No major updates for now. I got a new gasket for the tappet cover as it was leaking something chronic, REPCO tried to f**k me in the a** for the price but they had a catalogue special so I got it for about half price. Not bad.

The other day I noticed one of my front wheel nuts was off. What the heck? Luckily I have tonnes of spare ones but I have no idea why it would have come off...hopefully the place that did my tyres did it up alright. Anyway, no harm done.

At the moment I'm working on a old air intake. I've got the snorkel, which is actually a rubber boot/hose sort of thing that's about 5 inches x 2.5/3 inchs, so I think I'll plumb that up to the mouth of my snorkel, Autospeed style. Also, I'm going to see if my 3 inch BA intake hose will fit onto my airbox, and then make a sheet metal, big mouth snorkel for the other end. Updates incoming! Wish me luck.

I nearly bought an 84 ZL Fairlane for 150 bucks...passed up on it as I don't really have anywhere to store it, and as well as it not coming from the factory with a V8. I think I'll live to regret it, then again, I didn't inspect it so it might be full of rust.

I rigged up a cold air intake sorta thing the other day. Basically the same as Autospeeds one, I just used the intake flexible hose off an EAs intake and pipe slightly under 3 inches feeding it up to the snorkel. I still have the dismal stock snorkel but I aim to grab a spare airbox from the wrecker so I can chop and cut to make it a bigger intake on it, plumb the hose off a BA intake I have onto it, and make a nice big snorkel out of either thin sheet metal or plastic. I'm thinking metal as I don't really have anything to weld plastic with...

As for my CAI, the bottom bumper part was piss easy to cut, I started by drilling a hole and using a keyhole saw, but in the end I touched it up with a sharp paring knife, way easier and neater. Made me kind of sad to be chopping up my car but it's not visible (apart from where the 3 inch pipe comes out) so it's not a bid deal.

Mucked around with the dizzy today, the damn thing is still jammed TIGHT, I cannot move it. Thank god when we got it, it was timed right. I would really like to play around with the timing a bit to see if that helps/hinders my cam but I really can't see how to unjam it without replacing it.

Also I did a rough quarter mile yesterday, on a private road, I get my friend to time it and just did it based on my odometer 0.1km reading. We timed it at 17.4 seconds, although it took a tiny bit for me to realise I'd done 400 metres and a tiny bit for him to hit the stopwatch, still kind of disappointing though. At the end I was doing a hair over 140, I might try it again with a properly measured quarter mile.

Yeah, I hope so too, I had no wheelspin or anything

This is kind of embarrassing but I can't remember if I did 400 metres of 500. It sounds like I'm making excuses, but my odometer had just clicked to 298.9kms when I stopped, and i can't remember if I went to 299.3 or 299.4. I knew I should have gone to the nearest KM for ease of reading. I'll do a 0-100 and record the speedo so I don't have to time it while actually doing it. If my Falc can only do 400 metres in 17.4 seconds I will be pretty upset as something is majorly f**k in it.

Not yet, it seems to have sealed up, probably shouldn't be fanging my car with it like that though...

I've used something similar to that CarGo sealant in my sisters car when it blew its head gasket, metal putty'd the radiator crack up and got it 300kms home on a prayer to fix it.

We've used the pepper trick before for tractors, it works a treat doesn't it!

I might head into town and grab some of that actually, just in case it opens up again (which it most certainly will).

Also I decided to stop being a Titus (tight a***) and bought a new TPS from Ebay, instead of buying new sunglasses. *Sigh* decisions decisions.

back when the AU was in good nick, and stock trim, she did a 16.5 @ 89 mph at Heathcote. 89 mph is roughly 142 kmh, so given the time you recorded with a rough guess at the speed with launch and track conditions aside, you should be somewhere between mid 16's to 17's.

Yeah I've looked up that stuff before, 60 bucks is about half the price of a head gasket, can't see much sense in that!

As for the air filter, nope. Just checked it then and it's full of s**t. I blew it out with the air compressor but I think it's time for a new one. Hopefully my CAI isn't putting too much dust straight into it...

16.5 ain't bad but my car isn't stock trim anymore, which is what's concerning me haha

Oh man, it really takes the wind out of your sails doesn't it I have an LSD in the back, 3.23 if I'm not mistaken, but the darn auto reaaally does make it laggy to start with. If I ever drag my mates SV6, right off the line we are equal for about a meter, then the falc bogs down in the filthy 1500 rpm range because of the high first gear, and he zooms away from me. My auto is a bit temperamental so I'd probably do a T5 conversion rather than a stally, as I won't be doing any large power updates (supercharged/turbocharged etc) for another few years.

Oh yeah - found this at my local country grocery and hardware store!



I felt pretty lucky to have found it, I mean, fancy that, ground pepper at a grocery store!?

Edit: And 1 dollar cheaper than SuperCheap Auto! Strewth.

Nope, it's a*** milled because I couldn't remember whether you said fine or course, and we already have fine milled at home so I decided to get a*** so either way I have some!

Yep, it sure is a great place, they always seem to have the odds and ends that you need, saving you a trip into town. Plus we don't shop at the IGA as my dad has a feud with them after they shortchanged him one time and then overcharged something and refused to do anything to fix it.

I just hope I have some coolant here or I'll have to get some, I didn't start flushing the radiator tonight because it's too dark, I'll do it tomorrow. Cheers for the advice, without it I wouldn't have ever found that CarGo sealant stuff.

Oh yeah, my head gasket hasn't sealed up. I reached under the extractors and came away with red paste on my fingers. Got a torch and it's leaking...d'oh.

Last edited by Benno The Viking on Sun May 20, 2012 8:27 pm, edited 1 time in total.

This one is hidden under the extractors between and under exhaust port 1 and 2, so it's kind of hidden, I'm kinda glad I found it. I have a bit of smoke at startup but I dunno whether it's oil or water...

Yeah, I keep a 5 litre bottle in the boot justincase, I used to keep another one but one time we got drunk out in the forestry and were dying of thirst - lucky it was tank water, not coolant.

Yeah, my radiator has been pretty good, we flushed it when we got the car and it was pretty clean but it will be peace of mind knowing it's clean again.

Hahaha, I used to boycott channel 7 as they had s**t shows on, but they seem to have improved a bit lately. Dad usually doesn't worry about trivial stuff like that but this just seemed to have rubbed him up the wrong way.

Another poor C*** mod update. I wired in my front indicators as the left on is very slightly out of place due to the front of my car being slightly out of line. So slightly that you only notice it when you put new headlights and inductors in. The reason I wired it up is because the screw that holds them in has only about half the head touching the plastic so it's not a very positive retaining device. Plus I bombed the falc out of the shed the other day and the bumper scraped, and when I got to town I saw my left indicator flapping in the breeze, held on only by the wire.

things may be holding you back, ie the condition of the motor, and track conditions. The course ashphalt of a normal road *may* have more rolling resistance than the drag strip. By the sounds of it the head troubles would be costing you power, and the condition of the auto plays a part. You can have a gazillion horsepower (no really, you can!) but if its getting lost in the auto, or some other place, it wont manifest itself on the strip.

Diff gears would light up your life. The difference the 3.89's made to the AU when it was an auto was profound. 1st gear travelled to about 70 ish, and second was bang on 100 kph. Perfect for 0-100 in my book . Now with the t5, second winds out to 75-80 lol. its bloody short...

That's right, I did this on a kinda lumpy, s**t road but I think there's more to it than that. I think my motor is just worn out. As far as I know it's the original and it's done 287000kms, plus the auto box isn't the greatest. I'll try again a few times with better gear shifts.

I did 0-100 yesterday on a spur of the moment thing, it was the last bit of b**ch before the dirt road home. Regular petrol, a bit of junk in the trunk (30kgs etc) plus my giant carcass (110kgs) and econ off - 8.4 seconds as far as I can tell. The trouble was that the last 40-50 metres (I'm s**t at estimating distances) was slightly uphill. I'll try it again with premium, everything out of the car, on a flat, straight bit of road.

What keeps me from being discouraged is that on the way to the bay from me, there's a section where it goes 60-100 in a very short space. Me and my mates tried to always get from 60 -100 before the 100 sign, and I could only get like 92 before my mods, my mates EL wagon was slightly slower, my other mates SV6 can get to 110, and my mates dad's CB1300 got to 120 or 130, I can't remember. The 60-100 was always bad because I'd wind out first gear, then it'd f@rt around trying shifting to second. Now with my mods I can either do it in first then second, or just let it pull completely in second and I can still make it.

Anyway, long winded paragraph but i'm trying to justify it to myself too haha. A bloke up in Bundaberg from this website that I bought my cam and intake off of has an EL motor that's been rebuilt (minus the head) for 250 dollars IIRC, so I might pick that up and chuck it into mine.