It's causing the same over here to lol, reason i did it is we have no lead in our petrol over here anymore & i'm over valve seat recession. After sinking the valves up in 3 heads i pulled the pin & dropped the jap six in, even unturboed it has twice the power & twice the economy to boot of the old six. It's now one of those wagons you either love or hate pretty much, i'm not one to follow the pack so suits me well
Welcome to the looniness we call home! Great pair of wagons you have there. The 96 is really beautiful. Love the lines. Have to say, I'm surprised you had problems with valves on the I-6 on no lead gas. My first car was a Pontiac Acadian, which was a Canadian model similar to a Chev Nova. It had the 230 cic (3.8) I-6, and no problem at all with unleaded gasoline. All of our cars from 1972 on had to have the hardened valve seats to allow for low- and no-lead fuels. Instead of the Nissan V-6 with a turbo, I'd have been tempted to go for the good old V-8 from a late 2000s Holden Commodore. With the right tuning, 300 horse is easy, and gas mileage into the 30s is easily achievable, even in the Chevy Tahoe suv we have here.
Cheers for the welcome, love my wagons so looks like i'll fit in well here.... The 96 is the top of the range model so she's loaded with a lot of extras, cruise control-fast glass-airbags-extra chrome & a lot more. She wont be getting sold in a hurry i no that much, good comfy daily driver. As for the white one, they never fitted hardened seats in the heads over here. When leaded petrol went out they done a deal with Nissan & fitted the 3.0 Nissan 6 to one model of Holden commodore { From 86-89 } to solve the problem, after that they went with the Buick V6. So what i did was bought the later model wagon & gutted it, wiring - dash - suspension the whole 9 yards & fitted it into my 81 model. Not a job for the faint hearted but i love a challenge lol The Ls series V8 in the later commodores your talking about are one awesome engine for sure, they're getting dropped into all sorts of vehicles these days. Best of both worlds with them, power & economy......
Bit of an update on my daily, finally painted & fitted up a rear spoiler that goes around the tailgate back window. Had it sitting here for months so finally got sick of it gathering dust & sorted it, done it in black for now but will body colour it one day lol....
Hey DaveNz, Commodore Wagons are really cool especially the current VE sport wagon. I had a white VK Berlina from about 87 rights up till around 98 and it was an excellent wagon. That was the last wagon we had until we got our 06 LX6 VZ Adventra in 2011 for the Mrs. I was talking to a colleague from Autobend in Christchurch this morning and he said you had a little 3.5 again today as well! Cheers The Premier
Yeah the VE wagons definetly look the part that's for sure, you cant beat a good old Vk either. I've got a thread going on here of a Vc i'm rebuilding at pres, i've put a Vh front on it & basically fitted everything from a Vl into it. Motor - trans - diff - interior etc etc..... And yeah just another little shake lol 6k's from us, where in one of the worst hit areas but we aint moving. This is house number 3 for us but she's solid & hanging in well, it's actually 2 years today since the big 1 that pretty much flattened Christchurch. It's been an experience i tell you......
I forgot you are right, he did mention it was the anniversary today as well. House no 3!!! What happened to house no 2??? I saw you had VH -VK front guards in the pic in this thread. Thanks for the heads up about you build thread, I will check it out. Cheers The Premier
Well house 1 was pretty wobbly after the September 2010 7.4 so we moved out of that place Febuary 17 to a place just round the corner from here, on that Tuesday when the big one hit place number 2 got ripped apart with us in the middle of it, the place came off the piles. Chimney through the roof she was all on, we got out in 1 piece so that was the main thing. Lived on the front lawn for a couple of weeks until a mate offered us his brothers house who works over your ways in the mines. This place is pretty cracked up but a few wall hangings & she's looking good, this place feels tight & solid so we've hung in here. The lucky thing for us is were renting so we were able to just move on, had we owned things would be a lot different with the hassles people are having over here still..... I'd say the thread on the Vc you might like, the engine i've used is not everyone's favourite but there was a lot of bonuses in using it.... Cheers Dave
