I've had my eye out for a turbo 350 gearbox for a while now and haven't had much luck. I came across one on ebay that was full manual shift kitted with a scattersheild out of a drag car from the states. I called the guy up and made a deal to buy it out of ebay and I told him I'll pick it up that night. Only problem is he was on the south side of Canberra and to make things work I was flat out at work and had to work back to 6:30. I raced home, grabbed my girlfriend and hauled ass down the M7. 600kms later I was back home with the gearbox safely in my shed.

I'm sitting at work red-eyed and tired as hell but it was worth it. The box apparently came out of a big HP Chevelle drag car in the US. The guy had heaps of cool stuff like a couple of big blocks and 4:1 pipes etc, I think he must have brought a whole pile of stuff back from the states. 

This box is in 'unknown condition' so to speak, but the oil is nice and red, so I'm going to take it down to a gearbox place and get it gone over and atleast serviced. 

The torana has been on hold a little bit lately, I've been playing with all my other toys. It's much more fun to jump on the bike and go for a ride, or take the wagon out and blow the tyres off it than to swing the spanners around on the torry. But it's not going to build itself.

The great news is that I've finally got some extractors that clear everything! They're custom made Pacemakers that I picked up second hand. The drivers side pipe is made up of 5 peices that bolt together to make it easier to put them in and out. The starter motor clears and we trail fitted the steering column and it seems to clear aswell. The extractors have been holding this thing back for a very long time so Im glad this nightmare is finally over! The rest of the chev conversion has been very straight forward apart from the pipes. Here's a pic of them fitted up. They are JetHot coated and they look the part. The engine bay is filthy, I need to give it a good clean.

I have also picked up some new wheels for it. I sold my Simmons off a while back because I don't think they suited it anymore. I bought these 15x10 and 15x7 inch Dragways off my mate. These will tide me through for a while until I can afford to get some convos.

I've been doing a bit of work each day on the torry. Here's some pics of some of my new gear fitted up.

Throttle bracket, 2" spacer, braided throttle cable hooked up

Gilmer belt drive and other shiney bits

Monster tacho and oil warning light

Battery isolator switch mounted through boot floor

My favourite kind of shopping - car parts shopping! I'm on a mission to get this 350 run in, so I've bought all the stuff I need to get the thing running. I've had some problems with my extractors not clearing stuff so I've had them modified.

 New stuff:

• Chrome Water Pump
  
• Glimer Belt Drive
• CVR Billet Throttle Bracket
• 30psi Oil Pressure switch
• 1/2" manifold plugs
  
• 2" Open spacer
• Permacool filter (for that old school look)
• CVR Mini Starter - lets see if she clears the pipes
• Battery box
• Fuel pump mounting plate
• Alternator low mount bracket

Swag of new parts

Water pump dummied up

Carb Dummied up

The last thing holding back my fuel system has been the fuel pickup. Most guys these days run fuel cells which come with adiquet fuel outlets, but I've chosen to stick with the old school drop tank. My particular tank takes a standard holden sender, which has a pissy little 5/16 pickup in it. I had asked around everyone and have had no luck - It looked like my only hope was to take my sender somewhere and have it modified or have the tank modified which I'm not keen on. That was until I spotted a this little gem on ebay - a stock fuel tank with a modified 1/2" sender. Picked it up for $30! I'll keep the stock tank incase I get defected or damage the drop tank.

I've made a little progress with my fuel system. At the moment I'm trying to get it to a stage where I can run the motor in, so I'm only worrying about the fuel system from the pump forward. I have decided to go back to a mechanical fuel pump for simplicity and affordablity.

I originally had my eye on the Holley 170GPH HP carb, but after doing some research I ended up going for the smaller Holley 110GPH unit. It's not very exciting, but it's got everything i want;

• 3/8NPT fittings (-8AN equivalent)
• 6 vane
• non-regulated
• affordable ~$150
  

Holley have a calculation on their website which gives you the required Gallons Per Hour (at wide open throttle) based off the engine's horsepower;

(350HP x .5 lbs = 175 lbs of fuel
175 lbs/6 lbs = 29 gallons per hour)

My small block puts out around 450hp — so based off that my motor only needs 37.5GPH.  That means that the Holly 110GPH should give me a huge safety buffer and the 170 would've been totally overkill.

I went down to Motorsport Connections in Seven Hills to get all the plumbing to hook my new pump up. I bought a braided fuel rail kit for my carb, NPT to AN adaptors for the Holley pump, -8AN Speedflow fittings and braided line to connect the pump to carb. I also got a little inline fuel guage for the rail so i can keep an eye on things while tuning it. 

I'm still working out the rest of my fuel system, I need to have my pickup modified to take a 1/2" line and work out what fuel filter I'm going to run.

I've got my new clutch setup all sorted out now. I've got a Yella Terra 10.5" explosion proof flywheel which I've had heat treated to make the clutch last. The clutch plate is an Extreme brass button unit. The pressure plate was modified and is now good for 500 horsies.

I want to thank John and his boys from Western Clutch Service in St Marys for taking the time to get it right and giving me lots of good advice.

I picked up my new engine today. It's a 350 bored .030 with a big solid cam running Fuellie heads which have been heavily massaged to flow 460hp. It's running a Victor Jnr manifold with a custom built 750DP Holley by Performance Innovations. It's got Yella Terra roller rockers, TRW forged pistons, ARP bolts and a Powerbond balancer.

This 350 came out of Anthony Camiliri's HQ, which ran consistant low 12s which he has over 80 timeslips for it.  Anthony has rebuilt this motor for me and sold me his complete proven package. This means that I'm pretty much guaranteed 11 second timeslips out of this baby. This motor put down 350hp @ the wheels behind a TH350, so I should pick up a little more at the wheels due to the stick shift.