BX's Build diary

[BORNXenon]

Well, time to make a start I guess.
House move done and dusted, garage very nearly sorted, welding course completed.

No chassis kit as of yet, but I hope to have that rectified in the next couple of months, in the mean time I decided to finally make a start on the engine thats been sat in the corner of the garage for the last year.

Apologies in advance for photo quality, they were taken on my mobile.

The lump that I'm going to be using is a Vauxhall X20XEV (2.0 16v) which was an evolution of the now aging C20XE (red top). Although less powerful than the C20, mainly due to all the emmissions stuff, it actually produces more torque in a more usable part of the rev range.

As fitted in my old show car shortly before being stripped.


At one point, this particular engine was producing 167bhp with a few bells and whistles fitted, however it has been sat for nearly 2 years so I doubt it is producing anywhere near even the factory standard figure (134bhp), so a full rebuild is on the cards. It may even receive a few upgrades in the process, cash flow allowing.

Received an engine stand from my dearly beloved as a christmas prezzie, which helps tremendously if you have a bad back like me, so at the weekend I removed the clutch and flywheel, hoisted the lump into the air and bolted it to the stand.








As you can see, it is absolutely filthy and covered in oily sludge from a sump gasket leak it developed shortly before removal from the car.

[BORNXenon]

I have taken lots of photos, mainly so I can work out where to put everything when it goes back together, but I won't bore you with most of these....


Throttlebody, inlet manifold, fuel rail and cam cover off..


Water pipe from the back of the water pump..


Water pipe, dis pack, purge valve, temp sensor and EGR valve all off. The EGR valve will not be refitted and will instead be blanked off.

[BORNXenon]

Cam belt, sprockets, crank pully and inlet cam bearing caps removed..


Closer, slightly less blurry look at the cams..


Exhaust cam bearing caps, water pump, cam belt tensioner and pulleys have also been removed, unfortunately though this as far as I got as there are a couple of rounded off bolts holding the rear cambelt cover on to the cylinder head which can't be removed until I obtain a stud extractor kit.
Need one for the exhaust and inlet manifold studs anyway, but thought I could put it off for a bit. I know they aren't silly money but it's January, and I'm skint!

[michael92]

Looks cool ! i love the vauxhall engines! be sure to check my build thread soon as i have my x25xe running on megasquirt now ! are you sticking with the original ecu ?


Michael

[Not Anumber]

Looks like youve made a good start. Are you going to mate this to a Ford Type 9 box with a bellhousing adaptor or straight onto an Omega box ?

[BORNXenon]

Straight on to the Omega box I think. There were plenty of X20 based Omegas so shouldn't be difficult to find one on the bay of thieves.
Other than that I'll be using Sierra running gear as I have a suspicion that the Omega struts are the wrong way round and the rear hubs would present other issues.

Going to try and keep the original ECU, still have the ignition barrel, keys and transponder. However, I did sell the full wiring loom which at the time I thought was great but now I wished I'd kept it!