VK Skid Wagon

Me and my good mate Chris just picked up a project car that we're going to use to promote our website. Speaking of the website, we've sunk alot of hours into it recently and it's not all that far off being ready to go online.

We have had our eyes open for a burnout machine for a long time. We were originally going to buy a cheap early commodore and drop the spare 308 and T400 i've got in it. We decided against it since it's alot of work and it probably wouldn't be up to scratch in the horsepower department anyway.. So we decided to look for something that was already fitted with a V8.

This thing popped up on ebay the other day:

VK Commodore Wagon 185i Injected V8 Turbo 700 Transmission Locked 4:11 Diff

BASICALLY THIS CAR  IS A HOLE HEAP OF FUN TO DRIVE, THE CAR ITSELF ISNT IN THE BEST CONDITION BUT ITS NOT FOR LOOKS REALLY BUILT FOR BURNOUTS. THERES A DENT IN PASSENGER REAR QUATER WHERE I HIT THE GUARD RAIL AT KANDOS STREET MACHINE BURNOUT COMP. INTERIOR IS FAIR, HAS A FEW LITTLE BITS AN PIECES THAT COULD DO WITH A TIDY UP IF UR FUSSY BUT IS QUITE FINE TO DRIVE AS IS...

ENGINE IS GREAT DOESNT BURN OIL, HAS A POD FILTER, TWIN THERMOS,EXTERNAL AUTO OIL COOLER,

HAS BROCKY FRONT BAR AND GRILL IN AVERAGE CONDITION (GRILL HAS BEEN MODIFIED AT THE TOP FOR SOME REASON), ALSO HAS VT FRONT BRAKE CALIPERS, AND A STRAIT THRU MUFFLER THAT SOUNDS TUFF, THE 4.11 RATIO PULLS REAL HARD SO ITS QUICK OFF THE MARK, BASICALLY THIS IS A PRETTY RUFF CAR COSMETICALLY THAT GOES AWESOME AND HAS 6 MONTHS REGO...

ENGINE BAY IS AS SEEN, TRANS COOLER COULD DO WITH RELOCATING AND THE ENGINE BAY COULD DO WITH A TIDY UP...BRAKES ARE A BIT SPONGY PROBABLY NEED TO BE BLED.. SPEEDO DOES NOT WORK DUE TO THE TYPE OF GEARBOX...DIFF WINDS SOMETIMES

Sounds pretty good hey? Well It needs alot of work even to be burnout pad worthy. Here's the bad news that we've found so far:

• No cat converter fitted - if we want to drive it on the street ever again we need one.
• Starter motor is buggered - i've got a couple of spares in the shed so no biggie
  
• Probs with the ignition switch and the gearbox inhibitor switch is flakey.
  
• Diff whines like mad - we'll change the oil for now and see how it goes. I don't know if its a borgy or a salsbury yet.
• I don't think its got 4.11s, but its lower than standard.
  
• I'm almost positive that it's just a stock 165kw, not a 185i.
• Heaps of stuff is dodgily mounted with cable ties
  
• Headlights don't work
• Massive dent in the rear quarter from where the previous owner hit a wall in a burnout comp
• It's painted with $2 aussie export rattle cans

Unbelivably this thing is street registered! It managed to hold together for the 50km trip home. It does drive extremely well, i reckon it drives nicer than my VR with the same running gear. The powersteering was great till I threw the belt doing test and tune helis last night (no headlights keeps it interesting).

All in all we are happy with it. We wanted a project, we weren't expecting something schmick. The important thing is that the running gear is solid and all the hard work has been done, now we just have to tidy it up!

We want to get it out to WSID asap and have some fun in it!! We'll do a full service on the thing and have our mate Daz go over the wiring and fix up the dodgiest stuff. We have to get some guages on the thing, we are flying completely blind.

Later on we want to give it a quick paintjob and I'd like to swap out the T700 for the T400 which i've got. Then start working the motor.