Kinkstaah

I reckon it is, super robust and they can be made to bolt down there if you keep the original SMIC brackets and such

I support this from the firewall forward. Actually I lie, there's a guy with a still streetable SS doing pretty respectable times at Winton, so as much as people on SAU bitch about Commos' being unable to handle, it clearly can be done to a pretty decent extent. Realise this is an auto so you won't be doing that... but still. https://www.carsales.com.au/cars/details/holden-commodore-2005/sse-ad-6431803/ Smaller cams are better choices if you want the thing to be good at what it does best (i.e be a comfy cruiser around town), cam surge will ruin everything.

Now I have an ODB2 engine, I have a double din full android head unit, so I can run torque and show any gauges I want! ? To the OP though, the point I was trying to make that in the future, they too will probably want different gauges/change the gauges there... so don't waste too much time getting the stock gauges working when most replace them anyway. Skip the middle man.

They are tough..... .... for a 25 year old engine. You're going to have much more reliability aiming for 350whp than 500whp though. How fast you choose to burn the candle depends on you, basically..

The oil temp is really the only one that does work well, but others work better, can have clearer/more resolution.. The boost gauge isn't really up to the task, and battery voltage is... probably not worth having a slot. My car is N/A now (v8 life) and I have water temp, oil temp, and an AFR gauge there. When it was turbo, I had Oil temp, boost, water temp. Back when it was Auto and Turbo I had 6 gauges, the 3 up top as well as AFR, Oil temp, and Transmission oil temp. Yes 3x oil temp sensors ? But the main one is it will be easier to install aftermarket ones.

So the search for a gearbox began where all searches begin, gumtree.com.au or FB Marketplace. I also figured i'd need a clutch, and one of the things all Commodore people constantly raved about was a remote clutch bleeder. I had already managed to find myself a starter motor re locator kit from mal wood automotive. I don't know if this existed on the Berzerk R32 that got LS swapped here years ago, because they went about it by changing the steering rack to a VL non powered one instead. It turns out before you make decisions on things... there's a lot... LOT of options to choose from, but I decided a) I want the car to be legal b) I want the car engineered by VASS c) I want the car to be dailyable, so that meant retaining power steering, and retaining aircon, as well as the heater. d) I wanted all the gauges to operate as factory This sounds like a bit of a tall order, but this is where my bad luck actually turned around. LS's often have standalone looms, so you can run the thing on an engine stand quite easily. R34's quite easily run standalone engine ECU's and don't suddenly have problems with the dash doing weird shit, speedos not working.. so my line of thinking was "this should work", joys of a basic car. I found a gearbox for sale eventually that didn't look like it'd been outside for 200 years, and found someone who was "90%" of the way through their LS conversion into Skyline build themselves, but wanted to sell up to conslidate cars/put money into business etc. Again i thought : .. maybe I should walk away, like this guy is currently trying to. But no, am stupid. In the end, I bought: 1x T56 Gearbox 1x Heavy Duty clutch for above gearbox Both Cross members, because the seller also sent me photos of a stock GM sump clearing the skyline crossmember, whereas the motor I had... definitely, de finitely hit (to the point we had pulled it off already to start notching it). 1x Standalone loom 1x "Later' ls1 ECU (needed to run Flex fuel) 1x Set of radiator hoses modified by seller to fit stock locations on a skyline (yay) 1x Clutch bleeder relocation kit. Pretty much everything I needed except manifolds and a tailshaft. The manifolds had made custom, I got a photo of them, but they had already been sold. 1x Rip Shifter 1x Shifter extension to mount up with the standard hole in a R33/R34. I also had to buy another engine, to get everything in the above package. I had originally planned on just sticking with a stock 220 or whatever rwkw a LS1 makes, and iron out all of the infinite bugs i was expecting to begin with and go and rebuild/try and make some power later, but this "forced" my hand. The engine that came with the above had a fresh rebuild with all receipts, a VCM714 cam (232/234 .600 lift), LS7 Lifters, double manley cam springs, double timing chain, 25% underdriven balancer, ARP fastners throughout, and the heads had been skimmed for more compression. New bearings, freshly machined, suitable oil pump, aftermarket baffling for the new sump, etc, and of course, all of the gaskets, seals and such were brand new and just fitted, which eliminated my shopping cart to replace all of those old things on the previous, now-spare motor. And the new one was drive by cable too, which was nice. He had initially built the thing to go and drift, so had done all the needed things for this to sustain some pretty sustained "high" RPM. Just so happens for me, the parts he selected were basically identical to what I was planning to do.. "one day".. It was at this point that family and friends switched from "This car is a curse" to "This is a good idea, see, the car wants to live, the universe agrees!"

+1. Just run aftermarket gauges to the same location. Pretty much everyone else does/will.

MX5's have issues of "What do I need to do, my car is working, there's nothing to fix" and "I don't have a lot of power". The stock SE one can do 190rwkw on the OEM turbo and Brendan Beavis has clearly shown its reliable in doing more track days than the entire of SAU combined, and being faster than 99.9% of people in them. GF still won't let me track her MX5 yet, though. So I needed another plan. I actually did make a note in a spreadsheet as to how much this conversion cost, how much I bought things for (and how much I sold RB bits for!, and a timeline!) and quickly realised that the big killer in all these builds is the friends you make along the way. By this, the level of 'while we're there....' is extreme to the nth degree. With the engine in the car, we needed headers. This wasn't a great deal of space, and this is with everything removed/relocated as best as we possibly could. However, the block hugger manifolds I bought were approximately this flat. They also didn't fit, pointing directly to the engine mount... ^--- above picture with the other side of the manifold touching the bar.. Both side like this. The supplier replaced both of them without complaint. Getting my money back instead of a store creidit though.. took many many hours of waiting in the store for the manager to get back from wherever he was, though.. At this point we had also removed the sump, because we were going to have to notch it in order to reach the crossmember. So we were looking at needing manifolds, a cable TB, Water pump/Gaskets, oil pump, rear main seal, front seal, sump gaskets, the lot. The "While we're there" started on the engine stand but it quickly accumulated. During this time a lot (almost all) of the RB stuff sold, so I more or less had a shell sitting on stands. The desire to just cut ties and walk away was very strong, an underutilized MX5 was in my hands, but then I thought "What if...., I'll never know if it was actually gonna be awesome...." So I started the search for a gearbox.

Can I interest you in a V8 R34 sedan?

Can I interest you in my Renault Megane?

Forza is great stuff. It never arrives remotely on time (brakes direct are aware). Pads excellent too. That said, with CV I pretty much on the verge of refunding my purchase (in janurary) with some Raybestos pads. Buy in bulk

Buy back wreck, buy neatish 86, put all good bits in new car.

As above... a manual conversion (depending on where you are) is "easy" depending on your skill and budget etc. It sure is a lot easier to do than say, get a full respray, and costs far less. Other condition items are also a worry. If the auto is clean, and you want to keep the car (i.e won't be concerned that "amagad its been "converted so it will lose value") then it could very well be the right move.

Don't be so sure. The GT2860R was used in the MX5 SP, which was a 1.8 from the "Factory" GTR's run 2 of them, so 1.3L per turbo. It's a bit laggy but eh. They would probably be fine on a 3.2L motor for example running two.. So 1.6 may be alright. Worth trying in the very least.

Well maybe not you specifically - But people in that situation wanting to do it, is gonna be well served by looking for this. The later LS1's definitely hold up better than the gen3 (L98, L99 6.0's, and GENIV 6.3LS3) That said, the data seems to show you need to hold 1.2G+ for 4 seconds to start having oil pressure problems in the most plagued of them, being the LS3. This is a bit more relevent to a vette on 335 slicks turning left on say, an oval track or really really big sweeper than it would be in my scenario in 200 treadwear tyres. The only real corner that could be a problem with in Victoria is the sweeper at Winton. But yes, any engine spun hard on the track can (realistically will) have issues. Unless it's a MX5 motor basically.

The pick of the litter is the later block/LS6 bottom ends for 5.7's. All the 6.0's are derived from LS3's (i.e GENIVs) Initial LS1's from 99-00-01 etc aren't great in regards to oil control, piston slap etc. GM fixed these when they introduced the LS6 for the C5 Z06, then updated the block and its updates for all LS1's, so the differentiation between a LS6 was the 243 LS6 heads. But later LS1's were LS6's from the bottom end side of things. These LS1's in Australia got LS1 heads on "LS6" blocks. They were in the VY and VZ Commodores. You're looking for 1256116812561166 Stamped on the block.

^-- this is also a decent way. to do it. Probably the best way. There's many ways, I just meant to say that some minor work is required to get them to fit due to the different bolt size between GTT and the GT. This is one of the "GT is just ... lower specced" things, like different ABS system, different bolt on brakes, S15 axles, balbalbala.

Right after then, tools came out and things started coming out with them. After many years of removing bits and pieces from the car it was actually a sadly very rehearsed system by now, but it is always suprising how fast it is to take a car apart when you really don't have to consider a) It running again b) putting it back together again ever Obligatory "Before" picture: eeeeasy does it Ah yes, Turbo goodness. At this point I didn't actually have anything to put in yet, however I had done my research, or at least as much research as one can do before actually doing anything. There's various good and bad things about LS engines, and while SAU is pretty awesome, the amount of documentation across the pond in the USA about LS motors is simply staggering (it continues to surprise me). Luckily commodores in Australia mostly have the LS6 bottom end (conformable on casting marks from GM) which is the best available one for oil control on the track, which is a revision of the earlier LS1 block. Later LS's and GEN4's have oil control issues that make RB motors problems look like happy utopian dreams. https://www.corvetteforum.com/forums/autocrossing-and-roadracing/2824807-let-me-ask-another-way-who-s-ls3-hasn-t-blown-up-on-the-track.html So while POWERRRRR was on the cards with a GEN4/LS3 I opted to not go down that path in the attempt to future proof the idea, and keep things simpler and cheaper. The whole idea was to get the car *running* with a stock engine making about ~220 kw before attempting to do anything fun for power anyway, and I figured/assumed/had learned that no matter what, this carefully budgetted build would blow out beyond all expectations, and a LS1 'should' be easy to replace from gumtree in the event that it does explode/let go/develop some problem, and I liked the simplicity of having drive by cable instead of electric throttles, one more thing to convert, tune for, make work 'properly'. I got Engine and Transmission mounts from KE Conversions on FB, and they looked the goods and had plenty of fitment photos, as well as working with the stock Nissan Engine mounts. Given my goal was to get this engineered, being able to use a stock mount for the engine and gearbox was super beneficial. I also discovered my stock engine mounts were completely and utterly f**ked, so time to replace those courtesy of Kudos Motorsports. A week or so later, this arrived: About 4 seconds later, this happened: Commence: 'Oh yeah this could actually work' thoughts..

You do need to drill things to use the GTT brakes. The R34 GT (non turbo) uses R33 GTST sizing for things. You will be able to directly bolt R33 GTST brakes (front and rear) directly to a R34 GT. That said, the entirety of "Drilling things" is making one 12mm hole a 14mm hole. Source: Did this ?

Finding rims is actually pretty hard for these things as they have stupid offset (stock 18x8 is like +66!). The XR5 rims are the same size but their offset is.. +52? Something like that. XR5s also came in a very similar colour. It is a bit funny when I drive past one of them in this car, though the Renault is a much better car. At least to drive.. It has 203,000km and rising, as I'm driving it around as my daily right now with no immediate issues. I am open to reasonable negotiations re: price, welcome to go and give it an actual test drive through a mountain road if someone here is local and actually curious.

TBH there's merit in both approaches. Some (most?) cars have commonly failing electrical things, a motor here, a regulator there, a plug that falls apart there etc. Luckily? All the problems with Nissans and Skylines generally aren't that. They are pretty damn stout things given their age especially when they were built. The bad part is, when it does fail? It's time to go hunting as GTSBoy suggested.

Skylines have been doing sub 1:20's for many years, I remember old Big Red R32 videos cracking 1:16's. This is heavily driver and balls specific at least at Sandown... but yes M2's aren't actually that amazing in the real world. They will get dispatched quite easily by a Mustang with tyres: (which is what the PP2 setup is) https://www.caranddriver.com/features/a23319884/lightning-lap-times-historical-data/ M2's are at 1:22, 1:25 and 1:30, damn driver mod skewing the results

So, after driving around with an internet-happy and extremely well performing EFR and RB28 combo for awhile, as god intended (i.e manual), I had a bit of a realisation. ...... it was too much for the street. It was too laggy. In all my attempted fixes, I had always trended towards more response, less lag, faster throttle response. I also noticed on the street, I was turning the boost down to 11psi, and a very respectable 330kw. I also noticed for any time I went to the track, I was also turning the boost down to 11psi, for safety reasons or otherwise (lol misfires.) I then noticed that even with a 2.8, even with an EFR, that going from 0 throttle to WOT at 6000rpm still took a good ~1-1.5 seconds to actually hit full boost. I then asked myself if I would prefer that interval to be instant, for the tradeoff of only ever having about 300kw of max power. You know, the power I kept limiting myself to anyway for actual use. Then bad thoughts started happening. Thoughts of reading VASS Certification documentation, Vicroads laws and loopholes, earnestly researching "So yeah what exactly are the rules here?" It seemed dumb that a EFR 330kw setup was absolutely verboten, but a V8 in the car looked entirely legal.. ... and cheaper. ... and easier to replace. ... and significantly less stress on the motor.. I was a little tired of parking the car, and walking away, worrying about this noise, that clunk, that odd sound, that piece of trim falling off, etc. Truth be told, a fair bit of other things happened over the years on the car, but the priority of "please don't explode" took precedence. This was also compounded that (as noticed by my lovely gf) that I seemed to have much more fun driving other people's cars (like hers) mainly due to the fact I could enjoy them, instead of constantly worrying about them. This is where people usually just sell their car BUT NOT ME, CAUSE I'M STUPID! It was also about this time I got an enquiry about selling some of my totally not cursed car parts, and it all started looking dangerously plausible. I had second thoughts. I distinctly remember driving the 34 around after I took a deposit for the engine... and felt terrible. Sad. Like I had betrayed a friend. Like driving your pet to the vet knowing they are going to be put down. Surely it wasn't that bad was it? I also bought this: (which is now for sale btw) I thought: I will be without the 34 for a long time, I want something fun to drive around in during it, go to track days, etc with friends in the interim. It was unnervingly good, quiet, reliable, fast and most importantly... really fun. I was only about 1s slower at Winton in this Renault than I ever managed in the 34. So it pretty much put a huge base line in the ground saying: "You must be at LEAST this much fun/fast/generally OK to avoid being set on fire/sold" But in the end, the car went off the road, to a different place of surgery, namely the person who rebuilt my engine in the past, because no way was I going to tackle this on my own.. the research I can handle, and I can turn bolts, and I can wire things. But I sure as hell appreciate a second opinion when shit is really important. Here it is, or was, as it sat, when I took the first photo before.. uh, it's... transition. "Are you really gonna do this?"

In this scenario the best option is.... don't get a skyline They may look cool if you don't see them around all the time, but they don't stand up performance wise stock to anything else that you could get for $25K in Europe. Given how hard it is to mod them/bring them up to spec where you are, this is a compounding problem. You'd be better off with a Megane Cup or similar hot hatch from Europe for a multitude of reasons (performance, cost, availability of parts, local knowledge)

Not if you want AWD though. A GT FOUR is a great way to get a GTR, minus a body kit. Putting in the stag engine is the way to go. I would say if you do it right, a AWD Neo in there would be awesome. However, any GT FOUR I have ever seen is at least equal to the price of a GTT, especially a coupe. So I dunno. Not Australia?