Opel Manta Turbo Ecotec Build

[RMMiller]

This picture is of a Manta GTE. This was the top of the line sporty version that was available. In the future when the car does get painted, this is what I want the car to look like. The blue car has 15" wheels, which I will be doing now. I will be replacing the big bumpers, and incorporating the front spoiler as pictured.
Attachment 157765

I like that! The front end has a look that makes me think late 60's Corvair, wonder if one of those bumpers could be used.

[Peanut1959]

Love it! Can't wait to see the progress on this project.

[Later-A-body]

After looking for the right engine for the last few months, I was able to locate a nice one locally. It is an Ecotec LTG 2.0 Turbo. This is the latest version of the 2.0 turbo. The engine I bought is from a 2016 Camaro. It has 14,000 miles. The transmission I bought last month is an Aisin AR-5 5-speed manual. It is a brand new unit. This is the same trans installed in many cars including the 2007-2009 Pontiac Solstice and Saturn Sky which bolts up to the Ecotec.

[andrewb70]

Good stuff. I would love to do a build with one of these engines!

Andrew

[Later-A-body]

Good stuff. I would love to do a build with one of these engines!

Andrew

Yeah Andrew, I've been really wanting a small 4 cylinder car that I could build for a long, long time. Because I live in California, it had to be pre-1976 so I wouldn't have to smog it. After finishing the GA, I realized that the car is everything I wanted it to be with the exception of two things, 1: It's big 2: It's too nice to mess up. I really wanted to autocross and track the GA.....which I will, but not as often as I thought. So that is where the Manta comes in. I'm leaving the patina, and perfecting the drivetrain. Rock chip, no big deal. I like the JDM stuff, but everyone thinks that stuff is worth a fortune. The Opel is super rare. I already have a rare car in the GA which I like. The Opel is probably more obscure. I really like stuff that nobody has.

[Later-A-body]

Going forward, I will be trying to make more room for the Ecotec. Ecotec's have been installed in them before, but the problem is the cross member is directly in the way of the oil pan. The two swaps I have seen both had to modify the oil pans. I am not going that way. There are two things that I will do. The first is to cut back the firewall in the center. There is approximately 8" of room to cut back the firewall. This will also allow me to get the engine further back to redistribute the weight behind the front wheels. You can see on the picture that I will need to remove the hood latch and some of the firewall components. I will keep the areas located on each side of the firewall for the structural integrity. The DS is where the battery was located, but I plan to relocate the battery to the PS to better distribute the weight. Plus the starter on the LTG is located on the PS. The ECU will be located on the DS of the firewall. I will weld in tabs on each fender to accept a pair of AeroCatch Flush Mount hood pins. These are real nice and sit flush.

[Paraman1]

Very nice! A bunch of my friends and I ran Opel Mantas in AutoX in the early 90's. A popular swap back the was the GT motor and European heads but this should make a crapload more power than those old boat anchors.

[Later-A-body]

Very nice! A bunch of my friends and I ran Opel Mantas in AutoX in the early 90's. A popular swap back the was the GT motor and European heads but this should make a crapload more power than those old boat anchors.

Any information that you could give me on your experience with the Manta would be very appreciated.

[JayinMI]

Was picturing it with modded 1st gen camaro (or maybe Firebird?) bumpers. Wonder if that would work.
Can't wait to see this get underway!

Jay

[cornfedbill]

The 1971 Opel Manta has small bumpers. A swap is likely not difficult.

[OLDFLM]

There was a wide bodied Manta featured in a German movie when I was stationed there in the early 90s... Manta Manta

[JayinMI]

The 1971 Opel Manta has small bumpers. A swap is likely not difficult.

Not sure if this was directed at me or not, but my thought was that if Camaro-ish bumpers would fit they'd be easier to find here in the US than Opel Manta bumpers since they are more likely reproduced.

Jay

[Later-A-body]

Yes the 71-73 Manta's had the smaller bumpers pictured above. I have a source for them and will be swapping out the smaller ones. I'm excited to have as much enthusiasm for this project as I have received. I know most projects on ProTouring revolve around domestics. This is my first non-domestic car project. So thanks for the support. This will be a very fun build.

[Paraman1]

I wish I could remember a lot more about the Opel AutoX days than I do. A lot of beer has flowed since then but here is what I remember the most about it... We were a bunch of broke 19-20 year old kids when our buddy showed up with an Opel Manta (my mom drove a GT when I was a kid so I was vaguely familiar with the brand) that was painted flat black , had 14 inch mag wheels and a straight exhaust with no mufflers. He was known for driving the odd ball stuff and still has an Opel he races today in stock form. Later he built a ground effects kit out of rain gutters for it which as hokey as it sounds looked pretty darn cool and before long a few others of us had bought Opels as daily beaters and then we started searching for ways to modify them. The easiest thing to do was put the GT motor in them and I vaguely remember something about a European cylinder head. We would go to the local AutoX events which at the time were comprised largely of old men driving meticulously maintained sports cars. We were young, brash and bold with nothing to lose and we started beating a few of these guys driving much more expensive cars and when they came and asked us "whatcha got in that thing?" the standard answer was , "About 400 bucks". I am pretty sure we coined the phrase,"Drive it like you ain't got a dime in it!" about the same time.

I know this probably doesn't help much in technical terms but I think your build really embodies what we loved about the little Mantas back in the day. Cheap, fun and completely different.

[andrewb70]

Looks like CBM makes an aluminum fabricated pan, but I am not sure that it will help. ARE also makes a dry sump pan...

Andrew

[Later-A-body]

I wish I could remember a lot more about the Opel AutoX days than I do. A lot of beer has flowed since then but here is what I remember the most about it... We were a bunch of broke 19-20 year old kids when our buddy showed up with an Opel Manta (my mom drove a GT when I was a kid so I was vaguely familiar with the brand) that was painted flat black , had 14 inch mag wheels and a straight exhaust with no mufflers. He was known for driving the odd ball stuff and still has an Opel he races today in stock form. Later he built a ground effects kit out of rain gutters for it which as hokey as it sounds looked pretty darn cool and before long a few others of us had bought Opels as daily beaters and then we started searching for ways to modify them. The easiest thing to do was put the GT motor in them and I vaguely remember something about a European cylinder head. We would go to the local AutoX events which at the time were comprised largely of old men driving meticulously maintained sports cars. We were young, brash and bold with nothing to lose and we started beating a few of these guys driving much more expensive cars and when they came and asked us "whatcha got in that thing?" the standard answer was , "About 400 bucks". I am pretty sure we coined the phrase,"Drive it like you ain't got a dime in it!" about the same time.

I know this probably doesn't help much in technical terms but I think your build really embodies what we loved about the little Mantas back in the day. Cheap, fun and completely different.

It's a great story. I love the "about $400 bucks". With exception of a set of wheels, this car on the outside will look to be worth about $400 bucks as well. LOL.

[Later-A-body]

Looks like CBM makes an aluminum fabricated pan, but I am not sure that it will help. ARE also makes a dry sump pan...

Andrew

Yeah I saw the CBM set up. I want to try and keep it on the cheap if possible. The biggest problem seems to be the oil pan vs cross-member clearance, but it seem as though nobody has taken the time to slide the motor back. I know it requires fabrication, but this isn't a real big problem, plus it makes more sense considering the weight bias on the front end. I am wrapping up school in December. I plan to start with the firewall fabrication soon after. This is a picture of the blue car I posted earlier in the thread. It has the previous generation turbo Ecotec, but they are dimensionally similar. You can see that there is a lot of room for the motor to slide back. I have measured the oil pan in relation to the cross-member, and it appears that an eight inch rear placement will allow the pan to clear. I will have a better idea when I get more time to actually hoist the engine in to take real measurements.

[SRD art]

Paraman- great story! Somebody should write a book with all of our old build and race stories, it'd be a best seller.

Later-A- Subscribed, this is a cool build!! Although I grew up building Novas and now G-bodies I'm a huge fan of little cars. I've always liked the Opel Kadett for it's cute almost Nova like look and super compact size. When I went to college I picked up an 84 Chevette for super cheap to save on gas and I ended up lowering it and putting on 17" wheels. It had sloth like acceleration but handled like a go kart and was a blast to drive. Plans escalated to do a full pro-touring car with 315s out back but the G-body project took precedence and I ended up selling it. There was another guy I was following that was building a Chevette with a 2.0 T motor but unfortunately it suddenly came to a stop and disappeared. I recently picked up a '78 Monza wagon to touch base with my little car addiction, it's on the back burner so it's still up in the air what to do with that one. A couple pics and renderings I did for them below, I did the Opel as a dual purpose car, daily Pro Touring and autoX fun while a change of wheels and tires made a fun 1/4 mile machine. The Chevette has some subtle body mods and would've had an aluminum LS1 for power.

Back to your ride, I'm anxious to see this unfold. That Manta has some great body lines, it has a mean look with the low eyebrow hood and overall smooth form. I like the fact that you're using a unique drive train too. David Carroll has had some great Success with that set up in his Vega, it makes some decent power. That plus a light weight car should make for a bunch of fun. When you get to that point, if you need help working out the visuals and consider a rendering hit me up for a bid, I enjoy drawing Camaros and Chevelles but I particularily enjoy doing the dare to be different projects! Looking forward to watching for more progress on this one, good luck with it!

[SRD art]

Another idea I thought I'd throw out for inspiration or food for thought to overcome your cross member dilemma- Monzas/ Vegas have a whacky sheetmetal front suspension system that doesn't really have an actual frame but rather everything is pretty flimsy and integrated into the fenderwells for support, plus aftermarket handling parts for GM's H body platform are extremely limited. S10s are really narrow, both track width and overall body width, and the same width almost exactly the same as a Vega/ Monza. I've been considering grafting in the front frame clip of an S10 to get a stronger frame, 5 lug conversion with pretty much unlimited brake options, and S10s and G-bodies share the same suspension components so there's plenty of aftermarket support to correct geometry and make a decent handling front suspension. In your case you'd lose the R&P steering but a quick ratio box would do the same. Not sure what suspension support for the Opels is but the S10 clip might be something to at least look into before you get too far along.

A 2 wheel drive S10 Axle is about 54" wide wheel mount surface to wheel mount surface.

[Later-A-body]

Paraman- great story! Somebody should write a book with all of our old build and race stories, it'd be a best seller.

Later-A- Subscribed, this is a cool build!! Although I grew up building Novas and now G-bodies I'm a huge fan of little cars. I've always liked the Opel Kadett for it's cute almost Nova like look and super compact size. When I went to college I picked up an 84 Chevette for super cheap to save on gas and I ended up lowering it and putting on 17" wheels. It had sloth like acceleration but handled like a go kart and was a blast to drive. Plans escalated to do a full pro-touring car with 315s out back but the G-body project took precedence and I ended up selling it. There was another guy I was following that was building a Chevette with a 2.0 T motor but unfortunately it suddenly came to a stop and disappeared. I recently picked up a '78 Monza wagon to touch base with my little car addiction, it's on the back burner so it's still up in the air what to do with that one. A couple pics and renderings I did for them below, I did the Opel as a dual purpose car, daily Pro Touring and autoX fun while a change of wheels and tires made a fun 1/4 mile machine. The Chevette has some subtle body mods and would've had an aluminum LS1 for power.

Back to your ride, I'm anxious to see this unfold. That Manta has some great body lines, it has a mean look with the low eyebrow hood and overall smooth form. I like the fact that you're using a unique drive train too. David Carroll has had some great Success with that set up in his Vega, it makes some decent power. That plus a light weight car should make for a bunch of fun. When you get to that point, if you need help working out the visuals and consider a rendering hit me up for a bid, I enjoy drawing Camaros and Chevelles but I particularily enjoy doing the dare to be different projects! Looking forward to watching for more progress on this one, good luck with it!

Ben,
That is cool that you posted the Chevette rendering. I saw that rendering a while back and loved the concept. I actually had the intention of buying a Chevette based on your work. I have the rendering of the orange Chevette on my phone, and was able to change the color to a blue version, and a yellow version of the car. I really like your work. I would like to have a rendering done in the future if I can swing that financially. I have decided to stay very close to the blue Manta GTE I posted, but am open to different ideas. I thought I would change the color down the road, but have decided the green is going to stay.