83 vh sle

[oosty85]

Hi all,

Figured i would share my car now that its basically finished and on the road.

It's a 1983 factory vh sle 2 tone blue over silver with cruise control. I bought her early Feb this year in need of a loving home!

She was unregistered for about 6 months and the 308 was very tired along with the interior and paint needing a good clean..

It's had a respray in last 5 years or so and they have used a different pin stripe, but i don't mind it being a tiny bit different to the others.

All bushes were replaced and i got it blue slipped in April before oil puddled started appearing on the garage floor. Off to the engine builder it went and now has the following:

rebuilt diff
gearbox rebuilt with stage 2 shift kit in trimatic
2800 stall converter
bored out block with flat top pistons
custom grind 304 crow cam
vn heads
304 carby top inlet manifold
extractors with dual 2.5" into single 3" exhaust with optional dump pipe at diff

Crow Cams lowered the (correct me if i am wrong) load centre from 114 to 109 to get it lump for me at idle but still suits low range power for mild engine.. sounds unreal!

literally have not driven the car since its been built as it went straight from engine shop to the exhaust shop, where its still being finished.

only problem I have come across is not being able to close the bonnet now with the new manifold and spacer.. only just fits the carby by itself. looks like a scoop is on the cards and i am not a fan of that look unfortunately, but what can ya do! best ive found is vk/vh ss bulges.

The car came lowered on vx ss 17" wheels, but i recently bought some 17" internationals.

Here are some pics..

Cheers, Josh

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[TUFF*83]

Very nice, love the two tones! Did you consider re-doing the engine bay while the block was out?

 

[BOOST666]

Awesome, love it! I want an '83 as that's the year I was born, those plates set it off. Internationals look sick on it too.

 

[oosty85]

Cheers guys, to be honest I never considered getting engine bay sprayed or cleaned up while motor was out. Money was already being stretched for the rebuild. Would have been ideal tho mate. Got the car back yesterday and took it for a run in cruise down Wollongong and back.. very happy with the old girl

 

[hayden2424]

love the 2 tone look!

 

[GetToDaChopa]

Looks very good. Better without a bonnet scoop.

 

[monkey]

Looks nice mate love those cars. I know ya dont wanna spend much on it but would a dry sump setup enable you to keep the bonnet stock or just some kind of custom sump? Im not a big fan of scoops either.

 

[oosty85]

I'm not too familiar with how dry sumps work mate, but I'll probably just get my spare bonnet cut and a scoop fitted. See how it looks and go from there. GroupA bonnets don't look too bad

 

[Darren_L]

a dry sump setup runs an external sump (usually located in the boot). Most half serious race cars run the setup, including the V8 Supercars
The sump on the engine is reduced in size as it no longer needs an oil pan. An external reservoir holds the oil which is pumped to the engine and back to the reservoir.
It's a rather expensive and elaborate setup though simply to achieve bonnet clearance though. Not to mention if you lower the engine, all the driveline angles are going to be out of whack...

is the carby spacer actually necessary ? Is it an adaptor to fit the Quadrajet to the manifold ?
If the spacer needs to be there, then probably the only alternative is a scoop. A reverse cowl Grp 3 scoop would look good if you painted it in the same blue as the bonnet. Of course a SL/E would look a lot better with the standard bonnet, but sometimes it's about compromise. I actually didn't really want to fit a scoop even to the SS, but my intake manifold wouldn't fit under the bonnet either.

 

[mr j-man]

lmao fit a dry sump?? seriously??.....a bit extravagant for just some bonnet clearance

set aside the original sle bonnet and hack an old one up and fit the reverse scoop

btw nice clean car mate