My Torana Rebuild

[383 hatch]

Well, since Ari asked so nicely, here is what's going on with my UC Torana at the moment.

What started out as just a cam swap and auto conversion has snowballed into a full on, all out rebuild.

I could post a huge story, but at this point I won't, i'll just post some pics to bring you all up to speed with a little story on each one. Feel free to ask questions.

I have heaps and heaps of pics, so if you want to see something in particular, just ask.

For those of you that don't know the car, here is what it looked like....

Now, the start of the rebuild. The engine coming out.

Engine out

Engine on the stand (ready for the cam change).

Engine bay being stripped to bare metal

Back to bare metal

Drivers side skirt in the process of being cut and smoothed

Drivers side done

Passanger side done

Firewall cut and flat sheeted

Firewall done

Rust repair in rad support

Done

Wiper motor relocation

Back of the headlights all boxed in

Metal work all done

Engine trial fitted back in, relocated a lot of stuff (alternator, coil packs, hidden wiring etc.)

Engine back out, In epoxy ready for filler work

Drivers side all smoothed out

Firewall all smoothed

Filler work all done

Bonnet latch (no need for a bonnet cable)

Undercarriage all stripped of components

Stripping back the floorpan

Interior all stripped out

Repairing where it had an LPG tank in it's previous life (before i had it)

Brings us up to this week (started the body work)

All stripped down

 

[383 hatch]

Continued....

Tailgate back to bare metal

Doors removed and stripped

Rust repaired in A pillar (need to do the same on the other side)

Cut out rust in hatch shut

Custom engine mounts

So, there you have it, that's pretty much where i'm at now. I'm working on repairing the rust in the tailgate today, then i hope to get the roof paint stripped back to metal tomorrow. More updates to come....

 

[Zeussy]

OMGWTFHOLYSHITULEH!!

####ing WOW. Is all I can muster up. Love the whole lot, was mint before, going to be a stunner when its all done, keep the pics upto us pic junkies, (aka: me, and probably ari!)
Check out those engine mounts, ####ing horn!

Love your work dude.

 

[383 hatch]

Thanks mate, it's a pretty long road. I'm aiming/hoping to have it finished by Christmas or very early in the new year. Having said that though, i'm not in any real hurry TBH, it'll be done when I'm 100% happy with it. It's been near 12 months now, so what's another 6 or so?

 

[Jonno]

beautiful mate, love to see this in the flesh one day.

 

[ari666]

mate i am just lost for words. looks absolutely outstanding. thanks for posting this thread btw. even just seeing pics of how stuff is done properley really helps me focus on what im doing. so yeah.

love your work, mate.

 

[ari666]

 

[Pub247]

Great to see thsi has its own thread. looks amazing as always.

So whats the plans with colour if your striiping whole car are you planning on changing colour?

Why you changing to Auto you plan on taking it down the Quarter?
Surely with the L67 and mods youd be able to get it in the 10's

One thing ive noticed is the water resiviour. I always wondered why they're so small i felt the liquid in one before and its been about as hot as my hot water system at home i cant see it working that effectivily when it gets that heatsoaked.

I've just built a WTA box for a turbo xr6 ED. Anyway with a bit of researcb we've worked out that the resiviour should hold about twice the capacity of the whole system. Theres alot other things to consider like flow rates and boost time stuff like that but 2 x seems to be good. Anyway what we also included in box is a 20lt tank plus a small "area" for pump and another compartment reffered to as the chiller box, where we'll be using alloy/copper pipe running in a series of bends that you can pack ice around for optimum cooling and to operate hopefully well over 100% effiecencey.

Anyway long story short plan on doing something like that?

 

[383 hatch]

Thanks guys, it makes it all worthwhile. Although i'm going to a fair extent this time, the plan is still a tidy street car, it's still going to be driven and used (and a couple of runs down the 1/4 mile) it'll be no show car by any stretch of the imagination. I don't do the whole trailer queen thing.

If you're talking about the alternator brace, then go right ahead, it's factory not an idea of mine

 

[383 hatch]

Great to see thsi has its own thread. looks amazing as always.

So whats the plans with colour if your striiping whole car are you planning on changing colour?

Why you changing to Auto you plan on taking it down the Quarter?
Surely with the L67 and mods youd be able to get it in the 10's

No, not changing the color, it was just due for a bit of a freshen up, that's all. Although it still looked good, it had a few rust issues starting to appear that needed some attention (mostly hidden in shuts and stuff, hence why it still looked good from the outside) that i knew were there and that was bugging me a bit. It's been done about 10 years, so it's done pretty well.

The auto conversion is just to make it a bit nicer to drive, i got sick of changing gears, mabye i'm getting lazy. Don't get me wrong, the manual was fun, but i just got over it. As in my previous post, it will get a blast down the 1/4 mile, but it'll only be once or twice.

Na, it won't go 10's, anything in the 11's i'll be happy with. Even if it's an 11.9999999, i'll be stoked.

Cheers for the comments.

As for the intercooler, the resi is the one that comes with the YT W2A cooler kit. It's just there to fill the system and keep the system free of air as far as i can see. The resi shouldn't need to do anything in terms of cooling the water, that's the job of the front mount heat exchanger. The pump is mounted lower than the resi, so it gravity feeds then pumps the water through the FMHE, then to the cooler beneath the blower then back to the top of the resi. I don't think making the resi bigger will do much for cooling, unless you incorperate some sort of ice box arrangement but obviously that can only be a short term thing (racing).

If i was after outright power, i'd go A2A, but i like the clean look and the off idle torque of the W2A. Everyone has there own opinions on which cooler is better for the L67 but i like the W2A.

In short, the resi will be staying as is