17 replies to this topic

[craggers]

Hi there, Sooooo... im very new to the engine modding business! I have been ploughing through threads on threads of how to fit, why to fit and the problems you may encounter... on both the .org and Z22SE site, but hope you dont mind me asking you VXers about this! Basically, I am looking into (maybe) going ahead with this mod, as the mod has had a lot of positive feedback from users on here! my questions (if u dont mind ).. 1. What exactly will i need to buy to complete the job? (ie, anything that is not included in the kit when you buy) 2. What is the EGR blanking thingys i read about? 3. have seen a few issues with the alternator being in the way? is this the case? and if so how do you overcome it? 4. Do you need a new throttle body? or am i right in saying that there is a plate the covers the original holes? 5. Is the job a b***h with the engine in place? or does it have to be lifted to finish the job? (seeing as it is sandwiched to the back wall) Im sure there are many more questions to come many thanks Craggers

[chris_uk]

unless you plan on cams and a remap i wouldnt bother.

you will have probably read this already but it takes away the midrange torque and gives you higher end bhp but really you need a raised rev limit before its really worth it.

so to answer your q's

Q. What exactly will i need to buy to complete the job? (ie, anything that is not included in the kit when you buy)
A. Courtenay do a complete kit here >>> COMPLETE KIT

Q. What is the EGR blanking thingys i read about?
A. It blanks off where the EGR valve goes, this is only used if you get rid of the EGR by the cheater from z22se.co.uk

Q. have seen a few issues with the alternator being in the way? is this the case? and if so how do you overcome it?
A. it seems that only the 120amp altenator is a problem, you can overcome this by chopping the manifold or attacking the alt housing. I took the chopping manifold route (info on z22se.co.uk)

Q. Do you need a new throttle body? or am i right in saying that there is a plate the covers the original holes?
A. short answer, no im not sure what you mean about the original holes tho. the standard 2.2 bolts straight on

Q. Is the job a b***h with the engine in place? or does it have to be lifted to finish the job?
A. its very possible to do the whole job from just the top of the car, but i would reccomend taking the boot lid off.

[craggers]

Hey, cheers for the super speedy response! so as for doing it, it doesnt seem to be too much of a bother - minus the alternator bodge! as you say, if this mod is going to be worth it, your saying about the cams, i have looked about and they seem VERY expensive... which cams did you opt for? and around how much am i looking to have to pay would you think? As for the manifold, if its all in a kit and can be done with the engine in place, this makes it alot more of a desirable job to do! with the EGR valve, does this affect the emiisions in anyway? - or is that what the cheater does? (sorry im fick ) with the throttle body, i thought it looked as if it needed a bodge to fit.. but as you say, it bolts on fine Cheers Craig

[chris_uk]

I havent got cams atm, and i have looked down route of using reground piper cams, but think i will go for the compcams which are about £400ish + fitting which i will do myself, thorney quoted me 6 hours labour for fitting cams but i think that might be a bit long for trained mechanics, i dont even have a clue and im sure ill do it faster.

you can do the mod with the engine in place, i did anyway

for EGR info go here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egr

no the throttle body just bolts back on, it might of been the ECU bracket you saw needed to be put back on in a different way

[hogman]

I looked into the various mods for the NA and decided that the best route was to save up for a set of throttle bodies and not bother with the 2.4 mani, cams etc. Look at the throttle bodies option.

[hogman]

Interesting part of the Wikipedia site on removing the EGR....

"In the past, a fair number of car owners disconnected their EGR systems in an attempt for better performance and some still do. The belief is either EGR reduces power output, causes a build-up in the intake manifold, or believe that the environmental impact of EGR outweighs the NOx emission reductions. Disconnecting an EGR system is usually as simple as unplugging an electrically operated valve or inserting a ball bearing into the vacuum line in a vacuum-operated EGR valve. In most modern engines, disabling the EGR system will cause the computer to display a check engine light. In almost all cases, a disabled EGR system will cause the car to fail an emissions test, and may cause the EGR passages in the cylinder head and intake manifold to become blocked with carbon deposits, necessitating extensive engine disassembly for cleaning."

[oakmere]

Fitting the 2.4 is a bit of a pain but can be done without clam or engine removal. I fitted mine in about 5 hours but I tried to fit it by moding the manifold alone and not the alternator but this did not work so it took longer than expected. I think it is a worthwhile mod but the best mod to compliment this is a new manifold and exhaust see martinS development car for TMS over 180 bhp without head or cams. I never really noticed a drop in mid range torque that many mention but I did find that keeping the original intake pipe improved tractability (I did have a vec c type intake pipe). It will be interesting to see what the Baron gets when he fits the 2.4 mani with a complete piper manifold and 2.5" exhaust! Oakmere

[vocky]

Interesting part of the Wikipedia site on removing the EGR....

"In the past, a fair number of car owners disconnected their EGR systems in an attempt for better performance and some still do. The belief is either EGR reduces power output, causes a build-up in the intake manifold, or believe that the environmental impact of EGR outweighs the NOx emission reductions. Disconnecting an EGR system is usually as simple as unplugging an electrically operated valve or inserting a ball bearing into the vacuum line in a vacuum-operated EGR valve. In most modern engines, disabling the EGR system will cause the computer to display a check engine light. In almost all cases, a disabled EGR system will cause the car to fail an emissions test, and may cause the EGR passages in the cylinder head and intake manifold to become blocked with carbon deposits, necessitating extensive engine disassembly for cleaning."

vauxhall will remove them if they go faulty and the ecu can accept the revised software, also the usa ecotec 2.2 engines don't have them.

The z22se egr only opens at cruise conditions so won't fail a uk mot.

"extensive engine disassembly" maybe on a diesel but not a petrol

[techieboy]

My last MoT, post 2.4 inlet, ported throttle body, ported head and remap (plus no EGR) actually gave better emissions readings than my previous StageII+ car. Better yet, I've still got a lovely clean intake side of the engine instead of the filthy mess of crud that it used to be coated in, with the EGR connected.

[craggers]

ouch... i seem to be in way over my head here! (hogman) Throttle Bodies look uber expensive! ie. i havent actually found a price for a kit yet without having to £call !! i understand this EGR a bit better now, so are you saying that you could just unplug the connector and see a bit better performance regardless of the new mani? is the 2.2 mani not compatible with the EGR on the NA? thats why you need a cheating device/not connect it? the job is looking more desirable to do, having read reports of others and now oakmere taking around 5 hours etc, so should be within my capabilities! what would you say the most difficult part of the job is to do? and most risky? or is it fairly simple, just frustrating working at the back of the engine? Cheers guys Craggers

[oakmere]

ouch... i seem to be in way over my head here! (hogman) Throttle Bodies look uber expensive! ie. i haven't actually found a price for a kit yet without having to £call !!

i understand this EGR a bit better now, so are you saying that you could just unplug the connector and see a bit better performance regardless of the new mani?

is the 2.2 mani not compatible with the EGR on the NA? thats why you need a cheating device/not connect it?

the job is looking more desirable to do, having read reports of others and now oakmere taking around 5 hours etc, so should be within my capabilities! what would you say the most difficult part of the job is to do? and most risky? or is it fairly simple, just frustrating working at the back of the engine?

Cheers guys

Craggers

Craggers

The 2.4 mani dose not have a connection for the erg. The easiest way is to cap off the outlet on the head when you remove the egr pipe and leave the egr valve as is (still connected). You can't just unplug the egr valve as it will throw a engine warning light.

As for fitting see the guides on z22se.co.uk there is loads of info.

Cheers Oakmere

[techieboy]

Throttle bodies are circa £1800 which is reasonable value given that you get everything plus a secondary ECU. They sound amazing as well and on a properly setup and sympathetically modified car like Vocky's, make for a great set up with very smooth power delivery. Removing/disabling the EGR system doesn't add anything to the performance (other than stopping any more sh!t being recycled through the engine) but just removes something that does go wrong from time to time. The 2.4 inlet manifold doesn't have the necessary connection for the recycled gas to come back in, so the EGR system needs disabling one way or another. You can do that by removing the whole EGR system (and a couple of kg's with it) and fitting a cheater that kids the ECU into believing it's still there and functioning. Or, you can leave most of it in place by rotating the valve through 90 degress so it hangs over the void by the cylinder head and fitting a blanking plate to hole in the head that the valve usually fits. It's a pretty straightforward thing to fit but there is a fair amount of dicking around as you'll need to remove the fuel rail to gain enough access to the front side of the engine and there isn't a huge amount of space. Modifying the alternator (if you've got the overkill 120amp version) is a bit of take a little bit off and see if the manifold fits, then take off a little bit more. It's probably worth porting the standard throttle body a little and if nothing else cleaning up the engine side of it as it will be filthy from breathing the exhaust gases. Drilling the security bolts out of the ECU, so that you can fit it onto the new bracket is a little nervewracking. I'm not sure what other mods you have but don't do the 2.4 inlet conversion in isolation and if you've already got exhaust and induction mods you may well find you need to get a remap to make the most of it all. You may also find that need to get the Piper exhaust manifold to try and restore a little of the lost torque in the mid range. It took a lot of custom mapping time at TMS for the handful of us that have been through the full process and it can work out quite expensive. Talk to TMS or Courtenays first and see what they advise.....they may well talk you out of it. There's a link in my signature to my original standard dyno run and then the car after many hours of dyno time and map tweaking. There's still a hole in the torque curve that TMS couldn't get rid of - which is noticeable as the car seems to hesitate before gathering a second wind and screaming up to the red line. I can live with it as I do use the engine revs, especially on the track.

[craggers]

i see! well the most i have modded to the engine is.... removing the trumpet from the air box, replacing filter and shortening the pipe... replaced sparks and replaced my coolant tank! so im hardly an experianced modder... il keep reading up on it! and maybe do it in the summer sometime soon! cheers for the advice... if anyone wants to say n e more on the subject.. feel free as all help and facts etc are very much appreciated!! thanks again Craggers

[Retset]

I have the 2.4 plus Milltek, fitted at same time to standard car by PSR Automotive. Once ECU had relearnt, I found I had a very smooth car that now loves to rev. There is a lot of mid range torque but not as much as before. It is far nicer to drive on track. Whether you would find it nicer on the road is down to how you drive .. if you drive it like a TDi then you may not appreciate the small torque loss. I will go to Courtney soon for a remap. Partly I want the rev limit raised and partly because I believe all/most of the extra power the mod frees up are held back because the ECU cannot 'trim up' enough fuel to match the extra airflow available. I wonder about getting the throttle body ported but won't go any further. This is mainly becuse I am more bothered about handling and braking but also I believe that if I want to spend megabucks on the engine, I will simply go for a charger.

[Winstar]

I will go to Courtney soon for a remap. Partly I want the rev limit raised and partly because I believe all/most of the extra power the mod frees up are held back because the ECU cannot 'trim up' enough fuel to match the extra airflow available.

Having seen the AFR plots for various NA's with and with out the 2.4 Mani at the RS tuning RR day (somthing you don't oftern get) then I have to dissagree the as std the NA runs so rich that it's just about getting to a decent AFR with a 2.4 mani fitted. However it really does need the rev limit raising with one fitted.

[Retset]

Interesting Winstar.Is there such thing as a chepo 'map' that is just raid=sing the redline?

[Anarchy]

Theres no mention of the suppresor on here, I take we still need one of these? Got any links? I have had mine sat in the atic ages now but never bothered due to the mixed results. I think I might give it a go now I have a spare shed to get to work in, if it is dissapointing I presume everything can just be put back to normal? For info my car is pretty standard: Vectra C intake pipe. Panel filter/airbox mods. Pre cat removed. Remap with raised limit. It already has a massive power difference between under 4K and over 4k probably due to the remap and I like it, I suppose I am expecting this to be even more noticable.

[Retset]

I would definitely try it. Never re-mapped mine but I am convinced it would work well - esp the raised rev limit. As for removing it again ... I certainly don't want to and CBA - it's staying!