582 replies to this topic

[myss427]

I agree on cars being modified at the dealers, I have picks of my brothers A9X when it arrived had factory tinted glass and painted bumpers and no rubber strips, also scuff plates under the door handles and a radio. All were put on by the dealer principle in WA, I checked his option sheet when the car was made and there are no options on there, so it shows they were placed on at the dealers.

[Shiney005]

Small world....That would be a nice green one.

Indeed. A verynice green one. Only chatting to him yesterday.

[REDA9X]

Right at the start of this thread it says the following "This is not an excuse for people to bag out other peoples cars or choices so if you have nothing constructive to add, then don't bother!" Having said that there have been a few people that either can't read or like to push the boundries for whatever reason, again this thread is not an excuse for you to badmouth the L34 or A9X or any other car for that matter. It's also not an excuse to start name calling people when you can't get your message across with a normal discussion. This discussion should be based on facts, not heresay and quite frankly the saying "never let the truth get in the way of a good story" comes to mind. I think a few people might be coming home after a long day at work having a few drinks killing off a few more brain cells and typing away in the process. Back to the discussion, yet again I think a few people are just not getting it. It originally started off as a discussion about the A9X and L34, but what it's turned into is a lot more myth being thrown around. It's also about straight off the showroom floor, not after you got it home and changed bits or even tuned it. A HO kit whilst available from Holden was a dealer fitted option. Just remember Pattersons was fitting Turbos to A9X's too, so lets not count that in the mix. Just think about this, Holden did the absolute bare minimum to homologate cars to race. The rules had changed after 1971 and it was no longer production based racing. Look back at the old pictures when the XU1 and GT HO still had the stock factory exhausts, that wasn't the case when the L34 and A9X were released. Lets just take peoples memories out of this discussion for a second because at the end of the day it is purely heresay, nothing else, no matter how good you think your memory is, there have been a lot of beers sunk since 1974, some more than others. With the L34, just think about it for a second, Holden was still smarting from the supercar scare. They still wanted to go out and win Bathurst though so they needed something capable of winning. The L34 road car provided everything to do that under the rules of the day. It's been suggested Holden supplied hobbled cars to journalists, however the only car the journos could get was in the sports car world article posted here, and that was owned by Bruce Sutton and he had already put bigger tyres on the back of it. Bruce was lectured afterwards about supplying that car to the journos by holden, but as it turned out, it probably did them a favour. It's been suggested Holden and Harry Firth simply quoted the same figures and this was enough to fool the rulemakers of the day, but lets face it, that just wouldn't cut it. Holden did not bother to spend money on developing things they didn't need, in other words things that were either allowed to be changed by the teams, or just weren't required. A good example would be why would Holden bother with a 10000RPM tacho and 300km speedo? One a 308 would never rev to those sort of revs, race teams would fit a decent tacho anyway and 300km/h even down Conrod when it was straight was impossible, plus how many race cars needed a working speedo. Good luck finding these items in the parts book. The points about exhaust and intake being changed for the race car have been covered so many times, so Holden didn't need to develop these, but if the stock bits like the aircleaner were so good, why bother offering a better one in the HO kit,or change it for the race car? Holden knew people would go home and modify these things, it was the norm and still is, but that was out of their control, but they couldn't be blamed once someone did any mods, this is why all manufacturers threaten warrenty will be voided if you modify the car. Just for the record looking at a couple of other things written here about chevs and 308's. There is a reference to larry perkins using a 308 to beat the chevs until Holden corporate pressure made him change. This is not completely true. For one the 308 was downsized to 304 in 1985 for international group A rules by reducing the stroke of the crank. This engine eventually adopted the VN heads which removed the siameesed ports that had always been problem with the engine. It also meant a good increase in power. Since Fords engine used in the road cars was unsuitable to use in the race car, they lobbied to use a Ford motorsport block. Holden felt they would have an advantage and responded to get a Chev engine. Larry however felt he could achieve the same power since he had been developing the 308-304 for years and stuck with it and went on to win bathurst in 1993 using that engine while most teams ran the chev which had the siameesed heads. It was almost 2 years later before larry revealed how he did it. The rules stated you could not add metal, however the size of the holes in the manifold and heads were not the same and you couldn't remove metal to make them mate. Larry bypassed the rules, adding metal however doing it by making a wedge that screwed in. Once it was revealed the rule was put in place to stop it and Larry moved on to the chev. Why did it take so long to reveal? Because Larry had lots of privateer customers using 304 engines who would have been severly disadvantaged so a deal was struck to keep it quiet to allow those customers to slowly change over to the new engines. I saw one of these blow up at Oran park in practice after it was over reved. The printout stopped at 9 grand and it blew up before that. I'm sure a few people are saying you can't over rev them due to the 7500 rpm limiter, but that doesn't help when you mis shift from 2nd to 3rd but go into 1st instead. I hope that people will read this and have a good think and realise this is in no way a put down of the L34. If in doubt, read back and see where i have said the L34 was no good and the A9X was better, or where i have put down one car to favour another, I've just stated some facts. I haven't resorted to putting down others either or smartarse remarks to get my point across, but if you want to believe some of the dribble that is printed here, your mind simply wont be changed either way.

[TerrA LX]

The manifold and valve springs were the biggest obstacles for revving to 7000 I can't see it without spacer plates and porting. Also you would need a very healthy cam to rev that hard, only the race option pack had anything like that.

I can get a small valved 253 with a mild cam and LT1 valve springs reving to 7k every time, not that it makes any power but revs have nothing to do with cam or head size.

[TerrA LX]

This engine eventually adopted the VN heads which removed the siameesed ports that had always been problem with the engine. It also meant a good increase in power.

Can you tell me what the advantage is?

[REDA9X]

My understanding was the old heads had problems with hot spots, and also the flow rating for the VN heads was better. Ed Brodie did explain it all a few years ago on the exact principals but I didn't take a huge ammount of notice at the time.

[TerrA LX]

Ok, thank you for clearing that up, sounds like another street machine story, fact is the extra power came from the higher port entry, something the Siamese head could not achieve due to the simple fact of layout such as bolt holes and water jackets.

[Shiney005]

Dealers licenced cars and did all sorts of wild modifications to Torana's, but it doesn't make them standard or a Holden factory option.

As seen in the current thread below:
http://www.gmh-toran...iew__getnewpost

Obviously not Factory original.

This is only my (uneducated) opinion, and therefore should be taken very lightly, but I don't think the H.O. option should be lumped in with V8 LJs, Turbos or scuff plates/pinstripes/flux capacitors installed at the dealers. This package was put together by Holden partly to homologate certain bits for racing,(oil cooler, carby spacer) and is part of "SL/R 5000 With L34 option incorporating 'High Output Package' Parts Catalogue Supplement" (M37536). If we include the Amendment Bulletin, the H.O. option comprises of 35 Holden part numbers. This catalog even has an exploded view diagram of the 780 Holley.
So my car may not be standard. It may have been "hot rodded". But it was hot rodded by the factory.

[REDA9X]

Ok, thank you for clearing that up, sounds like another street machine story, fact is the extra power came from the higher port entry, something the Siamese head could not achieve due to the simple fact of layout such as bolt holes and water jackets.

Like i said, I didn't pay much attention at the time so I don't know how it can be another street machine story since I really didn't say anything. I do remember Ed talking about port entry and this was improved with larrys mod, he did have a term for it. Ed is one of the best 308/34 specialists in the country so I'm sure he would know.

[REDA9X]

This is only my (uneducated) opinion, and therefore should be taken very lightly, but I don't think the H.O. option should be lumped in with V8 LJs, Turbos or scuff plates/pinstripes/flux capacitors installed at the dealers. This package was put together by Holden partly to homologate certain bits for racing,(oil cooler, carby spacer) and is part of "SL/R 5000 With L34 option incorporating 'High Output Package' Parts Catalogue Supplement" (M37536). If we include the Amendment Bulletin, the H.O. option comprises of 35 Holden part numbers. This catalog even has an exploded view diagram of the 780 Holley.
So my car may not be standard. It may have been "hot rodded". But it was hot rodded by the factory.

In part, I do agree with you, the HO kit was a factory supplied item and is listed in the parts book. The thing is it was not factory fitted though, it was dealer fitted. You could actually buy any part of that kit, say the carby and fit it to your car. You could also go into Holden and buy it overthe counter if you had the $1500 asking price in 74. Dealers were actually warned about fitting these to other vehicles long after the L34 was gone.
My point is whilst fitting this kit to any other 308 at the time would not have achieved the results that it would bolting it onto an L34 engine, the part is not L34 specific or factory fitted, therefore it can't be included under "stock factory L34".