A brief history of my Carlton 3000 GSi - Insurance - Servicing - Timing chain work
Cylinder head work - Exhaust - Re-mapped ECU - Oil in connector! - Clutch Hose Replacement - Brake Hose Replacement - Digital Dash Fault - Spark plug HT leads - 17" wheels - 16" wheels - Steering Wheel upgrade- Lambda sensor - Rolling Road - Santa pod - Intermittent wipe upgrade - Lights on buzzer upgrade - Fan blower not blowing - Cruise Control dropping out - Performance - Links
A brief history of my Carlton 3000 GSi
Here's some info about my GSi and some of the mechanical curiosities and maintenance I've endured/enjoyed over the last few of years.
Registered new in 1993 she spent her first 5 years being thrashed around motorways as a company directors car. Luckily the company specified air-conditioning and heated seats as options and also opted for the LCD dash but strangely not the no-cost metallic paint option. Full specifications for the GSi can be found on the Autobahnstormers web-pages. I bought this car in 1998 showing 132,000 miles on the clock for just over £4k. The mileage is currently just over 236,000 and the car is doing sterling service dragging the wife and I to work and back every day.
Insurance isn't that expensive considering the performance (0-60 in 6.4sec, 148mph, source: Autocar magazine 1993). Here are the quotes I obtained in 2000, 2001 and 2002. A couple of years ago I decided I couldn't be bothered being stuck to a phone for hours and so used internet based insurers only. The car is usually placed in group 18.
2000 quotes:
Fully Comprehensive + driving other cars
6 Years NCD -
Protected in all quotes
12,000 miles a year
Job Title: Development Engineer
My wife and myself to drive
Privilege Renewal: £644 250excess
Bell Direct: £577 250excess
Admiral: not competitive
Hill House Hammond: £856.00 250excess
Eagle Star: £1443 250excess
Premium Search (Cornhill): £905.00 250excess
2001 quotes:
Fully Comprehensive + driving other cars
7 Years NCD - Protected in all quotes
12,000 miles a year
Job Title: Senior Physicist
My wife and myself to drive
Bell direct
renewal: £460.00 250excess
www.insure.co.uk £848.45 250excess
www.elephant.co.uk £431.55 250excess
www.theaa.co.uk £553.59 250excess
www.norwichunion.co.uk £689.00 250excess
www.privilege.com £618.45 150excess
www.admiral.com £596.40 250excess
2002 quotes:
As 2001 but with 8 years NCD
www.elephant.co.uk renewal: £250 excess
www.egg.co.uk £559.65 £200 excess
www.insure.co.uk £739.73 with £100 excess
www.admiral.com £549.15 with £250 excess (£415.80 TPFT)
www.theaa.co.uk £469.69 with £500 excess , £513.02 with £250 excess
www.norwichunion.co.uk £601.04 with £270 excess
www.directline.co.uk £538.65 with £200 excess (£423.15 TPFT)
www.morethan.com refused to quote
Interestingly, Bell Direct and elephant are both part of the Admiral Insurance Services Ltd but each company gives a different price for the same policy!
The club (Autobahnstormers) had arranged a 'club' insurance scheme, my experience of such schemes in the past has been negative, usually more expensive than others companies and nothing more than paid advertising for the company, but I thought I would give it a try:
www.footmanjames.co.uk came up with £499 for a classic car policy covering the GSi - They seemed to give a genuine 10% discount as the lady gave me a quote and then when asked about the club discount, took 10% off it. The policy is a little different as it's unlimited mileage (handy for my long commute) and includes European breakdown recovery, so that saves over 100quid the RAC used to get! But here's the crunch, they will insure an additional Senator using my full NCD for the princely sum of £202 TPFT. Far cheaper than some of the quotes I have been getting for a second car. They get my business for this year. One thing to note if they won't give you instant cover for classic policies over the phone, you have to fill the forms and post back, so don't do what I did and wait until the last day before buying!
2003 quotes:
www.footmanjames.co.uk renewal: £492.45
www.elephant.com £323.40 with £250 excess
As I no longer have to commute to work elephant comes out top this year. I didn't even bother to get any other quotes because 323quid isn't going to be beaten. It seems to get a good deal from elephant you have to be a "new" customer, both my wife and I have found that the elephant renewal quotes can be easily beaten but after a year with a different insurer they become competitive again!
2004 quotes:
www.elephant.com renewal: £313.95 (what's this? The first time a any of my renewal costs were less than last year's cover!)
Footman James: £420 (also cheaper than last years quote)
I have preformed the routine service every 3 to 4k miles which involve a simple oil change (I use Vauxhall semi-synthetic 10W40 oil available at trade club price of around £6 for a 5 litre can) along with a OE Vauxhall oil-filter. Budget in a 10p copper washer to seal the sump plug again.
The car came with a oversized oil drain plug which leaked, leaving an annoying small pool on the drive! It's an alloy sump and over zealous use of the wrench when tightening the drain bolt causes the threads to strip. This has now been replaced with a good second-hand hand sump and I had a HeliCoi (thread insert) fitted to plug hole before bolting it on, so hopefully it won't strip again! It's now fully oil tight and had about 20 oil changes.
Spark plugs are changed every 18,000 miles or so. I've tried the Vauxhall OE plugs, a two pronged plug, which work well and only cost £1.98 through the Vauxhall trade club. I've also tried the Bosch Super4 plugs which are 4 times as expensive and don't have any noticeable benefits in performance / cold start / economy apart for the placebo effect, they have a dual heat rating of 7/8. The OE plugs are Bosch manufactured, and have a heat rating of 7 for all the straight six 24v engines. The Omega B, V6s uses the same plugs for early engines but latter engines moved to a heat rating of 8 (hotter). The Bosch spark plug information can be found here. The Lotus Carlton uses NGK plugs and I have been tempted to try the equivalents for the GSi <NGK.pdf>, they are two prong plugs which look surprisingly like the Bosch items and are priced in-between OE and Super4 ranges.
As many may know the 24V engine runs a simplex chain between the cams and also a rather long chain down to the crankshaft. It's the long chain which is prone to snapping. A stronger chain is available to club members and should be fitted along with new tensioners. A list of the parts that are required for a full chain change has been compiled by Ian Marsh <chainparts.pdf> and for the lotus <lotuschainparts.pdf> retail and trade club prices are listed (prices correct when I carried out my chain chain in 2000). Ian Marsh supplies the hardened chains which I used and can be contacted on senator24v@ianmarsh.freeserve.co.uk. Another source of chains has recently become available through another club member, Peter Harrison, he as gone for a roller chain type construction to strengthen the chain and can be contacted on peter.harrison5@virgin.net.
When doing the timing chain job I also fitted a Bill Blydenstein cylinder head (stage 2);Bill Blydenstein is famous for gas flowed cylinder heads and Vauxhall tuning in general. Having worked with Vauxhall race teams in the 70's and 80's. I have always wanted one of his modified heads and when I had the chance to get my cars head flowed by the man himself I took it! It's not cheap but the work is first rate. A photograph gallery of the finished head is below. The work was carried out when I decided to take the head off for the chain swap, not strictly necessary for a chain change but the head gasket was showing it's first signs of letting go!
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The head ready to be installed, and safely bolted down.
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The 'engine' side of the porting work
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Inlet manifold side, compared with the standard port shown first, the ports have been opened out considerably. The injector manifold has also been matched to the gasket as well (last photograph)
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The exhaust port has also received work.
I have also fitted a Richard Brunt full stainless steel straight through exhaust system (with mandrel bended pipes). The whole kit consists of a back box with polished twin tail pipes, mid pipes with silencers (see picture below) and the catalytic converters replacement silencer pods which quieten the system a bit. Check out Richards own site for more details of this system.
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The rather nice stainless steel mid-boxes awaiting the fitting to my GSi
The WOT (wide open throttle) fuel maps have been re-mapped to take into account the improved breathing from the head/exhaust combination. The ignition has been advanced a couple of degrees (still OK on 95RON fuel, but likes 98RON super better). Part throttle maps have been "compressed" so you get more light throttle "feel". See M1.5 and lambda pages for information on this modification.
Routine wear and tear service items
Since I have owned the car a few items have worn out, the track-rod arm, brake discs / 3 pad swaps, rear drums/discs and pads, water pump, viscous fan coupling, and all 4 shock absorbers have been replaced, all what I consider wear and tear items after 100k miles. Most of these parts are available through the Vauxhall trade club and prices are reasonable, the set of Vauxhall OE shock absorbers for instance cost £197.
Many people don't bother with replacing a work out viscous fan coupling. It is believed the oil leaks out of the coupling causing it to fail. The coupling usually fails "slack" and so doesn't lock up when hot. More information and a dissection can be found on Richard Brunt's site. Someone emailed me some pages from the Cadillac service manual with details on the viscous coupling, you can read them <here> and <here>. A less scientific test is the 'Ian Marsh carrot method' which involves sacrificing a carrot. Basically, while the engine is hot, if you can stop the viscous fan spinning using a carrot without destroying it the fan coupling is knackered. The replacement part is different depending on if you have an Automatic and/or Air Conditioning but cost around £120.
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I've also been through 4 complete sets of Uniroyal 540 tyres (205 65 W15) (original specification was Uniroyal 440) . A nice progressive tyre which doesn't bite and slides progressively. Good in both wet and dry conditions. One of my pet "nags" is the correct speed rating for your car, make sure you use W, Y or Z on 24v engine cars and V, W, Y or Z on 12v versions!
Oil collects in one of the under bonnet connectors. A number of owners have noted this. We've tracked it down to oil drawing itself up by capillary action. One of the sensors this connector 'goes' to is the oil level sensor in the sump!
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Oil accumulates in this bulkhead connector
Soon after I bough the car I notices that the rubber clutch hose which goes from the under bonnet area to the gearbox housing had started to bulge and appear "soft". Contacting my local Vauxhall dealer resulted in a shock! The hose is not available on it's own, it only comes as part of the whole assembly and is moulted onto the pipe work under the bonnet! Total cost £198.00. So I sent a sample to Think Automotive which the aim to have a replacement made from stainless braided PTE and to flare and fit a normal 10mm brake pipe fitting to the original under bonnet metal pipe. The gearbox fitting has a 10mm fitting already. The job to fit the Vauxhall OE hose and pipe involves a lot more work that just replacing the rubber hose!
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The clutch hose Vauxhall want you to buy and my alternative
I successfully used stainless steel braided PTE hoses as replacements for the flexible rubber hoses on the Nova so looked into doing the same with the Carlton. The TRV8 also came fitted with them and the brake peddle is very firm. It is worth having a read of the following link: http://www.seansa4page.com/resource/brakelines.html, some people rate them, others think they are un-safe, make up your own mind. The company I used were, again, Think Automotive, who once I supplied them with a sample brake hose set from Vauxhall made up the copies. There is a warning leaflet enclosed with the hoses, see scan below. The fittings are the Aeroquip type which are NOT crimped onto the hose. The hose itself is a quality Mocal stainless steel braided PTE type. A new set of Vauxhall OE hoses costs considerably more than the braided ones which are £31.00 inc VAT!
When we matched them up for fitting it was soon noticed that the replacement hoses didn't have the mounting "grommet". The thought of cable ties entered my mind, but lets face it these are brakes we are talking about here! So I decided to have little clamps made up which will fit around the hose and slide into the original fittings. These were CNC machined out of brass. Using a rubber sleeve on the hose these fit like a glove!
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I had to have 10 sets machined to make the job economical so if anyone wants a pair I will let you have them at cost price (£20 quid for a pair of clamps, rubber sleeves, new retaining clips, VX part no: 90 539 036 and postage and packing, go to the shop).
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The old hose, new clips and new clips installed on new hose!
Whilst driving down the street one afternoon I suddenly noted a red 'F' glairing at me from the digital dash... indicating a non-working rev-counter. I've yet to track down this fault but it's quite annoying not having a working 'counter. I will probably just use my spare dash from a broken car.
OE leads from Vauxhall are quite expensive at over £100 per set. The leads deteriorate with use. I bought a new set of Vauxhall leads in August 2000 at 150,000 miles and measured their DC resistance in kOhm. At the last spark plug change (March 2002 at 188,000 miles) I measured them again. Rather surprisingly the values had dropped across the board!
| resistance (ohms) at 150k miles | resistance (ohms) at 189k miles | |
| COIL | 7.16(1) | 7.01(1) |
| Cylinder 1 | 6.10(1) | 5.32(1) |
| Cylinder 2 | 8.98(1) | 8.32(1) |
| Cylinder 3 | 8.70(1) | 7.70(1) |
| Cylinder 4 | 11.19(1) | 10.03(1) |
| Cylinder 5 | 11.48(1) | 10.13(1) |
| Cylinder 6 | 16.01(1) | 13.96(1) |
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Plug leads
Correct routing of original equipment spark plug leads. Notice the little clips (Vauxhall part number 9 033 817 7) which holds the leads down to allow the curved metal lead cover to screw down easily without trapping the leads. The other clips bottom right in the photograph are 90 377 959 and 90 338 181.
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17" look fantastic
Look good on the car don't they! I borrowed a set of Wolfrace Voodoo 17" alloys and matching tyres with the correct Vauxhall RWD offset while my standard 15" wheels were off for refurbishment.
Well if you like driving a GSi and NOT looking at it them I suggest you stick with the original 15" alloys and 205/65/WR15 tyres. The handling with the 17" rims was noticeably inferior. There was less grip and earlier breakaway of the rear. The ride was jarring even with brand new shocks all round. Going back to the standard alloys was a godsend and also quieter! The only thing the 17"'s did better was breaking, amazing improvement, the extra rubber really did it's stuff under heavy breaking. M.P.G. was around 4 down on standard I think this must be because of the weight of these wheels, they are very heavy. They do look superb on the car though, if I only did 10 miles to work each day I would live with the ride!
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The cars current boots
I finally found a set of Irmscher star 16" alloy wheels. These wheels are made for Irmscher by Ronal and only fit the Carlton/Omega and Senator vehicles. I personally love them! None of the adverse effects noted with the 17"s are evident (apart from around 1-2 mpg drop, and slightly heavier steering when stationary). I still think the handling on the original 15" rims is better, again that might be a rubber issue, when I get Uniroyals on these rims I will have a fairer comparison. These are a good compromise between looks and performance IMHO.
Tyre size comparisons using the good one 1+1 rule!
| Tyre size | Tyre diameter (in inches) | Rolling radius (in inches) | change from standard |
| 205/65R15 standard | 25.49 | 80.09 | 0% |
| 205/60R16 Irmscher option | 25.69 | 80.69 | +0.74% |
| 225/50/R16 Irmscher option | |||
| 225/55R16 Irmscher option | 25.74 | 80.88 | +1.00% |
| 245/45R17 after market | 25.33 | 80.68 | +0.74% |
| 235/40R18 Irmscher option | 25.40 | 79.80 | -0.36% |
After 210k miles the steering wheel was looking very worn... what is it they say about telling a true cars mileage by looking at wheel wear... if I was ever to successfully clock the car and sell it on a new steering wheel was needed :-) Momo used to produce a "Club 4" type leather wheel (including the correct hub) for the Omega A which wasn't much smaller in diameter to the standard wheel (I'm not a race driver and wanted a OE sized wheel). I bought one second hand from Germany and fitted it. It's a bit thicker than standard and is contoured so makes the car feel much faster!
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Before and after
A new lambda sensor was fitted at 99k miles at the last Vauxhall dealer service. This failed at 209k miles, stuck indicating a rich mixture. This caused the ECU to wind back the fuel, to the extent that pinking was noticeable on acceleration. The ECU light was not indicating a fault! I diagnosed the problem using the lambda sensor monitor (see lambda meter off the menu frame). Disconnecting the lambda brought the light on and the ECU into limp-home mode. A new Bosch OEM replacement was fitted and all was well, drivability and smoothness was improved to such an extent I will be replacing the lambda every 60k miles from now on. The lambda sensor seems to deteriorate and affect drivability at such a slow rate you don't notice it until the transformation when it's replaced hits you!
Richard Brunt 'v' Will Reeve part 1.
The first match, a rolling road session, Richard had been before with a standard engine. He returned with a gas flowed head and a new chip.
| rpm | will p-wheels (bhp, PS) | rich p-wheels (new) | rich p-wheels (old) |
| 1520 | 38.8 | 35.2 | 38.4 |
| 2010 | 51.8 | 52.5 | 52.4 |
| 2520 | 71.6 | 67 | 71.6 |
| 3010 | 87.8 | 88.2 | 93 |
| 3510 | 116.9 | 111.9 | 120.9 |
| 4050 | 130 | 126.9 | 133.1 |
| 4510 | 149.6 | 155.4 | 145.2 |
| 5020 | 164.2 | 167.8 | 165.6 |
| 5500 | 170.1 | 177.2 | 167.3 |
| 6000 | 170.1 | 175.8 | 167.2 |
| 6480 | 160.6 | 174.8 | 158.5 |
Dyno plots
17 June 2001
RWYB (Run What You Brung)
Richard Brunt 'v' Will Reeve part 2.
A great, very well organised day. The marshals were very friendly and didn't mind when you fluffed the start or if you wanted to go head to head with anyone! The weather was damp with an apparently dry track. It did start to rain which caused the strip to be closed for a while but otherwise it kept dry. Temperature was 15°C according to the trip computer in my car. We had five runs each. Three against each other. I had one against a Nissan 200SX the other against a "boy racer" Nissan Micra. Rich went up against a 328i and ran the last one on his own.
My first run was a disaster, dropping the clutch at 3k resulted in copious wheel spin until the 7100 rev limit, into second, spin again. This was not the way to run! The best technique, which I developed after a couple more runs was to rapidly feed in the clutch at around 1,800 to 2,000 revs and floor it, sure the wheels squealed a bit through nearly all of first gear but you were catapulted forwards! This was my preferred technique and achieved the faster times.
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My best run was actually against the Nissan 200ZX
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Richard 'v' BMW
My highest terminal speed over the 1/4 was 90.53 but that took me 16.126 seconds!
As a comparison I looked at the review of the Carlton 24V GSi published in PERFORMANCE CAR magazine, January 1990 issue. The GSi ran a 15.1 second 1/4 Mile with a terminal speed of 94.0mph. Test carried out with a crew of two and a full tank of fuel. Test carried out at Millbrook Proving Ground, Beds. Their tract condition was Dry with a temperature of 2ºC. AUTOCAR in their 17th January 1990 issue produced a 15.4 second 1/4mile with a terminal speed of 92.00mph. As a comparison AUTOCAR AND MOTOR magazine reports in their 28th November 1990 issue a Lotus Carlton running 13.5seconds, and 111mph over the 1/4 mile! If any of my Lotus owing friends had have run today you could have held your head high if you got near those figures, only the Nissan Skyline and the bikes would have come close.
Our times were pretty close to the magazine results, considering, combined, our cars have covered a quarter of a million miles over the last 7 years!
O I nearly forgot. After the humiliating defeat at the rolling road last year Richard was kind not to rub it in too much......no chance here mate; his best 1/4 mile time was 15.664 seconds and 91.06mph a good 0.041 seconds slower! He did however win all three head to heads.
The VW/Audi group wash wipe relay contains some electronics to allow a variable intermittent wiper delay for the windscreen wipers. Times from 1/2 a second to more than 30 seconds can be set. You first select intermittent wipe, then switch it off, select intermittent again to set the time delay! Best of all the relay is a drop in replacement, just remove the current one and drop in the VW one. Get one from your nearest VW garage, part number 357 955 531.
Carltons and Senators come with a rather annoying and harsh light's on buzzer when the drivers door is opened and the dipped beam or side lights are on. The noise can easily be upgraded to a nicer sound by replacing the buzzer relay with a latter Astra item! Part number 90 240 664, a direct replacement for the standard item (part number 90 464 777).
The heater fan suddenly dies, it is most likely the thermal fuel in the resistor pack. You have to remove the top of the heater air box (under the bonnet) to get the little sucker out. The fuse is the device on the left of the photograph. It is a 91°C - Microtemp # KEBBFQ / G4A01. It's a one-time use thermal fuse used in hair dryers, coffee makers and other small appliances. Silver body, 5/32" diameter x 1/2" long. The closest replacement I have found is from RS components, a 94°C device, part number 176-9223. The space connectors on the fan were looking a little corroded so I replaced them at the same time. Hopefully the fuse won't blow again but it's better than the plastic melting and maybe burning your car to the ground! I replaced mine by winding around some fine solder and copper wire and using a pair of pliers as a heat sink (your soldering iron heat will otherwise blow the new fuse!).
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The thermal fuse at the end of the resistor block. New spades crimped onto the fan wires.
It's relatively common to find both Senators and Carlton GSi's without working cruise control. There are two main failure points with the system. Under the bonnet the socket/plug on the actuator is a horrible design and not really suited to the oily under bonnet environment (especially as it carries a fair bit of current). So pull the connector off and give it a good clean and spray in some contact cleaner / lubricant afterwards!
The other failure point is the control unit itself. This has been tracked down (not by me it must be said, an Autobahnstormer several years ago) to faulty electrolytic capacitors which have probably fail due to drying out at high temperatures / long use. There is a 4.7uF which is used in the timing circuit which was believed to cause the units to 'kick' out of cruise after a while I replace these with a more robust tantalum capacitor. Others have suggested that all the electrolytic capacitors in the drive and input region be replaced.
The other capacitors are connected with the interface to the actuator, as the lid is off you might as well change them all.
A kit of replacement capacitors is available for £5.00, just paypal me with your address and I'll stick a pack in the post (royal mail recorded). The capacitors used are Philips 2222 030 38228 2u2 axial (numbers 1 and 2 in the photograph below), 2222 030 38109 10u axial (numbers 3 and 4), TAP 4u7 tantalum (number 5), and nichicon PM 10u radial (numbers 6 and 8).
Before and after the replacements (capacitors different shape/appearance but same values).
So what can
you expect from a 12v or 24v Carlton with mega miles? In April 2004 Autocar
did a 0-100-0 magazine feature. They did a challenge to find the fastest
cars they could for £300 for a 0-100-0 test. They ended up with 2 Vauxhall's
- an '88 Carlton GSi 12v (with 222k miles on the clock) and a K Reg Senator
24v manual (with 149k miles). These were the times they got:
Carlton GSi 12v:
0-60 in 7.51 secs
0-100 in 19.55 secs
0-100-0 in 24.55 secs
Standing mile in 41.34 secs @ 124.57mph
Senator 24v:
0-60 in 7.2 secs
0-100 in 18.39 secs
0-100-0 in 24.16 secs
Standing mile in 39.91 secs @130.35mph
http://www.autobahnstormers.co.uk
Autobahnstormers home page
Richard Brunt's site. Stainless steel parts for Vauxhall straight 6 engines.
Automotive replacement hoses
Bosch OEM lambda sensors at sensible prices from Graham at HGL Motors
OE fit tyres
OE fit spark plugs
Alloy wheels
Irmscher alloy wheels
Steering Wheels
Santa pod raceway
RS Components
Farnell Components
Bill Blydenstein
No web presence, you can contact him at: Hyde Hall Farm, Sandon, nr Buntingford, Herts. SG9 0RU, (01763) 272866