Well do I have a story to tell…
It has been well over two years since I have updated my build thread and so much has happened. I was rather lazy at updating it even though I visit the site so often and kept up to date with so many other build threads.
I can’t remember when or in what order things were done but I shall attempt to write about all that has happened and in time when I can locate and get them in order I shall include photos. Hopefully you find it an interesting read!

The Look

My car has retained the same look on the outside with the Typhoon front bumper, EL XR bulged bonnet, EF headlights, Typhoon Twist 18” rims, tint and the rest being standard.
I have removed the side skirts for the time being as they need modifying to fit better but will add them back at a later date.
I have added new LED spot lights into the front bumper, custom mounting them and wiring them to come on with the high beams and also into their own switch on the dash to turn them on and off. Being spot lights instead of fog lights I was hoping they would add to the high beam light. They do but not to the extent I was hoping. I had to remove one of the original fog lights when installing the intercooler piping so changing to these LED ones that I got from Jaycar gives the front a more complete look which I was happy with. They have a smaller body so I was able to mount them but I did still have to modify the cold side piping for clearance.
I also ditched the HID globes I had in the high and low beams for normal globes which was a good move. The light colour and brightness isn’t as good but the coverage and spread is far, far better and in my opinion was a better way to go.
The only other thing that is different to look at on the outside is the intercooler which has been painted black. I had to move it forward a little bit which I will explain about later, which meant I had to trim the inside of the front bumper a bit and ditch the grill across the front of it.
Being black gives it a more subtle look and hopefully means less attention gets drawn to it but anyone who knows what they are looking at knows it’s an intercooler..

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More sections to come...

The Interior

The interior has received quite a few upgrades and touches over the time. It still retains the black, red and light grey theme with chrome door handles as earlier in the thread but it does have a few additions.

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The roof lining was replaced as it was beginning to sag. My uncle is an automotive upholsterer based in Bendigo and he did this for me, changing to a much better looking and brighter light grey/silver colour. While doing this I also added in rear reading lights and rear overhead handles.
The carpet was replaced with new black carpet from Knox Auto Carpets and I replaced all the dark grey seat belts to black ones out of an EF Fairmont wreck that I have.

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The biggest thing is probably upgrading the seats and this took me the longest having only just recently finished the rears. I got onto a full set of FG XR50 leather/suede/cloth seats and fitted them. The fronts were comparatively easy compared to the rears but still required a lot of stuffing around. I found that two of the legs bolted straight in. The outside rear leg was a straight bolt in and the inner front needed a few washers behind it as a spacer but was otherwise a direct bolt in as well. The inner rear leg needed a lot of modifying. I cut the bottom and sides off the leg and straightened it so I had a flat piece of steel on the same level as the rail. Then I added a little bend to get it sitting at the correct height, braced it and bolted it in. Sounds confusing but it was rather simple.

For the front outer legs I cut these off completely and got the original mount from the original seats and welded this in the right spot and painted it. That gives all four corners secured in and sitting comfortably. The driver’s seat is electrically adjustable so I wired in those motors to power and ground but to stop me hitting my head on the roof it needs to be at its lowest. They do sit higher than the original seats but are a lot more comfortable and supportive and look way better.

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The rear seats I have only just recently finished. These require a lot of custom brackets to be made up as they are very different and I really just made it up as I went along. For the seat backs I cut off the original mounting brackets from the original seats and used these as bolting points. I also had the brackets from a BA/BF/FG (all the same) so the seats could slide in and out and pivot the same as FG but bolt to the chassis same as EL. I measured the angles and heights so I knew where I wanted the seats to line up and then used some sheet metal to join and make the custom brackets and secure them in. This took a lot of measuring and checking and putting the seats in and out..

Once the outer brackets were made it was a matter of doing the same for the centre bracket.
The base I could not do myself but I am lucky that my uncle can. We removed the covers from both EL and FG bases and cut the tops off them both. We then put the foam top of the FG onto the EL base and added foam and shaped it to get it how we wanted. Material was then added to the FG cover for the slightly different base shape and then put back on. This way we have the correct foam shape for the material cover but on top of the EL base so it mounts the same and fits the floor pan. It was a fair bit of mucking around but has worked so well and looks great.
The side bolsters need a lot of trimming and cutting to make them fit ok. I removed the covers, hacked at them for a while, checking and hacking, checking and hacking until I got to a point where they are not too bad. I probably want to get them fitting a bit better yet but I will do that at a later date. Overall the seats look awesome!

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I looked into and ended up buying a new rear vision mirror as well. I wanted one that looked better and also one that was auto-dimming and settled on an Infinity mirror which I ordered from the US. It was a little pricey, it mounted the same, it did require wiring in but was a worthwhile upgrade. There is a few different variations you can get and I went with the Infinity auto-dimming mirror with HomeLink. It has three buttons on the bottom of it which you can program to open a garage door or anything that receives a wireless signal. You could also get one with a compass in it that showed your direction of travel and the interior temperature but didn’t think this was worth the extra money.

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The other big upgrade is my steering wheel. I bought an aftermarket BF wheel and fitted it. It looks really good in my opinion and is nice to drive with over the stock wheel. The cruise control buttons had to be modified to work with the EL module and I used TimmyA’s previous work to get these going. I also got the audio buttons working with my Kenwood head unit by using a PAC adaptor module that I bought on eBay.

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Attached to the back of the steering wheel is two paddle shifters. These are from an AMG Mercedes and I bought them as new using part numbers I found. They were pretty expensive and I wasn’t quite sure how they would mount up or wire in but it was worth the gamble as they work great. I measured them up and marked where I wanted them and then cut into my brand new, yet to fitted aftermarket BF steering wheel. I was nervous about that! After cutting and trimming and filing and drilling I got them to securely mount into the back of the wheel. They look good, you can press them easily and they are not obtrusive or get in the way of anything.

You may ask why I need them or how I got them to work and I will get to that later. You may also ask how I was able to wire them in with there really being no extra wires available for use in the EL clock spring. I would need two extra wires for them, plus another one for the audio buttons!

The solution to that is a customised 10 wire BA clock spring. They don’t fit. They don’t mount up. But they can be made to. I don’t know of anyone else that has done this but it wasn’t actually all that difficult. I cut away all the excess plastic from the outer part so it ended up being the same size as an EL one. I then cut the mounts off the EL clock spring, clipped them into place, put a dab of glue on them and slid the BA clock spring over the steering shaft. Once the glue had dried and I could remove it all as one I added more glue to the mounts for strength. Now I had a 10 wire clock spring that mounted the same as the original. For the wiring side I cut the plugs off the original and wired them in so they it plugged into the car loom. And on the steering wheel I wired it all in as needed for everything to work. Having so many wires it also leaves me with a few spares for adding anything later.

The clock spring does protrude a bit further forward and sticks out of the steering column shrouds a bit but isn’t a worry. I can’t remember if it fits with an original steering wheel, but it certainly works with a BA onwards wheel. An issue that some people have had with the newer steering wheels is that it sits further forward and means the indicator and wiper stalks are further away but this isn’t an issue for me and it also leaves a good amount of room for the paddle shifters.

I already had some Defi gauges in my car which are located on the A pillar in a custom mounted twin 60mm setup. I have a Defi ADVANCE controller and two BF ADVANCE gauges showing Boost and Oil Temp. I thought it would be cool to add a little bit more to it so I bought a Defi ZD screen and all the sensors I was missing and added them in. The ZD screen is mounted underneath my headunit and in front of my gear stick. Next to it is a 52mm CR ADVANCE Exhaust Temp gauge. I didn’t really need this but it was only about $20 more to buy it and the sensor as a pack than it was to buy the sensor alone so I thought why not and it fitted nicely in the gap. This gives me lots of information right there in front of me which is most of the time not necessary but has come in handy a few times when trying to sort through problems and I know they are pretty well calibrated and accurate. The Defi gear is certainly not cheap but dam it looks good in my opinion and I love it. Across all the gauges I can see Boost, Oil Pressure, Oil Temp, Water Temp, Fuel Pressure, Volts, Speed and Revs. It also has an odometer and trip meter which is good as it shows what the new engine has done as opposed to the 300k+ the dash says. I will be getting to the engine soon..

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Its not exactly something you see but I have been adding Dynamat sound deadening to the car and have done parts of the boot, the parcel shelf, below the rear seat and the rear doors. Unfortunately I hadn’t decided to do the sound deadening before I put the carpet or the new roof lining in as I would have done all those areas as well. Plan is to do the front doors soon as well whatever parts of the carpet I feel like pulling up.

In my boot lid, and I feel this is a problem amongst many E-series, the sheet metal had come un-stuck from all the bracing and all the adhesive had cracked and rattled around and fallen out over time. This meant the boot lid rattled and vibrated, especially with a sub in the boot. I used a can of Selleys No More Gaps and filled up all the gaps in the boot lid I could find and all the gaps between the bracing and the sheet metal. It is easy to use, expanding into all the areas, it stuck the sheet metal back to the bracing and it was easy to trim. I then stuck on the Dynamat and replaced the carpet and wow what a difference. The boot is now heavier and more solid and closes with a nice solid thump and I would say the base would be 50% better over before. It has made a big difference and the base isn’t just absorbed by the rattling sheet metal anymore. I am looking forward to the difference the Dynamat will make to the front door speakers too.

The only other changes I have done is a temporary reconfiguration of the boot. I have removed the no longer used gas system and removed the tank which frees up a lot of room in the boot. I have added a few items to a fuel system which I will explain later. Most of the wood work has been taken out and will be redone sometime this year to make the boot bigger and better laid out. The battery was moved to behind the rear seat and secured and the amps are currently in a tangle of wires and screwed into the false floor. Its messy but its only temporary.

Next up...Suspension and brakes...

The Suspension & Brakes

There has been a few changes to the suspension system. I have been through and re-bushed everything front and rear with Superpro and I have given all the components a paint in black. I ditched the Monroe shocks and King Springs and got a set of Pedders Extreme XA coilovers for the front and rear. They allow me to alter the height of the vehicle and adjust the softness/hardness to suit what I like. They have been pretty good so far.
I purchased a set of the AU control arm adaptors and installed these with AU upper control arms as many people have done and these were a fantastic improvement! It gives great turn in and makes the car more settled on rough roads. Very happy with these and they give so much castor and less camber so tyre wear has been better compared to before.
While I was at it and playing with the suspension I gave it some better stopping power too. DBA T2 slotted rotors with QFM HPX pads, new SafeBrake braided brake lines, a rebuild to the front callipers and new brake fluid has given it much more braking capacity than it had before.

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very nice looking car man, love the interior work.

dose the b series wheel bolt straight onto the e series shafts?
or is there a little more too it?

Thanks mate. Yeah it just bolts straight on. Same shape and splines on the shaft with a center bolt. The B series wheel does sit a bit further forward though and leaves a bit of a gap to the plastic shrouds.

cheers dude,
got any side on pictures of the steering wheel?

The Engine

Well now we are getting to the interesting part!!

Unfortunately I don’t have many photos available for this as I lost quite a few that were on a phone and I need to dig a few up that are on another computer.

When I last posted the old engine was not super healthy, had done over 300,000 kms and the whole set up just wasn’t as good as I wanted it to be. I had an AU2 engine from my uncle that I had stripped down and I decided it was time to get that rebuilt. I purchased all my parts through Justin at Tuff Car Parts and he was fantastic in his help.
My parts list was as follows:
-JE Forged pistons
-Spool Forged rods
-Atomic 10mm girdle
-Main studs
-Head studs
-Atomic gasket kit

I got onto Joe at CMS Sydney and purchased his Stage 4 head and cam package for the AU engine.
For all the work I went to BT Performance in Swan Hill and they did all the work to the engine that was needed and pieced it all together. I now had a nice rebuilt engine with forged internals that should be able to hold together with a bit of power. Great! The compression ratio is 8.9:1 so it should still be good off boost.

While the engine was being built I went about removing the old engine and transmission and all the crap I didn’t want in the engine bay. I filled in the hole I had cut near the battery tray for the air filter as it was too much of a hassle and got really dirty so decided to leave it sucking air from behind the head light. I tried to neaten up a bit of the wiring I had done and once it was all clean I had the engine bay painted up and it came up so much better.

I still had all the same turbo gear as I had already and it was all reused so just as a refresher that included a Snort Performance Stage 6 manifold, GT4202 turbo (0.96 exhaust, 0.8 compressor), Iceman 1200 plenum with 90mm TB, Synchronic BOV, unnamed 50mm wastegate, 3” dump pipe into mild steel 3’ exhaust and the SS intercooler piping with generic 700x300x76 intercooler.

I fitted the engine in and began the long process putting it all back together. I had ordered through Tuff Car Parts a very long list of Proflow fittings and Teflon stainless braided hoses. These a pricey but look good and allow for lots of custom hoses to be made for water, oil and fuel and even air con.

The reason I had to move the intercooler forward was due to a new bigger engine oil cooler and a larger transmission oil cooler. I got a sandwich plate adaptor with off takes for the engine oil which fits between the block and the oil filter. It has a type of spring set up like a coolant thermostat so it only sends the oil to the cooler once it begins to reach a certain temperature. This is also where I have the Defi Oil Temp gauge installed so it tells me the temp of the oil that is returning from the cooler and going back in to the engine.

The coolant system got a bit of an upgrade with a 52mm alloy radiator, some custom Proflow hoses to replace the old corroded hard tubes that ran around the engine, some new rubber hoses and a new thermostat housing. I got a new upper thermostat housing from the earlier E-series which faces forward so it clears the intake plenum and also a new lower thermostat housing from an EA which has multiple places for temp sensors. I have the original temp sensor for the dash, a temp sensor for the XMS4 ECU running the engine and also the Defi temp sensor. Coming from the housing is also the water pipe running towards the back of the engine and an offtake feeding the water-cooled turbo. So this is a busy place!

The power steering oil lines were also changed a bit. Where it runs in the solid pipe to the front for cooling was cut and an adaptor used into a Proflow hose and it now runs through the old trans oil cooler which is mounted in front of the drivers wheel behind the front bumper. I was running short of room to mount it behind the intercooler.

I made up some new air con lines with the flexible Teflon hose so I could run some of them in a different spot to neaten it up. This worked well but it does have a small leak and I lost all my gas over winter so I still need to patch up some leaks and get that re-gassed. It certainly gets a little warm in there some days without any air con!

Another change I made was to buy these two small air-oil separators from Jegs in the US and have them shipped over. I found a thread where someone else had used them and they looked like they would work well. This is where I wanted to get it right so I was capturing the oil and yet venting the crankcase as it should be. I connected the rear hose on the rocker cover to the intake before the turbo with the separator inline and the PCV valve I connected to the intake plenum with the separator inline of that. I felt this was the way it should be done and I haven’t had a problem with them. They are small and are easily drained and don’t look all that bad. Certainly better then what I had in there before.

The biggest area of change was in my fuel system. Starting at the fuel tank I have a Walbro GS342 feeding a 2L surge tank in the spare wheel well. That feeds a larger pump, a Fuelab 41401 via -8 hose, which sends the fuel through to a Y splitter and into two -6 hoses. I got another standard hard fuel line from a wreck I have and mounted it below the car. The two flexible -6 hoses feed into the hard lines, through two standard filters and to the front, into two flexible hoses and into either end of the billet fuel rail. The outlet of the fuel rail in the centre then goes into the Fuelab 52901 electronic fuel regulator before going to the return line to the surge tank and there being an overflow back to the main tank.
All hoses are Teflon stainless braided and fittings are Proflow. I used the quick connect fuel fittings for connection to the hard lines and to the main tank outlets. The Defi Fuel Pressure sensor is located in the fuel regulator instead of one of those small gauges.

The Fuelab regulator is wired into the Fuelab pump. It has a sensor in it that detects fuel flow and demand so if it detects a drop in fuel pressure due to acceleration then it sends a PWM signal to the pump to speed the pump up and provide more fuel flow. The pump is a variable speed pump and using a PWM signal it can run at low speeds most of the time when full flow is not needed. This means less power draw, less pump wear and also less heating up of the fuel. The PWM can come from any source so you could control it via a computer and increase its speed with increasing boost for example.
Currently the fuel system still has a fair bit of capacity in it and is running 60lb Siemens Deka injectors.

Yeah here is one.. The BA clock spring fills the gap a little bit.

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The Drivetrain

I am running a rebuilt BTR transmission that I got from DTM Transmissions in Geelong. They are good to deal with and answered any questions I had. It came with all their modifications minus a transbrake and they say the rebuilt BTR’s are good for about 400rwkw. I got a Dominator 3000RPM stall converter which is one of the smaller bodied GM style ones I believe so it is a bit more responsive than standard bodied ones. It also suits the cam that I have from CMS.

I have installed a much bigger transmission oil cooler in behind the intercooler and run custom lines for it.

To use the paddle shifts and make them work properly, and to properly control the transmission how I want it, I bought and installed a TCM2000 transmission control unit from Powertrain Control Solutions. It’s a great unit with so many inputs and outputs and has heaps of versatility in its software for controlling anything in any way you want to. I got a simple tune sent to me from DTM to get the trans up and running and I have added and modified it a little bit myself as I have needed but I am not even using a third of the wires it has available. I have it set up in True Manual mode so it will only up shift and down shift on command from the paddle inputs. It is an awesome unit with easy to use software.

From the trans I still have a stock tailshaft and I finally got around to putting in the rebuilt diff with the Trutrac centre I had. No problems at all with the diff, except that it may have a bit too much backlash in the gears as they were second hand and make a bit of noise sometimes. Otherwise it behaves normally and steps out nicely when you give it a bit, especially in the wet!

The Tune and The Power

So once I finally got all the engine and trans and diff in and had it running and gave it a bit of a run in. I drove it down to Melbourne and went and saw Paul at CVE Performance and got a better tune put in. We had a few issues like oil leaks and a coolant hose that popped off and where the trans controller was not properly set up and so every time the foot was planted on the accelerator pedal the transmission would jump back to first gear instead of holding in third.
Eventually we ended up with a 6psi tune that peaked at about 250rwkw. I was pretty happy with this for the time being and it drove around pretty good on a safe tune. At this stage I was happy to settle with that until I had sorted out all the other issues and small things that needed fixing up. I have got most of those things sorted out now and a few more kms on the motor so am looking forward to a retune at some point soon.

The Problems

But nothing has really been smooth sailing with this car.
Firstly, the head unit has been a pain in the a***. My sound system was all set up prior to this story and the head unit is a Kenwood DDX8036BT. It’s a top range head unit (at the time) but I bought mine off eBay for quite a bit cheaper than retail price. This has been a bit of a mistake as it has a number of problems. The screen will sometimes turn off and go black, or go yellow, or the unit will turn off and restart of sometimes just stay off for weeks until it decides to turn back on. Sometimes the screen is on but the touch doesn’t work so I can’t change anything. Over all it’s a pain and it really does not like even the smallest bumps in the road and any shock will trigger it to do something bad. I would say it has some crappy connections somewhere inside it and I plan to pull it apart and see what I can fix to stop it playing up. But at the moment it hasn’t been playing up (touch wood) so I will do that when it starts to happen again…and it will happen again one day.

The other, and much bigger problem I have had has been to do with starting. It has caused me endless headaches and trying to get to the bottom of it and a fix for it took me a long time. It was all around the starting and the starter motor.
As part of the turbo set up I moved the battery to the boot and ran cables down to the starter motor then used the original starter cable to feed under the engine and into the car for its power. When I put the new engine in it didn’t like to start very nicely. I had an Atomic flexplate in and after troubles starting with some apparent backfires and timing issues on cranking, the starter motor began breaking teeth off the new and stronger Atomic flex plate. I didn’t think this was right and after breaking off a few too many teeth, one day while parked down the street I became stranded as there was no teeth for the starter to engage and it only free spun. What a nightmare.. I had the car towed by RACV to the mechanics a few blocks away and found the issue of the missing teeth.

I ended up getting a second Atomic flexplate as I thought the issue was with the flex plates teeth breaking. However after putting in the new one, guess what happened…. Snap snap snap. More teeth missing. After cracking the s**t and ignoring the car for a few weeks I eventually found motivation to start looking at what is causing this.
After much consulting with mechanics and auto electricians I decided it was an electrical issue and in particular a noise issue coming from the starter motor and disrupting the cranking signal and throwing the timing out while cranking.
Great so I knew what the problem was but how do I fix it? I tried so many things like different starter motors, increasing the cable size from the battery to the starter motor, different batteries, bulking up all my earths and making sure they were adequate, rewiring all the signals with better shielded wiring, using ferrites on the signal wires to block out noise… I gave up a few times.

I ended up swapping the flexplate again for a standard one and with this one, even though the same problems were occurring that snapped off teeth on the Atomic one, the stock flex plate didn’t lose any teeth. I think it’s because it is probably a softer metal than the Atomic one?

Eventually the auto electrician suggested trying one of the much older, larger starter motors instead of the reduction gear ones. I have an old XF sedan so off I went and pulled the starter from it. It is so much bigger and is so much heavier and I didn’t think I was going to have enough room for it but it did fit. Even though it was installed I didn’t get a chance to wire it up and try it as my girlfriend and I went on a three week holiday to Vietnam in January.

When I got back and eventually got around to finishing it I tried it and……….sweet f*****g relief!!! It worked!! No noise issue and no problems. It cranked and it started. Over and over again. I am so happy I am finally able to start it without issue as I couldn’t really drive it anywhere as I was never certain it was going to start again.

These old starters are re-buildable so the plan is to get a second one, have it rebuilt so it’s back to as good as new and swap it in at some point in the future. But I do have a perfectly good Atomic flexplate with a few missing teeth that I am a loss at what to do with. I really don’t want to fork out another $600 for a new one if I want a stronger than stock flexplate. And its current state with missing teeth means I can’t put it back in. A problem to ponder…

The Future

The future plans for this car is to firstly, drive it.
And enjoy driving it as I haven’t been able to do a lot of it over the last few years.

I still have plenty of things to do to the car. Some of the paint is pretty crappy and needs either a repaint, some dents removed and some treatments to the paint to get it looking a bit better again. I also have to get the air con leaks sorted out and get it re-gassed.

The boot is in need of a major rework and remodel. I need to create a new rear wall now that I have removed the gas tank and relocated the battery and I need to relocate and neaten up the amplifiers. Then it will all get covered in carpet and will for the first time in a long time, look like a car boot.
I also need to use up the rest of my Dynamat and sound deaden the front doors and any other areas I can get access to.

I also have a new Synchronic Wastegate that I want to put in to replace the current gate that is in there. The Synchronic one will be a much better unit. I did over the weekend pull the old one off and the dump pipe out only to find that even though they are both 50mm wastegates, they are slightly different shapes and they have slightly different flanges!
It’s very annoying and now to put in the Synchronic gate I need to modify the dump pipe a little bit. Lucky for me my brother in law is very good with a TIG welder and will be able to do the modifications necessary.
Also while I am at it the dump pipe is a very tight fit and doesn’t quite seal properly around the turbine outlet and has always had a slight exhaust leak that spat black stuff everywhere.
So I would like to get it in and get that stuff sorted before I go for a retune.

So there is over two years of what should have been a continuously updated build thread…Phew!

Unfortunately I could not locate any photos from the engine rebuild and swap. They were all on my phone and lost..

Some information that may help some people if they are having a similar problem..

Recently I have been having some electrical problems which seemed to be with my alternator and battery. Both are pretty new items... an AU alternator to go on the AU engine that I have in there and an Optima Yellowtop D34 battery.

The Problem:
The battery would slowly drain and seem sluggish after long drives, cause occasional resets of my head unit and gauges, drop to lower and lower volts when I put my lights on and need putting on the charger every few weeks.
It seemed to me like the alternator wasnt charging up the battery properly. The battery is in the boot and it does have very thick cable going to it.

The Solution:
The two pin plug at the back of the alternator has one wire (Y-W) that is 12v signal which is the 'sense' wire from the battery. But it was trying to sense the battery voltage from where it used to be in the engine bay and not from in the boot where it now is.
I ran the wire back closer to the battery so it now receives a better 'sense' of the battery voltage which has given me greater output from the alternator, a stronger voltage all around the car and the battery now charges as it should.
I dont have voltage drops when I turn my lights on and no resets of any electrical items in the car.