Doing up a 173 blue motor??

[vk3800]

some one delete this
posted the same thing twice

 

[1vngal]

Well, dunno how strong it was or anything, but it was definately 173 bored out to 192. So it's definately possible.

 

[5Litre]

Never built a 173 but had heaps of 186's and what you need to consider is how much extra power you get from a few extra ci's , not bloody much i can tell ya.
boring out 60 thou will get you about 6 ci extra ie 179 .
better to only bore it what it needs , if it can't just get away with a hone. Pistons shouldn't be hard to find in a range of sizes. If you really want more cubes buy a 202. It'll probably be cheaper than machine work on the 173.

 

[atrail308]

the more you bore it out for those few extra cubes, the hotter it runs...

 

[tigervh]

The most you can safely bore any Holden six is 60 thou, 80 thou pistons were available some years back but!!!. Considering a 173 block has a bore of 3.5" and a 186/202 is 3.625, thats a difference of 125 thou, you're simply too close to water. If you're planning to spend serious money on a Holden six, you'd be much better of getting your hands on a blue or black 202, these motors came out with a fully counter-weighted crank and the Starfire/XU1 heavy duty rods. You can pick up a rebuilder up from the wreckers for bugger all dollars these days. Remember the cost of the core is only a fraction of the finished cost of the motor.

 

[Goon]

If you do come across a blue / black 202, it would be best. just as in idea ! to see it running first and see what it sounds like... even if its in a rust bucket, you just want the motor ! so after you've done the rebuild you can see and hear the improvements

 

[Dan355]

While your there get it stroked to

 

[tigervh]

Well, dunno how strong it was or anything, but it was definately 173 bored out to 192. So it's definately possible.

You must be mistaken, a 186 bored .060" will produce 192cu in, to take a 173 that far you would have to take it out 0.185 oversize!!!, approximatley 3 times the boring limits. Each different capacity in the L6 engines had its own own unique core, hence you can't just bore one size out to another. The only two engine sizes that shared the same bore size were the 202 and the 186, but the 202 uses larger main bearing diametres, so not even those two block are interchangable. As I've said before, the boring limits for all L6 engines is .060"

 

[atrail308]

The most you can safely bore any Holden six is 60 thou, 80 thou pistons were available some years back but!!!. Considering a 173 block has a bore of 3.5" and a 186/202 is 3.625, thats a difference of 125 thou, you're simply too close to water. If you're planning to spend serious money on a Holden six, you'd be much better of getting your hands on a blue or black 202, these motors came out with a fully counter-weighted crank and the Starfire/XU1 heavy duty rods. You can pick up a rebuilder up from the wreckers for bugger all dollars these days. Remember the cost of the core is only a fraction of the finished cost of the motor.

True that the 173 cant be bored that far, niether can the stock 179 or 186 without problems, the only ones to safely bore are the 179/186 HP blocks...
As for the blue/black 202's, the blue one had counter-weight crank and XU1 style rods, but the black one used a steel counter-wieght crank but only old style stock red motor rods, i guess holden were just using up their old leftover parts... Niether had starfire rods, which were even stronger than the XU1 rods, but can be fitter to either...

 

[vc6banger]

hey im new 2 this foram but have had abita 2 do with holden 6s over the years i 2 have a blue 2.8 im playin round with at present if u wanna make it 192 use a 3.3 blue or black crank in the 2.8 block 2.8 rods and pistons 40 thou over should b 191.5 ci and 60thou would b 193.5 hope this helps also stanard bore (2.8) with 3.3 crank should b 187.5 ci