Hey guys, Over the adelaide cup long weekend I decided to have a go at putting the BBM on my XG ute. I had searched on here before and the feedback that I got was that it wouldnt fit. Even though this was the case, I took the challenge on and had lots of hurdles along the way but it does fit in the engine bay and the bonnet does close. However there was a few things that are different to the guide posted by troyman when he put his BBM on his e series. documents.php?d=85

Here are the few things that caught me out on the weekend and made me want to kick all my panels in!!!!

1. There actually is no place for the knock sensor on the XG engine block!!! Yes i did take off the coil and its not located there. You can see the place where it should be but its not drilled out on the block or threaded. So if you do this conversion you can't have a knock sensor

2. The coolant reservior is in the way and the manifold won't physically fit unless you move it. To overcome this I took out the wiper water bottle (with alot of forcing to get it past the air conditioner line), and pushed the coolant bottle as far as i could to the passenger side and turned it on a 45 degree angle. All the existing coolant hoses still connect to it no problems. But now i don't have any windscreen wiper water jets.

3. The Au or EF EL intake airbox does not fit in the XG, nor does the piping connecting the throttle body to the airbox. This is a dilemma i am still sorting out. I'm going to clark rubber in the next week and getting some air intake hose 90mm rubber and i'm hoping this will connect up to my standard airbox still. If not i will run it back over the manifold like the standard air intake and just use a pod filter.

4. You don't actually have to change the top thermostat housing if you don't want to. It still fits providing it doesnt get in the way of your air intake solution. (if anyone has any idea's about places to get flexible rubber hose that will bend 90 degrees like the stuff you have on your normal au airbox intake where it bends, please let me know).

5.The ACT (air charge temperature sensor) wiring does not reach the new manifold so before you put the new manifold on. Make these wires longer. I found this out the hard way and had to solder and make these wires longer with the manifold on. This wasn't very easy.

When i started it up it ran pretty well. I had to adjust the idle up and the bbm vaacum release is all working pretty well. I notice alot of torque increase by climbing hills in 5th gear that i couldn't do before in my local area. I'm still having problems with making a cold air intake of some sort (100mm irrigation pipe is not flexible enough so don't waste your money like i did). Also having some problems with my idle speed controller as my car is on gas and i accidently got the au spacer plate for the pcv to plug into. So the holes don't line up. I'm gonna try to get into a gas place this week and buy the EB one and see if this helps.

Well i hope this helps anyone wanting to do this conversion. It took my all 3 days of the long weekend but if i had all this information at the start it probably would have taken me 2.

good job mate

i saw an xd at upi lonsdale 6-12 months ago with a 4l ef-el motor, im pretty sure it was using a modified xf efi airbox on it. if that gives u any ideas

good write up mate and top marks for giving this a crack.Sounds like you had your share of hiccups but you got through em and the end results sounds like it was worth it.got any pics by chance? also did the thermos fit up ok?

Nah no pics as of yet. I was going to do some along the way but when things didn't start to go as easily as planned it kind of went out the window. I will take a pic of it once i have sorted out my air intake issue.
I went to clark rubber today and they have 75mm bendable rubber tube and also 100mm. Now i thought that 75 might be a tad small but i guess i have a gas ring on there so maybe its not too bad. What do you guys think? I think that 100m is way overkill as the throttle body is only 80mm and thats all the air it going to suck in.

What i am struggling with is that if i do get the 75mm stuff for the bends in the custom intake then what do i use for the rigid straight area's. I was thinking pvc, but i don't know if it comes in that size because you would have to use
like 70mm pipe for the 75mm rubber to go over so you can clamp it.

This is starting to do my head in a bit. It would have been so much better if the AU air box just fitted!!

If anyone has any idea's out there it would be great. I was considering the xf airbox as suggested in the above post by XRfairmont but i could find any pictures of it.

Cheers

Oh yeah sorry i havent done the thermo's yet. They are sitting in my shed. Once i have finished this conversion I will have a little break and then maybe get stuck into it.

Yer i reckon the 75mm stuff would work fine mate, and pvc will work aswell (pretty sure its sold in 70mm) even if it is only until u get it working right, you can always change it down the track.

Whoever told you they dont fit was pretty misinformed..... XH XR6 come from the factory with bbms

XG werent though

Theyre practically the same thing

theres a bit more room under an XH bonnet for throttle body clearence than an XG.Also coolant header tank is on the left hand side of the engine bay in XH, i think the BBM fouls on the coolant tank in its current position in the XG's

I'm not sure what you mean by more room. Engine bays the same size between the two.
As mentioned the bottle does foul - I would have thought it would have been easiest/made sense to look in an XH XR6 engine bay and copy it with regards to layout.

im pretty sure the shape of the XH being similar to EF EL, means theres more clearence height wise to the bonnet, not length or width of the engine bay. XG being the same shape as XF's means not as much room above the engine whereby the clearence issue is born

How can you say the XG & XH have the same engine bay? Have you seen both? They are completely different from the firewall forward. The XG is basically the same as the XF, the XH is all E-series. Entirely different cars.

Theres still plenty of room in an XG/XF for a bbm buddy.


EF 6 in an XE and there is plenty of bonnet clearance..

this is a subject that has been discussed many times and in alot of situations has been dismissed by people stating it wont fit.i havent attempted the conversion so i cant really comment.Saltez on the other hand has successfully completed it with some modifications, which is why he explained to other ppl on the forum that it does infact fit.thats the story behind it buddy.