Diesel>Petrol

[EL BURITO]

sorry its GT spec,

still dose 0-100 in 8.2

[Shaun]

Hmmm...I really am waiting for your clutch and or gearbox to go 'PING!'...I worry about the stock torque and power

digifish

One min your saying conserned about the CDTi going " PING" as you put it.

I really think that is over-stretching the internals of the Astra petrol engine. If I had the choice (which I do and I am saying no), I'd take the tuned diesel over the VXR any day. The VXR engine and drivetrain really won't last long in that state of tune.

digifish

The next your saying that your car is stronger then the VXR????? Make up your mind would you.

the clutch will handle 400Nm, no worries there. check the 888s Astras in UK-not a single issue so far, and rest assured those cars are being driven hard. can't see how the gearbox would be damaged since the clutch would die first anyway. if i was to fit a heavy duty clutch, the the gearbox would be at risk, no question about that. but i won't do it.
the setting i've got is the highest i would ever go for in this car. let's not forget, those high figures are really only peaks that are not normaly reached when driving on the road. not if you care about your licence one bit... don't plan to belt the car every weekend on racetracks either.
but let me tell you, that torque feels sooo goood, just accelerate and bang! off she goes

Proof in the pudding i think. No MAJOR issues with Tuning noir are the guys overseas having an issue.

[Shaun]

Hang on!

The VXR is a tuned up Astra! How you decide this is 'stock' is beyond me?

SRi = CDTi

VXR = 888

IMO, in terms of 'state of tune'.

digifish

You are lossing an Up Hill battle here and have got to look at it that the VXR comes off the production line as it is sold in the show room as Stock Product from the Factory. The are built to factory Spec with no change on the preformance side but with appointment options (IE leather trim Xenon lighting etc). 888 CDTi how ever has been redesigned and there for has been an enhanced from another source. Abeit that they are a the Offical Vauxhall BTCC Team they are not owned by Vauxhall. They are under contract to race as the offical Vauxhall team. If you were to argue a VXRPC Tuned VXR against the 888 CDTi (both are done by the same company) then you would have an argument with the VXR being " A tuned VXR Astra" as you have put it. Until there is a test between a VXRPC VXR and a 888 CDTi you have no arguement.

SRi and CDTi in stock for can not be compared. both are aimed at different Marks both here and overseas. One is a Sports / Luxury and the other is not . How can you compare two cars aimed at different markets. It would be like comparing a Hyundai Getz against a HSV GTS. they are in different segments . Start comparing the CDTi against the Golf TDi in standard trim. Lucky you dont work for wheels because we would have Diesel Astra's being compared to Lotus Elise next.

Most automotive innovations have been developed by manufacturers like Mercedes and BMW... Don't think anyone would dispute that. But believe it or not it was Cadillac that first introduced cylinder deactivation in a mass produced vehicle. Mercedes followed with a more efficient way of cylinder deactivation. They call it Active Cylinder Control (ACC) GM call it DoD but it's all cylinder deactivation or displacement on demand.. whatever floats your boat.

As for Daimler Chrysler . (Well as of now Daimler AG since the Sale of the of Chrysler Corp) You are correct. Example of Daimler AG with Leading the way of Tech is ESP. It is a registered trade mark to Daimler AG (As Mercedes is a Brand of Daimler AG under the Parent company name) Every other Manafactuer has to pay for the rights to uses technology .

[dieselhead]

I just read in the Wheels mag about the GTL (gas to liquid) fuel. Looks quite promising, allowing diesels to run cleaner and stronger. It's basically made of natural gas and water, it even has higher cetanic figure than the oil based diesel (70 vs 50) and is sulfur free. In other words, a cleaner fuel that would give you more power! Pretty well suited to Oz conditions, where there's plenty of gas, and not much crude left. In addition, modern diesel engines don't need major mods, a remap would do apparently. Shell is selling a higher grade diesel fuel in UK already, that has 10% of this GTL stuff in it. Audi's Le Mans team uses fuel with 30% GTL, so there must be something good about this thing.
Bring it on I say

[Wraith]

That does sound good for the future of diesel usage, as diesel fuel is such a dirty pollutant...

[dieselhead]

Petrol fumes are not exactly mountain fresh either...

[shoey85]

I just read in the Wheels mag about the GTL (gas to liquid) fuel. Looks quite promising, allowing diesels to run cleaner and stronger. It's basically made of natural gas and water, it even has higher cetanic figure than the oil based diesel (70 vs 50) and is sulfur free. In other words, a cleaner fuel that would give you more power! Pretty well suited to Oz conditions, where there's plenty of gas, and not much crude left. In addition, modern diesel engines don't need major mods, a remap would do apparently. Shell is selling a higher grade diesel fuel in UK already, that has 10% of this GTL stuff in it. Audi's Le Mans team uses fuel with 30% GTL, so there must be something good about this thing.
Bring it on I say

haha thats funny, oh thats right its not a joke as someone said to me in the past

same as adding lpg to your mixture

[dieselhead]

shoey, GTL is not LPG, there's still a long way to go from one to the other...

[cbrmale]

A long an interesting thread on the pros and cons of diesel cars, especially at the high performance end of the market. For me when I bought my SRi 2.2, the choice was simple. Because of a minor disability in my right leg I can't swing my leg from accelerator pedal to the brake pedal, which means I only drive automatics because I can left foot brake. Now the Astra diesel automatic is a pretty awful engine, detuned because they don't have a gearbox to cope with more torque. Looking at competitive cars, only VW had a reasonably high-performance diesel automatic, but the Golf is quite a bit smaller than what I want in a car.

This is one problem for diesels in Australia at least, the lack automatic gearboxes to take the torque of diesel engines.

The SRi 2.2 as you all probably know is unique to Australia and New Zealand, and probably an answer to the need for a sporty Astra with automatic for the local market. Certainly the 2.2 is very torquey for a petrol engine, and runs beautifully as a auto. Driving from Canberra to Sydney and return, it ate all those long climbs like it was on the flat. You think you're gonna need to turn off cruise control, but it just eats the hills effortlessly. And if you rev it a bit, it goes hard.

I started by riding motorcycles, some with incredibly narrow rev ranges. From age 18, I have equated going faster with dialing in more revs. I haven't tried driving a diesel, but I have driven the old Commodore OHV V6 and I just couldn't get my head around the fact that the harder you revved it, the slower it went. This is another problem for diesels, setting up an automatic gearbox NOT to kick down on full throttle. On a similar note, even if I could drive a manual it would take me a long time (if ever) to get my head around not changing down and revving the engine to go faster.

Probably diesels are the way of the future, certainly more than hybrids which are an answer to a peculiar Japanese eversion to diesel cars. But turbo diesels are more expensive to build than normally aspirated petrol, the lack of automatic diesels is a problem, and there is a need to make diesel engines to run as clean as petrol petrol, especially particulate emissions. Particulate emissions are deadly, because they are cancerous.

[entice]

I drove a Manual SRI 5 door yesterday aswell..

Must say, it's ahead in teh race for my money. Those seats are just brilliant compared to the standard fair.

And, it's a silky smooth engione, nice power delivery. Admittedly, not as much torque as the diesel, but a much broader power/torque band in teh rev range. Well, that's how it felt to drive