CommodoresPlus

Right, I think I’ve got everything done that needs doing (drilling/tapping etc).

Now I’m gonna strip it down and take it to work and give it a good clean/wash to make sure all the swarf/crap is gone and then it’ll be ready for bolting onto the engine.

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

So this is how she sits today.

The original plan was to have the FPR mounted on the back of the fuel rail but it’s going to foul on the trans dip stick tube so that is going to require some thought.

The original plan was to mount the FPR of the back of the fuel rail but the pressure gauge will foul on the trans dip stick tube so that will need a re-think.  Going to need new heater hoses as the originals aren’t going to sit right either but I was kinda expecting that.  No other major issues at this stage but I’m sure something will creep up.

The 2 small lines are the coolant bleed/bypass hoses. They allow a small amount of coolant to flow from the rear of the head which is normally a bit of a dead spot in the cooling system which causes the rear cylinder on the drivers side bank to run hot and the spot they tend to blow head gaskets as a result.

Your the 2nd person to recommend that.  Will investigate that option later this week when I’ve finished my shifts at work.

So finally making some real progress, put most the fittings in the manifold with some Loctite thread sealant and have managed to get it fitted to the engine.  New gaskets came with cork type gaskets for the valley but made it a PITA to fit the manifold so they got binned and I just used a nice bead of silicone instead.  It also turns out the manifold has had some porting work done, the runners are matched to suit the intake ports on the heads  Our old NZV8 class limited the Holden boys to VN heads with “as cast” ports…..  Not bad that a 304 with standard heads, a small solid cam (I believe around the 234° .050″ duration) and Harrop DP manifold made about 420hp on pump 98 with about 10.5CR.  Pic for posterity…..

VRSenator065 wrote:

Pity you aren’t in Adelaide, would have brought the bender over and we could have done it pretty easy

Cheers, appreciate the thought anyway

Yep, I much prefer cap screw type bolts.  Generally speaking I use em where ever possible.  Probably because 95% of what I use at work are cap screws…….

As I go over the engine I’ll replace most of the standard bolts as I go.

Eventually when it cops a few other upgrades I’ll use grade 12.9 cap screws for the heads etc as they are as good as the ARP8740 range of bolts but much cheaper from my local engineering shop

Yep, all going well I’ll fire it up next week hopefully.

Engine is stock ATM, looking at doing a head/cam swap sometime next year.  Then overhaul suspension, brakes, trans and diff to follow.

Original plan was to have this as a nice cruiser but looks like I might race it with a bit of giggle gas until I can built something with the intent of going fast around a track.

More progress, got the wiring loom sorted this morning and started on the heater hoses which are going to make things interesting….  Need to organise some clamps to hold hoses and tidy up the wiring loom a bit better.

Couple of small issues to iron out, the factory injector retaining clips (for the fuel rails) don’t fit so not sure what I’m gonna do there yet and need to figure out where the heater tap is going to fit.  I might relocate that toward the back of the engine somewhere so things are just a little tidier looking.  I don’t think it matters if I but it in the return line either.

exec24 wrote:

Maybe try a 1998 VS V8 Dipstick (ute or stateman) as mine was different to the early transmissions and VT 5.0lt are different again

That might be worth a look.  Regardless of what I do I think it’s going to be a bit of a mess in that corner with the dip stick tube and fuel line fittings all tucked in next to the brake booster

• This reply was modified 7 years, 7 months ago by  Immortality. Reason: add