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| Well, after a long delay and a lot of waiting, the engine is nearly complete. I brought it home from the engine builder as it was mostly assembled and it was time to paint it. I carefully cleaned it down with solvent, masked it up and primed it with VHT high temperature primer. I dont think the cardboard rocker cover and side plate will catch on! | ||||
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followed this with a gloss black VHT paint to match the theme of the car
and highlight the chrome and alloy accessories. The rocker cover and side
plate are merely on there to see how they will look. So far I'm pleased
with the appearance. The last picture shows the engine with the fuel pump
block off plate in place and the proper studs fitted to hold the alloy
rocker cover and sideplate in place. The coil was only test fitted to
check clearance to the sideplate.
Well the car has had the driveline installed, now it's just a matter of me adding all the bits and pieces needed to complete the engine bay. The first of the engine bay pictures below is how the car was delivered back to me, the second 2 are progress shots of everything getting slowly fitted up. you can see in the last shot I've started to make room to fit the starter motor (which will probably need the rear headers loosened off to fit). Since then I've fitted the starter motor and detailed the wiring on the drivers side to keep it as neat looking as I can. The last picture below shows the progress so far. It feels like we are getting closer to the first start up! |
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| Well I've been working hard on the final thrash to finish the car. I've had an exhaust system fitted - a single 2.5 inch system with a solitary glass pack muffler to keep things relatively free flowing. I've almost completed the engine bay detailing and provide a couple more pics of that below. All that's left is to fit the transmission cooler and tachometer and complete a couple of minor detailing activities. The last 2 pics below show the fitted transmission cooler (B&M Supercooler - polished) and the stainless exhaust tip fitted to the car. | ||||
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| Well,
it's been a busy couple of weeks. The car has been fired up successfully
for the first time, oil pressure came up straight away and the cam was run
in without problems. A minor issue was the reluctor in the distributor was
sitting too high causing a rotor clearance problem, but some careful taps
with a hammer and that was fixed! Since then I have driven the car twice
(on police permits) and it is everything I hoped for and more.
The car performs extremely well and pushes you into the seat under acceleration. I spent the last 2 weeks finishing off some detailing and getting things fixed like the neutral safety switch, broken temperature gauge, oil and water leaks. I fitted the trans cooler, tachometer and adjusted the kickdown cable for the transmission. The car is ready now for police roadworthy inspection. |
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| As
you can see above, the car has finally been registered! It took 2
attempts, the car was rejected the first time due to too much play in the
steering column, front brake hoses too close to the suspension, exhaust
too close to diff and fuel tank and the fuel pump wiring was not deemed
satisfactory. However that's all behind me now and the maiden drive was a
hoot. More information on the cars performance will be forthcoming in
January when it gets run on the dyno, but I can tell you that seat of the
pants feel is that the car is extremely fast and powerful.
The last photo above is a direct result of having the car tuned and dynoed. The Ramflo air cleaners were proving too restrictive and causing a lot of AF ratio problems, so out they went to be replaced by a set of K&N air cleaners. The K&N kit is brilliant, much smoother running and a noticeable increase in responsiveness and power. Prior to the new air cleaners the car had 203 horsepower at the rear wheels. See you on the streets! |
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