Looking goood!

Well it’s been a while but this build is still progressing.

Unfortunately COVID got in the way for a while, as did some other projects.

A few things have changed since the last update, I am now going for a Green Top Barra - that’s the biggest change.

I made a bunch of progress the other night, with the help of a few other people.
Using bbqburner's guide we got the new K Frame positioned and test fitted, as well as the suspension test fitted to make sure all the clearances are correct and everything is looking good.

We are not using the rear hole like bbqburner did (I didn’t want to drill through the horizontal crush tube, instead we used to forward hole which means the two new vertical crush tubes will just miss the existing horizontal ones.

It dose move the engine forward slightly but after measuring where my radiator and the front of the Barra will both sit we are pretty confident that the few mm further forward wont cause any clearance issues. The added bonus is that it will also give us slightly more tunnel clearance, we haven’t worked out yet if we will need to cut the tunnel that’s a job for when we start test fitting the box.

Now some Photos:

Well with the help of some friends I now have the Engine, Gearbox, Front Suspension & Brakes installed. For those local to South Australia - The rear diff is with NeatGearboxs so as soon as I get that back it will be a rolling car again.

Fitting the AU K Frame was not as difficult as I had first thought thanks to the thread by bbqburner the-garage-f53/bbqburners-daily-turned-toy-d-t93182.html
However, I moved mine forward by one hole so that I missed both crush tubes and also gained enough space on the rear firewall that I can get to the last plug more easily, something another person competing in a Barra Swapped ED warned me about.

The downside to that is I will have to run a front mount push fan rather than rear EF style puller fans.

I upgraded the engine mounts to TuffMounts and TuffMounts came to the party with a fully Custom ED to TR-6060 gear box mount that just bolts straight up to both the factory chassis and factory gear box locations. Photos of that once the clutch is in.

I also ordered the Custom Allow Weldings Billet ITB Kit, as I need to replace the intake system anyway as part of converting the Greentop to E85 so I might as well go ITBs at the same time (My category will not allow turbos) I am really looking forward to hearing the ITBs for the first time.

So over the Christmas Holidays I have some more movement on the Diff and Engine

I sent the Diff out to Neat Gearbox's to get the LSD and New Ratios Fitted (I wasn't willing to do that job myself) They were great and got it back to me just before they closed up for the year.

Unfortunately I had some fitment issues with the rear end and was unable to run the AU Calipers on the rear so switch back to EF Rear Calipers and Disks.

The Rebuilt Diff has the Truetrac Torque Lock LSD Center with Dana 3.73:1
The internals were fully Peen & Polished and it got all new seals, and bearings bushes ect.

I will be replacing the factory Trailing arms with PolyPro tube ones, which have also arrived but I am waiting on the Nola-thane Bushes as they came with rubber which I am replacing.

I also picked up my ECU which is a Link G4X XtremeX ECU and have started pulling the engine apart ready for the new Cams, Intake & Exaughst Manifolds

Unfortunately one of the exhaust bolts broke off in the head, so that now needs to be removed before I put the exhaust manifold back, I am going to try welding a new nut on rather than drilling it out because I am hoping to avoid having to helicoil it.

The boot lid is back getting resprayed again after it accidentally got white over spray on it, so hopefully in the next few weeks the boot will be able to go on and I can finish the wiring in the boot.

I also got a set of the TRL Industries 3D Printed XR6 Headlight Frames so that I can run the XR6 lights.