[Closed] things that may improve my car.

Some bodywork?

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Want!

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michelin pilot sport tyres.

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Yes, ^ these a geometry check and some advanced lessons.

Edit - these, as in the tyres not the seat covers 🙂 .

Decent lights.

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breast enlargements

Performance tyres is probably the sensible answer.

Depending on mileage, refreshing or upgrading suspension bushes and other suspension components will sharpen up the handling.

Upgraded disks and pads could also be an option, you don't need to go crazy, just go for the same size direct replacements, but performance ones rather than oem.

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Improve what aspect ?

Plugs wont make it any better at carrying a bike if its an mr2

And a bike rack wont make it run right if the plugs and leads are fugged

Tell us what the car is, milage,service history etc.

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A blonde with huge knockers in the passenger seat.

(EDIT: They both need to be in the passenger seat, not just the knockers)

What is it? And where/ how do you drive. Usually changing it is the best thing! however if you have a half decent bit of kit in its class, then it's tyres (changed to Mich pilots,as said above, on my current and a big improvement), suspension (change this on half our cars, significant difference), brakes (just pads on one of ours made a big difference) , maybe a re-map (this very effective on turbo diesels).

Buy a [url= http://www.maserati.co.uk/pre-home/uk/en/index.html ]Maserati[/url].

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would little things like air filter, plugs and anything else like this make any real difference to the cars performance?

No, not unless they are buggered in the first place.

Insider tip - adjusting the injector boost dump bias valve 3 degrees clockwise is a tip the manufacturer has been hiding from us

First things first, power doesn't come cheap. Secondly there is no replacement for displacement. Thirdly better spending money improving the driver than the driven, if on a tight budget as skills are transferable to any vehicle. Gaining a driving licence only means you were better than the lowest standard required.

Car has (mostly) full service history. 80k 10 years old. Its a Vauxhal Vectra 2.0 turbo. Has good tyres on it at the mo (but winter ones). The car is in good condition. Just had new brakes hoses, track rods and anti roll bar links. Just wondering really. Little service due soon so was wondering if they make a difference then maybe I could do them.

Fire.

All of the above (except for the tyres 🙄 )
but, pound for pound, a coat of this would work best:

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Ah! Vectra best way to improve it is to sell it. 😀

Lower and stiffer springs will make it handle better. Preferably with some new shockers.

Was waiting for the sell it thing. I actually really like it as a car. Can get loads of crap in it.

Almost as if they had crap in mind when they designed it 🙂

Secondly there is no replacement for displacement.

People keep saying this, but surely that's exactly what a turbocharger is?

I'm not saying another word. *turns back and sulks*

There is no way of improving a Vectra 2 l turbo, oh hang on there is swap it for a Saab 😆

I actually really like it as a car. Can get loads of crap in it.

things that may improve my car.

If it's a turbo, then it needs to breathe easy. Plugs and stuff are not going to make even the slightest noticeable difference.

1. Induction kit. No idea what's about for Vectras but something that looks like this should do the job:
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2. Higher flow intercooler
3. Larger bore (i.e. free flowing) exhaust
4. Decat (not road legal) or performance cat (possibly road legal)
5. Boost pressure regulator, about £15 on eBay for a cheap grainger valve type. It's a delicate thing, boost. You'll need a decent boost gauge for fine tuning if you don't want to pop your engine.
6. Possibly a fuel-cut defeat chip thing, depending on how your ECU reacts to higher boost.

Probably a good idea to look at improved cooling/ignition/suspension/brakes/tyres at the same time.

I wholeheartedly agree with many of the above posters though: is it worth it on a Vectra?

Fifth Gear did some really basic stuff to a Corrado, plugs, air filter, oil etc and fuel stuff and measured the power after each bit. Did make a difference.

Chip it? As in one of those wood-chipping machines... 😉

Don't want to do anything nuts, just wondered if anything within the realms of normal service stuff. Will need an exhaust soon.

Change it if you're serious, otherwise you're just polishing a turd.

Having had a 3.0, 4 cylinder, displacement has a lot going for it. Run a few turbo cars too, they're good with some big gains possible, but not the same.

Decided against Stage 1 for the Octavia (150 to 220'ish). Crap VAG brakes would need attention, it handles like a bouncy castle at pace due to lifted 4x4 suspension and it's approaching 200k. Starting a process of polybushing is removing a lot of slop.

bear-uk - Member

Lower and stiffer springs will make it handle better. Preferably with some new shockers.

Lowering springs on the original, 10 year old, shocks would certainly be an experience!

Don't want to do anything nuts, just wondered if anything within the realms of normal service stuff. Will need an exhaust soon.

I've always found performance exhausts to be cheaper than manufacturer replacements, and it will certainly help.

Yup. e.g. £750 for a Renault (pre-rusted from the factory one) of £350 for a stainless steel from a variety of places to suit tastes.

I'd look at getting it remapped to least 500bhp

A ten year old Vectra?
It's worth a few hundred quid at the most.
You'd be crazy to spend anything on it, other than the bear minimum needed to keep it running and legal.

Ah, but it my 10 year old Vectra.

Hit it with the lowering stick ,put some nice alloys on and call it quits.
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Paint it orange.
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let me drive it.....

infact, that'd improve most cars on the road.

People keep saying this, but surely that's exactly what a turbocharger is?

But given the choice of 1 litre or 2 litre turbocharged assuming everything else is in equal ratios between them which would you want?

A clean might make it a bit faster.

Cone filter up there has no place on a road car. Kill it with fire.

If it's a 2.0 litre turbo it should be the Saab unit from the 93. Very tuneable and the chassis is half decent. Ignore the naysayers it's probably the best Vectra they made. Make sure the exhaust gas sump breather systems are fully working any Saab specialist keeps these in stock. Take the sump off and fully clean it and replace the oil pick up pipe. More important to do this than any tuning at this stage.

But given the choice of 1 litre or 2 litre turbocharged assuming everything else is in equal ratios between them which would you want?

That's not the same question.

You could take a 1l engine and turbocharge it to get the same power as a 2l. Therefore the extra 1l displacement has been 'replaced' by a turbocharger. Therefore, there IS a replacement for displacement!

Bigger cylinders are there to allow more air in to burn more fuel. Exactly the same thing as a turbo does.

molgrips, you seem to have just stolen the fun from the thread. Give it back

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See your car go up in value overnight

It's not a terrible car, just not worth spending anything on it other than keeping it running nicely.

It is the Saab engine. How much of it is different to the normal Vectra?

Cone filter up there has no place on a road car. Kill it with fire.

I'll answer. Heatsoak. Might lose you power as opposed to gaining it.

Hmmm, I suppose, but isn't that what the intercooler is supposed to help with?

It's a Vectra .

Having owned my advice is

Kill it with fire .

Kill it with fire now .

Stevemuzzy plus one. If they aren't gulping in air with a good cooling motion based breeze they are not that helpfuls for performance improvement. My 306 gti had a cone filter, better breathing on track and fast a roads quite possibly but in traffic going through town or slower moving stuff the car felt wretched vs the original airbox.

The intercooler is there to reduce the temperature of the compressed (if I can call it that) air post turbo. If your getting poor airflow in to the turbo due to heat issues then you are still blunting the performance.

Motor engineers / car nerds have I summed that up right?

Every day's a school day. That sounds sensible. I never thought about it that way, despite having a fan mounted on my intercooler plus 2 fans pulling hot air out of the engine bay...

I guess one of those plastic/carbon fibre box shield things around the induction pipework would help reduce air intake temps if sat in traffic?

Remove all unnecessary crap- basically everything except driver's seat and steering wheel.

You could take a 1l engine and turbocharge it to get the same power as a 2l. Therefore the extra 1l displacement has been 'replaced' by a turbocharger. Therefore, there IS a replacement for displacement!

Agree, but if you have space in the bay for the 2 litre turbocharged engine, that's still going to be better than the smaller engine turbocharged.

How do you want it to 'improve'? Faster? More flexible? Better handling? Better fuel economy? Better braking? More noise?

Despite all the people saying that basic stuff won't make a difference, if you have worn plugs, knackered ignition leads etc, changing them will make a difference - see the video I posted earlier. More so if things are actively broken.

I'd sort all those before bolting on a turbo the side of a wind turbine. I'd also look to a good owners' forum for specialist knowledge about your particular car rather than a forum where the fast road weapon of choice is a nondescript VAG turbo diesel estate... 🙂

No point in making it faster. It can already exceed any limits that will lose you your licence.

Put your money into the handling and stopping (brakes, suspension, tyres) so you can safely up your average speed within those limits.

Fold the back seats forward, will improve the front weight bias for 0-60 traction.

unovolo - Member
Hit it with the lowering stick ,put some nice alloys on and call it quits.

Strange way to illustrate your point - with some povvo spec Wolfrace shite. Dunno whats worse really, the car or the wheels (which are under hanging the arches, aren't tucked in any way shape or form and appear to have zero camber). Worst "stance" ever, 1/10.

Op -its a vectra, I suggest a handy pile of paper bags for you and your passengers to wear and copious drugs for when it bores you to the point of suicide.

benji
Agree, but if you have space in the bay for the 2 litre turbocharged engine, that's still going to be better than the smaller engine turbocharged.

That's over simplifying things. The bigger engine will carry a significant weight penalty and due to it's larger size will need to be positioned further forward in the engine bay compromising handling.

It's totally moot though since the phrase "no replacement for displacement" means, in it's current usage at least, that a big naturally aspirated engine is better than a small turbo charged one.

Great thread!! 😆

Theres abloke down the road from me who does up those "estate" Vectras.. Nope I'm not kidding. Honestly he's had his car in bits all over his garage and driveway so often it's comical. You know what? It looks the bloody same as it did when he started playing with it 5 years ago. And, wait for it.. he's got a mate who does the same thing to the same type of car!

I should ask him why shouldn't I? And I'd imagine underneath it's not the same vehicle..

But it still looks like a Vectra "estate", which is hilarious.

I dunno, the turbo petrols I've been in seem to have a lovely flat torque curve and loads of low end shove, presumably due to the way the turbo is set up.

the cut point of even k n N filters is horrendous - thats how they breath better.....

they breath in all the dust and shite of the day which gets forced through your pipework/manifold and into your engine at high speed...

if your engine was designed for that it would have had a k n n or similar from the factory.

Ive seen what sand fines (dust) does to pipework in the day job.... ill stick to my regularly changed paper filter thanks

Sounds good though and thats barry enough.

Race/rally car where the engines getting regularly rebuilt and performance is key then yes... road car why bother doing something that will shorten its life span.

bikebouy - Member

Great thread!!

Theres abloke down the road from me who does up those "estate" Vectras.. Nope I'm not kidding. Honestly he's had his car in bits all over his garage and driveway so often it's comical. You know what? It looks the bloody same as it did when he started playing with it 5 years ago. And, wait for it.. he's got a mate who does the same thing to the same type of car!

I should ask him why shouldn't I? And I'd imagine underneath it's not the same vehicle..

But it still looks like a Vectra "estate", which is hilarious.

What's hilarious about that? Should he try and make it look like a Vectra based homage to the Batmobile? Would that be more to your liking. Sleeper spec ftw. Anyone who wastes time and money on modifying the way a car looks is wasting time and money.

Much better to have something that looks like shit but goes a rocket than have something that looks fast but isn't. Case in point, people who put "RS4" badges on their TDI Audis. What the under ****.

Nope, I just think it's a waste of time, but hey.. it's his time and money.

And I think it's hilarious.

The guy is obviously enjoying him self, live and let live.

He probably things that spending silly money on a push bike just to spend your weekends pricking about the local woods is a bit daft too. (not a dig, I'm sure many of us do exactly that!)

OP - if your car is in fine fettle a set of good tyres (I'd recommend Goodyear Eagle F1 AS2s) and a map is probably all that is worth bothering with.

One thing that may improve your car...buy a new one. 🙂

road car why bother doing something that will shorten its life span.

Because it's a vectra.

"road car why bother doing something that will shorten its life span.
Because it's a vectra."

good point - well made.

I won't join the baying hordes - Vauxhalls generally have good engines, especially their 2.0 16v ones, given yours is a turbo it's probably have enough 'go' for the rest of it.

Suspension really helps, especially as it's getting on a bit - I wouldn't spend a fortune on some shiny cheap coil-over crap or something that'll make it drag its arse down the road - Eibach sell really good progressively wound spring kits for not a huge amount - £150 or so they might drop it 30mm or so but it doesn't make it ride like a shopping trolley - mate them with some cheapish Bilstein gas shocks and a bush kit and it's probably transform it without ruining it.

Also the Bilsteins aren’t sold as ‘go faster’ kit, just OEM so whilst they’re usually much better than OE stuff, you don’t have to declare them to your insurance – the Eibach stuff is, but they’re not heavily branded – so I’ll leave that up to you.

P-Jay

Also the Bilsteins aren’t sold as ‘go faster’ kit, just OEM so whilst they’re usually much better than OE stuff, you don’t have to declare them to your insurance – the Eibach stuff is, but they’re not heavily branded – so I’ll leave that up to you.

+1 for Bilsteins, but really I think without new brakes and tyres all it'll do is highlight other inadequacies. New tyres and some good pads should be the first port of call. Bridgestone Potenzas are a good tyre for the money and Mintex m1144s take care of the stopping.

if your car is in fine fettle a set of good tyres (I'd recommend Goodyear Eagle F1 AS2s) and a map is probably all that is worth bothering with.

But the OP said something less than a re-map, despite all the subsequent posts about new alloys (though apparently "poverty spec") and "slamming" things.

£ for £ the best value for money upgrade for performance is to map it but it's already powerful enough for the chassis which was designed to be nice and safe with loads of understeer. Good quality tyres and brakes replace the suspension bushes with new ones and leave it at that.