hey everyone, ive had my current vl coming up to a year now and had another one previous to that for just over a year. first one was an absolute pos. current one...well i can say ive never seen a cleaner original vl that is original. The History its an 87' NA vl calais in asteroid silver. when i bought her she was bog stock 4 spd auto and i mean BOG stock, down to the head deck! except for rims, but i got the original calais wheels with her too. she came with some 17" ROH Vapors. since buying her ive spent a lot of time and money on her (all of the work i have done myself). - Upon buying her did a MASSIVE service - fuel filter, air filter, oil+filter, spark plugs, HT leads, water pump+coolant flush, brake fluid flush, timing belt kit inc seals and tensioner - new triple core radiator - replaced ALL coolant hoses - 5spd manual conversion - installed new stereo gear - installed 2.5" cat back exhaust system + pacemaker extractors - redid ALL the suspension, inc: replacing ALL bushes (jst with new rubber ones), pedders adjustable panhard rod, k-mac adjustable strut tops, 30mm or 32mm? whiteline swaybar on the front and a 28mm whiteline sway bar on the rear with nolthane links, superlow king springs all round, and KYB shocks all round (shortened in rear) - 19" HP Fusion rims in shadow chrome with some Kumho rubber (235/35 R19). this brought about scrubbing. - had the front and rear guards professionally rolled by Sydney Guard Rolling for a great price and a great job - highly recommended. fixed the scrubbing mostly - still having issues with it mainly when fully loaded or when i hit a massive bump - new front bar + moulds - new TYC headlights and 4300k hi/lo HID kit (best investment EVER) those are the major things that ive done to her but i have done so many other things that i cant really remember them. you name it ive probably done it. The present/future so i decided to turbo this baby. still in the process the aim for now is to keep it fairly stock as dont want to have the car off the road for too long due to lack of money. so i bought a low k (bout 120k) a8 long motor complete with manifolds and blown t3. stripped all the manifolds etc off the motor and took her to Thornleigh Cylinder Heads for Nas to rebuild for me. didnt get anything too crazy done to it. - cylinders bored out 20thou - new turbo pistons + rings (not forged) - new king main bearings - balanced from crank to flywheel - port and polish of the head - acid dipped, pressure tested and decked - triple layer steel head gasket i was looking at putting a garrett gt35/40 turbo on her as my mate who used to work at ford had a stuffed one lying around. had a look at it decided it was too bad/cost too much to get fixed and was better off as a paper weight. so i stuck with the standard t3 for now. took it into GCG Turbos, Sydney -full t3 rebuild and hi flow, keeping orig comp housing cover, jst been bored out. - decided to go for braided lines for the turbo - this is my only regret of the build so far as it was such a f*** around - i now know why noone does kits for the standard low mount t3 turbo. too many clearance issues! money wasted! also - have a 60k old, r33 5spd gts-t s2 box to put behind it with a 9.5" sports organic heavy duty clutch - mx7 tailshaft - had the intake manifold + crossover pipe ceramic coated chrome - had the exhaust manifold + dump pipe ceramic coated black - timing covers + rocker cover bolts chromed - repainted the rocker cover with some VHT wrinkle red paint - new oil pressure sender + coolant sensors (2of) - reco dizzy thats pretty much it for the moment!! im just accumulating the final pieces i need and i will be doing the swap VERY soon! i cant wait till she is boosting!! pics to come soon.

---------- Post added 17-05-10 at 18:36 ---------- these first three including the one above are when i got her lowered and exhaust waiting for her new rims new rims engine build Some original photos have not been recovered yet.

looks nice bud.. good work

Hey everyone, so its been a while since i updated this thread. Quite a lot has been done of late. I took my fuel tank out a couple of months ago. I removed the sender, to my surprise the tank was pretty much spotless, no corrosion or rust bits floating around the bottom. I replaced the lift pump with a Pierburg high volume pump and put a new genuine gasket for the sender. As you would expect ALL the tanks breather hoses had crumbled away to nothing, so i fitted new breather hoses and also a new fuel cap. Refitted the tank, and mounted up a bosch 044 external in place of the factory pump and replaced the hoses and fuel filter while i was at it. Also ran new wiring and a relay for the 044 pump. I now have 60psi of fuel pressure at the rail, up from the factory 21psi. Just recently i had the oppurtunity to use a friends workshop to do my engine swap, so i jumped at it. Got the car, new engine + box, all the parts and tools over there and got to work. So far the old engine + box is out, did a degrease of the engine bay and jst doing some final touches to the new motor before i bolt up the new box and put her in. Thats bout it so far. I decided to run a front mount instead of the crossover pipe as i was already looking at a few hundred bucks for silicone joiners and clamps to connect the crossover pipe, and for a couple of hundred more i could get a front mount with piping, silicone joiners and clamps. So i decided that would be better value and bought the GK Tech 'no holes' kit, yet to be mounted. Not long now...! Bring on the pics! What breather hoses? Factory pump and pulsation dampner. Some original photos have not been recovered yet.

So, Finishing touches were done to the engine, fitted up the new sports organic clutch, bolted up the r33 gearbox, and dropped that bad boy in! Connected up the wiring harness, bled clutch, etc. Filled her up with fluids, cranked her over a few times to prime up the oil supply and then started her! She fired up first time which was great news. Had an oil leak from the braided oil feed line to the turbo which was my bad - loose fitting. Set up basic timing and idle, bled cooling system. NOW SHE IS TURBO Fitted up the GKTech front mount kit last weekend. Pics to come. Some original photos have not been recovered yet.

Wow! This is one clean and fastidious build! Very nice, +repz. That workshop is amazing too.

i just want to say, your work looks flawless. are you in the trade at all?

Quote: Originally Posted by TUXEDO [View Post] Wow! This is one clean and fastidious build! Very nice, +repz. That workshop is amazing too. Thanks mate. Much time and money has gone into this build. Quote: Originally Posted by onetidyvl [View Post] i just want to say, your work looks flawless. are you in the trade at all? Thanks. Yeh, im a 4th year apprentice mechanic, qualified in about 4 months.

Thats beautiful

looks nice man, top work

i agree good work man looks nice keep it up Some original photos have not been recovered yet.

So i bought a GK tech, no holes, 'bolts straight up' intercooler kit - MY ASS When i installed the core, i had to remove my AC condenser fan and i also had to dismount and bend my AC receiver/dryer to move it back so the core would sit back far enough that the bar would fit on. Even then its still hard up against the condenser and the fmi core... I only recently got my intercooler piping connected up! I installed the core back when i posted last (in september!) and then had a whole lot of dramas with the piping..! so i ended up jst covering up the core holes and driving round with the interfooler. I ended up going to a friend of a friends workshop - Grim Performance in Hornsby, and explained all the issues i was having with the 'bolt up' intercooler kit. Left all the piping and joiners there and told him to do wat they have to do to make the piping fit. When i picked it up, i was told that he had to cut and shut EVERY pipe from the intercooler kit to make it fit and even then its still not very good.........the cold side pipe hangs down at the front lower than the bar...........i am VERY dissapointed in this GK Tech kit, and i dont understand why i have had sO many problems and why mAny other ppl havent.. i am a mechanic and i would not recommend this kit to anyone after the dramas ive had with it. ANYWAYS In other news, Been running the motor in, and having great fun driving the turbo. So much fun! This weekend im preparing the car to take to the drags on wednesday nite. Gotta: - Do oil + filter change - Change diff oil - Flush & bleed brake fluid - Wire up my reverse lights - Connect my fuel tank to the charcoal canister instead of venting to atmosphere and reinstall the wheel arch covering - Set my TPS properly and check my timing - Practice my race starts haha Here's some pics of the fmi install. Ill take some more pictures of the car this weekend, including my dodgey intercooler piping. Some original photos have not been recovered yet.

very nice mate.. well done, looks very clean. SP tools? Some original photos have not been recovered yet.

this thing looks farkin awesome mate, top job, are you upgrading injectors aswell or just the fuel pumps

Quote: Originally Posted by PSI-EFI [View Post] very nice mate.. well done, looks very clean. SP tools? thanks mate. yeh - ****ty SP screwdrivers haha, all the good stuff at work Quote: Originally Posted by boostedbb [View Post] this thing looks farkin awesome mate, top job, are you upgrading injectors aswell or just the fuel pumps cheers. yeh i will be looking to upgrade the injectors in the future, need a standalone comp to run them though and make any decent power. gotta save up haha ---------- Post added 04-12-10 at 13:08 ---------- As promised, more pics. The bosch 044 installed + larger gauge wiring. My shonky intercooler piping...... The drags! My quickest run was 15.5s @ 91mph - bit dissapointed, was expecting to be at least breaking into the 14s. Gotta practice my starts + sort out some running extremely rich issues and get car dynoed + wind up boost! Some original photos have not been recovered yet.

any updates on this? Some original photos have not been recovered yet.

Haven't added any updates to this for awhile! so here we go! MarkZ Haven't done anything too major of late, been a bit strapped for cash. But the missus has gone away for a couple of months so money starting to be saved a bit, not for long tho! spending on the car!! Ok so! i bought some gauges off ebay and made up a mount for it to go in my sunglasses holder in the centre console. I got a water temp gauge, boost gauge, and AFR gauge. Also bought some autometer angle cups. Couple of pics. Yes i know in the first two pics the gauges are angled the wrong way, this was fixed! Once i got the gauges operational i could now finally monitor my boost, guess what that means!!!!! wind the boost uP!!!!! so fitted in a boost tap and removed the overboost releif valve (which i completely forgot about until i wound the boost up and heard it venting once i was hittting 8-9psi hahah) so yeh removed that and plugged it up with a bung from bunnings, good old bunnings! wound it up to around 12-13psi. sometimes its spiking to 15psi, AFR gauge is telling me its NOT leaning out but i think the spark starts to break down at full throttle as there is a slight hesitation at times or the AFR gauge is lying. Probable a bit of both. Next upgrade ive done is fit VT front brakes (296mm rotors DBA gold series cross drilled and slotted) and also new slotted rotors (DBA street series slotted) and good pads all round. I also upgraded all my brake lines to braided and fitted the turbo 1" master cylinder. i also replaced the park brake shoes aNd the handbrake cable which was seized up and stretched out so wasnt really being effective. Couple of pics. Before After Rear after Currently i am bringing the ass of the car back to life as i had a reverse light lens go AWOL on me, so I bought new taillights, remanufactured centre garnish and new 'holden' and 'turbo' badges. i have the taillight surrounding moulds off and am cleaning them up and going to respray them in gloss black to make them look new. Havent got any new after pics of this yet. Soon! Before Next big things im looking at doing are getting a full 3" exhaust system fitted up, taking it to a tuners and getting some bigger injectors, standalone computer and a tune done on it so its running really well. oh and also an lsd as the single spinner lOves breaking traction all the time!! Some original photos have not been recovered yet.

Looks amazing mate... very good attention to detail!

ur a mechanic, but you send the car away to get the engine built, and even the cooler piping fitted? lol me and everyone i know have never had a problem with the gktexh kit so i dunno what you did wrong, and the cold side always hangs a bit lower thats just how it is.. also if u only ran 15.5 ur doing something wrong, ive seen n/a vls run that! nevertheless the car is amazing

nice car mate verry well dun,loose the BOV n itd be sweet Some original photos have not been recovered yet.