The Carlton Estate 3.0 24v conversion

[Johnny A]

and so it begins!! First up I picked up a c30se in poor condition from a friend, it came with some inlet parts and a worked R28 box for £50!! I only want the engine for spares and the mint guides (engine has 58K on it)



Yesterday I met up with Chris (Carlton mad), we poked around his garage for a while before leaving in estate convoy for 24vman's house:


Once we arrived we quickly got down to business, Jon was eager to clear his garage and it got to the stage when I was literally have parts thrown at me lol

It didnt take long before the engine and all parts was loaded up, getting my super-low estate in and out of his garage sounded nasty (the exhaust and front bumper certainly took some hits)



Fits like a glove!

On board we have:
a very nice 1992 C30SE engine with all ancillaries
A rough r28 for messing about with
S6 subframe
S6 estate rear trailing arms (Chris you are indeed a god)
24v front brake calipers and discs
24v radiator
s6 slam panel and radiator mounts
c30se downpipe
24v brake servo and master cylinder (with hydro clutch take off bottle!)
Aircon bracket and idler (this is for the later addition of a supercharger)
Throttle cable
Probably more stuff I can't remember

It all went into the estate without a hitch... well apart from when the crappy loading strap brackets ripped itself from the floor!!

The subsequent weight actually leveled the car out perfectly (the factory estate rear springs were refitted for this purpose)... however chris wasn't happy with the lowering, so he helped:






Highlights of the day:
Seeing the spares man himself Chris
Meeting Jon for the first time and seeing his 4.0 Estate
Getting myself some rather cool new toys
Managing a sustained (and corrected) 54mpg whilst drafting a HGV on level road with the grille taped up for better aerodynamics
Managing 500 miles to a tank of fuel

Conversion begins Friday!
 

[24vman]

Hope it all works out for you Johnny.

Nice to have met you  

I've still got too much shite, but you've helped me clear some of it.

[colonelk]

Nice!

And LOL @ the hypermiling..... you wont be doing much of that with a 24v haha

Mark

[24vman]

That's a definite

Big pockets to run a 3L these days.  

Although - I get better MPG from the 24v than the Mondeo 2L Winter hack I have.

[Einarrson]

How is the cooling with the grille blocked up? I have been thinking of doing this to mine. I'm gonna get a piece of polycarbonate, see if I can cut a few little slits in it and cut it to the shape of the grille.

I'll let you know how it goes.

Do you have the viscous removed also?

[Johnny A]

The grille is blocked up using state of the arm gaffer tape lol

Yes the ONLY modification done to this engine is removal of the viscous fan, I didn't notice any mpg change when it was removed though.

[Johnny A]

Preparations are going well, The engine has been pressure washed and is looking much happier, I trial fitted the inlets and loom and am happy to say I have only one plug I am not sure on.

Any ideas fellas? It runs along the back of the engine, very near the loom's earth points.

Everything else appears to be fine and ready for transplant, for the time being I am using the factory dual mass flywheel and standard clutch. I am hating the idea of this (and the extra work involved) but I can't afford a TTV single mass wheel and uprated clutch just yet.

[Murph]

It connects to the car's loom at about mid-point across the car, right at the back of the bay.
You might find that your car has a different plug but it's easy to remove the pins from one and fit them into the one from your original engine loom..

[Johnny A]

OK Murph cheers

[Murph]

I have no idea what it does exactly, but the car wont start if it's not connected.

[Johnny A]

Since you said that I twigged what its for, ignition live more than likely as I didn't see it anywhere else on the loom.

[CraigP]

Keeping an eye on this thread Johnny  

Was that a "twin engined" Carlton estate mock up I was seeing  in the photos or were you just transporting a few spares?

[Murph]

Don't give him ideas like that!!! 

[Johnny A]

murph, i know how much you love the amount i have lowered my carlton....with this in mind i think you're going to adore the new paint scheme i have planned lol

[Johnny A]

Things are coming together for the conversion!!
Today I took delivery of:
A factory standard 3.0 24v backbox and a load of mild steel 2.5 exhaust pipe*
20litres of 10w40

Adam kindly picked up some parts I needed from Vauxhall and thanks to Chris and Jon on saturday morning I take collection of a custom billet flywheel!!
This flywheel is rather special, it was custom made for Jon who decided he couldn't use it for his engine as its too light for towing and needed tweaking to work on his engine.
Whats special about it? Well its one-piece hardened stainless steel which makes it very tough, it weighs 5.5kgs and has been built specifically to be compatible with an Audi RS4 clutch pressure plate which is very powerful!!

New flywheel weight: 5.5kgs
Original flywheel weight: Around the 25kg mark!!

*Why would I make an exhaust system using a factory 24v backbox and a load of 2.5" mild steel pipe?? Simple really, my 24v Senator had a system build like this and it sounded like this:
Idle: http://s79.photobucket.com/albums/j125/Johnnyaspec/?action=view&current=12072008085.mp4
On the move (please excuse the camera car music): http://s79.photobucket.com/albums/j125/Johnnyaspec/?action=view&current=11072008083.mp4

[Murph]

murph, i know how much you love the amount i have lowered my carlton....with this in mind i think you're going to adore the new paint scheme i have planned lol

Ooooh that's fightin talk!

[24vman]

Johnny

I think your find that plug is for the lamba sensor.

[The Duke]

Lambda sensor has 3 or 4 wires.

[Johnny A]

Update:
Progress has been a little slow, we hit a little snag with the lightweight flywheel and clutch The flywheel has been designed to handle an Audi RS4 clutch pressure plate, which is much thicker than the Vauxhall item... damn gearbox wouldn't mate up

So I had to fit the factory 24kg flywheel and clutch... it will do but i'm not happy. Luckily Chris come through for me AGAIN with a spare pressure plate to make sure the car can be quickly made operational!

Bonnet off, makes work 10 times easier:


I got to work ripping bits off the engine, Adam got to work inside the car ripping the steering column out.




The slam panel although mint had to come off, the 3.0 has a slightly different panel:




The new panel trial fitting:


Engine on it's way out:



Adam got the column, pedal box and old brake servo out:


The paint is keyed and any areas repaired, I found this repair panel already welded in... its not the best job in the world but its solid


Engine pics! Surprisingly the 3.0 24v although its over 1/3 longer its only around 50 kgs heavier (well.... without that damn 24kg flywheel anyways!). Certainly a beast of an engine!


Rear picture, complete with a lovely background image of the shit tip unit!

Shitty boat anchor of a flywheel:


The 5-speed manual gearbox, I fitted the quickshift from my old 2.0 gearbox, an Omega conical hydraulic slave cylinder (more reliable than the Carlton hydro unit). I used a braided line off a rear brake line suited to pretty much any Vauxhall, Adam drilled the hole in the bellhousing and a brake line clip is used to hold the line in place.


I cooked up a small copper line section to join the two parts together:


More to come when my friend manages to transfer the pictures to me.

[Johnny A]

Yeah D man the engine is already taken, also its a high-torque and low bhp engine so in a light car it wouldn't be very quick. Remember the Carlton engine was a 115bhp C20NE engine, the other 2.0 8v is the 20SEH engine, looks identical but had higher compression, different camshaft and a different fuel map to produce 130bhp!

If you want a LOT of fun i'd recommend a 2.0 16v redtop in a corsa, I can tell you exactly what you need, where to get it and how to do it.

Update coming soon when Adam gets online and transfer his pics to me.

Did we get it done? Sadly not If im honest we ran into issue after issue. Missing parts, stripped sump plug, it took an hour to move the engine from the floor into the bay (seriously!), the gearbox mount was incompatible (So I modded it to fit), the 24v has its fuel lines on the other side of the bay and we didn't have the correct connectors, Adam's missus wouldn't stop distracting us with text messages, my landlord was having some kind of weird helicopter party in the next field which distracted us!!

How far did we get? Engine in and bolted up, downpipe on, all coolant lines fitted, PAS system fitted, wings refitted, pedal box and column installed and radiator fitted.

Things left to do:
Install wiring loom and ECU
Modify downpipe for better clearance
Build exhaust system
Install forward section of inlet system
Flush engine oil
Flush gear oil
Route fuel lines to fuel rail
Refit front bumper, grille and bonnet

Optional things i'd like done:
Install straight-6 larger rear trailing arms and LSD rear diff

Pictures to follow.

[Murph]

Did you change the dash loom?
Six pot loom is different, unless you've been very lucky - some later 4 pots had a compatable loom.

[Johnny A]

It seems fully compatible Murph

[Murph]

Cool.
Not all of them had the pickup for the speedo sensor on the gearbox.

RBond's old car is saving a few by the looks of things - the engine is going in mine, the steering column is going into Yas's diamond, the bootlid will end up on the Louts, the A pillars are going on 30N's diamond and now the slam panel has found it's way onto yours.

So that was worth the drive up to Manchester to collect it then!

I'm just glad it's out of my garage!

[Johnny A]

Piccies:
Oohh yeah:













Fit ye bastid!



Rear gearbox mount mods:

[Catho]

Looking good fella. Christ, you've done more in a weekend than I've done in nearly ten years!!!