La Grange

[justin_d]

Ok false start before!

Back on the forum after a 9 year hiatus. I sold my VU SS to a mate who decided to put the biggest cam he could in it (I suggested something like macca's which was small). I bought Tuffie's WK Grange and have had it ever since.

Came into some hard times mentally and the tyranny decided it liked being in pieces instead of working so it sat idle for a year. Anyway, I've decided to rebuild the tyranny, stroke it and put a cam in it. The thing was built like a tank by Tuffie with a 1900 blower, ported heads, ARP bolts, a billet tail shaft, etc. so it should be able to handle the torque.

Will probably put a cam in with something like a 220/236 (lift tbd but probably .6 and .59) with 113.5 LSA +2. Will have 1 degree of overlap, should be really good down low and with the stroker I should be able to still use stock stall converter. It will lose a touch of boost with the overlap but I want a bit of chop and it's a daily so I won't be ringing its neck.

Here's a video from years ago of it. Hopefully get it back in 2 weeks or so once the stroker kit has been balanced and cam ground (pending flow bench results).

[whitels1ss]

Looks & sounds great Justin.

Gotta love the Harrop blowers.

[whitels1ss]

Hey Justin, you should get a Harrop Re-Wrap Idler Pulley kit for it while it is all apart.
They give better belt wrap & you don't have the belt going over the top radiator hose.

The pulley is wide & can be used with either a 6 or 8 rib belt.


https://www.harrop.com.au/shop/produ...p-idler-pulley

[justin_d]

I'll look into it. The SC was just serviced by Harrop and I imagine will still be off for a couple of weeks so should be enough time to get another and not hold the build up.

[whitels1ss]

Harrop generally keep them in stock.
They are not expensive.

[white lie]

Welcome back.

What's the reasoning for keeping the stock stall in all of this? Sounds like everything else has been upgraded. Putting a big converter behind my motor was one of the best things I did, both for quarter mile results and driveability.

[justin_d]

It's always had the stock stall and have enjoyed it. It is a daily and never taken it to the drags. If I did it would be purely for schnitzen giggles (and to be honest I've never even launched it or done a burnout). I live 10 minutes from work and it's freeway driving so don't really want it having a stall in it.

Make sense or totally wrong?

[whitels1ss]

It's always had the stock stall and have enjoyed it. It is a daily and never taken it to the drags. If I did it would be purely for schnitzen giggles (and to be honest I've never even launched it or done a burnout). I live 10 minutes from work and it's freeway driving so don't really want it having a stall in it.

Make sense or totally wrong?

Yeah, makes sense.

I bought a Dominator Eliminator 3,500 rpm lock up stallie for my cammed, 2300 Harrop blown LS1 & it was a pita for daily driving.
It was flashing all the time, used more fuel & I hated the feel of the lock up coming on.

So went back to stock converter & I prefer it.

Mine makes 903nm at 3,200rpm, it idles very well on 700rpm & does not push but I picked a very stealth blower friendly cam when I did it.

2 other of my mates with blowers on their LS1's have found the same thing, I drove their cars both with & without stallies.

IMHO if you have a blower friendly street cam & a good tuner you do not need a big stallie.

[justin_d]

Thanks Ed,

Hence why even with the extra cubes at 383, I am trying to go with a cam that is around 220 for the intake and 236 for the exhaust (should assist the blower). The other thing is I made inquiries with Harrop about using components from the 1900 but upgrading to a 2300. Price was approximately $10k which is a maybe down the line item.

A smaller cam producing power down low and keeping the rpm limit to 6-6.5k to me makes sense as it will keep the piston speed to 4,000-4,333fpm which should be quite durable with the forged internals. The blower won't be running out of too much puff that low in the rev range and will keep it within the cam's power band.

I'd rather go slightly smaller with more durability, manners and slightly fly under the radar than push the relationship with the drivetrain, blower or 5-oh.

I'll also be replacing the head unit and installing an A pillar with gauges so I can monitor the fuel/air and boost (so I can keep a close eye on how they're going). Would prefer the VZ style centre dash bezel but that won't work with the Grange dash.

[whitels1ss]

One of my mates has stroked his to 383 cubes, (with heads,) he runs a VCM 5SC cam, 2,900 Whipple blower & water meth injection & now a stock converter.

He is really happy with it, Luis at APS in Frankston tuned it for him,

Luis is brilliant with these in my opinion.

[whitels1ss]

Thanks Ed,
The other thing is I made inquiries with Harrop about using components from the 1900 but upgrading to a 2300.
Price was approximately $10k which is a maybe down the line item.

I reckon you would be better off just upgrading to a new HTV2300 instead of modifying your's.

You would likely be able to sell your 1900 for around $6-7K to offset the cost.
The 2300 comes with a bigger throttle body than your old 1900 as well
but at the end of the day you should be able to spin up your 1900 a little bit faster to boost at around 12psi (or more) easy if you want
so it might not be worth doing anyway.

Those Eaton TVS rotors do a damn fine job.

[justin_d]

Definitely something to um and ah about with the blower. We're also looking at buying a house and I think there's probably $5k worth of work to go into it. I have $2.5k squirreled away and we need an additional $12k to be able to buy a property at the price range we're looking for whilst holding onto our unit. Think the 2300 is out of the question in the short-term.

Alex from Motor 1 in Dandenong is doing the build. A driller from work had his car done there, it's immaculate and when I dropped into his workshop there were muscle cars everywhere. I figured he must know what he's doing and he won king of the street at Heathcote the other day.

[whitels1ss]

The 1900 will do the job fine, just have to spin it a little bit faster to get the same psi boost.

Sounds like you have bigger priorities.

[justin_d]

Reliability and lower-end power over top end and overall performance (51%-49%). Would rather leave something in the tank than on the limit and not lasting the journey.

Got any other ideas that I might be missing?

[whitels1ss]

Sounds like it is going to be great fun!