Vk304

Milled the intake at work, was warped by about 1/2 mm on each end, had to be done or else its gonna crack welds in the future, is now dead straight, will be doing more work in the coming 2 weeks !

Better than this

And I "restored" the seat because I couldn't find another one, fixed all the welding to better than factory inside and outside the seat pan, and some stitching to hold the cover in one piece as well as some extra foam on the base for comfort, it'll do the job hah

Doing wiring and fiddly stuff, the wiring should be reasonably easy considering it was in the other van And working but still its messy and different in a few ways, also found original floormats, nice ! Will get back on the van full time when I've fixed my Holden 

Fixed intake, had to cut the end off and weld the inside more thoroughly, added some vacuum outlets and made a better pressure testing rig with rubber and roofing screws haha, no leaks in intake or water outlet area now, hope to install tomorrow 

I'll have a go at shoving a mig welder in there but it's a tight spot ...

Made a quick pressure test rig (out of some wood and cork gaskets and screws to hold a seal) to test intake for leaks, which it has, and I will have to fix a couple of pinholes but there's one spot I can't get the tig into to weld so going to have to get creative to weld that as its leaking air maybe a bit of bad planning on my part.

Tested the water jacket/port too and one of my fittings needs a bit better seal also, all things that happen but easily fixed outside the car.

And engine mounts are in and final and driveshaft bolted with some slightly modified bolts to fit them in place 

My Frankenstein plenum all welded up, still need to clean up and pressure test it but the main parts done, and I'll run a straight edge on it and see if I have to mill the mating surface 

Sanded and painted the mounts and driveshaft spacer, also removed the single black tail gate piece off the middle around the handle...

 Replaced it with some chrooome, dont usually like chrome but seems fitting for the age of the van and it hided away some bad paint haha , and free off my 'luxury' donor van so why not 

Finished welding engine mounts and boxed them in for strength as well as welding tabs on rubber mounts to stop rotating, halfway done still want to drill a hole in both for sake of access and then paint when I have some black paint

Some more intake bits, arduous work but I've got the idle air control on, as well as various vacuum outlets and the throttle mount, using bits I had from the other motor it's now as good as it will be.

Tried to flare the aluminium vacuum pipe but it wasn't having it, so found running the tig around the top made for a nice edge for the hose to grip onto the smaller one when hot flared out nicely with a punch. Will do full weld when I get some more suitable tig rods , and now my goal is to finish the engine mounts this weekend....?

Some fabrication on the intake , nothing fancy but it will do the job

Well the drivers seats had it, I just noticed some suspect welding when I was moving it and well it got worse the more I looked at it, more shitty workmanship, and only one bolt holding the rail on, as in one bolt holding the seat in the car when you bolt the rail down! 

The other side has a sliding piece of angle? Safe ???? , time to find another seat I think.

I could weld this and reinforce it etc but the seat covers blown out too, hope someone's got a 80s van seat lying around 

Yea can't go wrong with mitre10 haha I go through a few , maybe I think that was more the throttle was only half opening with pedal to the floor... could be that too I guess, either way its gonna fly up hills soon

And a whole lot of mock-up, mounting radiator, routing intercooler pipes, and general placement to see if it all will fit, and so it does, still have a bunch of brackets to make which will take a bit of time such as intercooler mounting in front of radiator, radiator bottom mounting, air intake mount finalizing, engine mount finalizing, driveshaft hoop, weld back engine bay,  and my most non favorite task- running wiring !

Moved some water temp sensors around as well

Anyhow I had been doing a bit on the intake, and flipped it upside down to make it fit, then welded the runners, and got it fitting a bit better...

Soo I sold the old 'a15' and gearbox, but its come back, me and the buyer overlooked the code on the block, it's a a12 with a a15 head :(, i diddnt know that was a thing but so it is, so it will be up for sale again, it does have an exedy clutch and pressure plate which looks in great condition.  . . 

Yea I did think that, but I've heard the bolt pattern/port holes are different? Plus couldn't find one