4k GT86 Gets a Rocket Bunny Kit & LS3 V8 Swap!
Discussion
Ben Lowden said:
Good luck with it all! Hopefully we can get you along to a PH event next year when it's finished.
Definitely! that would be awesome!Was a bit late to buy a ticket to the C&M PHSS in a couple of weeks but then again i wouldn't have been able to bring my car anyway, as you'll see in the next post
So as mentioned above it's a bit tricky to drive my car currently, and the reason for that is well...
This weekend the engine somewhat fell out.. or atleast I wish it were that easy!
Spent Saturday and Sunday with a bit of help getting all of the body panels off, headlights, radiator, core support & crash structure out, fluids out, Prop/driveshaft & exhaust out and finally the engine & gearbox - quite alot!
I've not seen the car in this state for a few years now!
Generally a very easy engine to pull out, there's a few fuel lines, coolant hoses, heater pipes etc, 2 big connectors for the entire wiring harness and then just alternator/starter wires to pull off and thats it!
A bit of drama getting the centre console out so we could disconnect the gear lever and then we totatlly forgot to take it out anyway once we were done so it anded up tearing up a chunk of the heat insulation on the inside of the tunnel.. ohwell i'll probably tear that out and line it with some fancy gold tape or such in its place.
All in all a good fun couple of days of work on the car!
Kind of left wondering what to do next, I really really want to get the engine bay tidied up and painted but at the same time.. it looks like alot of effort getting it all cleared out with the brake/fuel lines, wiring, fuse box, etc to get to that point, but i do have the whole winter to mull it over really.
Need to start getting a few things sold now like the engine/gearbox and a few extras to get a bit of money together for the next big purchases.
Finally with all the new bits from Sikky arriving we couldn't help but open them up and get the LS dressed up with its fancy new headers. For some reason the view of it from the rear gets me all kinds of excited!
Think it really needs some wrinkle black rocker covers now to finish it off!
This weekend the engine somewhat fell out.. or atleast I wish it were that easy!
Spent Saturday and Sunday with a bit of help getting all of the body panels off, headlights, radiator, core support & crash structure out, fluids out, Prop/driveshaft & exhaust out and finally the engine & gearbox - quite alot!
I've not seen the car in this state for a few years now!
Generally a very easy engine to pull out, there's a few fuel lines, coolant hoses, heater pipes etc, 2 big connectors for the entire wiring harness and then just alternator/starter wires to pull off and thats it!
A bit of drama getting the centre console out so we could disconnect the gear lever and then we totatlly forgot to take it out anyway once we were done so it anded up tearing up a chunk of the heat insulation on the inside of the tunnel.. ohwell i'll probably tear that out and line it with some fancy gold tape or such in its place.
All in all a good fun couple of days of work on the car!
Kind of left wondering what to do next, I really really want to get the engine bay tidied up and painted but at the same time.. it looks like alot of effort getting it all cleared out with the brake/fuel lines, wiring, fuse box, etc to get to that point, but i do have the whole winter to mull it over really.
Need to start getting a few things sold now like the engine/gearbox and a few extras to get a bit of money together for the next big purchases.
Finally with all the new bits from Sikky arriving we couldn't help but open them up and get the LS dressed up with its fancy new headers. For some reason the view of it from the rear gets me all kinds of excited!
Think it really needs some wrinkle black rocker covers now to finish it off!
Edited by Samjeev on Monday 29th November 16:27
Edited by Samjeev on Monday 29th November 17:22
leglessAlex said:
aka_kerrly said:
I sense there maybe a video of the first start up being done with only the headers attached
Hell yes. Atleast because there's no off-the-shelf exhaust solutions so i'll get something custom made, will have to drive the car up on to a trailer to get it to my fabricator buddy
but i'll make sure to get it all on video!Although without an X or Y pipe in the system it'll mostly sound a bit agricultural.. but very loud!
Samjeev said:
leglessAlex said:
aka_kerrly said:
I sense there maybe a video of the first start up being done with only the headers attached
Hell yes. Atleast because there's no off-the-shelf exhaust solutions so i'll get something custom made, will have to drive the car up on to a trailer to get it to my fabricator buddy
but i'll make sure to get it all on video!Although without an X or Y pipe in the system it'll mostly sound a bit agricultural.. but very loud!
This was with mid-length headers on that were very similar length to yours, so possibly quite representative, although of course you'll never get the sheer volume / bass that's there in real life via a phone video 
A big engine bay tidy up is a lot of work, but I certainly know the draw of "while I'm in there", hence why my build escalated so much!
SturdyHSV said:
Au contraire, they're very cultured with open headers This was with mid-length headers on that were very similar length to yours, so possibly quite representative, although of course you'll never get the sheer volume / bass that's there in real life via a phone video
A big engine bay tidy up is a lot of work, but I certainly know the draw of "while I'm in there", hence why my build escalated so much!
That does sound good! the temptation to have pretty much a straight exhaust with the exception of some Cats to keep Mr MOT happy is very strong This was with mid-length headers on that were very similar length to yours, so possibly quite representative, although of course you'll never get the sheer volume / bass that's there in real life via a phone video A big engine bay tidy up is a lot of work, but I certainly know the draw of "while I'm in there", hence why my build escalated so much!
Samjeev said:
That does sound good! the temptation to have pretty much a straight exhaust with the exception of some Cats to keep Mr MOT happy is very strong
It was on basically straight pipes before and it's nowhere near as obnoxious as open headers 
I'd suggest not going full on open headers and really short bit of pipe out the side or something, as the sheer wall of noise kind of volume of open headers doesn't really feel appropriate for the road, it's comically loud. Nothing on the road would be fast enough to back up that level of noise and I think you'd end up feeling a bit silly
It's pretty funny though and has to be done once I suppose! Tiny tiny update and if anything more hoping to fish for people's thoughts on what might be best or what they might do given the circumstances.
Not alot has really happened with the car in the past few months, lets just say.. it's not been a particularly good 2022 so far..
anyway moving on I was finally able to find the motivation to leave the house and with a couple of friends for some added help/morale have cleared out the engine bay, or atleast as much as I feel I feasibly can..
As you can see despite my efforts it still doesn't look particularly "cleared out" and the unfortuate matter of fact here is that the wiring harness loops from driver's to passenger side firewall, although i haven't poked my head up under the dash to confirm if this "loop" can be broken with a simple connector I don't really see myself pulling out the entire harness in reality.
However that brings me to my dilemna as I would really like to paint the engine bay while it's empty and so on, and i'm battling with the idea of exactly what to paint it.
The "best" option in my opinion would be to go all out with a full Candy wine professionally done paint job that would look the nuts and likely would be my future "body colour" if and when i ever get the car resprayed, however it but would also be
-expensive
-difficult/impossible to maintain (scratches, etc)
-any professional would likely want the bay totally empty of the wiring harness etc
-Locks me in to that colour choice down the line
Whereas the more realistic option would be a neutral colour such as Anthracite, etc which would be
-Cheap (likely DIY it myself with a spray gun or rattle cans, plus i'm sure i'll need the pennies saved for tyres and fuel these days!)
-Easy to maintain/touch up
-Goes with anything
-Can likely be sprayed "Around" the rest of the harness that's in the car
and therein lies the problem, really I'm swaying towards something simple like anthracite as a way to make this "hurdle" of the project much easier to traverse both in a work and money sense and then perhaps just get some flash candy red valve covers to make up for it.
Thoughts?
Not alot has really happened with the car in the past few months, lets just say.. it's not been a particularly good 2022 so far..
anyway moving on I was finally able to find the motivation to leave the house and with a couple of friends for some added help/morale have cleared out the engine bay, or atleast as much as I feel I feasibly can..
As you can see despite my efforts it still doesn't look particularly "cleared out" and the unfortuate matter of fact here is that the wiring harness loops from driver's to passenger side firewall, although i haven't poked my head up under the dash to confirm if this "loop" can be broken with a simple connector I don't really see myself pulling out the entire harness in reality.
However that brings me to my dilemna as I would really like to paint the engine bay while it's empty and so on, and i'm battling with the idea of exactly what to paint it.
The "best" option in my opinion would be to go all out with a full Candy wine professionally done paint job that would look the nuts and likely would be my future "body colour" if and when i ever get the car resprayed, however it but would also be
-expensive
-difficult/impossible to maintain (scratches, etc)
-any professional would likely want the bay totally empty of the wiring harness etc
-Locks me in to that colour choice down the line
Whereas the more realistic option would be a neutral colour such as Anthracite, etc which would be
-Cheap (likely DIY it myself with a spray gun or rattle cans, plus i'm sure i'll need the pennies saved for tyres and fuel these days!)
-Easy to maintain/touch up
-Goes with anything
-Can likely be sprayed "Around" the rest of the harness that's in the car
and therein lies the problem, really I'm swaying towards something simple like anthracite as a way to make this "hurdle" of the project much easier to traverse both in a work and money sense and then perhaps just get some flash candy red valve covers to make up for it.
Thoughts?
ZX10R NIN said:
Keep it simple it's not a show car it's something you're going to enjoy & things will change in the engine bay over time (who said pro charger) so go anthracite.
Also if the loom does loop the money saved could be spent on a new harness making the engine bay a lot cleaner looking.
Haha don't tempt me, there's blokes in the states that have made a nice carbon "cowl" looking bonnet for the 86 to fit a Supercharge LS under!Also if the loom does loop the money saved could be spent on a new harness making the engine bay a lot cleaner looking.
Unfortunately alot of what you can see left is largely all body-loom for the most part, the engine loom stays on the engine itself and is long gone now, granted im sure the two looms integrate a fair bit so if I was a smart, brave (read - foolish) man i'm sure i could cut and de-pin all the redundant bits from the loom to slim it down a fair bit but for now i'm just going to leave it as is and then perhaps retroactively slim it down once I have my new harness and I can absolutely confirm exactly what connectors I can clip away or wires I can pull out from the loom without ruining the car's functions.
Afterall in the engine bay on the body loom there's still:
Headlights/Foglights/indicators
Wheel speed sensors
ABS module
Various grounds
Horns
AC
Radiator fans
washer jet pumps
But overall think i've definitely decided i'll just go anthracite, borrow a friend's spray gun and have a go at it myself (no stranger to an airbrush myself so im sure a gun is just the grown up version! - famous last words!)
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