Right guys here is the view of a Calibra XE/LET engine with the oil filter removed. This should all apply to the 8v too.
This is on a Calibra, so you can already see the standard sandwich plate which gives takeoffs for the oil cooler. Most Calibras/Cavs with XE/LET engines will have this sandwich plate due to running an oil cooler.
This is an aftermarket sandwich plate from JBI motorsport, sold on ebay. It gives you four outlets with the thread size for most aftermarket senders. Here you can see I'm running oil temperature (smaller sender) and oil pressure (larger sender)...
The other two holes are blanked off with the bolts provided (12mm head - wtf!?)
This fits very snugly in the following orientation. You need a 26mm socket to tighten this up. Make sure the rubber o-ring is pointing upwards to give a seal...
This gives adequate clearance to the driveshaft. Looks more than enough to me, given the shaft shouldn't move horizontally by more than a fraction. I'll check it after a couple of mile and see if the sender needs a skim with the grinder (could take a couple of mm off)...
The problem I encountered was with the oil filter. The standard filter fits on the JBI sandwich plate like this...
As you can imagine, when the car is lowered onto the floor, the wishbones will tilt upwards and hit the standard filter. This would be more so when the suspension compresses (left hand corner!)
The answer is simple. Vauxhall oil filter
VOF28 (Vaux Part number 90510935) This is an Astra 1.7 DTI filter and looks about a centimetre shorter yet has the same diameter and thread.
All fitted...
Sorted
The shorter filter sits in such a way that the wishbone won't touch it during compression as it's almost in line with the piece of subframe that would ultimately limit the wishbones upward travel (not that the springs/shocks would compress that much anyway)
