Hi Redline, my VE is a 2012 SSV series II. Wow, Holden must've deleted the oil pressure/temp and volts, all I have is engine temp and fuel level in the dash and apparently an oil level warning display from the instrumentation panel in front of the driver. Only thing is I've never seen it illuminate once, not even when running a system check or the ignition is on so I assume my oil level and pressure has been ok and therefore it never comes on, not very informative really. It's pretty lame if Holden removed those vital guages in a newer model, I guess they did that to fit in the reasonbably useless touchscreen for the stereo and nav system, see photo. I've also searched all the functions on the touchscreen display and can't find any engine monitoring frunctions. I was litterally crapping myself when I started it the other day without a proper oil pressure guage but I've done quite a few engine builds over the years and relied on the dash light and hearing for signs of no oil pressure. I basically started the engine ran it for 30 seconds then shut it down, removed the rocker covers and checked there was oil, and there was plenty, so for me that was enough to know I had oil pressure to run the engine. To read my oil pressure I orderd one of these yesterday
https://malexmotorsports.com/produc...1-ls2-ls3-l98-l76?_pos=4&_sid=7f060dceb&_ss=r and an oil pressure guage which I'll have to mount somewhere when I get it.
My car has Walkinshaw badges on it as the original owner bought a Walkinshaw upgrade kit from Holden when the car was originally purcahsed. The factory Walkinshaw upgrade from Holden included pod air filter intake, dual 3" catback exhaust and 1-3/4" extractors, Walkinshaw tune, interior and exterior badges. I believe Walkinshaw tune out the AFM system so it has never been actived in the car from new and I wanted it out. My mate has a 2013 VF with L77, his motor scattered needle bearings from his rocker trunnions through the engine and he had to do a full rebuild, this is when I decided to pull my engine down and remove the pesky parts.
I bought a cam upgrade/dod delete kit from Tuff Car Parts online with a VCM11 cam. The kit included 'GM spec replacement lifters' as when I bought the kit genuine GM ones were out of stock from their suppliers. When the parts arrived in a box I was in the process of choosing a tuner so I took my parts out to Oztrack to talk about tuning and to get some insight on my parts before the pulldown. The Oztrack mechanic Johnno was knowledgable and really helpfull, gave me some good pointers on the build process and what he thought were the best trunnion replacements kits, I ended up getting a CHE trunnion kit. He also said my lifters were Johnson which are a suitable LS replacements when GM have no stock of genuine ones. So the packaging was GM but the lifters in the boxes were actually Johnson without the Johnson branding. I called Tuffcarparts to confirm what my lifters were this morning and they said its possible my lifters are Johnson but they can't tell from the packaging cause it comes from GM and unfortunately I can't give you the part numbers because they're packaged by GM as GM replacements. Tuffcarparts said if my lifters are Johnson they use the HyLift Johnson, I looked them up online and there are so many HyLift Johnson's that it's hard to know. Unfortunaly I didn't take any photo's of my lifters so now I don't know for sure what type of Johnsons they actually are. Mine aren't tie bars which I considered but as I researched decided I didn't need them with a mild cam like mine, also the price of my upgrade list kept growing. I've read they're awesome with big rev/hp applications and would definately consider them if I go for a bigger cam in future. Now I really want to know exactly what my lifters are because I've done my preloads assuming the lifters have roughly 200" piston travel. I'm now on a mission to find out what they are, I'll let you know if/when I find out.
Out of interest what car/engine do you have and what are your plans for it?