[Closed] things that may improve my car.

People keep saying this, but surely that's exactly what a turbocharger is?

But given the choice of 1 litre or 2 litre turbocharged assuming everything else is in equal ratios between them which would you want?

A clean might make it a bit faster.

Cone filter up there has no place on a road car. Kill it with fire.

If it's a 2.0 litre turbo it should be the Saab unit from the 93. Very tuneable and the chassis is half decent. Ignore the naysayers it's probably the best Vectra they made. Make sure the exhaust gas sump breather systems are fully working any Saab specialist keeps these in stock. Take the sump off and fully clean it and replace the oil pick up pipe. More important to do this than any tuning at this stage.

But given the choice of 1 litre or 2 litre turbocharged assuming everything else is in equal ratios between them which would you want?

That's not the same question.

You could take a 1l engine and turbocharge it to get the same power as a 2l. Therefore the extra 1l displacement has been 'replaced' by a turbocharger. Therefore, there IS a replacement for displacement!

Bigger cylinders are there to allow more air in to burn more fuel. Exactly the same thing as a turbo does.

molgrips, you seem to have just stolen the fun from the thread. Give it back

[img] [/img]

See your car go up in value overnight

It's not a terrible car, just not worth spending anything on it other than keeping it running nicely.

It is the Saab engine. How much of it is different to the normal Vectra?

Cone filter up there has no place on a road car. Kill it with fire.

I'll answer. Heatsoak. Might lose you power as opposed to gaining it.

Hmmm, I suppose, but isn't that what the intercooler is supposed to help with?

It's a Vectra .

Having owned my advice is

Kill it with fire .

Kill it with fire now .

Stevemuzzy plus one. If they aren't gulping in air with a good cooling motion based breeze they are not that helpfuls for performance improvement. My 306 gti had a cone filter, better breathing on track and fast a roads quite possibly but in traffic going through town or slower moving stuff the car felt wretched vs the original airbox.

The intercooler is there to reduce the temperature of the compressed (if I can call it that) air post turbo. If your getting poor airflow in to the turbo due to heat issues then you are still blunting the performance.

Motor engineers / car nerds have I summed that up right?

Every day's a school day. That sounds sensible. I never thought about it that way, despite having a fan mounted on my intercooler plus 2 fans pulling hot air out of the engine bay...

I guess one of those plastic/carbon fibre box shield things around the induction pipework would help reduce air intake temps if sat in traffic?

Remove all unnecessary crap- basically everything except driver's seat and steering wheel.

You could take a 1l engine and turbocharge it to get the same power as a 2l. Therefore the extra 1l displacement has been 'replaced' by a turbocharger. Therefore, there IS a replacement for displacement!

Agree, but if you have space in the bay for the 2 litre turbocharged engine, that's still going to be better than the smaller engine turbocharged.

How do you want it to 'improve'? Faster? More flexible? Better handling? Better fuel economy? Better braking? More noise?

Despite all the people saying that basic stuff won't make a difference, if you have worn plugs, knackered ignition leads etc, changing them will make a difference - see the video I posted earlier. More so if things are actively broken.

I'd sort all those before bolting on a turbo the side of a wind turbine. I'd also look to a good owners' forum for specialist knowledge about your particular car rather than a forum where the fast road weapon of choice is a nondescript VAG turbo diesel estate... 🙂

No point in making it faster. It can already exceed any limits that will lose you your licence.

Put your money into the handling and stopping (brakes, suspension, tyres) so you can safely up your average speed within those limits.

Fold the back seats forward, will improve the front weight bias for 0-60 traction.

unovolo - Member
Hit it with the lowering stick ,put some nice alloys on and call it quits.

Strange way to illustrate your point - with some povvo spec Wolfrace shite. Dunno whats worse really, the car or the wheels (which are under hanging the arches, aren't tucked in any way shape or form and appear to have zero camber). Worst "stance" ever, 1/10.

Op -its a vectra, I suggest a handy pile of paper bags for you and your passengers to wear and copious drugs for when it bores you to the point of suicide.

benji
Agree, but if you have space in the bay for the 2 litre turbocharged engine, that's still going to be better than the smaller engine turbocharged.

That's over simplifying things. The bigger engine will carry a significant weight penalty and due to it's larger size will need to be positioned further forward in the engine bay compromising handling.

It's totally moot though since the phrase "no replacement for displacement" means, in it's current usage at least, that a big naturally aspirated engine is better than a small turbo charged one.

Great thread!! 😆

Theres abloke down the road from me who does up those "estate" Vectras.. Nope I'm not kidding. Honestly he's had his car in bits all over his garage and driveway so often it's comical. You know what? It looks the bloody same as it did when he started playing with it 5 years ago. And, wait for it.. he's got a mate who does the same thing to the same type of car!

I should ask him why shouldn't I? And I'd imagine underneath it's not the same vehicle..

But it still looks like a Vectra "estate", which is hilarious.

I dunno, the turbo petrols I've been in seem to have a lovely flat torque curve and loads of low end shove, presumably due to the way the turbo is set up.

the cut point of even k n N filters is horrendous - thats how they breath better.....

they breath in all the dust and shite of the day which gets forced through your pipework/manifold and into your engine at high speed...

if your engine was designed for that it would have had a k n n or similar from the factory.

Ive seen what sand fines (dust) does to pipework in the day job.... ill stick to my regularly changed paper filter thanks

Sounds good though and thats barry enough.

Race/rally car where the engines getting regularly rebuilt and performance is key then yes... road car why bother doing something that will shorten its life span.

bikebouy - Member

Great thread!!

Theres abloke down the road from me who does up those "estate" Vectras.. Nope I'm not kidding. Honestly he's had his car in bits all over his garage and driveway so often it's comical. You know what? It looks the bloody same as it did when he started playing with it 5 years ago. And, wait for it.. he's got a mate who does the same thing to the same type of car!

I should ask him why shouldn't I? And I'd imagine underneath it's not the same vehicle..

But it still looks like a Vectra "estate", which is hilarious.

What's hilarious about that? Should he try and make it look like a Vectra based homage to the Batmobile? Would that be more to your liking. Sleeper spec ftw. Anyone who wastes time and money on modifying the way a car looks is wasting time and money.

Much better to have something that looks like shit but goes a rocket than have something that looks fast but isn't. Case in point, people who put "RS4" badges on their TDI Audis. What the under ****.

Nope, I just think it's a waste of time, but hey.. it's his time and money.

And I think it's hilarious.

The guy is obviously enjoying him self, live and let live.

He probably things that spending silly money on a push bike just to spend your weekends pricking about the local woods is a bit daft too. (not a dig, I'm sure many of us do exactly that!)

OP - if your car is in fine fettle a set of good tyres (I'd recommend Goodyear Eagle F1 AS2s) and a map is probably all that is worth bothering with.

One thing that may improve your car...buy a new one. 🙂

road car why bother doing something that will shorten its life span.

Because it's a vectra.

"road car why bother doing something that will shorten its life span.
Because it's a vectra."

good point - well made.

I won't join the baying hordes - Vauxhalls generally have good engines, especially their 2.0 16v ones, given yours is a turbo it's probably have enough 'go' for the rest of it.

Suspension really helps, especially as it's getting on a bit - I wouldn't spend a fortune on some shiny cheap coil-over crap or something that'll make it drag its arse down the road - Eibach sell really good progressively wound spring kits for not a huge amount - £150 or so they might drop it 30mm or so but it doesn't make it ride like a shopping trolley - mate them with some cheapish Bilstein gas shocks and a bush kit and it's probably transform it without ruining it.

Also the Bilsteins aren’t sold as ‘go faster’ kit, just OEM so whilst they’re usually much better than OE stuff, you don’t have to declare them to your insurance – the Eibach stuff is, but they’re not heavily branded – so I’ll leave that up to you.

P-Jay

Also the Bilsteins aren’t sold as ‘go faster’ kit, just OEM so whilst they’re usually much better than OE stuff, you don’t have to declare them to your insurance – the Eibach stuff is, but they’re not heavily branded – so I’ll leave that up to you.

+1 for Bilsteins, but really I think without new brakes and tyres all it'll do is highlight other inadequacies. New tyres and some good pads should be the first port of call. Bridgestone Potenzas are a good tyre for the money and Mintex m1144s take care of the stopping.

if your car is in fine fettle a set of good tyres (I'd recommend Goodyear Eagle F1 AS2s) and a map is probably all that is worth bothering with.

But the OP said something less than a re-map, despite all the subsequent posts about new alloys (though apparently "poverty spec") and "slamming" things.

£ for £ the best value for money upgrade for performance is to map it but it's already powerful enough for the chassis which was designed to be nice and safe with loads of understeer. Good quality tyres and brakes replace the suspension bushes with new ones and leave it at that.

Strange way to illustrate your point - with some povvo spec Wolfrace shite

I love this place.

But the OP said something less than a re-map, despite all the subsequent posts about new alloys (though apparently "poverty spec") and "slamming" things.

True but a map is the only thing that is going to make any noticeable difference, especially on a turbo charged car.

Welcome to STW home of the wheel snob

You're thinking of Edition 38 😉

Have you thought about washing it?

The 2.0 Vectra Turbo is basically a Vectra with a slightly detuned SAAB B207 engine.

The shopping list is:
The correct NGK plugs. PFR6T-10G is the SAAB specification. Don't take equivalents from anyone else, you need NGKs. The car uses the plugs to monitor combustion and needs to have the ones it was designed for.
Decent oil. GM Dexos 2 or Mobil 1.
Check the thing is boosting right - bypass valve diaphragms can split, and on the high boost SAAB engines the intercooler can balloon a bit. From memory Evo 7 ones fit fairly easily if you want to upgrade.
Shell v-power, or 5l of gun wash thinners in the tank if you're feeling tight. The engine management system monitors knock and can take advantage of high octane fuel.
Lastly, Noobtune can usually find an extra 40 or 50 horses for not much cash.

Beyond that the modifications get spendy - the downpipe and cat become limiting factors.

Oh and don't mess about with tuning boxes, resistors or valves to stop the sensors seeing the real boost levels. Noobtune isn't much dearer for a remap.
And the B207 engines don't have sludge issues, the B2x4 engines in the 9-5 did.

1x11 and a dropper?

Punt it. You're wasting your time thinking it can be meaningfully improved, it's a bog standard family 4 with no outstanding features.

Sorry but there it is.

Get a 95 Aero or something if you fancy a fast GM ish car.

a) As the yanks do, you could recycle the top layer of your old kitchen work tops and glue them to the sides of your car for that authentic US of A 'station-wagon' look.
Surprised that it hasn't caught on here in the UK.

b) this chap sounds interesting

http://www.somender-singh.com/index.html

afaik, you have to run any any mods done to your car past your insurer.

Apparently, even something as trivial as a bumper sticker can invalidate your cover. Stay safe 8)