Got a couple of questions about the XE, mainly regarding costs that i couldn;t find answers to.

Firstly, this is the red top found in astras and cavaliers and such, correct?

Basically, is it easy to find one in fairly decent condition?
How much would you expect to pay for a reasonable one from a breakers?

Is a rebuild necessary/recommended before sticking it in a 7 and what's involved? cost?

With regards tuning, standard power is around 130bhp depending on what car it came from. Now i've read that 200bhp can be had reliably. I'm not really interested in more then around 150/160bhp. How easily can an extra 30 or so horses be released and what costs are involved?

Is it simple to mate them up to a type 9 gearbox? what gearbox options are available?

And finally, are they heavy? relatively speaking? steel block aluminium head?

Sorry, lots of questions. any help appreciated, cheers

[Edited on 29/11/05 by olv]

block is iron, head is ally.
not bought in a while, around £300 seems common
a rebuild will depend on milage, higher milage (which most now are) would benefit from a rebuild
they are 150 or 155 bhp as standard, teh 130bhp is an 8v engine.
type 9 box requires a special bellhousing or a manta 1.8/carlton box can be used.
found in mk2 astra gte's, cavalier gsi's and calibra 16v's.

Ned.

As ned says, although watch out for porous heads. ( where the oil seaps into the coolant through the galleries in the head.

Cheers for replies, seems like a more attractive option than a pinto and not as costly as a zetec.

big issue is height, its a tall block, this means either getting tall body work / chassis or running sod all ground clearance - or both!!!!

ST body work is proper 'lotus' sizes, this makes it difficult to fit but not impossible - ask NS Dev. Other suppliers add 1 or 2" to the height either through the chassis or bodywork or both - this would make it easier.

have i just said the same thing twice?

........not dissimilar in height to a zetec though (same stroke and not much taller head), so you would have similar problems with that, but yes height is an issue, but as mike said, it will fit (does just fit under stuart taylor bodywork with no bulge but limited ground clearance)

the rest is as Ned said!

std good condition engine with throttle bodies and a nicely mapped engine management system (be it megasquirt or any of the proprietary makes....I run MBE systems) will make circa 200hp. (well mine did!)

Bargains can be had if you look around...

Last 3 engines i've bought have been under £100

2 with coscast heads

and one with a porours GM head, but westfield shortened sump

bloody hell that's cheap!!!

I have just paid £250 for a 1992 coscast headed XE, 92,000 miles, from a known car (mate's calibra) and with the car's V5 as proof of engine age for the SVA "non-cat" requirements. You won't find much cheaper than that for an engine that you can drive a long distance before buying, well not very often!!

I have bought 4 now over a few years and 1 of the 4 was in need of work, even though it was a runner with a coscast head. It had had the cambelt let go at some point and been redone cheaply, with the result that all the exhaust guides were chipped on the ends, and whoever did the head gasket afterwards fcuk'd it up and it was then blowing so it needs a new set of guides and a skim...........its now a spare head which will form the basis of a solid lifter race head for my grasser wehn funds permit and if I don't change classes for 2007.......which is looking likely anyway!

quote:

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Originally posted by NS Dev

I have just paid £250 for a 1992 coscast headed XE, 92,000 miles, from a known car (mate's calibra) and with the car's V5 as proof of engine age for the SVA "non-cat" requirements.

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What's a coscast head?

The head designed by cosworth... they are slightly better than the GM head...

The GM headed engine came from Wigan and i live in Kent... so was bit of a distance for it !!

The GM heads have been known to go porous
The Coscast heads were made of slightly better.

But it dont matter as long as it's not porous

ahh thanks. how do you tell if a head has gone porous or not?

can you tell i don't know much about engines?

im using an ecotec basically cos it was free and 50000 miles, should go well with throttle bodies and emerald

The only was is to see if theres oil in the water ways which is not always posible if the engine is out of the car.

Someone will probably correct me on this. I have a calibra which had a porous head. I got a modded recon one for 100 quid.

Last few XE`s I have had, I bought entire, rotten Calibras. for £100 each. 1 good engine, 1 scored block, but I made a decent profit on both by selling the car parts on.

Something worth considering as mentioned above, is the newer ecotec engine. Also 2 litre 16v, makes slightly less power at about 136bhp, but has decent torque through the revs. They are newer, so likely to be lower mileage and not in need of rebuilding, and are also available in a wider range of cars, not just the sporty models like the XE, but the ecotec was found in any 2 litre 16v motor after about 1994ish. as a matter of fact, im selling a whole 1995 cavalie with one for £200!

The ecotec is pretty much the same as the XE size-wise and respond to the usual XE tuning stuff like TB`s.

just to be pedantic (as always) coscast heads aren't a cosworth design, the head was designed by opel motorsport division from what i've read, coscast is actually the manufacturing process by cosworth which the first heads were produced with under license or something, then gm copied the process or used their own, producing the later gm heads.

Ned.

about the ecotec, its basically a vauxhall xe bottom end (well block but different pistons and rods iirc and possibly fewer bolts on the flywheel, but i might be thinking of the 8v) but for the emissions they increased the vlave angles to reduce/eliminate overlap on the cams which lead to emissions problems when the regs changed afaik. they make 136/138 and do benefit from breathing mods and throttle bodies, but afaik the inlet manifold and exhaust pattern is different and you won't get as good a perormance as you will with an xe for the same state of engine and tuning bits.


[Edited on 29/11/05 by ned]

quote:

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Originally posted by liam.mccaffrey
im using an ecotec basically cos it was free and 50000 miles, should go well with throttle bodies and emerald

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quote:

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Originally posted by ned
just to be pedantic (as always) coscast heads aren't a cosworth design, the head was designed by opel motorsport division from what i've read, coscast is actually the manufacturing process by cosworth which the first heads were produced with under license or something, then gm copied the process or used their own, producing the later gm heads.

Ned.

about the ecotec, its basically a vauxhall xe bottom end (well block but different pistons and rods iirc and possibly fewer bolts on the flywheel, but i might be thinking of the 8v) but for the emissions they increased the vlave angles to reduce/eliminate overlap on the cams which lead to emissions problems when the regs changed afaik. they make 136/138 and do benefit from breathing mods and throttle bodies, but afaik the inlet manifold and exhaust pattern is different and you won't get as good a perormance as you will with an xe for the same state of engine and tuning bits.


[Edited on 29/11/05 by ned]

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quote:

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Originally posted by 02GF74

quote:

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Originally posted by NS Dev

I have just paid £250 for a 1992 coscast headed XE, 92,000 miles, from a known car (mate's calibra) and with the car's V5 as proof of engine age for the SVA "non-cat" requirements.

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can I ask wehre is this goldmine of cheap 20XE engines

re: non-cat test; accorinding to KitCar SVA booklet, any car up to Aug 95 does not haver to have CAT test; but SVA book says if it had CAT fitted in original car, then it needs to have CAT test.

I would be pretty sure 92 Calibra had CAT or not? Or it there are way of getting round this?

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cheers for all the replies guys. i have no idea what engine i'm gonna use at the moment, but that's a long way off. just trying to get an idea of my options.

quote:

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Originally posted by NS Dev
Hiya Ned!

Thanks for the fuel rail!!! Just the job!!

Yes, the coscast process was the process used, never knew that the design wasn't cosworth though, personally I thought it was as originally the astra GTE was destined to be the astra Cosworth until ford said no to that and cosworth had to obey due to racing and sierra comitments!

Wouldn't be the last Opel/Cosworth collaboration, the DTM 2.5 v6 was also cosworth/opel (cosworth funded by Opel in other words!)

Incidentally one of our investigative metallurgists at the mill used to work for a specialist heat treatment company that did most of the work for cosworth age hardening their alloy heads, including the YB and XE heads. The process was VERY tightly controlled apparently, and basically cosworth maintained aircraft standards but without the aircraft levels of paperwork.

You are quite right on the flywheel bolts too Ned, ecotec only has 6, XE has 8. Basically the ecotec bottom end was specced the same as the old 2.0 SEH 8 valve engine. No bad thing really as this was still tougher than a Zetec!!! Have you ever seen one break????????

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quote:

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Originally posted by olv
cheers for all the replies guys. i have no idea what engine i'm gonna use at the moment, but that's a long way off. just trying to get an idea of my options.

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Of the 4 that I have...........

2 are 1989 Astra GTE ones, and both are "20XE"

1 is cavalier GSI 1991 and is "C20XE" but definitely had no catalyst. (but did have lambda sensor)

1 is Calibra 16v 1992 and is "C20XE" and again had NO catalyst from new, though again had a lambda sensor fitted.



As an aside, I recently broke a 1993 Cavalier SRI 8 valve (one of the last ones) and that again had a lambda sensor but no catalyst.

The guy I bought mine from said it was out of his H reg Astra 16v GTE and that's a C20XE. Just starting to worry about proof of age now...