Kiwibirdman

Yes a hoist, I am sick to death of lying under cars Keep up the good work.

Strange how it works. Sometime small changes make a big difference, my sons HSV Statesman had exhaust cutouts under the drivers seat. Electric and switched from the drivers seat, highly illegal. We cut them off and welded a patch over the hole. The car is noticeably louder at the tail pipe. It must be the turbulence that made the difference. I have never been a fan of the dump under the car exhaust. Can you run short tail pipes out in front of the rear wheels?

My Firebird with a 350 Ponti has dual 2.5 exhausts with a crossover under the gearbox, so it is fairly long. I have dual flow master mufflers and tail pipes that drop down behind the back wheels. This sounds like a real V8 and not too loud. I have always done a balance pipe, not an x pipe. The one car I had with an x pipe sounded crap. Unless the x has a join hole of 20mm you are just creating a 2 pipe single system. The other thing is tail pipes can make a huge difference, down to number of bends, where they are pointed and how far apart they are. The original tail pipes on my Silverado rusted out so I though I would do something different. The originals went out the back and were about a metre apart. They sounded good and were reasonably loud. Change to dual side pipes, both out the same side and close together. To save moving the mufflers I put a 130 degree bend out of the mufflers and the a 45 degree bend back. I thought it would be louder than before, with the tail pipes being a lot shorter, it is quieter. Interestingly before I did the tail pipes I had replaced the original flow masters baffle type mufflers with some straight through but same sized mufflers. Much quieter at idle, loud as when giving it hell. I got a quiet warning from my WOF guy that the front of the exhaust is getting close to 'its going to fail' so thinking of trying one of those dual 2.5 in 3 inch out mufflers with a short tail pipe. Since most of the exhaust is going in the bin, I can move the muffler well forward and get rid of all the tight bends in the tail pipe.

If you have disc on the front and drums on the back boosting only the front should be fine. In most cars the front brakes do 90% of the work. Discs require higher pedal pressure to work than the old drums. It doesn't matter too much if your back brakes aren't that effective, the certifier is much more interested in will it stop up to standard and do the front brakes lock up first.

Nice work. The springs on the calipers are anti rattle, they arent important for function, one of my HQs had lost them along the way and all was good.

Saw your update with the seat belts. I got some from the US that have aircraft style lift up catches. They would look more period correct for Rigamortice. Also you need to add 2 x 6mm bolts (easier than the rivets that used to be specified) to anchor your doubler plated together to meet the current standard (Sorry starting to sound like the LVVTA man, having been through the process twice now I have been fully indoctrinated). Good to see the progress, keep it up.

Fair call.

Played with the car over the weekend. Refitted the throttle stop under the accelerator. I had pulled it out when I put the sound deadening and carpet in. It is only a bolt with 2 nuts and washers that goes through the floor. simple to make and fully adjustable. I bought an Aliexpress blue tooth receiver and amp ages ago. It is in the car with some temporary speakers. Best quality temporary install. The amp is held in with velcro and the speakers by gravity. The amp doesn't really have the power to drive the speakers properly but will be good enough for the road trip to Taranaki. I have a Sony explode amp and sub with a pair of 6x9 speakers that I'm going to put in behind the seat. I'll put the Amp and probably a Kenwood mechless head unit under the cargo floor. I have a jaycar connector so that the speakers can be removed easily should I ever need the full back of the car. Since I own a Chevy pickup, probably not. Went out for a drive and the new plugs made a huge difference. Looking forward to the road trip.

Saw your update and the max use brake pads. If the Rotors are chewed up buy new ones from Super Cheap. They are $164 each for the DBA ones. I have bought a couple of sets, they come with new wheel studs, you just need bearings. In my view not worth stuffing round with old junk.

Thanks guys some good ideas. Reality is that the speaker box will probably never get taken out, I want to have the option.

Yes it is, the amp will be under the floor, so it is only 6 wires that I have to connect.

I am planning to build a box to house a 10in sub and a couple of 6x9 speakers that can go into the luggage area of my EJ Holden wagon. I want to be able to remove the box easily if I ever need to take a lot of junk. Does anyone have a good idea of a 6way plug that I could use. I did think of a trailer plug, but there must be something a bit less agricultural.

2 years later, Have done a couple of thousand miles in the car. It has been to the Beach Hop twice and done a bit of cruising around. Never really got on top of the drive line vibration. I suspect it is something in the gearbox, at 70mph it goes away so no problem. I'm taking it to Taranaki at the end of the month so time for a bit of maintenance. It had developed a miss so I bought some new spark plugs a couple of months ago. Finally put them in tonight. Have to take the bolt out of the engine mount on the drivers side and jack the engine up to get to the back plug. The old plug didn't look bad but have a tiny gap, barely 0.020 for those of us who are proper old school. I put the new plugs in at 0.040 which is about what the factory recommends. I haven't taken out for a drive but it idles much better. There is a list of things to do, starter doesn't want to [lay ball when it is hot, heater tap needs to be connected. Some things to do over the next few nights.

I was there as well. @locost_bryan took a photo of the subaru ute that was parked beside my Corvette. We may have gone before the photo was taken.

Back in the day there were a fair few V8 Cortina's around. 302 Windsor or small block Chev. Good project.

I'm not a Ford guy at all, that is a cool car. Wish I had the time, motivation and most of all, money to do something like that.

Have a look at Howard Astill's channel on YouTube. He shows how to do it on his falcon van.

I used them for my Holden, they made the Commodore fuel gauge sender work the EJ Fuel gauge. Not too bad price. They also rebuilt the speedo after it failed compliance, still 1962 Holden quality but made the compliance people happy.

I would start off with that new fuel filter, you may have sucked in a bunch of crap from the tank. If that is OK fuel pressure would be the place to look. The connection to the vacuum source is to help regulate pressure correctly when the vacuum is high.

Your plan should be OK. I wouldn't bother with the resonators, straight pipe through to your 2 into 1 muffler. The length of the tail pipe can make a huge difference. Also the number of bends. My Silverado has a side exit exhaust with a 140 degree bend out of both mufflers to get the side pipes in the right place. This is quieter than the previous tail exit with bends of no more than 90 degrees with the same front pipes and mufflers.

Perfect topic for a H series Holden Barry like me.

First to answer the questions. All 6 cylinder Holden motors share the same bell housing pattern, so swapping the 173 for a 202 of any vintage is a bolt in. The CNG fill port is under the bonnet as part of the pipe work. I had an HJ ex taxi on CNG and my grand father had his Austin Princess converted back in the day. The all filled under the bonnet, LPG had the remote filler. My first Holden was HQ sedan, 202 and factory Tbar auto and bucket seats. Pretty flash in the day. That got a 253 swapped in one weekend when the 202 and auto got worn out. Also had HQ ute, 308 and auto, would run mid 14s down the strip, HJ ex taxi, HX wagon, HZ sedan. Awesome vehicles, wish I still had the last HZ. My step father had a HQ wagon that got a celica 5 speed. I also put power steering in it. Good car to drive. Power steering is possibly one of the best upgrades to make them nice to drive.

I have had stuff done by diffsrus and always been very happy. I sent a mate to diff specs and he was very happy as well.

The scimitar is pretty light to start with, under 1200kg, so even with a standard alloytec that car is going to fly,

Mate had one of these back in the late 80's. Went pretty well with the heavy old essex v6. Should be a weapon with the Alloytec, and a fair bit lighter.