!!

So I reattached the entire pedal assembly for a number of reasons, first was to see if the idea would work and it does (although it's very tight), second was to finish off the mounting system for the epas column which I did next. I removed the epas column's ECU and used the two fixing brackets to fix it to the top of the pedalboxes support strut - it took ages to get right but I managed it after several hours of tweaking, welding more supports on and so on. I then painted it and left it to dry.

Whilst waiting for paint to dry I noticed another small problem (don't worry I am used to them by now!), the original steering column sat at a funny angle as described earlier and it ran between the brake and clutch pedal. Because these pedals are pretty close together the clutch pedal was a strange shape as it curved around the column, it curved towards the middle of the car, then back into place. This posed a problem was the curve itself would foul where the gearbox tunnel is (or at least it would rub against it). The idea of simply bending it the other way with ample use of a big vice and an even bigger hammer didn't work too well as the metal is very thick. Plan B was a lot easier, the clutch and brake pedals are on a common shaft that runs between two supports. The pivots on both pedals are identical, so why not use two brake pedals?? Jamie has an old scrapper nova shell outside the unit so we took the second brake pedal off that - the brake pedal is the shape we want and it the correct length and angle. It fits!! So I cut the top of the old clutch pedal off (it has a fixing needed for the clutch cable) and welded it to the second brake pedal.

As all this is going on Jamie was making good use of his new toy - a 12 tonne pipe bender to construct the engine cradle and engine bay support beams, he didn't get too far but what he did get done was spot on!

Pics:

Engine bay with inlet fitted:

Seat in place and column mock placed in (held up with zipties):

This is where it pops through:

Now for a comparison for those who have never driven a nova how far over the steering wheel sits:

Standard nova:

New layout (picture was taken at wrong angle, bit it is straight):

More pics:

Adding brackets for the back of the steering column:

Two brake pedals attached:

Clutch cable bracket welded to brake pedal:

Painted:

Jamie bending pipes:

Mock placement for strengthening bar:

Handy pipe cutter:

Weld!

Preparing the first part of the engine cradle:

Bend!

More to come next week!!

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update:

Bit of a short weekend this one' date=' I spent a lot of Saturday messing about with collecting parcels from the local parcel farce depot and also going to High Wycombe to pick up the engine mounts I needed.

I concentrated on continuing the EPAS column setup, turned out to be a right welding nightmare!! First I needed to make a concave groove in the back panel that would allow easy installation and removal of the steering joints:

I used some 3" exhaust tube for this, I then cut the hole for the end of the column to poke through:

I then welded the side panels in place for boxing in the entire column area, this turned out to me a right pain as the sheet steel I used was very thin and galvanised. This meant even with the welder set as low as possible I kept blowing holes in it like mad!! After hours of messing about I finally get them welded in:

Here is how the steering joints will sit:

Jamie wasn't around much but he removed the engine and laid out the metalwork for the engine bay:

With the engine removed I whipped off the old sump, notice the differences in belly positions:

Standard FWD sump:

RWD sump:

This sump hangs too low for the final design, it will last 5 minutes and get ripped off by the first speedbump I encounter, but it will do for the prototype.

Other pics:

The O/S front engine mount with 3.0 24v Senator engine mount rubber:

Next update will be in a fortnight when the 2 week slogathon starts!

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Status report Mr Sulu?

Steady on lad.

I arrived at Jamie's to be met with him being sick every 10 mins' date=' being the great mate he is he kindly past the virus (ironically called the 'nova' virus) onto me. Yesterday around midday I started feeling iffy and by 2 I was blowing chunks with the best of them. Today I still felt crap but soldiered on and managed to weld up and seal one of the chassis rails.

Update:

I started off by fitting the suspension now that I had all the components, I wanted to make sure the wheels would actually fit under the arches as we are using Astra mk4 front carriers and hubs which is an unknown as far as fitting them on Novas.

Straight into a problem, I bought some eccentric top mounts from compbrake and they wouldn't fit! Well they wouldn't till Jamie had an idea:

We mounted them on top of the turret instead of underneath! This would make extra bolt holes would be needed but damn does it look cool :mrgreen:

The rest went without a hitch, I machined the Astra4 carrier top bracket to be thin enough to accept the nova coilovers and then simply bolted it all up. I was amazed by the results:

The wheels is in the perfect position and by fitting the Astra4 carriers it also solved another problem that nova's suffered with. Because coilover springs hang lower (in most cases) than the top of the tyre they would rub badly on each other, the only way originally to fix this was to increase the positive camber on the coilover to carrier bracket (which gives you too much positive camber), and then buy eccentric top mounts maxed out to bring the wheels back. This is far from ideal from a handling point of view. But because the Astra4 carrier bracket extends further back than the original nova one this isn't even remotely a concern:

Check out the gap between tyre and coilover spring!

Little test fit of the uniball steering tie rod ends:

I then decided to complete all work that needed doing in the same corner of the car, this involved attacking all the old sealer, dirt and anything else I might find in the N/S front arch area. After a vigorous wire brush session I was very happy with the lack of hardly any rust at all:

Weldy weldy:

Seam sealer on:

1st coat of waxoil:

2nd coat, won't rust there ever again!:

Inside the engine bay I stitch welded some stress points and sealed:

New fuel tank:

Old exhaust system from the carlton:

I also decided to see if the roof paint is ok, the old granny who owned it all it's life never once cleaned this poor car by the looks of things. I took some G10 rubbing compound and there is actually good paint!!

into may now

Update:

Feeling better today' date=' not 100% but still getting there. I decided to tackle the steering system today, the rack is to be bolted to the main cradle that holds the engine in. I forgot to take piccies for the whole day, only towards the end.

The majority of the cradle with the rack half bolted underneath:

I needed to finalise the positions of the rack's arms in relation to the hub carriers, I knew that part of the suspension arm would be running close so it's something that needed to be addressed now just in case I needed to adjust something.

First I reattached the suspension and then jacked it up to simulate the ride height when the car is on the floor:

Next I attached the steering tie rod end to the carrier:

Close?

Plenty of room!! Remember that both the steering rod and suspension arm move it situe and stay the same distance away from each other.

After a little tweek here and there and a lot of measuring I was happy, the whole assembly would clear the engine sump and the rack's arms are almost flat so no chances of bump-steer

I then wanted to get the rack's angle correct to mate up with the steering column, the joints I am using don't like a lot of angle so it needs to be accurate.

The extension bar (still needs flattening and painting):

Attached like so:

Add the joints and admire:

nearly up to date now

Hi James' date=' long time.

Yeah I still have the Carlton, it ran for a short time with a 2.0 16v Turbo in it and I loved it. Then I had it painted and the wheels changed and both went wrong and I lost interest. Its not all bad though as the Carlton is now at Jamie's and we are removing the engine on monday to go intothe Nova. The Carlton is getting another overhaul after the Nova is done, she will sport a 4.6 V8 which I will tune up a bit.

Update:

Got a tricky part done today, I fitted the cradle. This cradle does a fair few things so being precise about it will make a big difference, not only does it hold the steering rack as you have already seen but it holds the entire engine and stiffens up the bay too.

First off I welded on the two forward support bars to the cradle:

I welded big *** thick steel plates to both chassis rails to reinforce them:

I then made up a smaller framework in the middle of the cradle to hold the main steering rack bracket, I forgot to take piccies of this but you can clearly see it in the next image.

I then spot welded the cradle in place about measuring and tweeking about 20 times:

I think it's always worth checking the integrity of your own work:

I then seam welded them:

Then got all fancy with the welding the grinder:

Underbelly clearence for the rack is spot on:

The rack's pinion is a snug fit:

plenty more piccies

Warning:

The following update contains images that may make members fill their pants

Update:

Big update time boys' date=' and do I have some kick *** stuff to show you!

First off I finished off welding the inside of the engine bay and ground off the factory O/S engine mount bracket:

I then wanted to build the front engine mount brackets, which requires the engine to be in the bay:

Here are the engine mount locations:

Steering tube gets close to the starter, but no cigar:

Inlet manifold on:

**** - the nut that the servo vacuum line screws to clips the steering tube:

Easy fix though.

Engine mount brackets get made up:

Looking good:

So far everything bar the sump was hanging above the chassis line, unfortunately the sump wasn't hanging a little bit lower, it was 2 inches lower!! So I decided to rebuild the sump using a design the 3.0 v6 Omega's use called a 'big wing', I cut the deep bowl off the original RWD sump:

and weld on the lower section of a 3.0 Omega bigwing:

I then fill the gaps with some sheet steel:

The funny shape on one side of the wing is to give extra clearance for the oil filter.

and bolted up:

Clears the oil filter with a healthy gap:

It turns out its over 2 inches shallower:

You can't even see it!

Now here is the cool bit, due to my welder running out of welding wire I decided to clean up and then have some fun. I refitted the steering joints, brake discs and wheel to the N/S and then removed the axle stands. I then supported the O/S of the car with the trolley jack and lowered the front of the car to the height I wanted (and designed the car to sit at).

The following may make people fall of chair...

....

Enjoy!

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With the steering on lock I can still slide my little finger inbetween the tyre and arch with no fuss:

Foot don't wanna go under the front valance though:

and just for Luke:

nearly there

Lovely update buddy' date=' LOVING the last picture!! lol.

I love how low it is, how on earth your not getting any rubbing I dont know, especially as you cant fit your flipper under the valance! lol.

Is that the engine in for good then or do you still have more to do in the bay? good work with the sump as well.[/quote']

I knew you would like that pic luke

As you know as I have built the car I ask myself 'is this going to hang lower than the floorpan?' if it does I adjust it so it doesn't, this allows me to drop it on it's *** but still get over speedbumps.

The engine will be removed in and out several more times, remember this is only a mock engine.

Update:

I didn't get much done today, we started off by driving to screwfix and halfords as I needed more welding wire and gas. Also I managed to kill two grinders yesterday.

After then we were driving to the unit on the dual carriageway and Jamie's astra diesel started chugging and cut out! We were stuck for a good hour before rescue and towed to the unit (only 2/3 mins away), it turned out a 12v positive feed wire going to the fuel pump had fryed off!

So I got started about 12/1pm and had a bad headache anyways so didn't get much done.

I decided to make up the two stub axles for the front hubs (these are basically cut down CV joints that fill the gap in the middle of the hub, if I didn't fit some the bearings would work free after a short time of driving).

I then modified the other astra4 carrier to accept the nova coilovers and fitted it all together including trial fitting the front brakes.

After all that I adjusted the camber and tracking to how I wanted them to get a proper look at how low the car sits:

Low enough for you Luke?? Notice nothing is hanging down!

Brakes fitted (notice they are fitted to the rear of the carriers instead of the front):

A look at the suspension and steering from inside the engine bay:

didn't realise it was this long!!

damn luke' date=' I thought you might wanna have sex with me!

Oh well I can't get a break, never mind!

Update:

Loads and loads of welding, cutting and grinding today and I made good progress.

First off I ground away of the remainder of the bulkhead to allow plenty of room for the exhaust downpipe:

I then installed the exhaust downpipe and it hung 2" blew the floorpan :(

So I chopped a section out:

After messing about with the downpipe for a few hours I added the strengthening bars that join the cradle to the bulkhead and also the brace that goes over the gearbox:

Notice how the exhaust downpipe clears with plenty of room to spare.

Exhaust sits nice and tight to the gearbox now:

Next I ground out what was left of the centre tunnel and jamie used his panel beating tools to hammer in a lip:

I welded up the middle section of the new tunnel framework and tack welded it in place:

I popped in the propshaft just to check clearence:

and it's totally spot on!!!

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Update:

The whole of today was me welding basically' date=' and even though it doesn't look substantial its actually a lot done. I seam welded half the tunnel in place which takes ages and got 80% of the skeleton welded in.

As you can see the floor frame is what I have been doing, it's very thick angle steel.

This is the passenger side, notice the floor frame angle is mounted higher which will create a small tunnel along side the gearbox which you can just about see the exhaust running in:

and thats it for now, if people are interested i'll put more updates as and when they come and reviews after the passenger ride in the finished product if it doesn't kill me

Thats some hardcore engineering going on there. I'd certainly like to see it coming along. very interesting.

and it'll all be built for about £35 aswell knowing him.

Nice one bengie, keep it coming

Bengie - you've obviously got too much time on your hands to have made this thread

And forgive me for saying - a bloke who undertakes at 10mph more than the car outside him, then blasts it until the other driver gives up - and he's got the gall to call the BMW driver a ****.

Three words come to mind - Pot, kettle, black :rotz:

His pictures are pants - maybe he should spend some of his money on a new camera?

Bengie - you've obviously got too much time on your hands to have made this thread

And forgive me for saying - a bloke who undertakes at 10mph more than the car outside him, then blasts it until the other driver gives up - and he's got the gall to call the BMW driver a ****.

Three words come to mind - Pot, kettle, black :rotz:

the thread took all of about 3 minutes to copy and paste together.

and i'm not going to condone his driving but this was a few years ago when he was quite young and silly

His pictures are pants - maybe he should spend some of his money on a new camera?

because the quality of the pictures are the major point of this thread.

but thanks for the input.