Chapter Seven : Dirty Engine - Revert to Z20LET!
Sadly the success of the Z20LER engine was not to last and this is where I would learn another hard lesson! Over the years since the first transplant to the LER engine in 2017, Dory has had a succession of issues relating to destroying turbos despite regular oil changes. Eventually deposits and filings where found in the oil and the question had to be raised as to how clean the second hand engine actually was.
By clean, I mean questions such as: Had it had a hard life? Was it well maintained? Had it been hammered? Did it have the best oil? All questions which you have to ask yourself when buying a second hand unit. It would seem the LER was a dud and over the years the deposits were building up, causing more damage along the way. The nail in the coffin was the discovery of slight score marks on the bottom-end shells, caused by a dirty engine. Also after taking the engine out, Ash was able to see that the balance shaft had also started disintegrating, another useless bit of engineering which Vauxhall ditched in the Z20LEH engine.
It was time to scrap the Z20LER and start from scratch, back to an LET the original engine that was installed from factory in the Zafira GSI.
Before the engine was fitted, it was completely overhauled, including a balance shaft delete kit, new stem-seals with the built in retainers, oil feed pipes for the turbo replaced with OE genuine parts. I wasn't cutting any corners or taking any risks this time. Once completed the car was also setup using RnD Motorsport software by Ash, making 285bhp and 335 NmT.
She came back stronger than ever, running better than she ever had done! With the installation of a full 3" exhaust on the cards in the near future it should hopefully see Dory creep over the 300bhp mark!
On the rollers with Ash Gedney, using the RnD Motorsport software.