87 SL build

[t-rav]

hey all just thought i would post up my vl build .

After parting ways with my beloved VS V6 manual sedan 139kwatw ran a 15.2 1/4 mile at caulder .

it was time to buy something i could get some decent power out of, with out the massive price tag that ecotec's require to get some nice power. So the VL was chosen plenty of after market parts and all resonably priced .

would be about 4 weeks ago i found a white 87 SL mock up calais with 90% of the car calais.
the car was a bog stocker auto apart from all the calais stuff. purchased it of an 30 somthing year old bloke who loved the car and was sad to see it go


with big plans for the car as soon as i got her home safe i jumped on calais turbo.com and looking for either an A8 turbo motor with manual or R33 skyline motor the rb25
i found a repairable write off original Sl turbo Manual too which was perfect!
after a phone call i was on my way to werribe with a tandom that i hired to pick my 2nd vl up .

in two days i had purchased two vls by this stage i was running low on funds and started my conversion (queens birthday w/e)

first off was removing the nose cone off of my while vl

then undo all motor and gear box bolts and wiring

then bonnet off and craine in , used a seat belt and tied it to engine lifting points

motor out , time for aircon stuff to be removed and prep bay for A8 motor and gearbox
yellow vl , all engine mounts and gear box mounts undone all wiring looms dissconected and removed gear box and motor out as one piece .
auto was then removed from white car and turbo motor and gear box put in as one piece , this went extreamly well could not have been easier .

jacked the yellow vl up and removed whole diff from car and put into white vl .
diff is 3.45 LSD disc VLt

[t-rav]

things to be done

• finish interior for manual conversion
• swap over manual pedal box
• swap front calipers and discs over
• swap rear shockers over
• gk teck intercooler kit

[nasty1]

looks good mate g/l with it

[detox_nath83]

nice man lookin good. Like the paint tins holding up the tailshaft. She is gonna go hard now. How many kms on the a8?

[t-rav]

nice man lookin good. Like the paint tins holding up the tailshaft. She is gonna go hard now. How many kms on the a8?

86,000kms on the dash but by the looks of the rocker cover i think it may have done a lil more .
the bloke i bought it off said it was off the road for 5 years thats why the kms are so low. so far everything he told me about it was true so maybe its the genuine kms i can only hope

[t-rav]

So it had been like 4 weeks since I had touched the vl so decided to get busy on the w/e and decided not to get paralytic Saturday night so had the night in reading up on commodore mags and jumped on ebay and purchased a GK tek no holes kit which I received on Tuesday!!

Just dummy fitted the piping together for pic i know its not correct


Woke up at 7 am on Sunday and it wasn’t raining for once which made not going out the night b4 all worth while .
Worked all day on the vl and managed to get the following done
• Pedal box swapped over for manual P box
• Clutch booster put in
• Shifter bolted back onto trans
• Gear box filled up with oil
• Base plate riveted down
• Centre console fitted
• One piece tail shaft installed
• Radiator and fan put back in

After that it was dark but I was determined to get her running that day. But things aren’t always that easy and my ignition and fuel system refused to work at all…
• Starter motor wasn’t working
So I went to bed after hours of checking over things but after picking up a few month old issue street commodore mag the answer was randomly right there in the Q&A section
If your car was originally auto and u have done a manual conversion u have to loop two terminals on one of the auto loom plugs or u can bridge the two purple wires the go into the relay down near the battery on the driver’s side .
So I did this then starter fired but the fuel pumps still not arming and no spark from leads ..

After asking on every forum I am part of finally found out the I had to bridge two wires the go to the fuses and bang tonight she ran !
Runs good but there is a miss fire due to dodgy dizzy plug so I will have to get a new one from the wreakers but other than that it runs well

[t-rav]

knocked off early today so it was time to put the Cooler kit on started off well and only got worse




cooler mounting was fine but its when i went to put on the first pipe i ran into problems and more problems im am running an aftermarket T3/T4 and the font housing is too long so the bend of the pipe couldnt fit in the gapbetween turbo and engine bay .

so cut the bend to make it just fit but it still wasnt 100% correct then because of that plently more shit went wrong other piping didnt allign and then power streering lines got in the way

so much for BOLT ON haha

finally got it sorted and now all i need is a lil tuning motor has a miss fire to at about 3-4,000rpm

[nasty1]

usualy every body loves those cooler kits.at least it is a no holes kit although a kit with holes makes life and power so much easier.

you should have tidied up eng bay before you droped the turbo motor back in.

[t-rav]

the main reason i ran into trouble with the kit is because of the after market t3/t4 and the power steering if i didnt have these it would have bolted up fine .
I am going to modify the power steering line by cutting it befor the 90* bend and then put a long rubber hose up to the resivour, that way the whole thing should sit/alaign up heaps nicer .

yer i know i was ment to but time was of the essence and i had to make use of the good weather while it lasted due to my lack of garage .
i will be spraying up the rocker cover aswell when i get a chance with the wrinkle red and then polish up the "holden"
i will give it a good degrease and gerny soon and she should come up a fair bit better . i'll take some pics after and put em up =]

heres after i gave it a quick was down , i need to use some cutters on the shit hanging around the airbox reigon its on there good

[*uwishn*]

hi mate,
what did the turbo one set you back??

[detox_nath83]

Nice work man u have been busy....
all looking good...
yeah the neutral start switch relay needs to be bridged :P (but u already did that)
Bolt on kits are never just Bolt on.... modify away to make it fit.
Goodluck with it

[t-rav]

friday knocked off work and went straight down to repco and purchased new leads, spark plugs, oil, oil filter and some pwr steering fluid and got to work as soon as i got home , i fixed the miss fire turned out just to be a faulty lead and had the car ready to drive that night but it was too dark and i had no lights in or front bar , so went to caulder instead to get some more modivation to make the vl better . sure enough there was a low 8 sec red vl there... nice

got up early saturday took it for its first drive in my very large driveway and ran really well no noises at all dont get my licence back till september so will have to wait it out a lil longer befor i can really test it .

still have to put in turbo front calipers and brake booster but got nearly all my painting done on sunday(whole front bar) just need to do a couple of coats of clear and will be sweet

[t-rav]

hi mate,
what did the turbo one set you back??

got it for $2,300
from a bloke in werribee everything but cooler kit and drop tank

[Lonewolf]

Sweet mate looking good i had yellow vl once loved it should have never sold it lol

[t-rav]

hey all finished painting up the front bar and put it all on only to find that i had been either A:giving the wrong paint or B: the color of my door trims and rear bar are not original MX grey
just gonna get the pros to spray it i seriously cant be f**ked especially in this winter weather
also took some picks

[05 Senator]

looks good mate. nice job

[excalibur]

very very nice mate

[tim005]

very good job mate, hopefully i see this down at calder one day soon.
i am only a spectator, one day i will get the balls to enter my car in, too bad its just a vs ute haha.

[Astranomical]

Very nice, I'm loving the Calais front

[t-rav]

thanks for the comments boys means Alot

Tim , mate dosent matter if your the slowest car there just get in there and do it you'll have an awsome time!

me and my vl will be down at caulder as of the w/e i get my licence back which is in about a month and a half still plenty of time to get some more ponys out of it

[t-rav]

Update :
so havent been doing too much lately on the VL
recently polished up my calais rims and may be getting them white walled this w/e .
purchased cold air intake box and pod from Mace Engineering and also purchased a malpassi rising rate fuel reg 15 psi and over but have been told its tripple diaphram so can run at lower boost also .. hope thats true other wise will be running 15Psi daily on stock internals haha .

next to come is injectors and bosh 044 pump ..

just curious if any one on here know how much boost can i run with the standard turbo injectors befor they start to lean? (running malpassi rising rate reg and bosh 044)

will get some pictures up this w/e of the polished rims

[seans VL Calais]

about 12-14 psi is max for stock vlt injectors. mine were max duty cycle at 12.5 psi but still rich mixture

[VL_5SPEED]

Looking good... is that yelllow one a bt1? the shell can fetch a few K.... 140rwkw for a n/a v6 is huge... you must of spent a lot of money getting it there?

[t-rav]

about 12-14 psi is max for stock vlt injectors. mine were max duty cycle at 12.5 psi but still rich mixture

ok awsome thanks mate will get it all sorted soon really need my licence back so i can get the thing to a dyno ..

[t-rav]

Looking good... is that yelllow one a bt1? the shell can fetch a few K.... 140rwkw for a n/a v6 is huge... you must of spent a lot of money getting it there?

haha yer my vs was wicked i loved it !
i didnt spend all that much got a bargin on a manual vs that had heaps of shit on it
i was just running CAI , MACE ulra high ratio rockers, Pacemakers 2,1/2 exhaust, memcal tune and thats it =] the manual always helps on the dyno read out
and nah sadly the yellow is just a resprayed SL turbo