Boingk's Supercharged VS Ute

[boingk]

Yeah putting an Ecotec in, unfortunately... the Super Six in it has a bad rod knock and will need to be rebuilt. I just don't want the thing sitting there for ages while it gets rebuilt is all, would rather have it up and running. Decided to not bother with the top-swap.

- boingk

 

[wraith]

Ohh right makes sense. Shame. It's not the first L67 I have heard with rod knock. Wonder what the go is with that as the ecotec seems pretty reliable in comparison.

 

[Immortality]

Ohh right makes sense. Shame. It's not the first L67 I have heard with rod knock. Wonder what the go is with that as the ecotec seems pretty reliable in comparison.

L67 is a lot harder on the bottom end. Any PD type blower is compared to it's n/a cousin unfortunately and then take into consideration that the ecotec/L67 has a peculiar oil system that does limit oil to the mains/big end a bit. It's probably more important for regular oil changes and not giving it any beans until it gets some temp into the oil.

 

[sleepa]

That Interior you have looks like a Series VS Caprice interior.

I did the same thing to my VR ute. Makes it a lot nicer inside. Hope all goes well with the engine swap.

 

[JCL]

Shame about your L67 - At least you were able to pick up an ecotec for $100 and give you some time to work on the L67. Might be a blessing in disguise

 

[UP THE RED VS]

So much going on in such little time, love the work haha

 

[boingk]

Thanks for the kind words gents. With the engine, the supercharger is almost definitely making at least some of the noise. I've ordered some bearings for the rear housing as well as one of the polyurethane couplers to see if that helps out.

While I've been waiting on a few parts to turn up I picked up a great set of wheels for cheap... some Cheviot alloys with decent tyres to get me through rego as the tyres on the back of the current wheels are bald.

Only problem is that the alloys grounded on the brake calipers... only about 1mm in it but that was enough! Locked solid. Bugger.

On the upside I flipped them again for what I bought them for and have the ute booked in to get some new rear tyres.

Cheers - boingk

 

[boingk]

Okay, so the car is booked in for new rear tyres and also some wheel studs as two are completely stripped! Looks like some ham-fisted jerk wound the airgun right up at a previous tyre place, I almost couldn't remove them myself with a cross brace.

Anyway, I gave the interior a good clean when I bought the ute and really liked that the headliner and carpet had been replaced in black to match the black Caprice dash. Only thing was that it clashed horribly with the seats, which were the standard bluey/grey colour that pretty much all cars from the 90's seem to have...

I was looking around for some new seats but ended up realising that most were already in average condition, and that finding a good set would be a cost I should really spend elsewhere. After a lot of browsing through crappy sets of covers on eBay, I found something that looked good...

Behold, the $26 makeover!

They did require a bit of work to make fit (headrests don't come off of the seats) but otherwise match nicely with the Caprice dash and faux-walnut trim panels. Instantly looks and feels nicer in the cockpit, highly recommended covers for the price. If anyone wants the link ask through PM.

Cheers all - boingk

 

[boingk]

Minor update here - I've isolated the noises from the engine. Looks like the bigend is definitely on the way out on the rear passenger side cylinder of the engine, I suspect a conrod bearing. Not much I can do about that right this minute but I will order a set of bearings, unbutton the sump and see if I can get at it while the engine is still in the car for a quick, dirty, ghetto-style fix.

I found that out by disconnecting the supercharger. This let me run the engine without it turning, and isolated the noise to the bigend. It also had the benefit of letting me diagnose that the supercharger needs a new coupler and maybe also some new housing bearings. They're cheap parts so I ordered some from Mace Engineering in Melbourne:

While I was on their site I had a bit of a look around and saw a whole lot of goodies for the L67... including a water-to-air intercooler plate complete with composite insulating spacer.

BAM! This will also be a quick and dirty install, I'm planning on using some very basic hosing running around the side of the engine bay to a repurposed airconditioning condenser or two that I'll install in front of the radiator. The pump is only going to be very basic - a $17 eBay unit that flows about 15L/min - and will be fitted on the hosing to the side of the engine bay. From all reports this is good for a pretty large jump in power as the poor little Eaton M90 blowers have discharge temps of about 200 degrees celcius.

Lastly, I finally got two new tyres on the back wheels. All I had to sort for rego was the indicator lights which looked like they'd shorted due to corrosion on the fusebox, so hopefully I can get her regoed in the morning.

Wish me luck.

 

[boingk]

Damnit I said wish me luck! The ute failed rego... spectacularly hahahaha...

Its too low, too loud, and too supercharged to be registered in the state of New South Wales apparently.

I'll have a talk to another local rego station who is involved in motorsports and see what they say about it. My view is that it is a factory engine that was fitted to the Commodore range and will result in less than a 20% increase in available engine power as per the current modification regs.

Anyone else had experience with this?

- boingk