Daves new school holden shambles. The Blue whale is back!

[Muncie]

Hmm expensive week..... and its only Tuesday. 

Once its running again there will also be HSV brakes behind those big ugly wheels cheers @jakesae101

Im hopefully going to have heads on tonight then I can roll outside degrease and get paint on block. Gone for silver so I can see leaks better and so I can pretend its a Chevy lV3.

I need to investigate doing a cam if I do a cam i should probably do LS style tiebar lifters and a fresh timing chain too. Im in 2 minds on this its more money not heaps more but im trying not to totally butcher the piggy bank.

The paint looks shit..... im tempted to bang some big Muncies chop shop stencils on doors and pretend I want it looking this way.

Let me know if you want a T shirt printed i I got to fund this shit somehow.😅

 

 

[Muncie]

Ok, cams out of budget $2k not this time round ill just crank the boost up further instead.

Time for painting and buttoning up assembly.

[Muncie]

Bam and the heads are on! Actually took some prep work ran a tap down all the head holes went to blow them out with compressor and got showered in red dusty shit from coolant galleries. Spent an hour vacuuming and blowing out till till the shit stopped coming out there will be some in there still but I got most of it.

Bloody hell ARP studs crank down! my warren and brown torque wrench got its biggest workout for a long time 30, 60, 90ft/lbs nice to break out the imperial tools for task. My arms and legs are aching after wrangling the engine that wanted to shift while swinging all over it.

Teflon taped the studs to seal them up as they screw in to water.

 

[Muncie]

On 05/08/2025 at 13:00, cletus said:

When I did my turbo 318, I got a head guy to go over the heads to make sure they were all ok

He ended up spec'ing a better set of valvesprings, as boost pressure on the back of the valve plus more aggressive cam meant the new springs that came in the heads were not up to the task 

Just something to think about if you're rebuilding an engine and it's already done heaps of km, the springs are probably already a bit tired 

I missed this comment, I was looking at some LSA springs which can go in but require some extra bits to fit the v6 collets ultimately was talked out of it by a few dudes who tune these things and push 500 plus hp on stock springs i think I'll get worried about breaking stuff over 400hp anyway I just want my mid 12 or low 13 second pass and I'll get on with just driving it and enjoying it.

Cam has gone out of budget so I'll keep an eye out for a second hand one.

[Muncie]

I for some reason have 6 heads now 4 ecotec (counting old engine) and a set of L67. This probably wont be last engine to go in i would like to do forged rods and pistons, i'll definitely go all in on that one. i just want to get this engine in now it has bigger rods so should hold up to a lot more punishment as i'm starting with 300,000 less ks on it. ARP studs and the ported heads should make it fairly stout on a budget.

Was a bit surprised how short the stroke is turning it over today 97 mm bore x 86 mm stroke. 

[Muncie]

All painted ready for the good bits to go on.

Started pulling car to bits...... well Zachs doing it for me trying to get my head around how I've put it together over years.

I built it in layers and tried not to screw myself during building things so hasn't been too bad but there's plenty of this before that stuff happening. Small engine big engine bay its not shit so far.

[Muncie]

Now everything is out of the car and I've hung everything on the new engine so I dont lose anything I retract my previous statement this engine is bloody huge fully dressed!

[Muncie]

Big brakes arrived, how excited am I right now!! (Pretty excited as it turns out)

New engines together minus valvetrain just assessing what donor I will use for push rods and rockers now car engine is stripped I'll make that decision today.

Zach pointed the rear seal is leaking on the Transmission while he was dropping exhaust so I will drop the Transmission and do seal while everything else gets a birthday........... and get the converter serviced and modified for a higher stall to make it a bit more predictable off the line.

[jakesae101]

Hopefully they work a bit better the fronts are certainly much meatier! 

[Muncie]

@jakesae101 thanks for the brakes and tips along way as well im really looking forward to smashing it all back together and getting down road........ and stopping without seeing sparks when travelling warp speed then trying to slow down.

[Muncie]

Current state of things, looks like it had a head gasket on way out bit milky in head galleries. Nothing obviously cooked was hoping for a broken valve spring or something from upping rev limit to 6400...... nope she's shat the bed somewhere else I'm excited to get engine out for post Mortem on bottom end as it tolerated horrendous punishment for years.

Want to see what's going on with the thrust situation its had forever now definitely 4mm of movement im betting crank has eaten a Web in block. Any other guesses on what's no longer where it should be?

Oil is still clean surprisingly no metal flakes might be big chunks instead in sump.

[RUNAMUCK]

35 minutes ago, Muncie said:

 Any other guesses on what's no longer where it should be?

 

 

These are a balance shaft engine yeah?

My guess is that there's something wrong with some part of that.

[Muncie]

Decided to use push rods and rockers from other engine as they appear mint! No slop known good. Basically need to put rocker covers on but am bit over wrenching, so........ why not tidy up the rocker covers and paint them some mental colour i have in my cabinet.

Green to Purple chameleon haha I love this stuff it would make dogshit interesting. Might fall off but better then stock beige.

Im on hunt for some VN covers as they aren't composite so i can weld some big vents on for catch can.

Its coming together now just need a engine lift and a bit of time with no rain to yoink out swap remaining bits over and swing back in.

[Muncie]

Shits getting serious on the tuning side........

[Muncie]

So far out of my depth but ignoring the fact I dont know what im doing im getting progress

[Muncie]

Holy Shit! i built an App 

More to add but this opens the binary edits the 2 step patch settings and saves as a new file or overwrites old one which i then use another App to flash back in i'll just add back in the stuff i actually touch while tuning on road. This is fast as fuck too!!!!

[shrike]

26 minutes ago, Muncie said:

Holy Shit! i built an App 

More to add but this opens the binary edits the 2 step patch settings and saves as a new file or overwrites old one which i then use another App to flash back in i'll just add back in the stuff i actually touch while tuning on road. This is fast as fuck too!!!!

 

[Muncie]

starting to fill out, got basic table editing happening now.

[Muncie]

Chipping away at things for when i get car running again, new engine is just waiting on a few things to be bolted on and its ready to swing in.

Decided to stick with the HSV red on calipers these are the rear i filed off all the casting marks then hit the faces with sander so paint is nice and shiny hopefully it stays that way I used engine enamel and baked it on so it should.

The rears are normally just cast and nothing special looking so now they mimic the front.

Fronts next.

[Muncie]

Well engine is ready to go in hung everything on to get off floor and keep track of bolts.

Turbo etc will go on in car few things to check with exhaust manifolds outside of car as I found the ARP head studs interfered with passengers manifold just need to check drivers and clearance as needed its no big deal but would be a dog to do once engine bay.