473 replies to this topic

[orangeLJ]

Its my own fault really.

When I put the romac balancer on, I had to space the fan to clear it, there was only ever about 5mm of clearance since.

So big doce of revs, big double clutch moment, bit of engine movement and the fan collected the radiator doing about 6k rpm

ended up interesting as you can tell!

Ive always run an engine fan without any dramas, until now that is.

Ive seen lots of people have dramas with thermos too (including cooking engines), the engine fan works, there is no doubting that, its just when you try and run tight clearances and 5 year old rubber mounts that it ends badly! haha,

its all good though, fitting a spare 3 core and a 12 inch thermo.

Got some K&Ns to throw on and replace the open trumpets too.

ohh and is pink my colour??

Beige_LJ,
happened at the end of my street actually, I shut her down as soon as it went bang, then managed to roll to the driveway and push it inside before anyone noticed.

Edited by orangeLJ, 18 October 2009 - 07:23 PM.

[orangeLJ]

Well its about time I did some work on the torana!

Its had overheating dramas ever since I fitted my spare radiator (bought off chris-wyldLC a while back)

On the Xmas torana cruise, it got VERY hot and even when sitting cruising on the freeway wouldnt stop rising....

Well I figured out how to make the temp drop, give it some throttle!

So that narrowed down the problem to a #@$^%& water pump or a clogged radiator (obviously more likely the radiator)

So I finally got around to pulling it out and having it serviced.

They found some extra "baffles" inside the tanks which they have told me means it was built for a drag car? or something that saw very heavy loads?

Aswell as a whole bunch of shit clogging it up

(not Chris's fault though, he wasnt sure what it was like when I bought it and it was very cheap! so I expected it to be 50/50)

While they were there they fixed the broken mounting bracket (solder had just let go on the PS side mounting bracket)

Also ordered my new Jets for the webers (smallest size available)

and Im booking the tune for the thing in the next week or so (so should be on the dyno next month)

$100 for as much dyno time as we need, we do all the spanner work and our friend just gives us his opinion!

Cant beat that!

Im also sorting out the extra breathers on the rocker cover to get it fitted up too.


To do list is roughly-

Buy another K&N and fit filters

Tuned and running well mechanically

Ball joints need replacing as a safety measure

Fix minor wiring issues

New boots sewn into carpet
New kick panels made and carpeted

Roll gaurds
New tyres for wheels
modify and fit new wheels

New carpet for boot (to match interior)

Sort out boot install

Strip and rebuild/repaint front end

Strip and rebuild/repaint diff

Then its onto modifying things more, like new brakes all round

[MRLXSS]

Good shit!

Sweet as deal with the Dyno! Your lucky you have Ray to tune it all up for you! That tune will be the best thing you do for your car i reckon!

[orangeLJ]

Yeah its a bonus.

Basically Im buying a set of the smallest or well close to the smallest possible jets, running a "base tune"

Then from there using the $600 set of jet size drill bits (we have a very trusting friend that lent them to us!) to drill the jets to the size we need.

Taking a couple sets of chokes etc with us too.

It will be awesome to get it 100% sorted, no more fouled plugs, no more worrying if its rich/lean at various revs.

and best of all we can get 100% out of this engine.

It already does 2nd and 3rd gear skids.....

[orangeLJ]

Borrowing Johns Dyno and his time

Ray and John went to tech together back in the day so he looks after us.

We had our friends NOS car (6cylinder sprint car) on his dyno a couple months back. John managed to get a shitload more out of the buick motor with a couple hours of work.

Top bloke too.

[orangeLJ]

Did someone reccomend him to you? or did you just pick him out of the book??

His nephew owns that maroon/rusty red coloured 2 door LJ on FRs with the twin throttle bodied 355 in it. (did the show rounds a while back and was in SM)

Funny thing is that all Johns mates (and I think John too) are ford guys! haha, but he knows his shit and is very good at what he does.

[orangeLJ]

I thought I might have! but couldnt remember!

haha.

Atleast I know I give good advice!

[orangeLJ]

I honestly couldnt tell you what his normal rates are, but I will ask him when I see him next.

I already have two K&N oval filters and one decent base/cover plate, so I only really need to buy another filter and 2 baseplates/tops.

Thanks for the link though, will definitely keep it in mind.

Im keen to see how much we can get out of it too. My head is similar to yours (was comparing pictures last night, the throat of your ports are just slightly flatter then those on mine.) So it should be a pretty decent comparison in the end!

I'll try and remember to get some details to you about his prices.

The $100 we are paying is basically covering the wear and tear on the dyno, electricity and a carton of beer. no labour or anything included, so I think it would be a bit more then that.

I'll PM you his details if you want to give him a ring.

[MRLXSS]

Dyno guys normally charge 100-150/Hr of Dyno work. Seeing he is a good one, I'd say he'd be asking around the $150 mark.

[orangeLJ]

Well Karlie asked (told me we were going) me if we could go to the muscle car cruise on saturday night....

So looks like I need to get it out of the shed!

Bought 4 tyres today (205/45/R16s) that I can fit to the new wheels to give them all legal and decent tread. for $120 for all four near new tyres, its a good deal!

going to pick them up in about ten minutes.

Also thinking that its time to go visit my motor trimmer tomorrow to get the kick panels and carpet in the LJ sorted aswell as ask him about the hoodlining in the ute.

Stay tuned!

Also just on the tuning thing, Ive been overly lazy and havent ordered the new jets from the UK yet.

next time Karlie gets paid (next month) then I will look at ordering them (Im already stretching the budget at the moment!)

Edited by orangeLJ, 23 March 2010 - 02:28 PM.

[MRLXSS]

I had forgotten about this car! LOL!! Seems like you had as well!

You spending karlies money? How did you talk her into that! TEACH ME!!!! HAHAHAHAHA!

[orangeLJ]

Its called a joint bank account

its not hers or mine.... it ours!

[MRLXSS]

I'll have to get me one of those

[orangeLJ]

hahaha, its actually made life alot easier, we have had one single account together for the last 8+ months, we transfer our wages minus $50 a week to our joint account so we still have "savings" on our own, then all the groceries, petrol etc etc all come out of that one account.

no more "Ill pay this time you get next time" arguments or hassles, when Karlie wants to buy something she asks me, and if I want to buy something I ask her. I dont know how we lived with each other doing it the other way, we are both tight arses most of the time so we were always having tiffs about money!

Tyres turned out decent too, nakangs are near new (NS2s) and the silverstone synergy M5s arent very old at all (would be 90%+ tread left)

So for $30 a corner Ive got my tyres sorted (instead of 120 a corner)

Giving the torry a service today, I need to throw the timing light on it too as its backfiring alot all of a sudden.

Im over these linkages too. As soon as I get the money Im buying a pentstar kit that has the top mount rod. These "link together" ones are just shithouse, If the carbies arent 100% square (which is hard to do when the manifold is stepped so they clear the chassis rail) it holds the butterflies open on the front carby and makes it a pig to drive.

[orangeLJ]

Thanks for that carmelo,

I havent actually looked too hard into what im going to replace them with, I spent $300+ on these frOcking linkages, they were so frOcking expensive for little bits of zinc plated steel.


Ive come up with an interim solution though, going to run a longer throttle cable in and under the manifolds (pushbike brake cables are awesome!)

So instead of pulling it back towards the driver side, from the firewall end of the carbies, It will pull the linkages directly down from the two centre mounts of the carbies (if that makes sense)


Also changing rocker covers to a spare one Ive got, the other one seems to have warped when I welded the corners up and is leaking oil pretty badly.

Good excuse to reset the tappets while Im at it.

[orangeLJ]

Gave her a much needed wash and a coat of polish (somthing it hasnt seen in a while)

During polish-


after polish



eyeing off the XU-1