CommodoresPlus

Depends how far you want to go & budget.

That being said grabbing a blue 202 in good condition with electronic dissy,varajet carby would be a big step up over red 161 straight away.

Efi 202 are good fun even in standard form do decent skids

All it needs is sump mod to stop crank hitting pan,ign switch 12v mod for electronic dissy & extra wire for eleccy choke…change diff gears will go even better.

3 speed will last same as m20 as long as not a vulture…dunno if plan to stay column shift or floor lol.

All those above can be done cheap as chip if chase parts & do all the labour.

Only downside is some blokes pour thousands in then later wish had gone v8 so best to work out what owner really wants.

Had triple webbered solid cam 202,m20,3.9 geared lc gtr…was crazy fun to drive just too wild for streeter ended up efi 5l/getrag.

The old Holden 6, those were the days…..

Over the years I have had/built a few.  Worth looking around for a Yella terra head or similar.  I had a crazy Waggot cam in my GTR, and triple Stombergs off an XU1 (wish I still had them!!), imo you cant beat that look.  If you want to stay away from efi and cant afford/find triples, a Holley 350 on a Cain manifold will liven it up. A high volume oil pump is s good addition.  Beware, some people just change the relief spring on a standard pump claiming its now high volume its not.  The only way to increase the volume of the pump is by fitting longer pump gears.  Some sort of electronic conversion on the distributor is worth it but not essential.  They are piss easy to build yourself, there is nothing to them.  I think you can get a Specco floor mount shifter for the 3 speed box btw, would look very cool

This was mine back in the day;

• This reply was modified 7 years, 7 months ago by  VRSenator065.

Get on gmh-torana site or oldholdens they still have a few 202 diehards left,tons of info & advice whatever the budget.

Or uber budget 202 red,161 hc head then buy all 2nd hand manifold/390 holley,etc

efi 202 can take a bigger cam,think similar to xu1 spec yet still run standard ecu..not ideal but ok.

pcmhacking has awsome info how to convert to delco using complete vn v6 setup or easier camira/pulsar delco & tune it yourself.

Something in sump,metal tab or sump base gets hit by blue motor crank …hammer work fixes it.

Lots of info there with those 3 sites to keep him busy for ages…best part more labour & parts chasing than $$$$

• This reply was modified 7 years, 7 months ago by  gtrboyy.

blue/black engines are better starting point for budget builds.

Efi 202 has most torque of all standard engines so they feel quickest hence the urban myths.But yeah they make carby 202 feel sluggish.

The cranks have better harmonics,slightly stronger rods but main thing is standard blue/black head works better for mild engine rather than spending coin on red head.

That being said if going all-out n/a dudes will get heavily port red head as they work can be opened up more to use with blue crank/rods or even heavier & stronger starfire rods…for street I’d just go lightest rods + stronger bolts.

I had red 202,40/80 solid,triple webbers etc

Stock rods are fine imho…main issue was flywheel coming loose buzzing it over 7k then extra torque ate m20 or would spit out banjo diffs.

Despite all the breakages learnt a lot from it & had most fun especially considering I’m injected 5l tragic lol

If you can chase down 2nd hand parts & do labour yourself you’d be surprised what can be done cheaply.

• This reply was modified 7 years, 7 months ago by  gtrboyy.