Mystery package

Right in the middle of an economic maelstrom the package below has arrived. Its at Mr Monkfish's establishment waiting a final check over prior to installation.


Spec is a Race Engine Developments Darton dry sleeved LS2 block with Callies and Mahle rotating assembly. Top end is OEM GM LS7, so nothing too exotic. Goal is reliable power with a wide torque curve and daily drivability naturally aspirated.

Replacement engine.

Well with the stock engine looking a bit feeble, its time to revisit the replacement.
Things seem to be coming along nicely. A 2 piece timing cover will be used to allow quick and easy cam swaps. The idea being that some experimentation can be done to find a good emissions freindly cam with good power.

Hopefully the next post will be of the new engine on these shores, though I have a holiday right at the middle of things!

Dyno day (part 2)

Well, it was off to the dyno last week. Not a bad result, I made over 20rwhp more than the next NA LS2 setup, plus they had exhaust done too! Mine was OTRCAI, 1.8 Rockers and Tune with the stock exhaust. Im pretty sure the stock exhaust isnt a restriction at this stage, though going forward it will be. These numbers are of course RWHP. Flywheel numbers are pointless, so I wont use them :)

Also of note was that the top 2 NA engines were running mafless/speed density tunes and came out a good 10bhp more than the next in line. Im not sure why this is too many variables. However suffice to say SD tuning is certainly not going to lose you power and is my preferred method due to its ability to use highly optimised cold air intakes.
To be honest, other than taking timing OUT and messing with commanded fueling a little, not much has been done to the tune. The rockers and CAI required some extra air to be placed into the E38 factors and constants via the "virtual ve" table of efilive, thats where most of the extra power came from. I think had I messed around with WOT PE and Timing values on the dyno I might have picked a little more up, but it feels pretty good as is.

I did get some knock still possibly accounting for the little dip in torque around 2500rpm. This is normally a small peak much like the one at 5000rpm.

Next stop will be the replacement "LS2" darton engine.

Roller rockers.. the return

A previous attempt at installing these rockers ended with the engine running totally crap. I fathomed that as I hadnt installed the shims the valves were being held off their seats. This is dispite me trying to check preload. I noted that other guys had installed with shims, so a few weeks later I tried again, this time with the shims.


I was lazy today and didnt take a picture, this is another earlier model holden with the same Yella Terra 1.8:1 rockers. I left the stock springs in for now as the stock cam will remain and stock RPM limit.
I had the rockers left over from a previous transaction so as they say "waste not, want not".

In pulling off the plug leads one disintegrated, not good. I tried to get another from the local Vauxhall dealer but "Is that the 2L turbo" response to my request for a VXR8 plug lead wasnt promising.. it didnt get any better, so I tripped off to Halfords and bought an 8mm Coil Lead and reconnected the old connections to it. It seems to work fine, so hopefully that will hold until I get a proper replacement.

Anyway after reading some other posts on the installation, like this one (where the pic above comes from) http://www.ls1.com.au/forum/showthread.php?t=83194 I suspected I might need to relieve the rocker cover. A fireup to check clearances validated this as there was a bit of knocking going on under the covers.

Basically there is a baffle underneath the covers which is rivetted on, some of these pins/rivets are too long and catch the rockers. They need grinding down flatter. I used a dremel.
In addition a couple of the coil pack bolt bosses were being nicked by the rocker tips. Again some dremel action on the bosses sorted that out.

So finally with no knocking and things all quiet again I went for a drive, all was well and it seemed that there was a little more power. But I will log airflow and fueling and see if that is the case or not.

Also as a side note an owner with a supercharged vxr8 posted 440fwhp, or 385rwhp. (ie) Hardly anything gained, 25bhp! total rubbish. Cam only would beat that easy! I dont think any UK tuner does a proper supercharged setup, Ill attend the next dyno day and see what else turns up :)

Bolt on mod number 1 for the VE HSV

Well here is the results of what started off as a minor mod.
I ended up having to take the whole front off. Also a small piece of radiator surrounded needed to be sawn off as the VE has a solid little "roll" cage around the E38 EU which is located under the fusebox on the left in the picture below. This got in the way.

Ive also made note of where you need to remove bolts and clips to get the front off. The main bits are at the outer edges, you can only get to them by removing the black clips inside the front of the guards. You then use a straight handled 10mm socket to unscrew them from underneath. The long part under the headlights, just pulls forward and unclips. With 2 bolts and 2 more clips located in the middle top of the bumper by the bonnet catch.

Actually I pulled the bonnet catch apart too because I thought Id broken it. I think it just needed to be moved up a little. It worked fine.

Anyway, I got the Russo OTRCAI installed. Im missing the 2 wire IAT sensor, so just temporarily cabletied the old MAF into the inner guard and ran 2 wires to the IAT circuit on it. Hopefully the IAT sensor from Chris at Russo arrives before too long and I can get it sitting in the intake, just in front of the throttle body.

I cant say Ive noticed more power, I think the old one was pretty good anyway. The idea is colder air rather than more air. I was logging 99kpa at WOT with the old intake so I dont think it was too restrictive. Mind you the heads and cam are stock so they probably didnt want much more than that either.

Im working on a difilippo exhaust, which hopefully will be on its way very soon. Though I have a short throw shifter waiting for me to fit, so that will probably be next.

A stroker is also on the way.. Which if you had read all my previous posts, you would know that that event was a near certainty.

A bit later on...

Well its done, I now own build number 1 of the HSV VXR8 UK spec R8 Clubsport.
Im glad I had the first off the production line, though I didnt find out until I was checking things out in more detail after the purchase.

Interestingly it seems to have been the press hack and the gearbox was very sad, noisy, loose and hard to shift into some gears. Anyway a few visits to Picadors near Southampton and a new gearbox was fitted. Its Nickel silver the same as below.

As was suggested below the plan is for more power, but in an efficient manner. Given superchargers can eat 150bhp just through mechanical losses due to the pump, let alone increased intake temps etc I decided to stay Naturally Aspirated. The BSFC (fuel used per bhp) is around 30% more than a naturally aspirated engine. Sure total output is increased, but you sure pay for it.

Therefore I have started collecting the required components. Of course efilive will work fine and Ive sucked out the tune and done some logging and minor bits and pieces. But its basically the stock tune at present. Which actually works quite well. Id suggest guys with earlier LS2 maps check out the spark timing for the E Series R8 as it seems pretty good to me, roughly around 2* additional timing across the range.

Anyway the list of mods will be something like this;

• GMM Rip Shifter (In hand)
• Russo OTRCAI (In hand)
• DiFilippo 1-7/8 into dual 3" stainless exhaust + 700cfm cats (In progress)
• Darton 427 Sleeved LS2 block with LS7 top end (In progress)
• LS7 Clutch, or possibly twin disk Ram clutch or equiv (Still researching)

Expected output will be around 650fwhp or say 520rwhp.. but who knows as yet.

Pics of the Russo being fitted will probably be next up.