My Getrag'd 97 VS Executive

[playful]

Nice. I like that gear stick thingy in your console, what's it called again? Oh a manual

Can see what you mean re your boot lid. Looks like you just need to adjust the catch down 5mm, easy enough.

hahaha seriously having three pedals makes it a completely different car! I love it!

Yeah I will get down to Commwreck in the next week or two and get a fresh one to see if it makes a difference. I will also undo the 4 nuts on the hinges and shuffle it around before re-attaching it to see if that makes a difference to how it sits.

All I have to do for the bootlid now is wire up the boot popper and conceal the tail light wiring and it's done

 

[playful]

So yesterday I went for a trip out west to collect and install my Diff, Nolathane Panhard Rod and BT1 Sump Guard.

Specs on the diff:
TA Performance alloy diff girdle
ARP cradle studs
all new bearings and seals
cryo treated 3.08 gears
Lokka diff centre
all new thrust shims, pinions, roll pins.

The diff has about 4000km on it and I'm in love with it from the past day of it being in my car. The locking up of the centre isn't too hard to control but I am still getting the feel for how to control the locking and unlocking mechanism. I drove it mostly in the dry and I loved it! Then for about an hour in the wet and it was bloody scary, I won't be doing that again unless I have to! Hopefully as I learn to drive with it, the fear of wet driving will be overcome lol.

The diff was freshly built by a guy I know and he knows his stuff when it comes to drivelines. It was used in his car before he started breaking it up for parts. The whole rear axle was swapped between our cars and it cost me $700 and he did most of the work installing it - which isn't so bad considering how much it cost him to build, or how much a shop would charge to build one! 4WD Systems have also ceased production of the Lokka for Commodores making them a rather rare find.. As well as the that, it has new break lines, break pads and reasonably new slotted rotors attached to it

Here's a pic of it in his car before we did the swap. I didn't get time to get any pictures of it in mine but it looks exactly the same anyway!

I also scored a BT1 Sump Guard which are very difficult to find. I had a go at fitting it this morning but gave up due to swearing my head off in frustration from getting **** in my eyes and it starting to rain. Another day, eh? It'd be easier having a second set of hands to hold it up whilst I secure it, I'll leave it till sometime this week to put it in.

While the car was off the ground I put the panhard rod in and on a reasonably nice setting as well as Nolathane bushes on the sway bar. I also discovered my bump stops were absolutely shagged thanks to the chopped springs, so I will definately be sorting out those as well as the suspension side of things very shortly!

All in all decent progress this week. I am currently saving for rego so things won't really progress much further for another 2-3 weeks.

 

[playful]

So, got my pink slip today she passed no problems which is great

Sadly turning 18 has meant I have just wasted hundreds of dollars on going out so my finances have been slightly hindered, but in a week or two I'll have enough to put 12 months rego on it, then the modifications will continue shortly afterwards. My license suspension begins on March 14th. The reality of a 3 month ban just hit me... but I drove like a ########, so I have to face the consequences. On the plus side, I will have a lot of money piling up!

I'll try to refrain going into a deep dreaming session but over this suspension I plan to get quite a bit of stuff done to help progress the car into something nicer. Without sounding too apathetic, I honestly can't be bothered going through the painful job of removing my boot lid and getting it to sit flush, so I will get a new boot lid catch soon. If that fails, I'll leave it to someone else when it goes in for a respray (this won't be for a while yet! But I can live with it until then!)

Not too much interest being shown in this thread yet, but hopefully that will change over the coming weeks!
As I said earlier, I'm keen to document the work regardless of the number of replies - in no way am I asking for attention or trying to show off my car - I just like receiving positive feedback and constructive criticism

 

[playful]

A bit of work has been done in the past week or so. I have not added pictures as my photobucket account won't let me log in!

-ordered bulk pack of dynamat
-ordered new original gear knob to replace my scratched faded p.o.s one.
-binned my old parcel shelf that was cut for fitting the 6x9's. won't reinstall until I source new unmangled boot hinges. Cleaned the new (slightly lighter coloured) calais one.
-Stripped back the interior in the rear of the car in preparation for dynamat application and new speakers.
-Removed bogan spec exterior speaker, switches and wiring. put it all in the bin.
-6x9's may be part of a new exterior speaker install in the future, for now I have them stored as they won't be inside the car any more
-saved money for new door speakers and parcel shelf speakers. before i order I am trying to weigh up options! I am probably going 6.5" Rockford Fosgate Coaxials in the front, 6" in the parcel shelf
-removed clarion tweeters. Will be scouring ebay for some new door pods that do not have tweeter holes cut out!
-installed Nolathane top spring insulators/seats/rubbers, binned the old ones
-a good friend's vs was rear ended the other week so I have got a lot of small parts on the cheap from him
-installed L67 OTR Cold Air Intake I had laying around
-got a few free stockies, sprayed black and shiny
-got black centre caps and chrome trim rings off the aforementioned wrecked car, going to clean the slight rust off and put them on with black chasers

That's all I can remember for now. Easter weekend sadly was just a massive bender in the city so I have stupidly wasted a good few hundered dollars! ugh In the next 3-4 weeks I will have the stereo done and possibly venetians and short shocks/springs on order!

Sometime this week i will also get round to removing the door trims and getting the old speakers out, as well as getting a new serpentine belt and mine is showing signs of wear and tear!
progress is good.

 

[Froggz]

Looks real good mate, The rear end sounds like it would be amazing. Will definitely keep a watch on this, pitty about the license at least you can admit you drove like an idiot and not just blame the popo haha.

But future plans sound good mate.

 

[playful]

Looks real good mate, The rear end sounds like it would be amazing. Will definitely keep a watch on this, pitty about the license at least you can admit you drove like an idiot and not just blame the popo haha.

But future plans sound good mate.

Please clarify as to what do you mean by rear end? Yeah man, the cops were sat in the slyest spot and I was fairly annoyed at myself for engaging in such stupidity! Your VS is looking fresh man you got a good deal!

Anyways, for the rest of you (whoever actually looks at this thread haha) here's an update.

A few weeks ago now I removed the rear bench and parcel shelf to allow access to speaker mounts. I cut the wires for the 6x9's and eagerly awaited the arrival of my dynamat.





So far I've only managed to dynamat the portion of the parcel shelf as pictured, and will probably have it finished this week. I did the inside of the boot lid (working around the lock barrel and lights and stuff) and will wait until I get it resprayed before I do the entire boot lid itself. I ordered the speakers online shortly after. I wanted to keep to my Rockford Fosgate theme I had going due to the really good sound they produce so I went with some 6" P16 coaxials for about $110 which is pretty expensive but they sound absolutely amazing! The courier came whilst I was at work and the eBay seller apparently left instructions for me to pick it up from the Startrack Depot in Michinbury... a good hour each way from my house. F##k that! I was pretty angry they didn't leave it at the post office like anyone else would but it was a good excuse to go for a drive in my mates VL as opposed to doing uni work



Got home, confirmed the speaker polarity, then soldered and drilled them in. Gave the stereo a tiny tune (will do a proper one before I am driving again) and can really notice the difference, almost as if the 6x9's were 'canceling out' some of the bass beforehand. My stereo absolutely pumps even though my amps aren't that high powered! Real happy with the outcome. When I was putting the car back together I noticed the back of the parcel shelf doesn't quite reach the rear windscreen seal? wtf? So I am getting a mate's for free that I know 100% is from a VS exec so I won't have any problems there! So keen just to have it all back together again! It will all be back out in a few months when I am able to drive myself to commwreck to get a hold of some boot lid hinges! (mine are slightly bent and I have determined this is a major factor in my terrible boot lid alignment) :doh:

Sometime this week I will make time to go to my mate's wrecked VS and grab his door speaker pods (mine have holes drilled out for tweeters, and I am planning to install coaxials), washer bottle, washer pump and maybe a few other sneaky parts, we'll see!

Tonight, I also ordered a full set of black venetians as well as a new serpentine belt. Hopefully whoever the courier is makes it a little easier for me to obtain my purchase ...Real keen for them to come!

More updates to come within the next week or so! Things are progressing nicely!

 

[VS 5.0]

Is your boot lid a different shade of white or is it just the pics ?

 

[playful]

Is your boot lid a different shade of white or is it just the pics ?

Unfortunately it is mate. At least 9 months ago now, somebody chose to mess with my car. The boot lid was not the only part of the car that suffered but the damage was not severe enough to go to police or anything like that. I know exactly who was responsible but I won't be going into detail about the situation online.

It honestly looked so bad I just thought as a temporary fix I'd get a cheap boot lid from the wreckers. Cost me $15 or something ridiculously cheap, it looks worse in the pictures than real life but I'm still going to get it colour matched/resprayed and then aligned properly at some stage in the next few months because it's bugging me, I just want it to look flush again!

 

[Froggz]

I was meaning rear end as in the diff and upgrade girdle etc

Need some more pictures

 

[playful]

I was meaning rear end as in the diff and upgrade girdle etc

Need some more pictures

Yeah man I'll get under there and get a snap or two when I get round to shocks/springs in a few weeks. The pictures of the build itself (installation of the bigger girdle etc) are on a different Commodore site and from my understanding we aren't allowed to put links from there? They are a bit of a handful at times with a subtle ratcheting noise around tight corners, and when the clutch is dipped and you are steering/maneuvering the entire car jolts and its pretty annoying. But other than that, absolutely no regrets!

Today I copped a free parcel shelf from my friend's rear ended VS. It isn't in too bad of a condition. Then gave the seats a quick vacuum and popped them back in. Such an improvement! Forgot to take a 'before' snap but there's a few sneaky shots up on one of my first posts that show how bad those 6x9's looked.



I have enough money to order my rear ultra lows and monroe gt's but will hold back on ordering them for a few days, seeing as I've thrown a fair bit of money at the car this month and wouldn't mind waiting to get the venetians in first Next week is my uni holidays so for the entire week I have picked up about 42 hours of work so that could go into something real beneficial!

More to come soon.