VK Berlina V8 ~The 33 Day Summernats Project~

[Beardie]

Righto Guys and Girls now that the dust has settled after Summernats and what not i thought it was time i share with you all the build me and 2 of my mates did in the lead up to this years summernats.

What we had to start with was a written off VP SS that we bought off A mate for the low cost of 800 bucks. the car had a freshly rebuilt turbo 700 gearbox and a low 150,000 kays on the motor, so it seemed like to good of a deal to pass up.



At first we were just going to part it out and make some cash off it.but then one day boredom got the better of us and we started looking at early girl commodores. we found a immaculate VK Berlina with NO RUST and a none running efi 202 for the low low pric of 500 bucks so we grabbed it.

Now came the fun part, at first the plan was to put the VP motor into the VK and keep it EFI, but as we were on a tight time frame (plus we wanted a filter out the bonnet lol) we deciced to convert the motor to carby. so we got our hands on a torque power intake manifold and a holly 600 carb and put them onto the VP motor. by this point the motor was in, the gearbox crossmember had been made etc. (at this point there is about 17 days to nats)







Next we took the front half of the vp tail shaft and put it with the rear of the vk tailshaft (this vk actually runs a vl diff) and hooked it all up. with the B&M pro ratchet installed the car was ready for its first drive (now about 12 days from nats). this is wear our problems started. the cars first drive was a success. it drove and stopped perfectly (we installed the VPs bigger front brakes as well as its lowered suspension in the front, as well as a whole heap of near new springs, shocks and panhard rod we picked up for basically nothing in the rear) So things were looking good we had scored the 2 door trims we needed for the inside, the stereo was going in, the rear seat had been fixed, the B&M shifter was in and looking real neat, so all the car needed was to be painted and the little things finished off. (about 9 days to nats at this point)

Now for the problems. after that first drive my mate started it up and went to move the car up the driveway and suddenly the motor lost ALL oil pressure, so thinking it might of been the oil pump we changed that (a piece of it was actually broken) thinking that was the end of our troubles (boy were we wrong) we put the motor back to together and started it up. still no oil pressure, lots of swearing later we thought that maybe the oil pick up is blocked with crap, so off comes the sump (fairly big job) and sure enough its blocked solid. cleaned it out and put the whole motor back together (7 days to nats and the car hasn't even been painted yet) so we fire it up and thank god the motor gets oil pressure again. so we are back on track but now there's only 6 days to nats and we have a car that's rubbed back for paint and hasnt been driven since the oil problems.






so 3 days to nats we start painting the car. everything goes okay. 3 days to go we start to put the car back together. a whole day is spent putting it all back together spend a whole day getting everything done and getting it looking good.

so by this point its the Wednesday before nats and the car is pretty much done. i go down to the RTA to get a permit on the car so we can take it for a drive to make sure everything is good. we take it for a test drive and get maybe 2 kays before the temp gauge goes off the scale (cars has a big 4 core rad and 2 massive thermos so it shouldn't get hot) and blows the top rad pipe off. at this point there's a LOT of swearing going on we put the pipe back on and fill it up with water but no matter what we do it keeps boiling the water in the bottom rad pipe. we are still on the side of the road at this point and its now 6:30pm on Wednesday and our permit expires at 7PM and we are due at Nats at 8:30pm for scuritnearing. so we call the car that's ment to be towing it down to nats to come pick us up. we load it on and take it back home thinking our nats is over before it even began.

but luckly my mates neighbour kept at us (cheers craig!) to putt the intake off and have a look to see if we can fix it. so we do and we realise that in our hast to put the intake manifold back on we put one of the gaskets on backwards and had blocked the water gallery. so now noing what the problem was we set about trying to fix it (its now 7:30 and we are doing this we with the car strapped down on the trailer) but as its 7:30PM no shops are open to get another set of inlet gaskets. luckly Craig is mates with the boys at Gentech Automotive and they happened to have a set of gaskets. (cheers guys you saved our asses) so we race down there get them onto the motor fill her up with water and start her up. she dosent over heat so we take her down to nats.

So we made it! 33 days of flat out building a car and nearly missing nats but we got it there. roll her off the trailer on thursday morning and take her for her first lap of EPIC. and other than running a little rich and fouling up a set of plugs it ran like a dream! deffently made the long days and nights working on it all worthwhile.







I would like to say a massave thank you to all of the guys and girls that helped Me, Graeme and Chris out on this build.
Craig for the holly 600 carb, towng the VK down to nats and back and all your help threw out the build.
Marcus and Kit from Gentech for supplying a bunch of strangers a gasket kit at 7:30pm at night.
Tarlo for making up the exhurst
Chris old man for restitching the rear seat for us,
And Graemes Mum and Dad for putting up with all of us during this build and for letting us build it in there driveway.

Thanks for taking the time to read all of this guys and girls all comments welcome.

Now for the stats on the Car.

Name: Gav, Graeme, Chris
Model: VK Berlina
Colour: Astroid Sliver
Bodykit:None
Engine: EFI 304 converted to Carby
Power: unknown
Exhaust: VP Geni Headers into a custom made 3in with a redback resi dumped at the diff
Gearbox: Turbo 700 with a stage 2 shift and 2800 stall
Wheels/Tyres: 18in ANZ Five+Fives with Nexan N5000 tyres
Suspension - VP Fe2 in the front, lowered king springs with monro shortened shocks in the rear, pedders adjustable panhard rod in the rear
Brakes: VP V8 in the front with a 1in master cylinder, VL drum in the rear (for now)
Interior: Stock with padded half cage
Stereo: Sony head deck sony 6 inch rear, with a pioneer amp and 12in sub
Build Time: 33 days
Future Mods: rego!

[VKCOMMO]

Nice car, 33 days, that would have been work 24/7

Good end result

[Beardie]

pretty much mate was well worth it but

[sweefu]

Extreme effort there mate, you must be heaps happy.

[BLOWN R8]

well done lads! i dont like to read much but u had me wanting to know if u had made it to the nats...lmao... nice 1!

[v8commie]

thats tuff mate good work

[Beardie]

well update time,
a lot is about to start happening to this car over the next 6 months to get it ready for summernats 23,
motor is about to be pulled out, striped down and a basic rebuild, slightly higher comp, with a nice big cam, cars also getting a new exhaust, and a new intake manifold, torque power high rise, so shes going to be a nice drive we are thinking, also have a spooled VK V8 disc brake diff going in soon, going to finished off a few small things on the outside and give her a good polish then its rego time, so we are hoping by November shes ready to go so we can get some miles on it before nats

[ari666]

awesome... thats all i can say. great job

[Beardie]

heres some more pics of the car from summernats

[Beardie]

Well i thought it was time to update this thread,
Car is now rego'd
also now runs 20in ANZ five+fives,
New intake and carby

ill let the pics do the talking all were taken at summernats 24
Cheers guys and girls
Gav

[some_guy]

Wonderful looking car. With an inspiring story to go along with it.

[bogan_vk]

tough looking car, rims set it off nicely, top job

[Kunu]

#### me m8, what a story glad to see it all came together though...
awesome looking car beardie and what an end result : )

[Beardie]

Thanks for all the kind words guys :-)
im glad to hear you all like the car, it really was a lot of effort but it was all worth while.

the 33 days was before summernats 23, then the car went into my mates shed for 10 months while we worked on all our other cars lol pulled her back out in october last year and got rego on her and changed a few things and got it propley tuned, car recently made 181rwkw so we were very surprised and happy with that. now i just need a spare day to take it out for a drive :-)

[[ - 5LCOMMY - ]]

niceee ridee

[Beardie]

niceee ridee

Thanks mate, well its been nearly 2 months since summernats and it still hasnt moved out of my mates garage, we have all been to busy to take her for a drive :-(
hopefully one day soon we can fire her up and go for a spin

[tim005]

this thing is amazing mate, looks so so so so so good, especially with the filter out of the bonnet.
inspires me to do something the same haha.

[Beardie]

this thing is amazing mate, looks so so so so so good, especially with the filter out of the bonnet.
inspires me to do something the same haha.

thanks for the kind words mate,
all i can say is go for it!, take your time finding the perfect shell, and the rest isnt to bad, i mean none of us had ever built a car from the ground up before, but by taking your time and buying bits when they come up cheap, you can build a car just like this for surprisingly little out lay, and they make good power (this motor makes 181rwkw) as well :-)

[dirt drifter]

bloody marvellous effort!!

did u guys have the NOTDADS plates on it at the nats this year? ( i know its not wearing them in the pics but im almost certain i seen the car with them on )

[Beardie]

bloody marvellous effort!!

did u guys have the NOTDADS plates on it at the nats this year? ( i know its not wearing them in the pics but im almost certain i seen the car with them on )

na mate no NOTDADZ plates this year, we were just trying to have a lower profile this year, but should be back next year with a few more cars :-)

[Calais-Turbo]

Hey Mate , Im not a VK Man personally , but this VK of yours is hot bro......

[Beardie]

Hey Mate , Im not a VK Man personally , but this VK of yours is hot bro......

Thanks Mate :-)

[Beardie]

Well guys and girls just thought i would upload a bunch of new pics of the car before we pulled the motor down to get a rebuild and converted to E85
So here she is in all her glory.

The pics of it on the trailer are from when we took it to get tuned up before we drove it to my mates dads funeral (his old man re trimmed the back seat of the VK for us before he passed)

some of the inside shots show it looking a little messy as we were re running some stereo wires but it all looks 100% again now