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Drift SS Ute

Harris2

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VU SS Drift Ute
Name: Chris
Model: 01 Vu SS Ute
Body Kit: N/A
Colour: House Paint Dark Green (Yes house paint for the lolz)
Engine Type: LS1
Engine Mods: (Before it went bang)
- Mellings Hi volume oil pump
- Baffled Sump
- No AC
- No Power Steering
- No Water Pump
- Relocated Idler Pully
- New leads/plugs oils etc etc
- Custom 4inch Y pipe intake
- 25% under driven pulley kit
- Elite Engineering Catch Can
Engine Bay Work:
- Tray mount radiator setup
- Remote water pump in tray and relocated overflow to tray
- Remote electric power steering
- Relocated battery to try
- Oil Relocation Kit
- Oil Cooler and fan
- Power Steering Cooler
- Custom Strut Brace
- Reinforced Strut towers
- Front bash bar
- Stitch welded
-ABS delete
Tray work:
- Custom spring/shock mounts and strut brace.
- Hole cut in floor and scoop built for rear mount rad.
- Rear cab wall cut for air flow.
- Under side of tray tubed and braced.
- Rear wing mounts
- Cut tail gate
Power: Factory 232xxxkm motor.
Exhaust: Stock extractors twin 3inch straight pipes no cross over. Side exit
Gearbox: T56 with Cube Short Shifter
Diff: Mini Spool 4.11
Steering: Modified knuckles
Brakes: Stock with braided lines
Suspension:
- BC BR Coilovers 10kg front 12kg rear Spring rates
- Relocated rear spring mounts and shock mounts
- Camber kit/bushes in rear end.
Wheels/Tyres/Guards:
- Koya SF01 18x10+0 fronts and 18x10+5 rears + Other skidders etc
- 235 RSR's on the front and just what ever on the rear.
- 25mm hubcentric bolt on spacer on the front.
- Blow torch and hammer widened front/rear guards.
- Not as much bog as expected.
Interior:
- Entirely Stripped except basic wiring.
- Custom dash
- Switch panel
- Sound deadening removed
- Hydro (inline)
- Isolator
- Asus Tablet Dash
- Sparco Fixed bucket seat
- Random passenger seat
- Sparco Harness 6 Point for both seats
- Alloy door cards
- Drift wheel
- Bus hang ring
Stereo:
- Cheap headunits
- Cheap 6x9s
Build Period start: 1/12/15
Cost: Don't even want to know.

Future:
- Twin turbo
- Built head with cam motor. freshened up bottom end
- Tube front
- Tube rear
- Rear diffuser
- Fuel System
- Few tweaks to the cooling system as its overly efficient
- Cage
- Slightly softer rear springs
- Raise diff as I keep breaking axels
- Move steering rack forward

Instagram account has some more photos on it.
https://www.instagram.com/cloudyharris/

Probably some other stuff that I've missed but its a start.

Car was built of the intentions to be different to all the Jap cars in the drifting scene and to rustle some feathers. All built at home in the shed with a few mates.

Car was going great handled fairly well need to make a few changes. I was at the last 2 Drift Matsuri at QLD Raceway but will miss this one in march hoping to make it for the October one. Motor finally let go at the last Friday night drifts I went to. It started to knock pretty badly at OCT Matsuri so called it for the weekend. Did a oil change some thicker oil. Did the rear mount rad setup and took it out for 1 last go to test the cooling system and a few other things so that if it failed i'd only cook the broken motor and not the new one.

Car preformed awesome and finally let go at the end. We're leaning towards a busted ring as its got zero power and is blowing smoke and bulk oil out one of the cylinders. Can't remember which tho. Surprised it lasted as long as it did for 232xxxkm's and lots of belting the piss out of it, guessing the oil cooler and regular oil changes helped.

Few major things to note:
-I tore my front strut towers off the body due to the car being so stiff. Thus reinforced.
-The cut rear wall will be filled in as I was hoping air would flow through the cab and from under the car to cool the rad. But air ended up coming back into the cab so i'll be refilling that and running 2x fans there instead.
-The tray seams are starting to tear apart as well due to stiff springs and tubed underneath. Will be stitch welding this before my next outing.
- Coolant Temps wouldn't surpass 100degrees during a run and would drop back down to 70 before I got to start my second run. Oil temps wouldn't surpass 90ish and would drop down to 80ish. LS's prefer to run warm so i'm looking towards running multiple switches for my fans so I can stage them or even look at putting in a controller to do it automatically.

P.s. I Do run the wing when i'm out drifting, just the below photo was the last Friday I went to and at matsuri I backed the car into a wall and bent all my mounts and hadn't built new ones yet.
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_War_

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Awesome ute mate! I would love to see more of the setup you have in the tray and under the bonnet. Must be a hoot to drive, Can't wait to see what you do with it.
 

Harris2

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Thanks mate, it is a ball to drive. Just needed a little more poke to get going as I was basically driving it flat to the floor 100% of the time. Wasn't really any throttle control lol.

I binned the factory power steering as they hate drifting. They get hot and flog out on the regular so I opted for a Astra power steering electric pump. Got some lines made up and wired it in Power/earth/switch. Fairly easy. Just plumb in a Cooler on the low pressure side.

After a heap of searching I found remote water pump adaptors that allowed me to bin the water pump and slap the adaptors in and then AN fittings and connect up to the tubing the runs to the rear of the car. I just run Davies Craigs biggest remote water pump EWP150. No thermostat and just moved everything down to the back of the car. I noticed after removing those two + the AC pump off the motor along with adding a under driven pulley kit (forgot to add that to my list above) it revved substantially more freely and felt more responsive.

Mounted the coolers infront of the motor since there was now nothing there and made up a Y Piece intake 4inch and 2x pods. Fit the maf in there and worked a treat. My brother welded and helped me bend all the tubing up as he has a tig and a Speedwerx bender. I've just bought one so plan to bend all my tube front up.

Engine bay has now been stripped in preparation for the next lot of work.
And yes that's the JDM rising sun on my bonnet. haha

Last two photos is when I ripped the strut tower off the body. Happened when I came off track at the first matsuri, have a feeling it must of had a front end knock at some point and was already weakened. We had to strap the car to a 4x4 and then wrap a winch strap around the strut to try move it over and weld it up at the event. Was a nightmare. see if I can find that photo.

Had to cut all the weld out shift it back into position with the high lift jack and weld it all up again. Then we ran some plate around it to strengthen the area.
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Trayner

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Thats pretty cool , that green isnt that bad ether haha.
 

_War_

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That's crazy how the strut tower split! But some good ingenuity to get it fixed.
 

Sandman

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For memory those towers aren't actually welded, just bonded or whatever to the bay etc. Good job fixing and welding them up. You've got the heigh/wheels/colour spot on imo for a drift car too, nice to see something different drifting, though there is 3 utes running reasonably well in Vicdrift these days. Also hate to sound like an old lady but get a cage in there pronto, I was in a mates R32 at Winton last weekend and one of our other mates his one of the doors at around 10kmh, barely nudged it, but put a bloody big dint in the door and sill. Makes you think twice about the safety gear you're using thats all.
 

Harris2

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VU SS Drift Ute
From what I could tell they were spot welded in a few places and then bonded with some type of glue/seam sealer. It split the inner guard which was a nightmare to try tidy up and reweld. Ended up just bashing it close enough with a hammer then welding a plate over the top.

Thanks mate, I've always had a thing for the "stance" thing I like my credit card fitment and on the ground but must also be functional.

I've been following sharkyz's build (Shane something? think he's one of the VIC boys). There's a few others that are kicking around up here as well as sedans. Its actually a pretty good group as we all get along pretty well compared to the jap boys who seem to bitch and carry on a lot.

I've wanted to cage it before the last Matsuri drift event but ran out of time. There was a few crashes so I've made sure that I get one done before I head back out, especially with the new motor as I'll now be traveling a lot quicker. I've ordered some cage material through a mate which I'll hopefully get in the next few weeks. I avoided copy brides and cheap harnesses and went some ADR/FIA approved genuine sparco seats/harness. Cost me probably over 4x as much but defiantly know it wont break on me.

I'll write up a post about my tray setup tomorrow at some stage.
 

Harris2

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I Decided to do a rear mount rad setup for basically no real reason other then for the hell of it at the time. Although now it will prove handy with the TT setup having substantially more room. The weight distribution is also possibly a bonus, even tho I've added more overall weight.

I Originally had the top of the radiator moved forward to allow easier access to all the belts out on track.

The plan was to cut the back cab wall out so air would come in via the windows, cut the floor out and then mount the rad and shroud it to the tailgate hole. Never got round to shrouding it yet and after testing I realised more air was coming in from under the car then I had expected so the hot air was coming back into the cab. Was like opening a oven door if you stuck your arm out past the seat. Bearable but uncomfortable. So that'll be getting re sealed back up.

Firstly I drilled holes from the underside of the car in between the rails and then cut the area out to get the maximum amount of air flow. What I didn't realise at the time was that the rails are about 2inch to the left. They aren't centered.... So when I used a laser to mark up my tailgate to cut out to match the floor hole it was slightly to the left and ended up looking wack. so had to widen it one side. I then built a scoop out of folded sheet metal and nutcerted it into and it sits just above the lowest point on the diff. Hasn't made contact with the ground yet but it is acting as a good lawn mower. I will put some fly screen over the floor hole to try protect the rad.

Mounted up the bar to mount the rad to and whipped up some brackets and put a rubber mount in and mounted it up to the factory pins. This way if the I get a rock into the radiator I'm able to race down to the wreckers and slap another one in without having to somehow modify it out on track.

Bent up some 1.5inch ally tubing threw some bends in and wired in the water pump/fans onto the same switch (PS is on this switch as well as the oil cooler fan). The overflow bottle setup works... Kinda, if the water level is too high when the car turns off it pumps a lot of it out the overflow tube and creates suction then I loose like 2L of coolant... Need to work out a secondary overflow bottle setup.

You can see my new shock mounts to regain some shock angle back and a strut brace to tie them together. Underneath the car is tubed between the rails in a few spots. I'll grab a photo tomorrow after work. I've also cut the existing spring mounts out in the body and moved them further in (for more low) as I received the wrong springs and didn't realise at the time (its a long story....) The tray is starting to tear apart between the wheel arches and the floor/side panels. Will stitch weld at some stage.

Alloy pipes run through the cab in a single piece with plans of shielding it with insulation and some plate. They run into the cab where a AN fitting is welded on and some pushlock hose is connected that runs the final bit to the motor.

Idle 55ish degrees
On track queuing after a run dropped back quickly to 70
During a run 90-100
Oil temps was 80 in queue and 90 while doing the run

Depends on how many runs I get and how long I'm queuing for but they were approx. averages.

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Can see in this photo how the tailgate is cut off to one side to suit the cut hole in the floor that suits the rails.
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elless1

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I wish i had another ute to play with. The pumped out guards with the jdm wheels and stretched tires,
and the colour of the rims and the green. Would make an awesome streeter.

Must be fun taking the holden ute on the track with all the jap cars ;)
 
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