LS1 Powered Holden HJ Premier [Build Review]

welcome back to the skid factory today we're going to check out Dave and Sally ends 1975 HJ premiere [Music] [Applause] [Music] this very brightly colored 1975 Holden premiere belongs to Dave and Sally Ann who are from the Gold Coast Dave and his son Tyler have a YouTube channel where they cover car shows and that sort of thing they do a lot of foot miles running around to all the car shows and the like track events and that sort of thing capturing what's going on what cars are there they interview that sort of thing so it's you know that they've put a lot of work in and it's probably worth checking it out the channels called overtaking Lane this is their shirt that's their logo and this is their car when they bought this car to me it had a 308 which is the old Holden v8 from the 70s a proper old red motor you know they turbo 350 on the back of it which is actually a bit of a rarity for a 308 back then and a salisbury diff which is a bit of junk there the engine was actually running on straight gas or propane is he an American make all it and it was a good smooth runner but it probably had about 50 horsepower it wasn't the most inspiring thing you ever saw and Dave basically wanted to put a more modern engine in it which is not an uncommon theme it's then there's a good reason for it it's a good idea you can get all the benefits of a modern drive line still keep the sound and still have your cool old Cruiser we've visited this sort of idea many times most notably would probably be the Nova that we'd built on the show with an ls1 same as this and also the transient that I did with an ls3 in it so we learnt a fair bit from doing those two cars particularly the Nova and although it's a good idea and it's relatively easy to fit there is certain things that that work and don't work and after doing both of those cars I I sort of learnt a fair bit in it and learnt what the good way of doing and what's not so good and probably put that more into practice in this vehicle so the the theme will gone with which was pretty much just use an ls1 rather than a newer engine and yes the newer engines are better but the disadvantage of ms they're also a little bit more complex when it comes to the engine management system and in particular the sort of l98 ls3 forward engines the engine computer is here and it's not easy to move away from there without doing a complete wiring loom so it does get a bit it doesn't look very nice once you rewire it so it all works the way it should it's also drive-by-wire which I do love drive-by-wire and it is a better idea than cable but when you're trying to format it in this sort of old-school format with a single plain manifold and a carburetor look setup it does end up being a little bit difficult when you use to drive by why because you end up with a fairly stacked high setup that it's difficult to put air cleaners and that sort of thing on so in the interests of simplicity or basically what I've learnt from doing that the Trans Am with the ls3 this is what we thought we'd go with and it's it's a simple LS one there's plenty of them in Australia we've we've ditched all the plastic stuff off it and replaced it with just a Holley mid rise single plane manifold fuel rails and a throttle body difference between this and the Nova is it still got port injection and that is something that I would always keep because the Nova was a very large pain in the ass to tune properly with the single plane manifold and a big cam and four injectors squirting into the into the throttle that's sort of behaved like a carburetor which is not what you want when you're changing the fuel injection there's parts of it were good the ignition control and everything and auto control and all that worked well but the actual fuel delivery still had the same problems as a carburetor which we didn't want with this car so rails don't look great but the car running properly is more important so we just got these there's GM performance valve covers they look great and they fit like factory and they don't leak really impress with them a lot of aftermarket stuff isn't 100% but those things work really well and they look traditional which is what this sort of aged car calls for this throttle is just sort of a Chinese copy of a fast total body I think so it uses factory GM drive Bora Bora position sensor and auto control motor which works great with the factory ls1 PCM which is retained so to do the wiring on this side just stripped open the wiring loom and and did a lot of rerouting we've moved the coils to the side because they don't go on the cover anymore we've shortened up this wiring needs to be out here so it's been shortened considerably I've done my best to keep it neat but neaten and 100% functional are very difficult to achieve depending on your standards so it's it's as good as I could get it looks pretty good all the wiring is integrated into that loom for everything that's to do with the engine so we've got fan wiring we've got alternator wiring we've got a fuse box and relay box there with everything in it including a starter relay fuel pump relay so my friend relays relays for the engine control the fuel pump wire runs down with the transmission loom and pops out underneath so it's all together to simplify it and the only connection to the vehicle that we have is actually those three wires starter motor ignition and alternator charge light wire some other things that I've gone through with this that I've learnt in the process is using factory radiators if possible rather than trying to buy an aftermarket radiator for a Kingswood that you pay a lot of money for that then these fans put on it and that just don't work very well compared to a modern radiator I've been using factory stuff with with the factory fans this is this is a very commodore radiator it's fairly cheap it's designed to cool that motor the factory radiator hoses are used so it's it's I don't even get much better than that it may not look like a shiny aluminium radiator or whatever but it cools the engine properly and that's more important I preferred it just to be a black plastic thing that you no one takes any notice of and you just look at the engine rather than having a shiny radio that doesn't work properly so ve v8 radiator and fans most certainly will fit into a Kingswood for your kings with guys out there and it works very well it was relatively simple to fit having done it once it wouldn't have any dramas with it again it uses ve hoses so it's all perfect very happy with that as far as conversions go battery used to be on that side I've moved it to this side I did the same thing in the Trans Am and the reason for that is because the starter motor is on this side of the car and running a long starter cable purely to keep the battery over there doesn't make any sense it virtually just unbolts the tray and bolt it back down in here with a bit of manipulation so another advantage of this is that all this cabling to the starter motor and to the alternator is all from the car that this engine came out of from the Commodore so that is a big saving of time and money in cabling and it just fits and really well so that was a bonus the battery being here has zero effect on the rest of the car because the original power supply for this car didn't come from the battery anyway it just was just hanging off the back of there the starter motor terminal so there was really no disadvantage to moving it and a lot of advantages to it so that that cable there it used to have a fusible link on it I've removed the fuse of a link and replaced it with a MIDI fuse there's nothing wrong with fusible links but for some reason you cannot buy them anymore I can't can't I can't buy them from a supplier in Australia so we just can't use them anymore so MIDI fuse is easy it's in plain view if there's a problem with it and easy to replace the brakes on this car this is all standard the front brakes are standard the rear brakes we've replaced along with the diff which we'll talk about when we go under the car this car had a lot of love given to it in the suspension and brake department before it got here everything has been replaced underneath with bushes springs shocks you name it so that was a big advantage for us to not have to to worry about having this good and much more powerful engine in there and then having the rest of the car Greg in its ass on the road so that's all simple stuff it it costs money but you just do it and it's got to be good for years power-steering it has factory pump we're using we did a little story about making your own power steering hose using this car as an example what do you probably throw up a link to that that's also a simple way that anyone can do if you're going to build car like this in your at home you can do that yourself it's not hard if you've got you know relatively you don't have to have big skills to do it it's pretty simple if you follow the instructions we wanted to go underneath yeah [Music] to mount the engine and 4l60e yes it is an auto that's what the owner wanted it's a cruising car not a race car we've used tough mounts which make a really good setup for this particular model along with a few others the price I think it's a couple of thousand dollars for the mounting kit the some the extractors gearbox crossmember really simplifies it it just basically drops in and it's being well thought-out and fits really well this sums that they supply don't leak they fit properly it's all good I cannot complain and believe me I would if it if it wasn't wasn't right because people that make stuff that fit should be commended well done Jason the alternator is factory it fits in the factory position so you don't have to mess around with it that's also a good thing on the Trans Am I mounted the engine a lot further back than this and suffered with that not fitting and had to remount things that was to do with the getting the teeth tr6060 gear stick to fit through the floor in the right place so that's another story altogether you can see all the fresh suspension Kony's and that sort of thing all the good stuff plates make a 4 into 1 headers transmission mount we've got all the factory a two sensors and that sort of thing to entrench exhaust now you don't need a three inch exhaust to entrench exhaust on an ls1 but if you want to be loud and obnoxious like dave did then that's what you get and it certainly does the job it actually sounds terrific this thing will fire it up later the diff conversion King's words are a pain in the butt for difficult read if that's any good basically so you're there got to go 9 inch or Hilux or in this case of all there's Vantage's and disadvantages to all those things nine inches usually they just unplug the tubes off the the Salisbury diff and bang them into the into a 9 inch Center and then weld them on and you retain your 28 spline junk axles that are going to snap you retain your drum brakes that don't work and the only thing that is better is the 9 inch Center but that's debatable as well because they have their problems unless you throw thousands of dollars worth of aftermarket gear into them so as you could probably tell I'm not really a fan of that that way of going about it unless you're gonna spend big bucks on a nine-inch it's really not gonna be very good hi luck Steve they're great they're easy to weld things on - they're plentiful big axles he very difficult to break but again they have drum brakes on the back of them which drum brakes aren't a bad thing and they are big but when you put this engine into this car we are required to put this rates on the back of it that's just an engineering requirement so that is a pain in the butt if you want to go and change over to disc brakes on the back on a Hilux usually they use like r31 skyline calipers and that sort of thing and they just don't work like the handbrake doesn't work they're just junk so it's also Ford patent so on this one we used a AU Falcon if I can just hear all the silly bogans jumping up and down about I use these aren't any good stop talking about them they're junk though ugly from day one so just let it go it's been shortened it's significantly shorter than the original then the day you if was it it's probably 150 mil longer wider so John has done that for me as a mate of mine who is a very multi-talented dude has a bit of experience in making gift and cutting in shortening these parts here Braca trees or that you can actually buy that we got them from ultra 9 which is a difficulty in Brisbane so we can buy all that stuff including them the these upper control arm pegs you can't buy I don't know why but John made them anyway and this is a big cast steel housing and yes you can weld for that no problem at all it's all been welded on works great we test fitted a couple of times and set our pinion angles so we got the same angles as the transmission tower chef was made by our mate Jesse three and half inch wall due to the length the brakes are all standard Falcon these are really good for a stocker thing the calipers are simple and work and don't seize up the hand brake works which is amazing when you're gonna go to all this trouble of trying to modernize your cone and the hand brake doesn't work that's like you might as well not bother the cabling for the handbrake is all Falcon and it comes up to here and I've just added another anchor because it's got dual cables with a balancer and basically I've made this disc abling here out of four mil ballast rating with these our compression crimped with a hydraulic crimper and I've chopped off all this original stuff and oh there's a different ID low there because the original Idol of won't allow you to go that angle and just joined it with the original set up there so that works well now so we got this is another good thing for Kingswood owners if you're thinking of doing this sort of work fuel tank fuel system is a pain on these things the tank is very shallow cutting it out and putting one of those Aeromotive phantom systems in them it can be done I have done it but you have to then cut a hole in your floor and have the the thing protruding inside the car and then try and cover it up so it's not only costly but it's not very practical so I didn't really want to do that again particularly with this car because it didn't have a fuel tank it ran on gas only and the tank was in the gas tank was inside the car so there was no fuel tank to start with so I did a bit of research and had a bit of a look around and found some stuff about Commodore fuel tanks which this is so it's a vs Commodore tank they mount in the same way as this is where the Kingswood tank goes but it's got an in-tank pump it's all it's all designed for fuel injection it's out of it probably a 96 model car it's got a swirl pot and everything inside it so I've just used that it actually bolted up pretty easy I've got the straps with it from the wreckers and the very minor mods to the straps mocked it up drilled some holes through the boot floor and then just dropped long bolts down through it with big gun what coach washers which actually came from mounting the gas tank I just reused him I just put a walbro 465 in the tank because it's running on e85 normally he wouldn't need a pump that big but because because he wants to run a Ronnie 85 we just had to put basically just jump up a fair bit from the normal 340 or 275 the only other mod you need on this particular car is I had to change where the filler went in which is pretty simple I've just blocked off the old filler and added a just drilled a hole in the tank all the usual precautions I've done this heaps of times I know how to not blow myself up and just drop a inch and a half tube with a roll then into the tank welded it up and just got a ute filler out of a tray back ute they're just sort of a generic remote filler that just pokes out the side of a tray back you'd and just modified that it had a long hose on it made a bracket for it to fill it's all unleaded compatible in Australia have to have an unlettered filler neck even though you can only buy unleaded there but it's just a hangover from back in the 90s when they had both fuels I've used the usual deadhead system that we have used on the last few cars which is the BMW filter regulator so basically goes in and then goes back into the tank when it's got to it's set pressure of 55 psi the fuel line is original they were left in the car when it was changed to gas I just did some extensive cleaning out of them because I would just left open so clean them out a fair bit changed all the hoses to be 85 compatible hose instead of rotted old 1970s hose even though it's got this filter here because the fuel line was old even though I cleaned it out I had added another filter up near the engine bay there just as a precaution it'll probably leave that there for ten thousand Kay's and then if you wants to get rid of it because it's a bit ugly well it can be removed then it should all be will be flushed out by that time so good thing for king it's not hard to do so if you want a good fuel system sort of solution for your Kingswood if you're putting a late-model engine even if it's a look at three or four VN engine anything that needs EFI this is a good way of doing it what else do you want to know I think we should just bring it back down and start it up yeah it probably sounds good and then lemon squash can we drive this here no can we do a shed skit no it's literally just been finished like half an hour ago sort of it hasn't been tuned it's only got a bass jr. to run with the it's got Mustang injectors in a coyote injectors which are 550 I think cc's for the 85 so it hasn't been tuned it's just got a bass tune put into the PCM by Josh just to see T 85 and those sized injectors and the cam that's got in it I don't know exactly what cam is in it I don't know exactly what cam is in it the engine was sort of had heads off cam all the usual stuff done just not bottom-end by someone else and Dave bought the engine like that off him it looks like it's been well done and the cam sounds sounds magnificent so can't be too bad but when josh flash that he didn't realize that it was an auto so it's it's got a manual calibration in it so the transmissions only got one gear so there will be no shed skids and it's also not my car so stop asking me to do burnouts and other people's cars you idiots to it you can do a burnout and like yeah if you tell me I can't I will but I'm not doing it I'm sure David I'm okay with it no you hang on I'm gonna go turn that compressor off stop in a second you got told you yeah pretty sure what I've said that you can do a skid well that's all well and good but it's not Dave's car is selling inside oh I reckon she'd want me doing skids in a car with one gear yeah somebody say you actually just a little bit luck day really [Music] [Music] how good is it Sam that's it [Music] then I'm saying trickle here one two and then three have a look at the shifter and then we'll get a lemon squash [Music] so we've changed a shifter obviously the factory shifters and he's a pretty rubbish to be in EM Quicksilver that's one of the only ones that'll do a four-speed like for position shifter Dave one to keep the console standard so I've integrated it in underneath there so it all just works within the factory old slot which I reckon looks pretty cool I'm pretty happy with that so that's it go check out overtaking Lane check out the car scene in Australia and listen to this glorious engine noise thanks for watching [Music] what do you prefer you or sedan why don't we have all three yeah Katie aim in the back of the you and then this you can drive up to church on Sundays hell yeah now have you ended up with two I've probably the only orange h JS i don't know and then it's just lucky I guess think an old XW on the horse feet me should call you like muscle car that's Jason's business muscle car garage that's all Kyoto nice okay Yoda about the toughest muscle car Larry's weld underneath all these cupboards here so many cars so many cars under covers future projects mmm I've been future projects for a long time now overtaking Lane check him out give him a thumbs up give him a life given the sub they got some good content

Channel: The Skid Factory

Views: 207,740

Keywords: woody, al, turbo, yoda, tsf, the, skid, factory, Holden, Kingswood, Premier, HJ, LS1, 308, 4l60e, Overtaking Lane, Tuff mounts, Muscle garage, pacemaker, Gm, General Motors

Id: yRf2IPN28tg

Length: 28min 56sec (1736 seconds)

Published: Sun Aug 25 2019