(The) Low VX Taxi

I Thought I would post up my ride again since it looks like I will be driving it for a while again.

Current Specs:

YEAR: 01/08/2002

SERIES: VX Series II

BADGE: Executive (HBD)

ENGINE: LN3 3.8 litre ECOTEC V6 - 152kW (not including mods)

TRANSMISSION: Au M30 four-speed 4L60-E automatic

AXLE: GU4

COLOUR: D148 (Hyper Yellow)

EXTERIOR:
Vx Clubsport Body Kit (came with car when purchased, Never really wanted to change as I think the shape and lines suit this colour).

Aftermarket “Projector” style headlights (wanted better light without going HID)

Aftermarket “Monaro Style” Tail lights (Got them for an extra $50 with the headlights so thought why not?).

Tinted windows (came with the car, not sure what % but suits nicely) .

INTERIOR: 81I (Black)

TYRE SIZE INCLUDING LOAD RATING: Speedy 18x8 5/120 Black Vapor Wheels with Marangoni Mythos 235/40 ZR18 95Y (Nice Italian Rubber, no road noise and VERY grippy wet or dry PLUS they came for the same price as cheap Chinese tyres so cant complain).

Holden By Design Build No: 02HBD

Holden By Design Options: HAG

SUSPENSION : Ultima Shortened shock absorbers, Lovell’s springs (can’t remember exactly how low but low enough for me to have kittens when I see a speed hump)

BRAKES: Standard with Bendix Ultimate pads.

LP GAS: IMPCO Mixer with an APA tank installed from Factory. I have got about 485km out of $30 worth of gas, that was with the air con cranked and a mix of highway and local driving so not too bad.

INTAKE: BMC enclosed POD filter. Better than the standard VL air box that Holden “graced” all LP Gassed VT/X cars with , I tried to fit the standard VX box but with the mixer there was no physical way to do so,.

EXHAUST: HM Stainless Steel extractors with a 2 1/2” mild steel “good flow” system, reused the standard CAT (was still in good nick and the standard ones have a decent flow anyway for a stock engine).

Sound and Visual:
Clarion Max386VD Double Dinn Head unit.

Alpine PDX-1.600 Mono Bridged Amplifier 1500watts (powering Sony 15” Subwoofer)

Option Audio OAC160 4x 190wrms (powering 6” splits and 6 by 9’s)

Sony 15” Subwoofer (1500Watts)

Pioneer 6” Splits in the Front Doors (300watts each)

Pioneer 6” 3 way Speakers in the Rear Doors (160 watts each i think)

Pioneer 6 by 9 3 way Speakers in the Parcel Shelf (300 watts each I think)

 

Wow was waiting for it to get approved..... didnt notice it as it was "" (I must have stuffed the thread name lol)

 

Purchased back in 2005 from a car yard, was looking for cheaper car than my 1984 WB statesman (308 with a fuel leak so most cars were an improvement lol).

Was looking for either a Toyota Soarer with a 1jz twin turbo or Mitsubishi Evo, All the car yards either had really run down crap or way out of my price range..... just as we were about to head home my wife (girlfriend at the time) spotted this, it was in great condition with Clubsport body kit (they tried to sell it as a "factory HBD kit") a set of 18" Roh RT's and a crappy Kenwood Head Unit. We thought it would be out of our price range but with a bit of haggling we managed to take her home

Pics of how she was at purchase:

 

A few months later my brother in law convinced my wife to take him for a spin around the block even though she was not supposed to drive as she had surgery to her legs just a few days before..... This coupled with inexperience in regards to gravel+ABS resulted in the car hitting the fence at the end of our driveway.....

I came home to find my car ontop of a fence and a very sorry girlfriend........

There was no major damage just damage to the front bar. We were still a bit light in the wallet due to the purchase of the car so I decided to try and repair the damage myself. I did an ok job but kept getting pockets of air in the fibreglass (so when sanded back it created little pits).

Pics:

 

Anyways I had a 15" sub sitting around the house the wife (girlfriend at the time) was getting sick of so went and had a chat to a mate who worked for a car stereo store to see what its worth said if I install it into the commodore instead of getting rid of it he would give me an amp.... He ended up giving me a 3000watt soundstorm amp.... Massive overkill BUT had an in cabin sub control which spent most of the time as low as possible as the crappy kenwook HU and standard speakers struggled to keep up......

I got a better paying job and decided to fix up the commodore, As you can see from the first photo the side skirts had seen better days (first lowered car with a bodykit+speed humps=bad). Picked up a cheap front bar off ebay and ordered the side skirts from some company in Queensland.

Went to get it painted and the smash repairer showed me that the body kit was cheap for a reason, it was full of tiny pin pricks so they had to paint and then fill.... The side skirts were not too bad thankfully but still cost more than I had planned.... still nice to have it looking good again:





ingore the timestamps, crappy camera, was even 1907 for a while lol

During this time I also took a trip down to Parratech to get a new exhaust and CAI fitted. went a set of HM headers into the standard cat (was in good nick and flowed well enough for standard engine) into 2 1/2 exhaust with a few mufflers thrown in for good measure (and to keep the EPA happy) with a clubsport style oval tip. I was pretty happy with the noise and the welds and workmanship were fantastic.

They also chucked in a SS inductions CAI too so couldnt complain really

 

Was pretty happy with it and decided to concentrate my efforts (and finances) on fixing up my wife's (girlfriend) car.

A little while later I proposed to my girlfriend and decided to use my car as my wedding car (got a limo for my wife). She polished up alright:

 

The car stayed that way for quite a while, my wife got sick of her car and I was getting very bored of how slow the commodore was but didnt want to ruin it by modifying it and as my wife pretty much picked the commodore because she wanted it we decided (well, she decided lol) that she would take the commodore and I would drive her car (a VR commodore with crushed velvet interior and purple number plates, real manly lol) until we found a new one for me.

My mums car was a bit of a bomb (EA falcon in average condition) and really unreliable, she kept on telling me how much she loved my wifes car everytime I winged about it.......

I came across a Toyota Soarer GTT-L (had a crush on them since I was a kid) so I had a chat with mum about taking the VR for the same price as she could get for the EA (about 1 thousand) so at least she had a reliable car. I inspected the Toyota and it was pretty good so I bought it

After about a month my soarer died (turbos failed, wasnt blowing smoke or any leaks when I inspected it but **** happens ay?).... so I was back in the commodore once again.

My friends gave birth to their first child, a boy, so we went looking for a blue teddy bear. We looked around our town but couldnt find one so we drove down to Penrith to find one. On the way back we hit a patch of oil, I felt a slip in one patch and told my wife “did you feel that?” she said no what? And the rear end kicked hard..... I corrected with the wheel but we hit the centre barrier at about 60km/h (Iwas going about 70km/h but stopped accelerating on the first slip, we were going up hill which helped the deceleration).

I had two cars behind me say they felt the same slip but I still got done for neg driving (young cop who just joined HWP, said it was not a dangerous spot etc etc, there was three crashes there that month one where the car ended up going through the barrier.......).

Some shots:















My wife and I were both ok (wife had a sore elbow as she elbowed the door trim).

The front bar had been ripped off (two pop in sides had popped out and the top mounting point was still with the car whilst the rest of the front bar stayed with the guard rail. Both headlights were smashed, the reo was crumpled, condenser was ####ed and the radiator had been popped out of its mounts. Bonned was bent and BOTH front quarters are stuffed.

Was ok because we had comprehensive insurance..... or so we thought......

I had the car towed to the smash repairers, contacted the insurer who faxed out the claim forms, got the smash repairers to do a quote and sent all the details to the insurer.

Was pretty stuffed not having any car so did a lot of walking for nearly a month. Pics of both cars:



Soarer had no turbos and half an aftermarket intercooler installed.

 

The smash repairer called and said they still had not received the go ahead from the insurer. I called the insurer, they said that I didnt have insurance with them so they couldnt approve my claim. I said I am they explained I hadnt paid my insurance so my policy was cancelled.....

I had received a letter a few years before enabling direct debit for the insurance, I checked our financial records, the money was in our account ready to be debited, it sat there for about half a year and then was spent bit by bit...... us none the wiser..... I confronted the insurance company and they said “well we never received it so your policy was closed”, I rebutted with “What no follow up? No contact nothing???” they just simply said they would be happy to review my policy if I could provide proof..... of course I couldnt because I had sent the only copy to them!

Any way I went to the smash repairer and told them what had happened and about the Toyota (was paying a motsa to have the turbos rebuilt so strapped for cash) and offered to pay for the tow to the shop and back to my place, the guy told me to wait here a minute and came back with the boss who he told the story to, he had a look at the quote, he said that he had a few parts out the back from other wrecks (headlights, driving lights etc), and he revised the quote using second hand parts and gave me a trade price on the panels and parts. They did a fantastic job and I am happy to recommend the smash repairer (via pm).

Some after shots:







AND I finally got the Toyota Turbos back after they were rebuilt only to discover it was misdiagnosed and was actually the big end bearing....... That is a whole other story......

 

She wanted to modify it just a little to give it her touch, so off we went to get new wheels (18x8 +38 Vertini Victoria Wheels) and a nice new Clarion Max386VD Double Dinn Head unit. Gave the ROH's to my brother in law, shame in hindsight as ROH RT's in 18" are sexy..... moving along.....

Some pics with the new wheels:






I ended up moving to the Hunter Valley with (or rather by) work.

Car was going really well, no dramas really and the wife was content with a very comfortable daily (aside from being low and useless for shopping (no boot between the gas and the 15” sub).

We were coming home one night from up town and as we came over a crest WHAM!!!!! straight into a dead kangaroo....... My poor wife was driving and was pretty shaken up by it...... We were travelling a touch below the 80km/h speed so it was messy.....

I got out the hose and cleaned all the blood and guts out of the front bar, thankfully there was minimal damage, just a tiny little scar like crack BUT the guts had hit the fan belt, fans etc and shot kangaroo guts all through the engine bay..... There was also a chunk stuck between the engine and the gearbox mount.....

Was not fun cleaning it up, nothing is worse than the smell of rotting kangaroo.......

There didnt seem to be any noticable damage so I was happy about that..... however it took two months of hitting the engine bay with chemicals and a few very long (and stinky) trips to get rid of that smell.......

 

The Toyota Soarer's rear turbo seals started to leak again and I decided to cut my losses (the car had MANY other problems and I had spent close to the purchase price fixing it, I owned it for two years it spent 11 months off the road) so I got rid of it and bought my wife a 2003 XR6 Falcon in purple and I was back behind the wheel of the commodore once again.

Decided to give her a bit of love:

Clean with Mothers California Gold Car wash

Claybar using a meguiars clay bar and quick detail as lube.

Then mothers “California Gold” three step system comprised of:

Mothers Pre wax paint cleaner

Mothers Sealer and Glazer (Polish)

Mothers Carnauba wax.

Some pics:

 

Still more to come, will update tomorrow

 

No refunds on time wasted

Oh the story (more like a friggen saga) is still going, Il continue in a moment.....

Yep, learned my lesson very well, local cars= easier to get parts for.......simple as that.....Plus I gotta keep driving a Holden to annoy the in laws (Ford drivers/supporters), the amount of "Grandpas wagon" and "grey hair cruiser" jokes I got with the Toyota I dont think I could go another one lol.

 

My cousin in law has been trying to convince me to do this also..... They are the only part of the car in "new" condition lol

 

I was pretty happy with the car after detailing it, was driving home from visiting family one night and the whole cabin lit up white..... the Head unit had decided to **** itself so it was only displaying white, a very bright white......

Took it back to where I bought it, they were a bit shocked as this model was fairly reliable, they tested it and decided to send it back to clarion for repairs.

On the way home going along pennant hills road a god almighty big bang came from under the bonnet, the car lost all power and felt like it was only running on two cylinders..... I limped it into the nearest servo (with lots of pissed off motorists yelling and screaming at me along the way) and popped the bonnet to be confronted by this:



I had experienced my first (and hopefully last) decent gas backfire...... We had owned the car for about four years and had the mix adjusted and gas system cleaned/serviced every year, we had little hiccups when it was about service time but this was the first back fire......

Anyway grabbed some black cloth tape (to match the colour of the air box lol), taped the box back together, switched it to petrol and continued on my merry way. I later found it was this hose causing it to run like a 2 cylinder tractor: