Astra H VXR Sprint

Winter rework will soon be underway, to further improve the car, although it is extremely capable at 300bhp when last run up on the rolling road. The factory inlet manifold is pretty restrictive so on track the car relies quite a lot on the spread of torque the car offers, especially mid-range because peak power is around 5,600 rpm and much above 6,250rpm the engine power really drops off.

A little more power at the end of the straights is always useful to get past cars that on occasion (quite often as I have found out) don’t lift down the straight, despite the fact you have spend most of the previous corners ‘pushing’ them.

So the plan; make the best use of the fitted K06 turbo, fit a higher flowing inlet manifold to give more power and torque above 4,000 rpm, and still produce good power at 6,000 rpm where the current set up really starts to drop off significantly and continue to produce good power at 7,000-7,500 rpm (ideally somewhere around 315-320bhp).

Added to this will be changes to the engine oil cooler, the addition of a gearbox oil cooler, oil temperature (engine and gearbox) and boost gauges plus a replacement set of Pagid RS29 front pads (they are just about due for change having covered 2,000 miles!) and a new set of wheels and tyres.