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Torana hatch in California...

Started by _LS1 Hatch_ , Feb 08 2011 01:19 PM

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#101 _LS1 Hatch_

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Posted 19 February 2011 - 05:53 AM

Thanks and glad you like the car! Many years ago we shipped over a white HQ Monaro actually as well (was for a guy, not one of my cars) it was ok...but I much prefer the Toranas B)


Oh ,and sorry the prices were too much for you.. but guess can't always be low enough for everyone all the time, and keep things going properly as well. Hopefully there was some good stuff there to look at, the showroom area came out pretty nice and we ship a heap of stuff over to try and keep it full, lol (plus customer's stuff of course too)

#102 _LS1 Hatch_

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Posted 19 February 2011 - 03:32 PM

Couple more pictures of assorted things...
This time how I ran my heater hoses. I thought and thought about what to do with them, I wanted to hide them if possible, but if not at least find a way to run them through the firewall without getting in the way of all the other stuff I had going on. Then the idea hit me, with the Edelbrock intake I had quite alot of room under it! Even with moving the coil packs like I did inbetween the runners like I did, there still was a fair amount of room under there, so.... Just ran the heater hoses under it and through the firewall. Worked out perfect!

Here is how I ran them basically.. I also ended up attaching the billet clamp to the valley tray to keep the hoses in place and limit any chances of them rubbbing on things.

Also showed a pic of the water pump side where I attached the hoses. Pretty easy to do, just pulled the factory pressed in fittings and tap the pump housing out for some AN fittings.

In the last picture you can just see the heater hoses with all the other stuff in place, also the steam return line I ran as well, to get rid of the factory hose that goes from the steam pipe crossover hard line to the radiator..I just brazed an AN fitting onto the steam line, and then tapped and used a fitting in the top of the water pump housing and made up a -4AN line for it. Seems to work perfect with no hot spots or overheating issues of course either!

So the Edelbrock intake not only will gain some horsepower, but it's pretty handy for packaging things around/under it as well!

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#103 _LS1 Hatch_

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Posted 19 February 2011 - 03:37 PM

Ooops, found another picture! Shows how I attached the heater hoses to keep from moving around too much, and the steam bypass line as well. :)


And in the other...you can see the coil mounts I made and pretty much how they go inbetween the intake runners. I had to extend the coil looms as well, that was no problem as well.

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#104 enderwigginau

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Posted 19 February 2011 - 05:29 PM

Thanks for the heads up Matt.

Do they do them with only the side terminals?


Those 2 lumps ontop are the other set of terminals Grant

yep Neil, but wondering whether they make em without the ones on the top of the case.


I bet your Aussie Beer collection is screaming for a Torana Lager bottle :D

Grant..

#105 dattoman

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Posted 19 February 2011 - 05:51 PM

My Cadillac battery has only side terminals

But its not an Odyssey or Optima

#106 _Bomber Watson_

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Posted 19 February 2011 - 06:51 PM

Ahhh all this fine stuff readily available.....

As if i hadnt convinced myself to put my LJ into a container and move stateside, your doing a mighty fine job.

Perhaps when its finished....

Cheers.

#107 enderwigginau

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Posted 19 February 2011 - 09:42 PM

My Cadillac battery has only side terminals

But its not an Odyssey or Optima


How big is it and what does it crank?


I don't plan on putting the old girl upside down so gel batteries would be a waste :D


#108 dattoman

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Posted 19 February 2011 - 09:46 PM

Same size as a regular battery
And enough crank to turn over 500 cubes

I think its a 780amp
I'll check tomorrow when I have the bonnet up

#109 _LS1 Hatch_

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Posted 20 February 2011 - 02:19 AM

Thanks for the heads up Matt.


Do they do them with only the side terminals?


Those 2 lumps ontop are the other set of terminals Grant

yep Neil, but wondering whether they make em without the ones on the top of the case.


I bet your Aussie Beer collection is screaming for a Torana Lager bottle :D

Grant..




On the battery with side terminal only....indeed they do!

http://www.summitrac...s/ULT-9078-109/ :D and a Torana Lager you say? B) B)

#110 _LS1 Hatch_

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Posted 20 February 2011 - 02:24 AM

Ahhh all this fine stuff readily available.....

As if i hadnt convinced myself to put my LJ into a container and move stateside, your doing a mighty fine job.

Perhaps when its finished....

Cheers.


Well, everything is readily available except Oz parts, but I try and keep a few things "in stock" for myself at least, ha ha..

It does make it easier though, can find most hardware and metal supply things at least locally and engine or other assorted bits are just a couple days away by phone.



Oh,and on the side terminal batteries mentioned....you can get side terminal-only AC-Delco batteries over there in Melbourne at least, we used heaps and heaps of them on all the late model GM's we did.

#111 _LS1 Hatch_

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Posted 20 February 2011 - 09:30 AM

Another home made part on the car that I like how it turned out... this is the air cleaner box I came up with.

I wanted something to mount where the battery oringally went and couldn't really find anything off the shelf that fit the bill for me, so decided to make up a box that could hold a K & N filter inside. I spent a couple hours with some cardboard and made up a mock up to fit into the front corner of the engine bay and was pretty happy with it...included a notch you can see for the wheel arch area as well. After I was all done with that, just was a matter of copying it into aluminum.
After that was done, I added a couple of holes and some aluminum tubing for the hose from the MAF to connect too on the outside on the box which continues inside the box for the air cleaner to mount onto.
One the front side of the box, I added another short piece of tubing where I clamped a carbon fiber bell onto that goes through the core support to get cool air into the box.
Oh and just made a lid from some more sheet aluminum and used counter sunk stainless allen screws to hold it down. After abit of a polish just bolted it all in place !

You can see the carbonfiber bell sticking through in the last picture.

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#112 _LS1 Hatch_

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Posted 20 February 2011 - 10:01 AM

And some more of my "stuff"....got a few original brochures and what not too.... I took one of them that I thought was really cool and even hung it up as you can see too :)


Oh, and I noticed Rare Spares is a sponsor here, so thought I'd share the little way I got involved there....had a picture of the Torana (and Charger) in thier company newsleter years back !

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#113 StephenSLR

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Posted 20 February 2011 - 03:44 PM

What's the theory with the louvres behind the radiator?

At first I thought it would push hot air down and not onto the engine but the fan does that anyway.

s

#114 _LS1 Hatch_

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Posted 21 February 2011 - 01:40 AM

They are just to let air through the shroud at freeway speeds...once you are going like 40mph or faster the electric fans don't do anything, the air movement is plenty and if the shroud was just solid it would tend to slow the air down coming through it (just through the fans). The louvers let air blow through while moving, but are not big or open enough to reduce the fans efficency at low speeds of pulling air through the radiator and condensor. They are the highest output 11" fans Spal make actually..and when sitting still and idling, if I turn the A/C on so they both kick into high speed...it will hold a papertowel against the grill from the outside! So plenty of "pull" from them even with those louvers cut in.



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#115 StephenSLR

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Posted 21 February 2011 - 06:14 AM

once you are going like 40mph or faster the electric fans don't do anything


True, if you have a sensor in the water path it will switch off the fans.

if the shroud was just solid it would tend to slow the air down


Yeah I understand that, maybe my question wasn't clear enough.

I was asking why you had louvres instead of an open space as the sheet metal between the louvres will restrict airflow somewhat through the radiator grille.

They are the highest output 11" fans Spal make actually.


I have a 16" Davies Craig fan, I was considering going the twin thermatic route but looking at the specs their 16" fan pulls more cfm than 2 x 14" fans. I also chose the 16" as it has a chunky shroud around it whereas their smaller ones didn't.

Your 11" fans also seem to have quite a bit of shroud, which is good and I notice the plate you have also acts as a mounting point rather than have the fan screws going through the grille elements.

s

#116 _LS1 Hatch_

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Posted 21 February 2011 - 06:27 AM

On the sensor... I use a Spal fan controller..running off of the stock LS1 sending unit. I could have actually used the fan outputs (there are 2) from the PCM, but the Spal unit just makes adjusting temps much easier, and it also varies the speed of the primary fan versus just on or off.

On the louvers..I had thought of cutting holes and trying to make some rubber flaps as alot of the factory ones use (over here at least), but gave this way a try and it seems to work the part perfectly...

Which goes to the fan selection as well.. I thought of the single route as well...but these give more clearance around the front of the engine, and they do move more than enough air for my situation at least. In the middle of the summer I let the car idle for about 45 minutes and it would just sit right where it should temp wise, and did the same test with the air con running and idling and same thing..not even a hint of an over heating problem.

I tried to design the cooling system as overkill....I wanted to be able to sit in the bumper to bumper traffic we have here around SoCal in the hot summer time and not have to be watching the temp gauge the entire time (and have the air con blowing cold as well) I looked at what the factory LS1 cars use and just went above and beyond that pretty much (to help keep up to future engine mods as well)

Between the fans, the shroud style, fan controller, the engine itself and the dual pass Afco radiator I am real happy with how the entire combo has worked out.

Edited by LS1 Hatch, 21 February 2011 - 06:27 AM.

#117 StephenSLR

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Posted 21 February 2011 - 06:40 AM

Between the fans, the shroud style, fan controller, the engine itself and the dual pass Afco radiator I am real happy with how the entire combo has worked out.


Cheers, it looks rather cool too, excuse the pun.

s

#118 _LS1 Hatch_

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Posted 21 February 2011 - 06:54 AM

Thanks... B)

I was pretty amazed even how long the cooling system took, to get up to temp while setting up the fan controller (it keeps both fans off so you can set the low and high points for it to turn on) and using my OBDII scan tool (to read exact temp) it was ages to get up to 200� for example with the fans off.

I used a IR heat gun I have too, to see how temps were compared to the factory sending unit for the Torana dash, and the LS1 sending unit too, and things all seems spot on and where I want it when warming up.

#119 _LS1 Hatch_

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Posted 21 February 2011 - 02:05 PM

Here is how my boot has been coming along. I mounted the amps on a rack you can see, and just finished the speaker box setup. I've always had a pretty good stereo setup in the car since before I did the big rebuild, but for a woofer I just had an Alpine box (had a friend who worked there actually) sitting above the boot floor (on top of the carpet over the wood false floor bit) and knew I didn't want that again. So I decided to build a rack and a box that would mount flush to where the false floor goes and the boot carpet can just go over the top. Pretty happy with how it worked out as well.. It is also made to easily lift out too, so if I don't want the extra weight back there I can just unplug it and undo 4 bolts and it lifts out.

I used the mesh type covering on it to could still set something on top of the carpet over it and not hurt the speakers, yet let the sound through as well. In the center of it is a storage area as well for a few tools or what ever I might want. I just made it all from scratch...the box is 3/4" MDF and the rack is 1/2" square tube steel.

Oh, and speakers are 10" Vifa woofers and since the box size is a little on the small size I stuffed them with acoustic stuffing.

Oh, and along the front edge of the rack/hanger I made for the speaker box, you can see I added a lip so I can still run the wood false floor. I'll just make a new front piece (the part screwed down) and a new "middle" piece...just will use some 1/2" MDF or furnature grade plywood...

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#120 _2wild4u_

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Posted 22 February 2011 - 10:36 PM

just stumbled across this, very nice, good to see

#121 _LS1 Hatch_

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Posted 23 February 2011 - 12:37 PM

Thank you! Posted Image

#122 _PAL066_

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Posted 24 February 2011 - 03:12 PM

Excellent do you have any more info or pics on AC unit and install?

#123 _LS1 Hatch_

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Posted 24 February 2011 - 04:10 PM

No problem...I'll go through my pics in the morning (have hundreds and hundreds of building the car as I went) and post some up of the AC unit stuff!

#124 _LS1 Hatch_

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Posted 25 February 2011 - 01:42 PM

The air con unit was just universal style one with heat and air conditioning. It has outputs for defrost, 3 outlets for dash outlets, and can blown just downwards for heat if wanted as well. I ran ducting to each of the 2 vents on either end of the dash (that used to be just outside air of course) and also made up another outlet and plenum setup for the console to replace the original heater setup, and run the 3rd hose off the unit to it. For the defroster I just ran 2 hoses from the factory defrost ducting to the top outlets on the heater-a/c unit. For contols, I used the billet face panel the company made and mounted it into the lower dash facia where the factory heater controls went.

Oh and tons of leg room, I got it mounted up nice and high (as much as I could at least)

Here is how the unit sits as of now...

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#125 _LS1 Hatch_

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Posted 25 February 2011 - 01:48 PM

Here is a picture from when I was first mounting it...taken through the glove box.. (and a couple other pictures as well of it then too)

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