Ordered braided hose kit (£37 from Online Autosport). Priced up Jetex exhaust system - £158, choice of single 80mm tail pipe, twin DTM or twin square.

Shopping trip: large sheet of 1mm Aluminium and expensive tin snips for my air inlet duct.

Day of action:Front suspension rebuild. That means new top mount bearings, new rubber bushes, new ball joints, new track rod ends, remanufactured driveshafts with new CV joints, remanufactured brake calipers, and newish dampers.Took a good few hours to do, mainly due to seized up bolts. Results very encouraging. Not only is cornering better, but car feels faster, probably because less energy is now being aborbed in old rubber parts.

Whilst I'm in the mood I replace the nasty original Dalek side repeaters with those meant for the MK3&4 Astra (cost £3.50 each at Middleton Auto Panels!).

Feeling suitably encouraged after the front suspension rebuild I tackle the back. This time it's new bushes, dampers and brake shoes. The Haynes manual talks optimistically about replacing the bushes without removing the rear axle assembly. I decide to take the whole lot out. Getting the original hubs apart proved to be a major job since the brakes had worn a deep groove. Getting the new bushes in proved even more of an epic. Then I discovered at about 3.00am that I had the wrong brake shoes.

Get tracking done. Car feels a bit odd. Drives like an old transit van. ie: not that keen on straight lines. It's not that bad, just not as good as it was before.

Check all of suspension and can find nothing obviously wrong. After thinking about if for a while I decide that it could be three things...1)The bushes were installed at the wrong angle (Haynes manual has diagram with tolerance of +/-5deg on it) which I looked at after finishing the job 2)The shocks (one of them seemed a bit longer the other) 3) Something else like the wrong sort of dampers, problem at front etc.

Decide that I will re-replace the rear bushes. Whilst I'm at it I might as well put some Powerflex uprated bushes in. These claim to be 20% to 30% stiffer but with the same noise absorbing properties. Also plan to get hold of the additional anti roll bar from a 16V GTE and bolt that on as well.

Spent evening checking over front suspension. Refit lower control arms, ensuring that I tighten rear mounts before the main bolts. This will ensure that the bushes are loaded up properly.

Monday morning, got to work. Overnight rain has flooded the place so "relunctantly" I take the day off. An ideal opportunity for fitting the upratedrear bushes. Also fit braided brake hoses.

Handling now much better, but still not entirely right when it comes to straight lines. Either the tracking needs resetting, or the damper/spring combination is all wrong.

After a few days it is apparent that the current suspension set up is too harsh. Motorways are fine, but on A or B roads it gets too much. Handling on roundabouts is awesome though. Might put standard rubber bushes back in (the right way this time). Also wonder whether the dampers are actually right for the car.

Just got front tracking checked out. Hoping to improve straight line steering. ProTyre did it for nothing since they regarded it as a recheck of the job they did a few weeks ago. Good of them.

I've been doing my research on suspension kits. Think I'll get one of those in before I swap bushes back. I suspect that current suspension components are badly matched.

New front brake pads (Ferrodo from Halfords). Did look at EBC Greenstuff and Mintex performance pads but needed to change them in hurry. One pad was down to metal. Also bled brake fluid properly. Used new 1 man kit, they only last a year or so before the pipe loses its flexibility. Boring old oil change. Found breather pipe nut loose. Checked suspension top mounts, looking for clues as to why it wanders a bit.

Took a good look at space under air filter. I can see exactly how I'm going to fit the air flow duct in there.

Finally get round to wiring in side repeaters. Easy job, except the first one doesn't work. Look at wiring diagram. Dig round under bonnet. Find part of loom chaffed through to metal. Not good. Rearrange wiring sphagetti. Still doesn't work. Circuit test wires and find voltage at plug. When I plug bulb holder in it doesn't work. Eventually work out that plug isn't making good contact with the bulb holder.

Start work on air inlet duct. Use latest CAD technology. ie: old cardboard box, scissors and duct tape. Want to get shape sorted and then make an Aluminium replica.

When I'm jacking up car notice clunking sound coming from somewehere in the steering linkage. That could explain the wander I'm experiencing when trying to drive in a straight line.

Spend evening fiddling around with air inlet ducting. Have two goes at bending up Aluminium sheet. Looks OK. Cut bottom off air box. Paper filter obviously suffering from its exposure to wet and dust.

When parking car at work I notice new exhaust noise coming from engine direction. Wonder what's causing that.

Driving home I remember that the air box now has no bottom. Can't make that much difference to performance then. But the current air filter is knackered. With a K&N in there should do the business. I guess a few percent extra maybe. Rolling road visit needed.

Boot it for scientific study reasons. Yes, definitely nice bit of extra roar there. Sounds similar to the Weber + K&N in my old 1.3. Sort of deep noise when past 90% throttle. Probably just me but it does feel a tiny bit quicker to respond when booted.

Just been looking in Redline. Report on buying Astra GTE. Says car is cheap, fast enough, doesn't look too bad, reliable, but has slightly suspect handling. Loads of tuning tips, none of them new. Same names as I'm thinking of already. Did recommend Regal exhaust downpipe. Will check that out.

Koni suspension kit just arrived. Will fit tomorrow night.
Spent a bit of time at work trying to source some rubber extrusion to seal the edge of the air inlet duct. Proving difficult to find in short lengths.

Spent evening fitting Koni suspension kit. Sad to see how rusty and old the new track rod ends and drive shafts look. The brakes slide properly which is rare for an Astra

Pleased to find that all 4 are top adjustable. Someone at Demon Tweeks told me that the rear ones weren't.

Got some info from Regal. Their 4-2-1 manifold gives a 4BHP gain and will improve torque across the range. It's a tad expensive at £190 inc VAT. It can wait.

Got tracking reset at Protyre. They asked if I'd lowered it. The camber was out. The straight line wibble seems to have got a lot better.

The suspension kit feels a lot better than the previous set up. Still a bit bumpy (set dampers just past 1/2 hardness) but much more fluid. Will take few weeks to really explore details. Braking stability is much improved.

Take a look at some alloy wheels. For about £400 I could get a wheel/tyre package. It'd have to be for looks since the current standard alloys are fine. Team Dynamics do some correct 49mm offset wheels.

Reply from SBD developments about exhaust manifolds and chips etc. They recommend Magnex who do manifold & exhaust for £335 + VAT. Lot of money, but similar to £160 for Jetex + £190 for Regal manifold.

Also they don't recommend chipping. I've been doing my homework on performance chips.

Magnex faxed me performance curves for their exhaust system fitted to an 8v engine. Showed a gain everywhere with 9BHP at top end. That's about 7%. I have heard that their systems can be a bit noisy though. Still torn between Jetex and Magnex.

Found this data for K&N 57i induction kit on 16v Astra

Fiddling around with suspension settings.

Spent two hours sorting out rear fog lights. The LED on the switch was permanently on which was bugging me. After following circuit with multimeter and removing rear bumper I found out that the problem was due to a crudded connection inside the boot. Still satisfying to get it working properly though.

In a slightly reckless moment I compress the fuel pressure regulator by just under 1mm. That should richen the mixture slightly. Hope that I haven't overdone it, since over richening can make responsiveness worse.

Order Jetex exhaust system.

Fit K&N air filter.

Compressing the fuel pressure regulator might have had some effect. Hard to tell really. K&N has made things feel a bit better as well.

Fit exhaust system. Start at 9.00pm, turns into an epic. Finish at 2.30am.

Feel like I'm starting to get somewhere now.

-it starts
-it stops
-it goes round corners
-just straight lines left now.

Notice grease leaking from drive shaft CV joint. That might explain the rumbling noise that comes in at about 45mph when doing right turns. Not pleased since that was a new drive shaft a few months ago (14th October). No messing around, I'll put another one in.

Driving along when radio ceases working. Then battery warning light comes on. Then dashboard dies. Hmm I wonder if the alternator is going to die. Everything comes back on so I ignore it. Wonder if there's a wire loose somewhere. Stop in a car park. Pull all fuses out except ECU supply. Run engine for few minutes but the battery level is getting worse not better. Decide to drive around to motor factors and pick up new alternator. Car won't start. Luckily the car park has a slight drop so I push the car backwards to top. Then jump in, roll to bottom and simultaneously lift clutch, floor accelerator and turn igniton. It starts but warning light flashing and level at 1 bar (out of 80). Drive round to factors on sidelights (getting dark now as well). Engine stops on approach to large roundabout. So I get out and push the car backwards into a handy disused entrance to a boarded up site. Quite funny pushing on bonnet while stream of useless motorists point at me.

As luck would have it, Halfords is across the road. About three weeks ago I decided to leave all of my tools at home, since I "never break down". So I have to buy a set of spanners and a screwdriver. Luckily I have my headtorch with me. After fiddling around getting the wires of the alternator and unbolting the top bracket I then notice that the earth strap has broken. It has tried to weld itself back onto the alternator housing. Replacing that would be cheaper than an alternator. Walk back over and buy earth strap. Fit the earth strap, pack up and get into the car. It starts, good. Drive round to Halfords. Warning light back on, level dropping. Hmmm. Maybe the alternator has been blown. Hope it's that or who knows what the problem is. So I take alternator out and go to buy replacement. Only problem is that replacement one has different connections. Helpful Halfords chappy finds a Cavalier item which looks right. Fit that and everything's fine. So that's an hour and a half of fiddling around. But I must say it was sort of fun standing by the side of the road fixing the car whilst being watched by your typical AA reliant memeber of the public. Yeah and thanks for the offer of help.

Back at home fit the new drive shaft. Unfortunately slightly knacker the rubber seal on the ball joint when levering suspension apart. Found two cracks in bellows on ball joint.

Rolling road visit (Powerstation). Power run shows 133BHP at flywheel, 101.5BHP at wheels. Operaters (Dirk and Curtis) comment that everything looks very healthy, fuelling is spot on, it's a good result for a Vauxhall with 110K on the clock. They're even a bit enthusiastic (unusual for them, must be the impending holiday). Don't get me wrong, they do a good job but they can be a bit subdued on a normal day. They've told me before that these engines often don't make it to the manufacturer's figures. Don't know what to make of the results since I never measured the engine in standard condition. I was hoping for a few more BHP at the wheels. Maybe the suspect gear box is losing a bit. Also talked about injector cleaning. They could get replacement injectors for anout £40-£50 each.

Think of it like this: I've got a reasonably sorted motor that's making a healthy 133BHP (it looked pretty smart on the dyno since I'd just double washed it with some high wax stuff and cleaned the alloys). If I could nail another 10-15% onto that via the Blydenstein head then I could end up with something like 150BHP, 115BHP at the wheels and that'd be fine.