01 WH International

[Jezza]

So took the car for a quick drive up Greenhill Rd with the GoPro attached to the back to get some driving sounds with the new exhaust and whilst both ways i eventually caught up to traffic i still got a good video of it.

Also Thursday last week had to line up for 5hrs to get a covid test (ended up being negative) but about 1.5hrs into waiting in line the car started blowing small amounts of bluey/white smoke and whilst driving im not noticing it but i've been told by friends and from the video above that it's still smoking. Hopefully it's nothing major as the bottom end was only done 5000kms ago

 

[Jezza]

So the car had its first big road trip. Drove over to Melbourne on Friday for a friends wedding at Mount Dandenong on the Saturday and it ran flawlessly there and back, I certainly enjoyed having V8 power for overtaking this time as unlike the VY ecotec I didn't have to carefully plan overtakes when I didn't have the overtaking lanes.

Fuel economy seemed barely more then the old VY and on the drive over a topped up in Horsham and that got me to Lilydale where i was staying, then topped up one in that area. For the drive home I waited till i was out of Melbourne before topping the tank and did so at Ballan, from there I saw my distance to home vs the distance to empty and decided to play the old Top Gear game of lets not fill up until we reach the destination as I'd known that at 1/4 left on the gauge the car still has about 40L in it (Not sure if i need to investigate that since i'd expect it to be closer to halfway at that much left). I managed to make it to my driveway with 75km to empty with the fuel light having been on since about the Stirling exit. Once I'd unloaded i filled the tank and it'd only taken 57L so now I know that for the future.

Taken on Sunday morning as dropping off the hotel key to the afterhours box.

The total trip information and how low the fuel gauge was

 

[Jezza]

So I've been chasing a starting issue with the car since the cam position sensor started playing up. Back around October? I started having issues with the car not starting on the 1st and sometimes 2nd attempt and eventually it happened more frequently and then it threw the code for the cam position sensor and i replaced it late november. After that I found it would still every so often not start 1st try but instantly start 2nd try and kept reading up and saw people recommend to replace the crank angle sensor since it goes around the same time. So replaced that back when I did the headers in December and it's still been causing problems.

Three weeks ago I had the starter motor scream at me twice so i bought a new one to replace once i got back from Melbourne and last week got it replaced and also got a compression test done. Starter motor didnt fix the issue and the compression test was all normal. The test was due to a small amount of blue'ish smoke I've recently started getting and we suspect it's most likely valve stem seals at this point and will do those when we do the cam etc hopefully later this year

They did also find the spark plugs were looking dirty so they got replaced to. As for the starting issue I'm really lost now since there really cant be much that'd cause it to not start 1st try but start instantly the 2nd try and its now happening more then just starting normally.

 

[Jezza]

Ok small update with a couple of things.

First the smoke issue we suspect will almost certainly be the valve stem seals on the car on the way out. Seems to be smoking a little on take off but more at idle and a lot during deceleration (as the video above shows). Now I've got plans later this year/early next year to do stuff like cam, lifters and some other top end work for the car and it'd make sense to get the valve stem seals done then but since this is my daily im probably going to see if getting it done sooner can be done if its not too much. The smell isnt nice and whilst i dont really see the smoke myself it feels really embarrassing and I dont think i can live with myself till the motors done.

The starting issues I'm highly suspecting is the Fuel Pressure Regulator so I've bought a whole new fuel pump/assembly and will be replacing that since its within that whole thing. Hopefully this fixes the issue and that'll be a big relief finally settled. Went for a slightly better then stock one so I've got something that give me peace of mind later on when finally do a tune etc.

On Australia day the other day I also went up into the countryside with my good camera and mic and recorded a normal take off then full throttle take off since i've got the new exhaust on it and I'm really happy with how it sounds.

 

[Jezza]

Ok so last week I took the car to a workshop that friend recommended to me and got a few things sorted. Had them do the Valve Stem seals, fix the catch-can piping, look at my starting issue and just a general check over of the car.

They fix the piping for the catch-can which the SAAS instructions weren't good and missed the 2nd pipe that runs to the intake and doesnt talk about the extra filter that you no longer need because the catch-can is doing that job. The Valve Stems were completely gone so I'm very glad they're fixed now and its stopped the smoking. Due to both things the spark plugs werent looking great as was the upper parts of the motor so he cleaned all that up and put in new plugs too.

Then I found out that the intake I've got on my car is actually a Factory HSV intake which as the "2 hole mod" as factory from HSV. Whilst he had the car it also got a maffless tune on it and driving it hope felt so much nicer.

A few weeks ago a good mate/member on here found my a 3.46 LSD for me for a good price so we got that and he had it all prepped for putting that in along with the new air shocks (since we needed to have the diff out to replace the cracked air hose lines). So it took about 7hrs but we got the new diff in and replace the suspension/lines and it's nice to have a good suspension again. As for the new Diff it feels nice and tight and combined with the tune it chirps into 2nd gear no problems.

Overall the last few days of stuff done to the car has completely transformed how it feels to drive and I'm so happy with it.

 

[Jezza]

So back late May I tried to order some Statesman International Projector headlights but after issues with the seller not responding/giving a freight cost i got the order cancelled and found a set of Genuine Monaro headlights that had a ebay discount on them so I've got Monaro Headlights now and I'm really happy with how it looks.

One thing I did find when swapping them over was that the location of the plug on the headlights was different and caused issues with the HSV intake pipe on the passenger side so I've had to remove that pipe as i dont want to go cutting/modifying it since its rare.

 

[Jezza]

So big thanks to Someguy360 who had been keeping an eye out on FB Marketplace he spotted these WH HSV Grange wheels that'd be resprayed with 2pac and came with new tyres for $600 but managed to get them down to $550. Got them fitted yesterday and I'm so much happier now with how the car looks with the wheels on.

 

[VS 5.0]

Bargain !

 

[Jezza]

Ok so the car had been running fine for a while but a couple of weeks ago it started to develop a whine from the back of the car when i let off the accelerator. I'd figured I had a little bit of time before anything would happen. Well in the space of about 1-2 weeks it didnt get any worse until suddenly on the day I have to work in the office it did. Got the car home and about 1hr later the diff was leaking.

Found a workshop in Marion who was able to squeeze the car in for a rebuild on Wednesday and figured whilst that was getting done I'd upgrade to 3.7's and stick a Truetrac in it. Car was ready again Friday and they said who ever had put the diff together had forgotten the Collapsible spacer and said it was a miracle it was fine for the year it was in and he'd also found some of the parts had been grounded out a bit. We'd gotten the diff over marketplace for a pretty sus place so I wasnt too surprised.

I'm now breaking the diff in and have to do 800kms and cant go over 80km/h so once thats done along with the diff fluid change I'll be able to really see the difference 3.7's and a truetrac make.

 

[Jezza]

Ok so the other weekend I drove over to Melbourne and back for PAX and I was very interested to see how the car went for the drive over and back since it'd now had a tune and lsd + diff gears. The drive over went really well and the car didn't miss a beat and I enjoyed that extra power when overtaking.

The drive over was nice and not many bugs due to the wet weather leaving Adelaide which must've traveled across at the time and I left Adelaide at
6am and arrived in Melbourne just before 3pm local.

The drive home I left just before 7am Melbourne time as I didn't want to get caught in the middle of Monday morning Traffic. The drive back was a lot nicer with the weather but it meant the front got a few bugs on it. Again the car ran well and super happy to have this thing.

Now for those curious to the economy stats for driver over and back with a Tune + 3.73 diff gears these were the stats

Now comparing to be drive over to Melbourne at the start of 2022 on that I was staying on the otherside of Melbourne compared to staying in the city center but.

2022 | 2023

18hr 12m | 15hr20m Trip Time
1631km | 1485km Trip distance
10L/100km | 11.3L/100km
163.5L | 168.7L Total Fuel Used
89.6km/h | 96.8km/h Average Speed

So if I'd driven the same distance as 2022 I'm sure I probably would've used at least 20-30 liters more which for that sort of a distance isn't too bad. I will say that I felt like I had so much power over all the other cars on the highway when it came to overtaking power as I was able to overtake in spots that others couldn't and it saved a bunch of time.