Allen's ED Ghia

[Allen]

After selling my NF a few weeks ago, I have since picked up this 94 ED Ghia of the forums.

Its got a stock 4.0 with pacemakers, hi flow cat and full exhaust, but best of all is the T5 that is behind it.
Its also got pedders springs and shocks, with a full nolathane bush kit.

It wore 17x8" ANZ Mayhem wheels when I got it, but these have since been changed for a set of 17x8" ROH RT's in shadow chrome, thanks to YBHVE4.


It looked like this when I bought it:








But as of tonight, it now looks like this with the new wheels:






At the moment, the plan is for only thermofans and a lumpy cam...
No point in making huge plans for it, as I'll end up changing my mind anyway!

Cheers,
Allen.

[Dezza]

Looks heaps better with the new rim. Good stuff Allen

[SLY5LT]

looks like it's a "win win" with you two guy's doing the wheel swap, will ecko dezza & say good choice.

[YBHVE4]

seen this car in person. Very good buy. Top nick too.

Yeah...i think the Mayhems are growing on me but your car is certainly looking good with the RT's.

all the best with it mate.

[wolfblass]

so your the eseries i see going up my street all the time, i saw it before when i just got home. doesnt sound that bad for a 6:)

[SnyperEB]

I prefer the Mayhem's. Bitta Bling. Nice car though. Very clean by the looks of things.

[Allen]

Cheers guys!

Wolfblass, yeah that would be me... My inlaws live just around the corner from you.

Snyper, the Mayhems were a nice wheel, but I don't think they suited the shape of the ED. Bling isn't really my thing... I prefer something a bit more subtle.

[SLO247]

Looks nice as, good pickup. I think the RT's look better on both cars

[Allen]

I can't believe I've had this thing since March, and I've hardly driven it.

Its a long story, but basically after I bought it the rego was due, and my now ex-wife in all her wisdom thought it would be better to blow all my money on crap rather than me paying the rego.

Fast forward to now, Its going in for a RWC tomorrow afternoon, and is booked in at Vicroads to be re-registered on the 21st.

So with any luck, I can be out and about cruising once more!

And a pic just for the hell of it...



Got some new plans for this thing too...

[Sunboost]

Ex-wife? Didn't you just get married and have a baby!

[Allen]

Yep, married less than a year before it all went down the crapper. Will proberly end up in court fighting to see my daughter.

Such is life though.

In the meantime, the ED will keep me busy & cop my frustration... Well, the tyres will anyway!

[Michael (HYPOEB)]

looks sweet mate!
any plans?

[BLC]

Holy shit, I had to read the ex-wife part twice. ****.. sorry to hear that mate. Hope you get the access to your daughter.

[Allen]

cheers Rob, I'm confident it will all work out in the end.

As the ED's plans, externally it will get resprayed front and rear bumpers, a sprint kit and lowered a little bit more.

Mechanically i'll be rebuilding an au xr6 motor for it... New bottom end with 10:1 acl pistons, ported head and a big cam. That will be run with one of my old mans custom ECU...

If i can make a reliiable 150 rwkw, that will do it for me. I dont want to put too much cash into it... Ill save to for a real car....

[SVT8]

shit man..... sorry to hear.

was wondering why i havnt seen you around the area??. i look out for ya everytime through crazyburn. Anyway i reckon, if your gona re-build the bottom end set it up for a turbo instead of upping compression. The money you spend on porting the head and cam you can buy a turbo kit on and make power that youl be very happy with. And when you do decide to sell it take off the turbo and sell it separtley, youl loose to much money when you go to sell it with n/a work. Trust me iv learnt the hard way.

when you get a chance drop past, will have a chat.

[SnyperEB]

Turbo it you will enjoy life alot more!!

[Allen]

Lol @ peer pressure

I was considering doing that Eren, and it may end up that way... I was looking at a 6boost manifold and a TO4Z combo for a little while.
Who knows though, I'll get myself a motor to rebuild and make some impulse decisions from there.

At the end of the day, it's just going to be a daily... Muscle cars is where the real fun is at!

[Allen]

Gave the ED its first polish last night. It came up ok, it could use a good cut though.
There are a few rough patch in the paint, and sanding marks from dodgy paint repairs.

Went out today and took a few shots, they were a bit rushed... may take some more tonight at dusk.

[Allen]

Nothing new to report on this thing, but some new photos from today's meet.
Dezza and I went to Mt Dandenong and took some pics, some of which came out ok.




























I really need to build myself a light box, even with a 10 second exposure, the last couple came out a bit too dark and grainy...

[misk]

yeah but the city looks good lol
nice car mate, would look tops lowered a bit more in the rear!

[SLY5LT]

great to meet you today, forgot to mention that the mayhem's got a bit of time on my nl
the shot's you posted on the 23rd, is that the bridge off mad max ?
a splitting image if not

[Allen]

Cheers Misk! I agree, it does need to be lower all round... They are pedders sportsryder in it at the moment, but I've got some ultralows lying around that will make its way into it eventually.
I'll have to sort out the front suspension though, it is catching the guards at its current height!

Sly, it was good to meet you too! I remember seeing the meyhems on your car, they looked mint. They certainly suit the EF-EL shape better than the ol box car. I wonder where those wheels ended up now... They certainly got around!

I don't know if that bridge was in mad max or not. I know for a fact that they did shoot some scenes around Craigieburn.
The scene when max is pressing the mechanic for info and drops the old 30's chev on top of him was the old Craigieburn wreckers yard.

[SLY5LT]

i'll have to watch the film again to refresh my memory

[misk]

ahh, its a pity pedders dont to ultra low height stuff, cause their springs are much better than kings, just not low enough

[pHaT`eL]

They get lower when you get the shocks to match. Wagon is only riding on Pedders Superlows

[misk]

yeah i had pedders in my EA
the front was pretty spot on, could have taken maybe another few cm out, but the rear was too high

[Dezza]

The photos turned out great Allen. My car seems to look lower at the back but your's makes mine look ultra-raised in the front. Must get around to swapping those springs over! They do look good together though!

[Allen]

Well, enough crap has broken on this thing to force me to stop being lazy and fix it...

The final straw was the accelerator cable fraying inside its sheathing and deciding idling at 4000rpm was a good idea... Made for an interesting drive home from work tonight.

So, the long weekend will consist of the following:
-Accelerator Cable
-Coolent level sensor
-Alternator rebuild
-AU Head Gasket & Head Bolts
-Valve Stem Seals
-Gearbox Mount
-New Fan Belts

I'm going to throw the head on the mill and use the fly cutter to take a few thou off the deck, and maybe attempt some hobo porting with the die grinder whilst its off... If I can be bothered.
CBF'd swapping to serpentine or thermofans this weekend... Just want to get it running properly again.

[SVT8]

typical eseries, you want to spend money elsewhere but then there are problems to fix first!!!.

I reckon leave the porting for now and just get the car on the road and drive it. Buy a shit, cheap head separtley from wreckers/forums and you can port that in your own time and put it on the car when you have time and money.

you should be able to knock off that list over the long weekend!!!

[Allen]

I dont know why i keep buying one e-series after another... I must have a subconsious need to drive pieces of shit that fall apart!

I figure I may as well attack the head with the die grinder whilst its off... Wont cost anything except my time, and I may learn something from it.

The plan at the moment is still to get an EL XR motor and do a full rebuild on that, so as long as this engine lasts until then, im not too worried.

[Allen]

Have been mucking about with this thing all day.

I did a compression test before I ripped it all apart and got the following results:-

Cyl 1 - 145psi
Cyl 2 - 140psi
Cyl 3 - 150psi
Cyl 4 - 160psi
Cyl 5 - 170psi
Cyl 6 - 130psi

The exhaust valve was so badly burned on #6 that the leaking valve stem seal was the only thing helping keep the compression up. I'm surprised it even ran like that.
Also checked out my accelerator cable. With my foot flat on the floor, the throttle was only open about 1/3 of the way. The cable was only hanging on by one strand at the pedal end lol...




Got carbon??

Still have to finish cleaning the block deck and piston tops. We spent most of the day on the head.






Cylinder head face is dead flat, so no need for machining... and CBF'd attempting to port it. I'll save that for the new motor when I eventually do that.






Intake and exhaust valves. Going to grind the exhaust valves and valve seats on sunday. Would prefer new valves, but CBF'd.



Cleaned up the alternator. Brushes were fine, but it will need a new rear bearing, as it was spinning and squeeking.


This thing should go much better with some compression and a throttle that opens fully!

[Dezza]

I thought your accelerator cable was a bit dodgy! I'm sure I mentioned it to you after go-karting. It will be good to stop the alternator "tweeting" too. Good job though. Best of luck getting it all back together

[Water Boy]

Looks good mate! Quick question... Where were these photo's taken?

[Allen]

Thanks bud, those particular pics were taken On Kongaderra Rd, just east of Clarkefeild at the Emu Creek Bridge.

Anyway, whilst I'm here got a few more pics of the head gasket crap as it was going back together.
I found out it had dished pistons... Not that you'd tell from the previous pics





It goes much harder now and is easier to drive. Its much better on fuel too!

[Dezza]

Good stuff!

[Allen]

Time for an update on this thing I suppose.

After doing the head gasket + valve stem seals a few months ago, the oil consumption hasn't improved... It was actually getting worse, which tells me the piston rings are farked.

Rather than fix it, I've ripped a motor out of a mates EB and will be rebuilding it before swapping it with my current shit motor.

The plans for the new short block is to have it machined, with at least 010" off the bore along with a hone and few thou off the deck for a touch more compression. I'll mike up the crank once it is out and determine if it needs a grind + oversized bearings. Either way i'll be getting it balanced.
Internally it'll be getting a ACL rebuild kit, with new pistons, rings & bearings. I'm aiming for about 10:1 compression.

I'll be sending the cylinder head off to be cleaned, face machined and mildly ported. I'm considering oversized valves, crow springs and a wade 977b cam with the 110 degree LSA for its top end.

On the outside i'll be staying with the current pacemaker extractors and ED intake manifold, but I'm going to try and find an XH tensioner so I can do a serp conversion with the older manifold. I'll be ditching the clutch fan for thermos too.


I've done a rough Dyno2000 simulation and it reckons it'll make 217 flywheel kW @ 5500rpm and 432NM flywheel torque at 4000rpm...
I'm more interested in the torque curve between 2000 & 4000rpm than peak power, as there is where most of my driving takes place.



The block, just after the head was lifted.


The cylinder head and rocker gear. The rocker arms have some strange machining on the top of them which I have never seen before. Any ideas as to why this was done?



Since I'm taking my time doing this stuff, I've been tidying up a few of the under bonnet pieces such as rocker cover and intake manifold.

Rocker cover : Stripped and sanded with 80 grit and then 600 wet & dry.


There are a few bits of stubborn paint on the exhaust side, which I'll get around to removing later.


And the intake manifold, which I haven't started sanding yet. So far i'm half way through stripping it.



Thats about it on the progress of this thing... Pretty slow at the moment, but it should pick up pretty quick once my tax return comes back!

[huggiebear]

damn these look good with no dents lol...

i liked the ANZ mayhams tho.. but thats personal opinion.

[misk]

how the fk did you get the pistons so clean? lol
thats some good shit!

[Allen]

Haha, a lot of time was spent cleaning those pistons! I'd roll each one over to TDC and had to carefully chisel the carbon off with a ball peen hammer and a blade screwdriver, followed with a wire brush on a drill.

Anyway, minor update on this thing. The EB motor I was going to rebuild for it, turned out to be crap. It measured up 30thou over in the bores and they were all scored and scuffed. Not worth using IMO.

So, I gave the EB engine a high quality rebuild - i.e. slapped it back together with no gaskets or piston rings and used it as a change over at Jolly's for an EL motor. It was advertised as a tickford motor, but with a 94AB head casting I reckon they just saw the red rocker cover and assumed it was a ticky. Either way its in bloody good nick and will do me fine.







I've never seen a 4.0 so clean under the rocker cover before, so you can tell this thing has been looked after. I'll be doing a compression test tomorrow arvo which will confirm its condition.
At the moment the plans are to source all the EL specific bits like alternator, power steer pump, air con pump airbox & piping, thermos and other bits and pieces to do the conversion. Once its in I'll look into doing the Wade 977b@110LSA along with a J3.

At the moment, the old ED engine is going ok. I changed all the plug leads which fixed the misfiring issue, and I threw the polished rocker cover on.

[Rollin]

Is it still using oil? Get a new crank case ventilation valve and see how it goes...


Apart from that, I <3 the look of your car! The new motor should go well too