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After having written my report on the weekend I spent with the Astra VXR supplied by Tony LeVoi Lakeside, Jon Shield invited me to test drive their stage 2 conversion on the Astra VXR.
With some intensive development work and hard tuning sessions, the map was ready to go and knowing I would be looking for a factory finished map or better, Jon gave me the keys and I headed for the open road, yes on my own.
The initial impressions where very favourable and knowing the car was on standard suspension I was happy it would be a good comparison to the standard car.
Heading off into the Norfolk country gave plenty of opportunities to exploit the cars handling but not so much to see how fast you can go, but to test the overall driving from corner to corner. The throttle response was far more linear, delivering power at a far more predictable level without that sudden glob of power just when you don’t need it. Transition from throttle to brakes and back onto throttle can be achieved in a far smoother operation. The suspension being even easier to balance on quick changes
This car delivers a very strong push in the back continuing to deliver right to the red line, without the engine feeling its being strangled. The only issue I can see is that the speed increases so quickly and is so less aggressive that you are going to be working even harder looking for those folks who are out to see if you are breaking the law!! (Not that I did).
No matter how frequently I pushed the car to full throttle, then released and then to full throttle again the engine never seem to argue delivering the same constant acceleration from corner to corner, never giving any hint of heat build up, never giving any hint of the ignition timing being pulled back. In fact after talking to Jon there is no ignition retard being applied by the ECU even after constant hard acceleration.
The throttle gave constant balancing ability in corners never over reacting to small increases in throttle angle and therefore giving a far better and easy car to drive.
The power delivery to me even seemed to reduce some of the torque steer but you still know you have a huge volume of power under your foot and the push just gets stronger and stronger.
What did become very apparent was the sound the Miltek was delivering. To me the standard exhaust sounds more like a jet fighter and seemed very strangled, but the Miltek was far freer flowing, giving the engine every chance to release its gases in a more efficient way. The system is well suited to the Courtenay map. I personally didn’t see the need to have the different power levels offered by the sport button as the car is so easy to drive you will always have it pushed onto the higher setting.
It was encouraging and satisfying to see that Jon has purchased the Astra purely for developing the new maps, and so therefore not using customer cars as the testing ground. Also, Stephan has purchased an Astra OPC to take the map’s further as he feels the engine has potential, with further modifications, to yield greater power increases, stronger delivery and higher torque.
In keeping with true engine developing Jon has gone to the extent of boring a hole in the exhaust manifold for measuring EGTs, (keeping within factory set tolerance), ensured the lambda values are kept in tolerance by using wide band
lambda monitoring. Further more Jon data logged the whole development both on the
dyno and on the road, to ensure OE levels of safety and protection are meet
for the engine. This way they know the map is safely developed to cope with
the demands and extreme loads equivalent to summer time use on for example the race circuit.
Who ever goes for this superb re-map will never stop smiling. An excellent job completed by Courtenay’s on a well designed engine by Vauxhall. Now all I wait for is the re-map on the Vectra.
With some intensive development work and hard tuning sessions, the map was ready to go and knowing I would be looking for a factory finished map or better, Jon gave me the keys and I headed for the open road, yes on my own.
The initial impressions where very favourable and knowing the car was on standard suspension I was happy it would be a good comparison to the standard car.
Heading off into the Norfolk country gave plenty of opportunities to exploit the cars handling but not so much to see how fast you can go, but to test the overall driving from corner to corner. The throttle response was far more linear, delivering power at a far more predictable level without that sudden glob of power just when you don’t need it. Transition from throttle to brakes and back onto throttle can be achieved in a far smoother operation. The suspension being even easier to balance on quick changes
This car delivers a very strong push in the back continuing to deliver right to the red line, without the engine feeling its being strangled. The only issue I can see is that the speed increases so quickly and is so less aggressive that you are going to be working even harder looking for those folks who are out to see if you are breaking the law!! (Not that I did).
No matter how frequently I pushed the car to full throttle, then released and then to full throttle again the engine never seem to argue delivering the same constant acceleration from corner to corner, never giving any hint of heat build up, never giving any hint of the ignition timing being pulled back. In fact after talking to Jon there is no ignition retard being applied by the ECU even after constant hard acceleration.
The throttle gave constant balancing ability in corners never over reacting to small increases in throttle angle and therefore giving a far better and easy car to drive.
The power delivery to me even seemed to reduce some of the torque steer but you still know you have a huge volume of power under your foot and the push just gets stronger and stronger.
What did become very apparent was the sound the Miltek was delivering. To me the standard exhaust sounds more like a jet fighter and seemed very strangled, but the Miltek was far freer flowing, giving the engine every chance to release its gases in a more efficient way. The system is well suited to the Courtenay map. I personally didn’t see the need to have the different power levels offered by the sport button as the car is so easy to drive you will always have it pushed onto the higher setting.
It was encouraging and satisfying to see that Jon has purchased the Astra purely for developing the new maps, and so therefore not using customer cars as the testing ground. Also, Stephan has purchased an Astra OPC to take the map’s further as he feels the engine has potential, with further modifications, to yield greater power increases, stronger delivery and higher torque.
In keeping with true engine developing Jon has gone to the extent of boring a hole in the exhaust manifold for measuring EGTs, (keeping within factory set tolerance), ensured the lambda values are kept in tolerance by using wide band
lambda monitoring. Further more Jon data logged the whole development both on the
dyno and on the road, to ensure OE levels of safety and protection are meet
for the engine. This way they know the map is safely developed to cope with
the demands and extreme loads equivalent to summer time use on for example the race circuit.
Who ever goes for this superb re-map will never stop smiling. An excellent job completed by Courtenay’s on a well designed engine by Vauxhall. Now all I wait for is the re-map on the Vectra.
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