We Interrupt your regularly scheduled programming to bring you this Breaking News
So as a bit of a sudden change of pace I made another big purchase recently for the car..
People often ask me what I plan to do power-wise to make the "Go" as big as the up-coming "show" the car is going to have and I often always give a bit of a half assed answer as I don't want to either give too much away or sound like a bit of a dreamer who gets far too ahead of himself and likely won't follow up on those plans so recently I decided to cement those plans in place and purchased this..
So I imagine there's going to be a bit of confusion, alot of questions and so on so i'll do my best to explain
Just to keep the suspense and confusion building i'll start with my reasons first - I personally really love turbo cars as some of you can likely tell from my Subaru and the Vx220 but If i were to go down the turbo route on the 86 i'd want something a bit more than 300bhp, something like 350-400 and whereas this is very possible it's quite expensive being that you'd most likely need to build the engine with forged internals, buy the turbo unit, get a stand-alone ECU & tune it and then after all of that you're still left with a gearbox that will likely throw up its guts at the thought of all that power and torque. The FA20 is a fantastic engine in reality but I'm not a race team who has the funds to run a high powered boosted FA20 which is then left quite high strung and high maintenance.. which would also require another £3-10k to rebuild if it ever went pop and I kind of wanted to try something with a few more cylinders for once.
So i bought this, it's a v8 obviously and the reason why i started this post with the strange "interuption" notice is just to preface that this will likely not get anywhere near the 86 until Autumn 2020 at the earliest that said, I just wanted to commit to it, get my foot in the door and of course it gives me something to tinker with, clean up, paint & work on over the next year and also these engines are quite rare in the UK so it will easily hold it's value if things all went a bit pear shaped money wise for me for whatever reason next year... i dunno a meteor strike or something?
So to give a few details as to what you're seeing:
This is a 6.2L all aluminium L92 engine previously featured in great hits such as the 2008 Cadillac Escalade and Chevrolet Tahoe. It shares it's architecture with the LS series of engines, specifically the LS3 which often lives in the Corvette C6, Vaxhaull VXR8 (Holden Commodore) and Camaro. The similarity of these engines is so close that the Aluminium block and heads are identical featuring a nice desireable well flowing head with square intake ports and a chunky 6.2L displacement as well as the fact that almost every part for the LS3 or made for the LS3 will bolt straight on without any hassle including Cams, intakes, accesories, the lot.
The reason why the aluminium part is important is because this engine is essentially the exact same weight as an NA Fa20 With both engines being around 170-180kg in weight once fully dressed up meaning that unlike alot of popular 2JZ (230kg) swaps it won't ruin the weight of the car which was one of my biggest fears as I don't want to ruin what is an incredibly well handling car and a fantastic chassis.
So my plans with this over the next year are to of course clean it up, paint the block and heads to tart it up a bit. Swap out the cam to give a bit more power (should expect around 400bhp NA with this) and remove the VVT and Low-end torque focused cam designed for the big heavy trucks and SUV's this engine was previously in and eventually drop it in around this time next year. I'll find a T56 Manual gearbox to go along with it and should be able to easily fit with with some bolt in engine/gearbox mounts from the likes of Sikky Manufacturing and Motec M150 Plug & Play package from Pure Automotive in the states which will retain all factory functions including push-start, Speedometer/Rev Counter and I believe even Cruise control & AC!
This was the main reason for picking something as common (In the states atleast) as the LS rather than the more readily available 1UZ/3UZ Lexus engines we have over here as like most things I plan to do pretty much all of the work myself so it has to be something that doesn't really require alot of welding and fabrication or making an entire wiring loom.
Of course this all sounds very expensive but from what i've planned for it should work out roughly similar if not actually cheaper than a 2jz swap or High power FA20 turbo build.. plus i get to make v8 noises!
So that's all i can really think of to say so far, this'll be something i'll update slowly over time as I work on the engine and of course the next big posts will likely be the receiving and fitting on my rocket bunny kit.