VY One Tonner

Post Your Delco Powered Ride Here
brindo
Posts: 199
Joined: Mon Jun 29, 2009 9:43 am
Location: Western Queensland

Re: VY One Tonner

Post by brindo »

So then the VS ute (which had everything factory fitted that I tried to fit to the WB)
Searched long and hard for a low mileage VS and ended up buying a Series 3 for the right price. Same again, hardly any photos of it. Most of the ones I have generally have the kids involved. It was a Getrag manual and HSV optioned with the 195 so had the small cam in it from factory.
IMG_3475_LI.jpg
First up did the usual AU fan mod and fitted Pacemaker headers and a dual 2.5” twin cat twin muffler exhaust with a single 3” resonator at the back. Fitted a set of Stack gauges using a Statesman radio surround. The exchange rate was a lot better when I bought them though. Found these to be very accurate. Only managed a best of 9.90 over the 1/8 mile.
DSCN1543.JPG
Then bought one of the first Yella Terra Whipple kits for it. Just installed the roller rockers that were removed from the WB. MAF and injectors are the same as what are on the VY at the moment only with a stock LS1 throttle body. Made up the intake pipe from the throttle body to the air box just from exhaust tubing – in hindsight probably not the best – and had enlarged the opening on the air box lid. Had it dyno tuned - the tuner put the MAT in the manifold - and it allegedly made 350 hp at the tyres. Later got the NVRAM and tuned it myself. Very concerning to see what little was changed when it was dyno tuned - only thing changed in the tune was the base injector rate. Fuel table and ignition map were unchanged. Thermo fans still set to 104 degs. But I messed with it and it ended up being really easy to drive and was good on fuel on the highway.
20130712_085505.jpg
It had all the wiring for cruise control so this was one of the first (and easiest) mods I did – and installed this with a 2nd switch on the clutch. But with the supercharger, it was too sensitive with the larger throttle body/blower, even in 5th gear. I have since lengthened the arm on the VY to reduce the gain.
I got a set of 15” pursuit rims for the old slicks from the WB, then the clutch became a problem. Could only manage an 8.60 over the 1/8 mile and could pretty much guarantee I did not win this
IMG_2600_1.JPG
Ran like this for a few years. Kids loved it and were disappointed to see it go. Wife not so much as she had the misfortune of driving it to work while I was off shift and hates manual gearboxes. And loud exhausts. Anyway, it was a good car but not the best ute. They are not really made for putting anything big or heavy in the tray. So the blower was removed and the ute made way for the One Tonner.
brindo
Posts: 199
Joined: Mon Jun 29, 2009 9:43 am
Location: Western Queensland

Re: VY One Tonner

Post by brindo »

Quite some time ago on the one tonner, I had installed a simple spin on filter housing in the transmission cooler lines. It just sits in front of the radiator and is connected up using PushLok hoses and fittings. The housing itself is just a cheap 3/4-16 style housing to suit a Z9 filter, and I use a WIX51348 for no other reason than its smaller than a Z9 as room in there is tight. From memory, I think the filter housing was cheaper than the filter itself and the hoses and fittings were the dearest part. It’s been running like this for a while now.

Anyway recently changed the transmission oil, with around 40000km on the oil and here is a photo of the pan. Which doesn't look too bad really. For comparison, the other photo is of another 4l60E that I dropped the oil in the other day, which by my best guess had only done 18000km since its last oil change with just shy of 200000kms on the vehicle. So less kms, and it’s behind a stock 5.0 engine.
So I‘m not going to pretend that there isn’t any wear material in the oil still, or that my transmission is in good condition and doesn’t slip. And fitting a filter isn’t a magical cure either to doubling its life expectancy. But it was an easy and cheap mod and removing those wear particles can’t hurt.
One Tonner.jpg
VT.JPG
User avatar
The1
Posts: 4694
Joined: Mon Jan 04, 2010 10:23 am

Re: VY One Tonner

Post by The1 »

looks great mate it's catching all that clutch material. The main concern id have is with oil flow, the 4L60e sucks quite the volume so you'd have to keep an eye on that, you can fit a pressure sensor in the bung hole on the left side of the tranny where the gear selector is.
brindo
Posts: 199
Joined: Mon Jun 29, 2009 9:43 am
Location: Western Queensland

Re: VY One Tonner

Post by brindo »

Had a bit of a failure that I thought I would share.
The transmission started playing up, not changing and holding gears, and when it did decide to change, it was very harsh. Was thinking the worst as this gearbox has around 300000kms on it. But turned out it was just the TPS sensor that had failed. This is possibly not uncommon but it definitely caught me out. Managed to get a replacement Delphi unit and all good again for now. Thinking I still need to start saving up for a reco transmission though as it’s done well to last this long.

I was also running a 2nd hand 90mm throttle body from ebay, so took the opportunity to throw a stock LS1 throttle body back on it. I originally had this stock TB on this blower when it was fitted to the VS ute and it was trouble free. This 90mm TB hasn’t really played up, but it does seem to get sticky from a bit of carbon build up – clean it and it travels freely again – but it has done this a few times now. I also found that say at 1/3 to 2/3 throttle opening, the engine was quite strong. But then the last 1/3 opening isn’t nearly as impressive, which I guess is typical of any butterfly valve. There’s also a lot less timing at the top too, but it could also be that 90mm is just too big for a little 5.0 litre.

So now with the smaller throttle body on, the performance seems to be a lot more linear, and it still makes the same 9 psi at WOT. The throttle spring is slightly stiffer, but overall I don’t think it’s a backwards step. The added benefit is the cruise control also operates more smoothly. I had increased the linkage length in an attempt to reduce the gain, which seemed to work, but now with the smaller throttle blade is better again. Previously it had areas where it would hunt slightly.
I’m also hoping (in vain possibly) that maybe there is a little bit of vacuum left at WOT between the blower and the throttle so the PCV might have a chance of contributing. I do have a Ryco catch can fitted, which I can’t say I’m overly impressed with. Took a lot of modification to get it to actually work. But this is all it has trapped after 10000kms and I know there would be way more than that. I have never measured the crankcase vacuum at anything other than idle, but it still nicely on 0.5” water there.
20220304_093329.jpg
brindo
Posts: 199
Joined: Mon Jun 29, 2009 9:43 am
Location: Western Queensland

Re: VY One Tonner

Post by brindo »

OK so had a bit of a set back with the one tonner.
So a few weeks ago, noticed an unusual noise coming from the LH side of the car. Sounded like fluid rushing through a pipe. It started quite suddenly too which is weird, but thought it might be a wheel bearing again.
But last weekend lifted the bonnet and started the engine, and the blower was making an expensive noise. As I needed it to get to work still, (and it’s too cold for the motor bike) I just dropped off the belt, and drove it with the supercharger uncoupled for the week. I needed some oil so ordered that and took a chance getting in a new coupling and snout bearings in the hope it was going to be that easy. I was wrong.

Anyway, pictures tell the story.
Sucked the oil out with a syringe and pulled the snout only to find that the bearings and coupling are both fine.
So dropped the supercharger off and disassembled it. Rear bearings are toast. Clearly the water injection would have been the biggest culprit here, but I did ask Whipple if it was ok to have the water injection set up on the intake side before I got it running. It’s odd too as the water injection pump failed over a year ago. I put a new pump on in December last year but haven’t really bothered to run it since. On the flip side, you can’t expect too much from smaller bearings like that, and this blower has done well over 100000km so its not a bad effort really.
IMG_1715.JPG
Anyway I recon I’m lucky I got to it when I did before the bearings started spinning in the housing or the rotor shafts got damaged. Being the weekend haven’t sourced any parts yet, but hoping to do that on Monday. Intake end are a 6203DDG1 with a special seal that sits in front of it, and the discharge end is a 5203C3, again with a special seal. I never pulled one of these apart before so it’s a learning exercise. Can’t say I’ve actually put one back together yet either. Easy enough to pull apart but the intake end bearings took a lot of effort with the slide hammer. Only other drama was trying to scrape out all the Loctite under the discharge end seals as they use heaps of it.

But have put it all in the sonocleaner and got it ready for when I do get some parts here. Male rotor still has a bit of baked on carbon, but will give them another quick run in the sonoclean once I get some parts.
IMG_1725.JPG
User avatar
The1
Posts: 4694
Joined: Mon Jan 04, 2010 10:23 am

Re: VY One Tonner

Post by The1 »

bad luck mate, will be like new once rebuilt, weird that one rotor is coated and other isn't
VTXU8
Posts: 93
Joined: Sun Dec 17, 2017 9:12 pm

Re: VY One Tonner

Post by VTXU8 »

Nice neat ute. Not something you see everyday or expect. A VY with a supercharged 5L! Good job :thumbup:
hot308vb
Posts: 77
Joined: Fri Jul 02, 2010 8:53 pm
cars: Vt v6 Berlina daily driver
vs clubsport high comp solid cammed 355 brass buttoned t56 6 speed 4.11 diff
Location: Seymour, Vic

Re: VY One Tonner

Post by hot308vb »

DAMN! i Love the blown 5L in the tonner! well done mate!
brindo
Posts: 199
Joined: Mon Jun 29, 2009 9:43 am
Location: Western Queensland

Re: VY One Tonner

Post by brindo »

I have always seemed to go through more than my fair share of universal joints in this one tonner. But even when the same engine and trans was in the VT wagon, it was still hard on unis and I never bothered to work out why. From memory when I bought it just had the front uni replaced as part of the roadworthy and that was at 64000 kms from new. I last replaced the front uni about 50000kms ago in 2018 and the front uni again has developed a bit of play. I do have the gears shifting a little too hard at times, and I have a Corvette servo installed, but am contemplating swapping the front uni out to a donut for less hassle. I figure Holden must have moved away from unis for a reason. Not that you hear many good stories about the donuts either.

Another thing that was bothering me was how loud the exhaust was – and I bought what was marketed as the quiet system. There was a decent seat of the pants power improvement over the single 3” I originally had and the first to second gear change had a lot more wheel slip. But it was too loud with no decent note to it. I could tolerate it being too loud if it sounded half decent but it did not. It was just noise. And about a year after I installed this exhaust it became very raspy at certain rpms. The centre muffler was also rattling inside so I suspected a baffle may have come loose. Unfortunately this muffler is a custom made dual inlet dual outlet and there is nothing off the shelf that will fit. And space is tight so 2 x centre/centre or offset mufflers wouldn’t fit easily. So plan was to swap out the centre muffler and replace it with either 2 hot dogs or 2 round resonators.

Anyway I had a wife free/kids sport free weekend so I thought what better time to throw it on the ramps. For now have just replaced the front uni with another standard unit. But dropped the exhaust and spent many hours cutting off the old centre muffler. This is what is left of it.
Muffler.PNG
It is, or was, full stainless, but there are no baffles, so I know not what was rattling. Bit late to care now. And I thought there may have been some glass packing in it but there wasn’t. Just some tar like heat insulation on the side that runs closest the tail shaft. But ultimately is was just 2 perforated tubes in a hollow muffler housing. Anyway spent some solid hours cutting off that old muffler and have welded in these. They are a 12” long 5” round chambered resonator.
Manta Exhaust.PNG
I had to shorten the whole thing by a 5” or more after this photo as these new resonators are twice as long as what was in there. But end result is it while it is still too loud for my liking, it is definitely quieter on the outside and quieter in the cab. And the mild drone is gone. But it does have something getting closer to an exhaust note. It’s by no means “Larry Perkins VL Group A at Bathurst exhaust sound” but a step in the right direction. Could of have lost a few hp over the original ornamental muffler but at this stage I’m thinking the trade-off was worth it.

And glad it’s done. Working underneath a car on ramps was easy when I was younger, not so much now.
brindo
Posts: 199
Joined: Mon Jun 29, 2009 9:43 am
Location: Western Queensland

Re: VY One Tonner

Post by brindo »

Also last month I replaced the injectors. I was running EV1 42lb Ford Motorsport green tops, and there was nothing particularly wrong with them, but was looking to make better use of the EOI settings and hopefully see some improvements from the better spray pattern. So I bought some 55lb EV14 Bosch 0280 158 279. They are just slightly shorter than the EV1 and have a different plug requiring an adaptor. But they don’t have the slot for the retaining clip which I was a bit hesitant at first. But I was assured the retaining clip is only there for installation of the rails and injectors at the factory. I had spaced my fuel rail mounts up with a couple of washers to suit the length of the EV1 injectors so removing these washers dropped the rails down to the right height so that these new injectors are retained securely - am pretty confident they are not falling out, and haven’t had any leaks yet. And I have got away without using any height adaptors on the fuel side.
Injectors.PNG
Injectors.PNG (1.18 MiB) Viewed 3295 times
So far, the only real change to the tune has been to drop the base injector rate and enter some voltage offsets that I made up myself – who knows they are probably wrong. Obviously no extra power but there is a massive improvement in how smooth the engine runs and feels. It’s not like there was anything wrong with the old green tops, but it’s like chalk and cheese as to how much better it is now. At normal speeds around town it just feels better. Factory EOI is 485 deg throughout the whole table and I currently have it set to 600 degs which is maximum. At idle/no load the IAC seems to be at its lowest value at 600 deg, so that that is where I have left it. Going all the way around to 0 degrees (or 720 deg) and IAC steps increase. But hopefully when I get a chance will start to mess around with the EOI settings at some highway speeds and see if anything improves.
Post Reply