Whoa, Black Betty - VY SS 6 Speed

[Pollushon]

Time flies when you're having fun. I didn't do much on the old girl in the last while, life gets in the way. I did have plans to doll it up and sell, then grab a VF2 and boost that. But that was falling into a 50k+ proposition and thanks to my club and some friends I got to drive a number of VF2 SS manual and auto. I found it wasn't the experience I wanted. Sure they are beautiful cars with all the bells and whistles but by the same token, I didn't once feel connected to the road comparatively to Betty.

So I've taken half that cash and decided to breath life back into the old girl, make her into everything I've always wanted. I wrapped it matte black for starters, tedious but think it came up well. Suspension and brakes back to brand new, driveshafts all the basic consumables, bushes and bearings. Mouldings, seat belts and rubbers. Surprisingly cheap when you do all your own work. She drives and stops beautifully. looks okay too. The rims are from BCI. Thanks to them I have the extra padding of 17" without losing any performance. 245 on the front (17"x8) and 275 on the rear (17"x9), she sticks and holds really well.

Coulson retrimmed seats are also in the works.

The best bits are yet to come. LSX performance in Melbourne are building me a 383 with all the fruit, Callies, SCAT and JE with some Brian Tooley cam goodness and CNC the bejeebus out of the heads. 9.6:1 compression ready for the Roushe 2650 that's going on top (M122 to begin with) and a Laminova intercooler. Mantic 9000 organic twin plate, new 1" 7/8 headers and a reco Truetrac.

Thanks to Corona it might be a little while but the motor hopefully is only a month off. I plan to drive this beauty into the ground now.

Slowly wrapped piece by piece



Finished!

 

[Pollushon]

And now for a break from political conspiracy, it’s been a productive last couple of weeks. I can only count a handful of bits and a few sanity checks to go before I can confirm a booking with the tune master.

For @Sandman and @Jolls here's the coil pack relocation details. It’s not really a how to, more a how I did it.

This build has a breather system in the rocker covers instead of the traditional PCV system. A monster like this can end up with blow by issues using stock rocker covers. As a result I no longer have coil mounts.

Back when the LS was first boosted I moved the ECU into the cabin to free up a bunch of space. There’s a enough guidance online to do this pretty easily. This has to be done to allow room for the LHS coil bank.

Mounts came from Muscle Garage, they’re all pretty much the same and put the coils in a neat rectangle. https://musclegarage.com.au/index.php?route=product/product&product_id=135

I grabbed wiring extensions from Ebay. 24” is about perfect to leave the existing plug ends wrapped up with the injector loom and run the cabling neatly around the firewall. Igniter colours are close but not perfect, pink is purple, the red green and blue are close enough.

Mounting the coil banks is fiddly and tedious as you have to secure the mount and then fit the coils in place so watch out for your knuckles.

I mounted the LHS coil bank between the aircon reservoir and ABS entry point right down low using two rivnuts. Puts it dead centre. As unattractive as it looks a series of washers spaced it nicely.

Drivers side was a bit more cluttered as the heater tap and hoses live here but there is just enough room to mount the coil bank to the empty panel supporting the ABS module. Had to use self tappers as there’s no room for rivnuts. This puts the coil bank forward.

One issue is how close they sit to the long tubes. Once it’s running I plan to create some heat shields out of this pliable thermal shield. It will be trial and error depending on how much heat this monster puts out.

As for leads I moved from the 9”LS1 to 12”LS2 which covers six of the eight leaving cylinder 6 and 8 needing custom leads which I made myself using an XPro kit. They measure 43cm and 46cm.

That’s pretty much it, happy to answer any questions.

 

[Jolls]

Nice job - thanks for the detail on the relocation of the coils.

I love the simplicity and finish using rivnuts. My preferred option over self tappers and tech screws as well.

I look forward to reading more of the mods as you progress.

 

[Pollushon]

I'm starting to get excited, it's starting to feel finished. Did a quick intercooler water pump upgrade because I wasn't happy with the Bosch unit, it's flow rate is a load of rubbish. Grabbed a Davies Craig EBP40 brushless, mag drive and holy crap this thing smashes it. Filled, bled and ready for some horses

Lunati break in oil is in, water, PS fluid, plugs at .8mm and gauges hooked up. Catch can to go...

 

[Pollushon]

And just like that it was finished. Got a booking on the 18th Feb for first start and tune, fingers crossed it comes together as planned

Catch can was problematic as I'd run out of under hood space but turns out there's plenty behind the front bar and it should be good for drainage

Voila!

 

[VS 5.0]

Catch can was problematic as I'd run out of under hood space but turns out there's plenty behind the front bar and it should be good for drainage

And no one will know it's venting to atmo.

 

[Pollushon]

And no one will know it's venting to atmo.

You guys will but I'm hopeful it will flow up into the intake

 

[Immortality]

Don't know how I missed this thread. Good work.

 

[Pollushon]

Don't know how I missed this thread. Good work.

I'd say the two year hiatus had something to do with that. I was pleased to see you're still moderating @immortality

 

[Pollushon]

So after a bad start at the tuners, finally she runs. Sent it in and had issues with fuel and spark. The sender unit grenaded after 18 years and three pumps, the coil pack loom was all wrong and a bank fuse had blown. So after getting a new modded sender, making my own loom and swapping out the fuse here we are. Only had a base tune with flow rate and spark set but I think she's ready to hit the dyno for a break in tune