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On the vk borgy are they equal length axles or 1 long 1 short like other diffs? Also did you have much spline left after shortening vn axles?
Different lengths. Drivers side is longer and the short side of the VN axle fits in without any mods.
The passenger side needs to be cut down, welded up (towards the flange), machined down and then resplined and finally heat treated. Jimmy Howard from Slider is a legend at this process and has many 8 and 9 second cars out there with his axles in them.
So going back a couple of steps (and because someone PM’d me and asked):
The front end consists of a VR V8 K-frame fitted with VK lower control arms (to correct the camber) and new ball joints. Everything is fitted with Nolathane bushes along with King ultra-low springs and Monroe struts. For better extractor clearance, I fitted a rebuilt VN power steering rack with new ball joints and connected it to the stock VK column using a VL intermediate shaft.
OK… so a couple of weeks ago I finally got everything wired up, plumbed in and the car running but it certainly hasn’t all been smooth sailing..
First up was an intermittent dizzy pickup that would sometimes allow the car to start and other times not, then a faulty coil overheating the ignition module randomly shutting the engine down, then two faulty (yet rebuilt) injectors causing idling issues, a throttle position sensor error causing the electronic trans to only shift at 4000rpm regardless of throttle position and finally a jammed piston in the power steering pump not providing any power steering.
Given that I’d scratch built or reworked 90% of the engine harness wiring and everything was a ‘new fit’, these faults had me second guessing myself and it took a couple of weeks to work through all the problems.
My wife asked me during all this frustration of getting it running if I regretted taking out the original motor. I’ll admit there were times I almost did so it was a pretty proud moment when it all came together and got to drive it to the wheel aligners.
Basic specs are stock stroke VR 304 with mild tune, cleaned up VN heads with 3 angle job, Crane valve gear and YT roller rockers. Torque Power dual plane low rise manifold with 1000cfm Holley TB and as previously mentioned, Pacemaker PH5600 extractors with twin 2.5″ into single system by Carline Findon. Chris and Grant from Norwood Automatics built up a shift kitted 4L60e and put together one of their 2500 converters
Because the car is my daily driver and any EFI engine swap is a pretty big upgrade, I decided to stage the project in phases to reduce the risks. Phase #1 – Engine Swap, Phase #2 – Diff, etc..
With that in mind I bought another VK Borg Warner housing along with a complete diff from a VN SS. The latter donated it’s LSD centre and 28 spline axles. I measured everything up and had Jimmy from Slider Engineering shorten, respline and heat treat the axles to suit the VK housing.
I bought a set of new 3.9 gears and had Boss Engineering set everything up including tightly shimming up the LSD unit (180 ft/lbs break away) along with new bearings and seals. To give the suspension a bit of a birthday, a set of Nolathane top trailing arms and an adjustable panhard rod were installed. I also rebushed the stock lower arms with Nolathane bushes and added new Monroe shocks and King ultra-low springs.
Now that the car was running, I spent last weekend fitting the new diff and suspension setup.
The 3.9 gears have REALLY woken the car up and the tightly shimmed LSD certainly makes it pretty snappy. The upgraded steering and suspension have really tightened everything up and the car is a pleasure to drive – so precise and so predictable.
So that’s just about everything completed in terms of the ‘engine swap’. I’m pretty happy and very impressed with the litle 304’s performance given its basic specs and low comp.
The next phase (phase #3) of the project involves sending it to Awesome Automotive for a proper tune to try and extract the most from the engine and make the most of the trans’s shift kit. Before we do that I’m going to be slotting in a Crane H284 cam (222º @ .050″), some higher flowing injectors and a MSD6AL ignition unit.
At the moment I’m working on fitting up a Group-A style cold air tray to the throttle body along with some (lower profile) Aeroflow fuel rails to clear the tray in a bid to get some cooler air into the engine.
Things left to do is make up some new air conditioner hoses, replace the dryer and get it re-gassed ready for next summer for some cool cruising.
Phase #4: well I also have a spare block, crank, rods and heads sitting in the shed that one day might get rebuilt into a higher compression unit for a bit more poke.. but Mrs Hoopstar is wanting an in-ground pool too so that might have to wait a bit.
A “one off” is never cheap no matter what fabrication method you use.
The billet block alone for something that size would be a grand or so and then programming and machine time plus heat treating. As an example, we have a billet housing made up for our laser at work (around the size of a small shoe box) and they cost us around $7K (admittedly they are pretty tightly toleranced).
Probably the best option would be if you could ‘borrow’ an original part and have someone like Kilkenny Castings (who do low run stuff) make up a sand mold from the donor part and knock one out. I know they did PM’s 308 manifolds are they were costing him around $300 each to cast plus bout that again for machining. Thing is that was at low-run volumes, not a one off and either way you would need a jig to hold the part for machining the faces.
To be honest I am surprised they haven’t been repro’d at the drug money they command these days. Maybe someone needs to raise a Kickstarter and get them re-made at a small volume run
Didnt ever consider the ls swap?
I did but the buy in price was pretty high since good, low km LS’s with trans and all the bit still attract good money and then the ‘kit’ to fit them was another $2500. This car needed to be a budget thing and Mrs Hoopstar probably wouldn’t have gone for that, so it was discounted pretty quickly
I also have a real soft spot for the old plastic V8 – they sound so sexy… so much better than the LS.
As for the radios – I intend to offer it up as a mod down the track. The problem is there is a fair amount of modification in ‘tricking’ the radio’s microcontroller that the tape deck is still connected and then interfacing to the control buttons, so it’d only ever be a ‘send me your radio and I’ll mod it’ thing.
Hey mate, who did the stereo? If you don’t mind me asking how much did it cost? Considering something like this with a stock VR tape deck.
I did the stereo.
(I’m an electronic engineer)
WWould you mind sending me (pm) or posting more pictures of the front dash speakers fitted. I put a pair 5 1/4″ JBL’s on the rear parcel shelf & working on a bluetooth adopter to wire into 13 pin DIN for the factory CD player. Well done.
Not sure if I have any more photos to be honest – I was so focused on finishing everything and getting the dash back together so I could drive to work on Monday (the joys of working on your daily huh) I didn’t take a lot of photos. I literally had the dash in pieces to get everything in.
Where did you get all the brand new connectors from.
Ashdown Ingram at Thebarton.
08 8257 2345
36-38 Cawthorne St Thebarton SA 5031Awesome project mate!!! Looked really clean to start with, hard to find as you’ve said! I soooooo wanna park my butt behind the wheel of one these again! Goddamn kids and House Reno’s that never seem to end! Hahahahahaha
I feel that pain mate. I’m thankfully finished the house reno’s (are they ever really finished?) and our kids are both now at school. I also have a VERY awesome wife that doesn’t mind me playing and apparently now wants a pool (refer to that “are they ever really finished” part) so she has a vested interest there
The honest truth is I’ve been very focused on doing this on a very tight budget. When I did the HR, it was a ‘just throw money at it’ affair. Doing it on a tight budget makes you think a bit more and look around for bargains – it’s actually been a bit of fun this way.
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This reply was modified 7 years, 9 months ago by
Hoopstar.
Another budget mod is shifter. Use th700 selector rod then unbolt vn-s adjustable shifter bracket & drill/bolt or weld it to stocko vk shifter bracket….clears everything & no bashing required. Probably have to cut small V into battery clamp/tray with efi alternator bracket BUT think if can move oil sender out of the way with right angle fitting or t-piece can use smaller belt move alternator closer to block. Brock cold airtray would be neat thing to put on it too.
I’ve modded a VT selector rod and it clears everything and bolted to the VK’s sifters linkage. Just needed to drill it out to 12mm and then reamed it to 12.5mm to fit.
I am going to be running a brock airtray..
which brand 4 barrel throttle is that?
Holley 1000cfm unit.
Starting with efi 6cyl car saves heaps time of time…can bend fuel lines up from rail to behind booster,wiring & fuel pump already set up with tachiometric relay Grab smaller vn-s charcoal canister to replace chunky vk version on chassis rail…so much neater.
Pretty much everything I’ve done sans the tachometric relay since the PCM controls the fuel pump. I’m actually pulling the tachometric relay, slotting in a standard automotive relay into the relay base and re-wiring it to suit the setup so it looks factory..
So the new engine is finished and with a couple of weeks off over Christmas, I decided to pull the old 6 cylinder unit and slot in the new..
Originally I had intended to use ‘HSV style’ headers and a single system that I picked up really cheaply. Unfortunately the clearance was just too tight. Knowing other guys had used them, I persisted for a few days trying to get things to fit.
Eventually frustration set in and I ponied up for some new Pacemaker headers designed for the job. They worked a treat and literally just slipped in.
While this was something I always intended to do ‘down the track’, they also have meant I need a completely new exhaust system which will blow out the budget to the tune of around $2K. Not something you need mid-build for a car that is literally your daily driver.. :(
The donor engine loom was pretty much toast with a lot of the insulation around the inlet manifold and trans cracking so I decided to completely start from scratch in these areas. All new connectors were used for the injectors and sensors and everything hidden as much as possible for a neat appearance. To finish up with, I ran the loom inside aircraft grade braided sheathing and finished up the ends with adhesive lined heat shrink.
Another donor harness supplied the connector for the 4L60e trans and a new boot fitted.
With that all done, I now have to graft the loom into the VK’s main harness. I’ll be re-programming the Delco computer to output the correct signals so the Calais digital dashes trip computer will still function 100% correctly.
Paint was starting to become an issue not holding its shine and thin in some areas(due to polishing).. We then stripped it down and sent for a full, window out respray in PPG 2-pak at a mates business..
The painter was amazed that there wasn’t a spec of rust under the windows – very rare for these early girls.
While I had it apart, I replaced all the Bailey channels, rebuilt the power window mechs and repainted the black outs around the windows. The power windows now operate like new.
Well before I bought the VK I scored a NOS Calais boot lid molding and garnish panel. I also picked up a MINT 5.0 badge thanks to some super nice dude on FB… (for $30 delivered) so these were finally fitted along with some repro ‘Holden’ and ‘Calais’ badges, repro tailights and taillight reveals..
To help out with the tunes, I replaced the rear speakers with some nice Alpine 6×9 ‘S’ series units in a custom MDF parcel shelf. To try and keep it looking original I stripped off and re-used the original carpet and blacked out the MDF where the vent holes in the carpet were. Longer term I intend to paint the grilles and surround in the same brown tone as the carpet as per the originals..
Dynomat was installed on the parcel shelf and behind the rear of the seat. I also packed the area between the metal parcel shelf and the new MDF panel with Dacron fibre to help deaden the sound and stop any ringing.
Lots of measurements were taken to ensure I didn’t have to cut any metal
The front speakers were a nightmare given their original 3″ size and nearly no room in the dash area behind them. I designed some MDF ‘adapters’ ring to mate some Alpine ‘S’ Series 4″ speakers to the original speaker grilles.
The entire lot is powered by a 4 channel, 70WRMS per channel amp in the boot. I’ve also added a second 2 channel 100Wrms amp in bridge mode for a 12″ Sony sub – this all connects up to the original Eurovox head unit that I’ve started modifying with internal MP3 capability.
The mod deletes the tape deck but uses it’s push button controls to play/pause, track forward and back etc.. It has internal storage (via SD Card) and external USB support for thumb drives and can also charge my phone..
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This reply was modified 7 years, 10 months ago by Hoopstar.
Formfutura ABS. Prints pretty nicely
http://www.formfutura.com/formfutura-285mm-premium-abs-atomic-green.html
I’m moving over to their ApolloX material – an industrial-grade ASA. Has high glass temps (>100ºC) and very good UV stability.
It’s probably a touch thicker but honestly next time I’d increase the ‘tube’ thickness a little more (ie. reduce i.d.) since I ran a 1.5º taper over it’s length to aid insertion into the head.
That made the very top a little thinner than I would have liked which was compounded by the fast print speed.
No biggie since they served their purpose well for me.
I love 3D printers. The more you use them, the more you realise how you can use them.
Tonight I needed some intake manifold gasket ‘dowels’ for my injected 5 litre. Took me longer to load up my CAD software than actually design the part:
Because I was in a hurry, I did these at the lowest quality print (4 pieces took around 4 minutes):
Inserted in the heads:
Manifold down..
I asked Chris from Norwood Automatics the question – he said it could be a jammed piston, broken piston spring or something caught in a ball check-valve… Basically there isn’t one thing to look at.
In other news, I picked up my trans from the boys who once again looked after me – great price, great quality and great guys. Pick up my converter next week too
For your trans, I think you’re going to need to get it into a trans shop so they can drop the pan off and take a look.
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This reply was modified 7 years, 10 months ago by Hoopstar.
Grant’s doing my 4l60e trans for the VK as I type this. I’ll pose the question to him when I pick it up tomorrow and let you know what he says HDN05L..
Paul
One of my favorite builds on this forum…!!
Thanks mate, is that your HR in the profile pic?
It is
Might be a good excuse to drag the HR out and cruise over there…
If I do, I’ll be sure to come and an introduce myself
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This reply was modified 7 years, 9 months ago by
