Carmad Jr’s Rare Vauxhall Viva Ha SL

[svensktoppen]

My thought too, need to figure out a way to get the intercooler and pipes behind the splitter somehow. Otherwise not much point?

It does look nice with the splitter, just a bit odd with the intercooler hanging out like that.

But I guess this is about go more than looks so all in and just drive it

 

[avsd]

The P6 idea suggested by @cauld1 looks the better option unless you can hid the cooler like on your Bedford.

 

[lennyd]

Anyone else see mater from cars in the pic with the splitter and no intercooler?

Splitter looks class but any way of hiding the intercooler and pipework would be an improvement. Can't wait to see this progress

 

[carmad.]

Anyone else see mater from cars in the pic with the splitter and no intercooler?View attachment 415424
Splitter looks class but any way of hiding the intercooler and pipework would be an improvement. Can't wait to see this progress

i was hoping for a more modern look off this

and any one who knows their formula one history will know who Jack Brabham was

we could go black or “dark “ at the front to hide what we have going on

and this is a Blydenstein one with a body coloured splitter up for sale recently

 

[carmad.]

so a wee bit off an update as we go along

we are really tight for space at the front and getting a rad intercooler fan oil cooler pipes ect in is gonna be tight

so with the home made splitter now welded in position it was time to tidy it up

then a lick of paint

so we added a load off metal fillings / grind dust to the wet paint on the splitter to introduce a bit off patina

then i ordered a direnza alloy rad from a ford feista st150 to go with the direnza intercooler and we just kept chopping until it fitted

well measured

and now with it mounted i think it hides well enough with the grill and intercooler back in position

more soon hopefully

 

[carmad.]

i know we haven’t updated the thread in a while but things at home have taken over

we managed to get up today for a while as a wee job we had organised to do the parts did not come in

so a few months ago i bought 6 universal air bags / springs for both the viva and the pizza

we started out by measuring the fully inflated and fully deflated heights off the rear air bags

and i’ll let the rest off the images do the explaining as it’s to much to type

plenty off head scratching and swearing but pretty self explanatory

hope you enjoyed that

more soon

 

[pablo]

some work going into those bags!

 

[carmad.]

some work going into those bags!

yes mate as no one makes a kit ect all has to be home made


and i didn’t want to do anything to the shell as you can see it’s really clean so it’s doing stuff that could be removed if wanted

the only thing we might need help with is if we go for a management system

 

[carmad.]

up today for a while all welded in and working

over the moon to be honest @Blackie 5 more mins you would have seen it working

so now i need to decide on a tank set up and a management system has any one any suggestion's ? @Blackline ?

 

[seanmooney]

To keep the cost do you might be better going with paddle switches like this

V 2 Air Ride Suspension Manual Paddle Valves w/ 150 PSI Dual Needle Gauge | eBay

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I have a small tank at the house if you want you can have it. I might even have a compressor too.

 

[carmad.]

To keep the cost do you might be better going with paddle switches like this

V 2 Air Ride Suspension Manual Paddle Valves w/ 150 PSI Dual Needle Gauge | eBay

Find many great new & used options and get the best deals for V 2 Air Ride Suspension Manual Paddle Valves w/ 150 PSI Dual Needle Gauge at the best online prices at eBay! Free delivery for many products.

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I have a small tank at the house if you want you can have it. I might even have a compressor too.

yeah i have seen that stuff but the postage is a killer nearly more than the item

i might go down the road off a decent management system even if it costs a bit more as long as we can have the technical help

 

[Blackie]

up today for a while all welded in and working

View attachment 419951

over the moon to be honest @Blackie 5 more mins you would have seen it working

so now i need to decide on a tank set up and a management system has any one any suggestion's ? @Blackline ?

Dammit!!!! lol. Blame my son, as I said I was on taxi duties lol

 

[Blackline]

Honestly, digital management is the only way forward.

Simple manual kits are a torture and usually leak like mad.

We have two options available if you want. Firstly the renowned Air Lift 3P management which is a digital pressure based system allowing individual control of each corner with up to 5 presets, an in car controller and an app for your phone. We pair this with either an ABP or Compressair noise reduction compressor and can get a range of different sized tanks to suit your needs. You can also upgrade this to include height sensors on each corner to improve accuracy in hitting presets and maintain height regardless of load in the vehicle.

The second option is an entry level digital management system. Very similar to 3P but considerably cheaper. The only downside is they come with a standard compressor, one size tank and the fittings can sometimes be a pain to get sealed.

Happy to show you the difference if you want to call down at some point.

Build on this is coming on really well by the way! Impressive stuff!

 

[carmad.]

first look at it with tyres on the manta rims @Chris tii its been 12 years since it’s been a rolling chassis

bags fully down

hopefully get a few more days at it over the holidays

 

[Artoir]

Me every time I open this thread

 

[Chris tii]

Wow

 

[Blackie]

That’s epic!!!

 

[HCviva]

Cool

 

[carmad.]

Cool

should be enough to annoy the anoraks

 

[HCviva]

should be enough to annoy the anoraks

They will not be happy

 

[carmad.]

They will not be happy

esp when you realise that it’s a SL aswell

 

[carmad.]

so today we had to go from the previously modified steering shaft to the steering rack

any time before i have done this in mantas and asconas the steering shaft always went directly from the bulk head to the rack

which often caused clearance issues between the starter motor and shaft

so because we had an additional collapsable steering link from a mk5 astra we modified it to fit the viva steering rack and clear the starter

this means his steering shaft is now double collapsable in the event off an accident but also clears the starter and gearbox bellhousing with no modifications

only one picture from today tho but you will get the idea

 

[carmad.]

today we had a few we bits to do so didn’t get as much time in the shed as normal

now the viva has a wee cable clutch that number one isn’t long enough

two doesn’t really fit the manta gearbox

and three some numpty put a 3 inch turbo down pipe in front off where the clutch cable goes in to the gearbox

now in the viva when you press the clutch the pedal pulls the cable through the bulk head as you would imagine

so our plan was to use a hydraulic clutch ( after all the lessons we learned with the bedford this should be easy )

the first issue was the clutch pedal is a “pull” the cable type and most modern clutch master cylinders are a “push” type

so we pulled the wee pedal box out and started to modify it

a few cardboard templates later

and we now have a plate to be welded to the inside off the pedal box making a pull clutch in to a push clutch

and then to go searching for a master cylinder and get it mounted

so with a bit off home work and a bit off head scratching a mitsubishi lancer evo 4 master cylinder to the rescue

now ya might be asking why did he put it inside the car ??

 

[carmad.]

when i was doing the bedford one off the biggest electrical problems i had was i mounted the abs pump behind the driver headlight and the astra loom only has about 8-10 inches off length on it

i didn’t want to repeat this problem so a decision has been made to mount it close to the fuse box

the fire wall / bulkhead on the wee viva is actually at and angle and the abs pump needs to be mounted level so cardboard

as you can see the middle off the pump has a raised area off plastic so we set the bead roller to clear it

now originally the vivas came with under seal on the bull head and under the bonnet it’s a shock how quickly they rusted

so marked up where we need it to sit and let the wee man at it to clean it up

once the whole lot was welded together i let him buff it down

now in position

lightly welded in so it could be removed at a later date if we ever wanted to go back to standard or change any thing

it’s amazing how much work goes in to something that most people wouldn’t notice if it looks right

 

[Blackie]

Class!!!