Newbie building a nova turbo

[_Jake]

hi all im jake & im 18, i do the ABC lvl 3 diploma in welding (mig tig & arc) at college and im on my final year at night school doing it. I work on a farm full time but hope to get into the industry once ive got the last bit of my diploma. thought id' share a few pics of my nova turbo im building, was only ever meant to be n/a but ive had numerous ideas as ive gone along, as you do!

how i first got it:

started stripping:

next to my mk1 (in hibernation waiting for a new interior and a 1.3 8v on twin 40s):

cavalier internal shift mod:

i then aquired another right p o s nova for £300, took the redtop out and weighed the rest in for £130, which makes for a rather cheap redtop

then stitch welded the whole shell, not many pictures though as im not very good at thin stuff im used to welding 3mm+

seat brakes all out and holes welded up

lost a bit of interest after that, then i went to watch time attack at snetterton and got really inspired!
6r4 with a pair of t3's, my dream car

so i cracked on again after that..

engine in:

bought a TD05 off an evo 4:

big intercooler off a 2.3 diesel frontera:

some throttle bodys and plenum from a pulsar gti-r

im still yet to finish the inlet to get them on the head

had to cut the firewall out to get them in too

will cut the rest out when the engines out

not much room between the turbo and rad, but i do have the wrong engine mount at the moment so its sat too far forward

went back to ebay....

£93 later and i have a really good nick evo 6 turbo (slightly bigger than my evo 4 one) and a evo 8 hks down pipe to play with..

cut up a GSI spec front bumper and mounted the cooler roughly roughly

which brings us up to date apart from the roll cage, got the whole front of a roll center cage & two lengths of Cold drawn seamless to do the suspension triangulation and door X's with, which im dreading notching

overall plan for this is just a trackday car, would be too daft for road use.
Spec im aiming for:

C20XE block modified with under piston squirters/oil feeds for turbo
forged rods and low comp slipper pistons
cosworth cast head (GM ones are cack)
+1mm enlarged valves
c20xe inlet cam, c20let exhaust cam
kent verniers
pulsar gtir throttlebodys + fuel rail with vxr injectors to start with
custom inlet manifold
home made 304 stainless exhaust manifold + HKS downpipe
TD05 evo 6 turbo (will stay standard to start with)
frontera intercooler
some form of external waste gate(s) may be needing two due to twinscroll design of the turbo depending on the location of them
BMC CDA airfilter with cold air feed taken from headlight location
twincore TX autosport rad
twin slimline fans
TX autosport thermostat
havent decided on the fuel tank/pump etc yet as i havent researched into enough
Emerald K6 management
lightened race fly wheel + clutch
F20 box with qauife diff
equal length shafts
Corsa b knuckles (stronger than nova ones) Calibra turbo hubs alround
Vectra v6 288mm front brakes & 286mm rears
corsa b pedal box
corsa b electric power steering column
single bucket seat and harness of some sort

dare say ive missed a few bits off but you get the idea, any help/comments appreciated

 

[Cally91]

Now here's a project looking forward to following this one to the end

 

[@Turbo]

top stuff god to see you welded up the shell abit.

you seem to be half way through a cage too

 

[Shox Dr]

That's some 1st post Jake esp when you are only 18. Top marks. Keep going into the workshop, every day even when you don't want to. even if it's just to clean up, keeps the mind on the project.


Keep posting, all the help you need is right here

 

[backpurge]

Great project, well done fella, make sure you keep us posted as to progress.

 

[philpullan]

good first post ive been exactly where you are afew times now and except for my own experiances and thoughts of high powerd novas which il keep to myself if your enjoying yourself you may want to rethink your f20 gearbox last nova we had was a sdb throttle bodied one with the 230hp kit and it constatly tore the f20 boxes to bits we fitted 3 of them so in my opinion the f28 could be your best option if you dont wana trash boxes i know afew people have had f20s which have lived but ive never seen on edo so. another option to look into would be the f23 from a z20let engine they handle 300hp ok in friends cars.
phil

 

[johniban]

i may be able to help you if you get stuck on this one! i built a 320bhp corsa about 4 years ago.
the f20 box is great but you cant give it stick when changing gears as you will just blow the internals out the bottom.
On the f28 gearbox ( what came with the c20let ) this has a boost limit switch on first gear as you are using the f20 you wont have a limit of boost so i dout you will be using 1st gear much anyway.

for driveshafts, everyone always says use the 500bhp rating thick shafts witch arnt needed at all! i twisted and snapped one of the mtech expensive ones on the circlip end with a standard redtop engine!
I used corsa gsi driveshafts with cav mk2 inner big block cv joints.
can i ask why you are not using the standard c20let turbo set up with down pipe ect? surely its cheaper and they handle up to around 300 bhp.

as for road use, they are perfectly ok around the 300bhp mark. mine was very larey but i had standard suspension cheap tyres and standard diff, but it still handled 'ok' as an old corsa would, and woul pretty much eat everything round by area, vxr8 evo 8 ect

 

[_Jake]

i may be able to help you if you get stuck on this one! i built a 320bhp corsa about 4 years ago.
the f20 box is great but you cant give it stick when changing gears as you will just blow the internals out the bottom.
On the f28 gearbox ( what came with the c20let ) this has a boost limit switch on first gear as you are using the f20 you wont have a limit of boost so i dout you will be using 1st gear much anyway.

for driveshafts, everyone always says use the 500bhp rating thick shafts witch arnt needed at all! i twisted and snapped one of the mtech expensive ones on the circlip end with a standard redtop engine!
I used corsa gsi driveshafts with cav mk2 inner big block cv joints.
can i ask why you are not using the standard c20let turbo set up with down pipe ect? surely its cheaper and they handle up to around 300 bhp.

as for road use, they are perfectly ok around the 300bhp mark. mine was very larey but i had standard suspension cheap tyres and standard diff, but it still handled 'ok' as an old corsa would, and woul pretty much eat everything round by area, vxr8 evo 8 ect

im not using a f28 as theyre overpriced, out dated & you cant get the parts for them + ive got 3 f20s here so i'll eat my way through them if needs be. Im looking into a f25 as theyre pretty much as strong as a f28, they mount the same as a f20 into a nova but i will need to take 30 odd mm off the bellhousing to get the alignment correct.

im not using the standard kkk16 as again they a bit crap and outdated really, didnt see much point in building a nicely spec'd engine with a old turbo which will just eat seals like something else (going off things ive read off migweb)

thankyou to everyone else for the kind words

 

[Robotstar5]

Some nice work have you considered uploading the pics to the forum server instead of using bucket, they take too long to load and can disappear if you have account problems rendering the thread useless.

 

[johniban]

the standard turbo is pretty reliable if not abused like most, but each to their own

 

[_Jake]

the standard turbo is pretty reliable if not abused like most, but each to their own

its a track car so it will be abused, not a trailer queen! making the manifold for the TD05 shall be a game though, never made anything like that before or done any tig pipe welding

 

[johniban]

i dont mean abused as it driving the car hard, i been abuse as in not looking after the engine, servicing, sill changes ect

 

[_Jake]

i dont mean abused as it driving the car hard, i been abuse as in not looking after the engine, servicing, sill changes ect

ahh sorry i misunderstood you!

 

[johniban]

:-)

 

[johniban]

what are your plans for the exterior?

 

[_Jake]

what are your plans for the exterior?

Gsi spec bumpers, not that there will be much left of them haha.
i plan to take the spare tyre well out of the rear and replace it with flat sheet & have a diffuser under it to have as less drag as possible, shouldnt be too hard as apart from that area novas are relatively flat under neath. other plans are protec fibreglass wide arch kit, fibre glass doors, fibre glass boot, fibre glass bonnet and the only wheels that should be aloud on a nova.... My revolution RFX's

toymex's small block race car off png was quite a big inspiration/blame for all the fibreglass !