2118 replies to this topic

[Heath]

Haha yeah that's it.

Used an offcut of a fence post to machine out some bump stop spacers, tried 20mm but the tyre seemed to have excessive clearance in my trial fit, cut them down to 10mm and welded into place.

Edited by Heath, 23 July 2017 - 08:58 AM.

[Redslur]

Clever little prick.  Hope to see you at Newy in Septemeber again for a catch up chat Heath :-)

[Heath]

Hahaha nah I actually had to buy a Bathurst-spec swaybar, but part of fitting it up did involve making some crush tubes in the chassis rails which I made a little tool to form a square profile for the coach bolt of:


Filed a square hole:



Bent the Wilwood Clevis Pin from my parking brake kit (330-9371) to fit the standard mechanism:


You beauty:


Adjusting left and right bias is fairly easy with these special countersunk hollow bolts from the kit, my little bulkhead is tapped to suit.


Front half tucked out of the way... at least I can't think of anything else that needs to sit in that area:


Happy with that.

Edited by Heath, 24 July 2017 - 09:12 AM.

[UC308Hatch]

Hey Heath, Just reread your whole thread from start to finish, you have done a lot more since I last look at it. Your ideas & build quality & execution are a real credit to you!!
But I need another update 😬

[Heath]

Haha I've read the whole thing a few times when I feel like I've got a long way to go... Takes a while to even read half the thread!

Should make you pleased to hear I haven't had a break from working on it apart from a weekend or two away at the snow, just gotta find time to update this thread.

[SHEEL]

oh goody!!! more updates!!

[Heath]

Where to start... this is gonna be pretty disjointed

Forgot to actually post a photo of the master in place. Don't mean to make your neck sore!

Under dash side:


Got the old gas filler bracket out of BBQ-202... the gas install on that car was outsourced and I didn't make this thing, pretty ugly!




Mocked up behind the number plate in the car, the rotisserie is kinda in the way!


Outsourced the media blasting of my crossmember (bit big for anything I have access to) and gave it a shot of etch:



Getting close to assembling this diff so I thought I'd get the gearset ready. Removed the crownwheel from the original open R31 skyline carrier:


Normal story with the Borg Warner pinion being too long and hitting the TrueTrac:



Outsourced 'super finishing' (vibratory) on the gearset at B.V. Products in Carrum Downs.

Edited by Heath, 29 August 2017 - 10:52 PM.

[Heath]

Went shopping:


2x Stainless 2.5" Magnaflow Offset Centre mufflers:


Pulled my TKO Gearbox shifter apart to rotate the shifter mechanism (I'd rotated the red plate but the arm wasn't actually engaging with the shift rail)




Bought a Dellow bellhousing that was lying around un-used. The RHS one came with my TKO (from a BBC) but the starter is in the wrong position for a Holden motor:





Spent a night getting it a bit more presentable, hate that 'one-size-fits-all' look.

Edited by Heath, 29 August 2017 - 11:01 PM.

[Heath]

Took a chance on some cheap stainless eBay extractors for VN-style heads into LH-UC Torana:


Of course, merges were a shit design compared to the Pacemaker 'cone-over' arrangement:


But things can be adjusted. I cut the secondaries out and this gave me an opportunity to die grind deep into all the merges to clean up the rough welded insides too.


Had the secondaries 'expanded' on a hydraulic machine at an exhaust shop for $40. This photo makes it look easy, there was a fair bit of work to get all four to connect back up.


Connected the final collectors up to a 2.5" pipe with another ring of stainless pipe in between the merge and the 2.5" pipe, and left a sharp step down for clean-edge separation of the gas. My aim being to have it only step up, not down, in each transition.


All welded up with the TIG on DC, all filler & flanges are stainless.


Cool!

[SHEEL]

yummy

[UC308Hatch]

Wow at this rate you will be finished in no time soon! Awesome work as usual, must admit I had considered those ss pipes, but wasn't prepared to take the gamble after the brakes... only one wideband socket I'm guessing?

Edited by UC308Hatch, 31 August 2017 - 07:48 AM.

[toryman76]

Absolutely love your work mate. This will be one killer hatch!!!

[Heath]

Ron, only one wide band port in the extractors as per standard EFI Holden V8, but mine will use two wide bands.

 

Well, about time I got a start on making my first exhaust!

Lifted a dummy block and the TKO into the car with the new Tuff Mounts:



Before a proper fit-up could be done, I needed to fix up the extractor flanges that really had a disappointing accuracy. No arguments with the price on these things, only the quality. They could have been really quite good pipes for no extra 'spend' if the guy who had them made had a better communication channel with the manufacturer in Asia to revise a few little things. Alas, he doesn't and the product will probably continue to be made sub-standard despite my effort to help him. You may be able to see below that every hole on the flange below is just too close together - can't get more than any 2 bolts in at a time.


Ground out the texta marked areas with a carbide burr so that I could get all the bolts in, haha. Laughable thing to get wrong on a product...


Bought a fair few bends and some straight lengths in 2.5", some 1/2" bar, some 5/8" tube, and started cutting them to shape, tucking it all up high to maximise ground clearance.


A friend designed up a pretty unconventional baffled expansion chamber for the exhaust, I cut up an old extruder cooling bath at work for the stainless, and got to work.


The expansion chamber is 3" tall and the exhaust is 2.5", so a little bit of expansion in the vertical orientation, but most of the effect comes from the lateral transition as the gas enters the box.




Pipes sit flush with the bottom of the box, as to have no reduction in ground clearance:



Obviously had to fit it in amongst a few other things, but I'm happy with it all so far.



So how big's your muffler?

[Bigfella237]

Man are you ever gonna get sick of people asking that question!

 

Love yer work as usual, Heath, I swear you're reading my mind with some of these ideas of yours?

 

I've read the pressures inside these "boom boxes" can get pretty violent at times and they quite often tear themselves apart, but yours seems to be constructed better than most I've seen?

 

Speaking of weird exhaust systems...

 

I'm still considering making a set of 180° headers to achieve a more unique sound, if memory serves triple eight racing did it for their Bathurst cars one year but apart from sounding different, I don't think it made much difference performance-wise. Only trouble is, it pretty much requires a dry sump setup or there just isn't room...

 

 

But I'm getting off-topic yet again... sorry!

[Bullet]

Great work once again Heath

[76lxhatch]

Looks good, are you going to mock up the steering to check clearance to driver side header?

[Bigfella237]

I think they're designed essentially to trick the exhaust into thinking it ends just after the headers, kinda like having open collectors but without the noise.

 

It will be interesting to hear what kind of exhaust note you get with this setup, Heath?

[SHEEL]

Boombox is very insteresting. One of the old geezers in my car club has a special set of "tuned length" pipes that he puts on when Drag racing. Apparantly a bit of an old school racing thing?

 

They are essentially a section of straight pipe that extends back about maybe 2 feet from the extractor flanges.

 

There is a theory that this is the optimal length of pipe to extract the exhaust gasses. Simply dropping your pipes at the strip sounds good and removes backpressure/promotes flow, but I guess you also lose any extraction effect so I guess the theory makes sense.

 

The Boom box seems to be about the right distance back to achieve a similar result, provided the gasses can escape the back side effectively? 

[Heath]

Yeah the distance on mine isn't a "guess" haha.

What the note will be like? Not sure. It'll certainly knock out some dB which may not be a good thing, but like everything on the car... won't know til I run it!

Edited by Heath, 08 September 2017 - 02:14 PM.

[toryman76]

I should have got you to make my exhaust... Looks unreal. Quality work heath.

[warrenm]

Yeah the distance on mine isn't a "guess" haha.

What the note will be like? Not sure. It'll certainly knock out some dB which may not be a good thing, but like everything on the car... won't know til I run it!

What is the volume of the chamber?

Nice looking setup.

[Heath]

Thanks. 10.5 Litres volume.

Just mocked up the steering, and the lower Uni joint is hitting one of the primaries. Not happy.