VY One Tonner
Posted: Wed Apr 01, 2020 10:34 pm
Thought I’d post up my One Tonner. So no it’s not a V6 or an LS1 making thousands of killerwasps so go easy on me.
This is it, freshly washed by the kids on the Zoysia. Long story short. I had a VT 5.0 station wagon, which was immaculate when I bought it, but wife/children took their toll on it (along with the Warrego Hwy). And all wives want a diesel 7 seat Korean SUV so it had to go. And I also had a VS Series 3 ute that I fitted one of the first Yella Terra Whipple kits to. That ute went OK and it was a pretty good car, but not so good as a ute. After a bit of research, I purchased a fairly rough but sound VY One Tonner and removed the blower kit off the VS ute and returned it back to standard. The blower was then fitted to the VT station wagon engine, and it along with the transmission and k-frame were later installed into the One Tonner. PCM is the original one from the VT and the wiring harness was modded by Ultimate Conversion Wiring. The conversion is Mod plated and thanks to a lot of help from members on this forum, it has been running for quite a few years now.
Its way better as a ute compared to the old VS, but obviously nowhere near as comfortable and in cabin noise is louder. Naturally it doesn’t handle as well either but at least I can put a decent load in the tray. It is more or less a daily driver and my wife drives it to work when I am not on shift, but I won’t say she loves driving it compared to a 7 seat Korean SUV. My kids on the other hand love it and it does its fair share of highway work ferrying them to sporting events etc. Its sedate enough for them to drive around in too.
Fitted a SS front bumper, which recently got replaced again after hitting a roo. Swapped out the original alloy tray as it was way too long. Looks much better and found a small increase in fuel economy with the new headboard too. And fitted a set of $200 Gumtree SSZ wheels complete with gutter rash.
Originally got it up and running with a Sureflow single 3” exhaust, but have recently replaced it with a Manta “Quiet” system. Quiet could not be any further from the truth and it is now way too loud (or perhaps I am too old).
The motor has never had the heads off touch wood. Engine wise only mods are roller rockers, a set of valve springs and a reground cam 218 degrees duration and 0.516”/0.511” lift with 115 lobe sep – not quite what I wanted but that’s what it ended up as. Degreeing it in was a nightmare. Still has the factory spider plate and roller lifters so waiting for these to fail. Fingers crossed it sees me out till I rebuild the engine. MAF is from a VZ and the MAT is in the intake after the blower. Throttle body is a 2nd hand 90mm LS1 eBay special. Transmission just has the Corvette servo and an external spin-on filter and cooler. Still running the factory air box and paper element. If you run a pod on these everyone knows it’s supercharged. They sound good for a while, but you get over it. Generally sees a max of 9 psi boost, 10 psi on a freezing cold day.
Managed to fit 4 additional gauges in the cabin. They are Speedhut brand and matched as close as I could to the normal cluster. They look good and having the wideband and manifold pressure together is pretty handy for understanding what the engine is doing, but the temp gauge is effectively an ornament as it is affected badly by battery voltage.
It’s never been down the 1/8 mile and I’m not going to pretend it’s particularly powerful or quick, but it goes OK and has enough power to be a problem. Fuel consumption is woeful though.
I have found the intake air temps on these engines never gets below jacket water temp and the oil splashing on the underside of the manifold doesn’t help either. I am not running an intercooler and MAT used to be around the 98 degrees at highway speeds, sometimes more around town. So have got water injection hooked up and running. How beneficial it is remains to be seen, but the intake temps can be brought down below 70 degs or lower on the highway – can get down to below 60 degs but just depends on how much water is injected. The tank underneath the tray only holds 12 litres or so. I am using the usual Shurflo pump but with an Aquamist High Speed valve which is controlled by the purge solenoid circuit. For the water nozzle I have a single Bete stainless steel Microwhirl nozzle downstream of the throttle body. The water spray is more of a mist or fog. When its running, the blower intake is cool to touch on an otherwise hot engine.
For interest, I tried a few catch can configurations on it. I have tried spin-on filter crankcase filter from a Perkins diesel engine, and it was useless. Replaced this with a Dominik Hunter air compressor line filter. This worked well, and caught its fair share of oil, but let some past as well. Recently fitted a Ryco RCC350. Am yet to see how it goes.
Other than the tacho not working, the only real problem with the conversion is the air conditioner which runs the whole time regardless of the AC button position or whether the blower fan is on. Thinking it’s to do with the BCM as flicking the BCM-Be-Gone switch cuts the compressor. Am yet to sort this one out and more than happy for some input to help sort it out.
This is it, freshly washed by the kids on the Zoysia. Long story short. I had a VT 5.0 station wagon, which was immaculate when I bought it, but wife/children took their toll on it (along with the Warrego Hwy). And all wives want a diesel 7 seat Korean SUV so it had to go. And I also had a VS Series 3 ute that I fitted one of the first Yella Terra Whipple kits to. That ute went OK and it was a pretty good car, but not so good as a ute. After a bit of research, I purchased a fairly rough but sound VY One Tonner and removed the blower kit off the VS ute and returned it back to standard. The blower was then fitted to the VT station wagon engine, and it along with the transmission and k-frame were later installed into the One Tonner. PCM is the original one from the VT and the wiring harness was modded by Ultimate Conversion Wiring. The conversion is Mod plated and thanks to a lot of help from members on this forum, it has been running for quite a few years now.
Its way better as a ute compared to the old VS, but obviously nowhere near as comfortable and in cabin noise is louder. Naturally it doesn’t handle as well either but at least I can put a decent load in the tray. It is more or less a daily driver and my wife drives it to work when I am not on shift, but I won’t say she loves driving it compared to a 7 seat Korean SUV. My kids on the other hand love it and it does its fair share of highway work ferrying them to sporting events etc. Its sedate enough for them to drive around in too.
Fitted a SS front bumper, which recently got replaced again after hitting a roo. Swapped out the original alloy tray as it was way too long. Looks much better and found a small increase in fuel economy with the new headboard too. And fitted a set of $200 Gumtree SSZ wheels complete with gutter rash.
Originally got it up and running with a Sureflow single 3” exhaust, but have recently replaced it with a Manta “Quiet” system. Quiet could not be any further from the truth and it is now way too loud (or perhaps I am too old).
The motor has never had the heads off touch wood. Engine wise only mods are roller rockers, a set of valve springs and a reground cam 218 degrees duration and 0.516”/0.511” lift with 115 lobe sep – not quite what I wanted but that’s what it ended up as. Degreeing it in was a nightmare. Still has the factory spider plate and roller lifters so waiting for these to fail. Fingers crossed it sees me out till I rebuild the engine. MAF is from a VZ and the MAT is in the intake after the blower. Throttle body is a 2nd hand 90mm LS1 eBay special. Transmission just has the Corvette servo and an external spin-on filter and cooler. Still running the factory air box and paper element. If you run a pod on these everyone knows it’s supercharged. They sound good for a while, but you get over it. Generally sees a max of 9 psi boost, 10 psi on a freezing cold day.
Managed to fit 4 additional gauges in the cabin. They are Speedhut brand and matched as close as I could to the normal cluster. They look good and having the wideband and manifold pressure together is pretty handy for understanding what the engine is doing, but the temp gauge is effectively an ornament as it is affected badly by battery voltage.
It’s never been down the 1/8 mile and I’m not going to pretend it’s particularly powerful or quick, but it goes OK and has enough power to be a problem. Fuel consumption is woeful though.
I have found the intake air temps on these engines never gets below jacket water temp and the oil splashing on the underside of the manifold doesn’t help either. I am not running an intercooler and MAT used to be around the 98 degrees at highway speeds, sometimes more around town. So have got water injection hooked up and running. How beneficial it is remains to be seen, but the intake temps can be brought down below 70 degs or lower on the highway – can get down to below 60 degs but just depends on how much water is injected. The tank underneath the tray only holds 12 litres or so. I am using the usual Shurflo pump but with an Aquamist High Speed valve which is controlled by the purge solenoid circuit. For the water nozzle I have a single Bete stainless steel Microwhirl nozzle downstream of the throttle body. The water spray is more of a mist or fog. When its running, the blower intake is cool to touch on an otherwise hot engine.
For interest, I tried a few catch can configurations on it. I have tried spin-on filter crankcase filter from a Perkins diesel engine, and it was useless. Replaced this with a Dominik Hunter air compressor line filter. This worked well, and caught its fair share of oil, but let some past as well. Recently fitted a Ryco RCC350. Am yet to see how it goes.
Other than the tacho not working, the only real problem with the conversion is the air conditioner which runs the whole time regardless of the AC button position or whether the blower fan is on. Thinking it’s to do with the BCM as flicking the BCM-Be-Gone switch cuts the compressor. Am yet to sort this one out and more than happy for some input to help sort it out.