VN Wagon Ecotec Manual

[DanWA]

Finally got onto this site! Been a journey, having a mate put me onto an ebay link which turned out to be The1 which lead me to JustCommodores and finally got account activated and on to here! Anyway enough of the boring details.

I just picked this car up (very cheap) for a daily as the Hyundai was just not cutting it anymore.

The young kid i got it off had lots of time up his sleeve and actually did pretty well on it, sadly the engine died and he has moved on to later commodores. He also gave me a VT ecotec with it on 191,000km.

Will most likely need to start a few other threads with some minor details i need answering (i've already trawled the search function)

Details:
1989 Series 1 VN Wagon
Factory T5 Manual
Ecotec swap using VN ECU and modded loom

Plans:
Get other engine in
Extractors
New cat-back
ALDL/NVRAM Setup
Memcal from The1

Ideally it needs to be a comfortable daily with working aircon and heater. I live in Country W.A and summers are hot/dry and winters are freezing.

All the pics are from when i got it last weekend, have since fitted XU6 rims off a L67 Greg Norman i just sold as it was easier than lugging the pursuit rims and acclaim caps from the shed at the time

[vlad01]

looks pretty clean.

As for the aircon which see you already have the correct compressor? which should be a VS ecotec AC compressor. it will work with the rest of the system just fine.


I think the only other consideration which an aircon guy should know anyway is the orifice tube in the firewall hose fitting should be changed to suit R143a gas. The old R12 gas is illegal as its CFC, some people still sneak a regas with it though.

[DanWA]

Yeah surprisingly for a young bloke he really looked after it body wise, its even been around the clock 4 buicks and 1 ecotec later. Sitting on 000046km at the moment.

The aircon compressor currently on the ecotec is the original VN one of which he said was nice and cold until he degassed it to fit the Ecotec engine.

He had wrecked a VS Statesman at some stage to and all the power window regs and central locking is in the back, that will be fun days!

[DanWA]

Picked up VS Pacemaker Extractors, Y-Pipe and high-flow cat for $100 on weekend, also a non-raped VS Ecotec Loom.

The Extractors were off a L67 so have o2 bung in both sides but only had one o2? lol. Will just use the one o2 that came with them on the drivers side as a bung with the wire snipped and a brand new o2 on the other side.

Getting close to dropping it all back in. Main thing holding it back is the pinout differences

[vlad01]

pinout between car main loom and engine loom?

[DanWA]

Yer VN S1 main loom to VS Ecotec engine loom

[vlad01]

I hope this helps, yours will just be the reverse of mine. VR and VS loom interface is the same.

http://pcmhacking.net/forums/viewtopic. ... 4&start=10

[The1]

Picked up VS Pacemaker Extractors, Y-Pipe and high-flow cat for $100 on weekend, also a non-raped VS Ecotec Loom.

The Extractors were off a L67 so have o2 bung in both sides but only had one o2? lol. Will just use the one o2 that came with them on the drivers side as a bung with the wire snipped and a brand new o2 on the other side.

Getting close to dropping it all back in. Main thing holding it back is the pinout differences

You can disable the passenger side o2 in the tune if you just want to run 1.

[DanWA]

I thought N/A V6's only ran 1 o2 anyway? i could only see 1 o2 plug in the VS loom unless i didn't look close enough

[Holden202T]

ecotecs were the first to run twin o2's as far as i am aware.

v8's im not sure on them but i suspect VT 304 was the first as its the first sequential V8.