Australian L67 build

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storm
Posts: 796
Joined: Wed Jan 10, 2007 10:10 pm
Location: NSW, Australia

Australian L67 build

Post by storm »

I finally got hold of an L67, or what has been sold as an L67, and can start the work to convert my plain Jane VS wagon to a street sleeper.

The engine come with a VS LIM (I was really pleased with this), a VT PCM with a memcal in it (don't know what it is yet though), an ebay special VT XU6 memcal, a wiring loom (I think it is VT but not sure just yet). It has apparently been "rebuilt" but I received it in various pieces, the Eaton was separate to the motor. I is basically a long block. The Eaton is a little clunky but the previous owner gave me a MACE rebuild kit for it. He also gave me a VT flywheel that he said was for a Getrag not a T5, and an aftermarket pulley that he said was for 10PSI.

The heads have been cleaned up but I'm going to pull them apart and make sure they are ok. I am thinking of putting in some K-line valve guide liners if it hasn't got them already. It has apparently got 1.92 rockers but after a quick look I'm not sure that's quite true. I'll do some research and see if there are identifying features that can confirm what they are.

Over the coming weeks and months I'm going to slowly rebuild it. Starting with the Eaton I'll rebuild it, and maybe port it and the LIM to ZZP/MACE specs. Apart from that it is my intent to build the engine to stock specs but with aftermarket parts where appropriate so that in the future I can get more performance out of it without having to pull it right down again. I will post as the work progresses.
Fuel flow requirements calculations
Engine air flow requirement calculation: CFM = Cubic Inches x RPM x Volumetric Efficiency (VE) ÷ 3456

storm
Posts: 796
Joined: Wed Jan 10, 2007 10:10 pm
Location: NSW, Australia

Re: Australian L67 build

Post by storm »

A week has past and I have only just had a chance to try to work on the L67. I haven't got any bolts long enough to put it on my engine stand. So I have taken some photos of it and will try to get into town one day this week to get some mounting bolts.
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Fuel flow requirements calculations
Engine air flow requirement calculation: CFM = Cubic Inches x RPM x Volumetric Efficiency (VE) ÷ 3456

storm
Posts: 796
Joined: Wed Jan 10, 2007 10:10 pm
Location: NSW, Australia

Re: Australian L67 build

Post by storm »

Updated 2nd post with pics, thanks Frank for your help.
Fuel flow requirements calculations
Engine air flow requirement calculation: CFM = Cubic Inches x RPM x Volumetric Efficiency (VE) ÷ 3456

storm
Posts: 796
Joined: Wed Jan 10, 2007 10:10 pm
Location: NSW, Australia

Re: Australian L67 build

Post by storm »

Today is the 1st day I have been able to go out due to self isolating because I have/had a head cold and can't afford to come into contact with anyone that has Covid-19. With regards to Covid-19 there are at least 9 cases in my local medical district.

Anyway I went out and got some bolts so I can mount the L67 onto my new engine stand. With the engine mounted I decided to do a compression pressure leak down test. Even though this engine was sold as an engine that the rebuild just needed to be completed I decided even before seeing it that if I purchased it I would strip it down, check it, and rebuild it to take at least 1 Bar (14.7 psi) of pressure. The results of the pressure test was every cylinder was leaking through either intake or exhaust valves. I have to be honest and say I'm a bit peeved that the guy lied to me but I had already made the decision to do a total rebuild anyway. So the important thing is I have the engine and unless it is a real basket case (you'll here me in Reykjavík if it is) I'll rebuild it anyway.

As an extra I am going to film the testing, stripping, and rebuilding of the L67 and post it on YouTube. I need to spend a couple of days cleaning my indoor workshop and outside work area (which is under a carport, I like being able to work in the open air work area) so I can work on the L67 and not have any contaminants get in it.
Fuel flow requirements calculations
Engine air flow requirement calculation: CFM = Cubic Inches x RPM x Volumetric Efficiency (VE) ÷ 3456

turbine guy
Posts: 44
Joined: Tue May 06, 2008 10:51 pm
Location: Fort St. John, BC Canada

Re: Australian L67 build

Post by turbine guy »

Have you considered a simple nozzle ring for the vapour injection point, installed immediately downstream of the mass airflow sensor, rather than a draw-through set up? Blowers loath any inlet restriction thus a draw-through will impose some loss of blower efficiency and boost. A streamlined nozzle injector ring may be an option to consider. Boost reference the vapouriser and you will be assured positive propane vapour flow. The reference tube can have an adjustable needle valve to control the amount of boost seen by the vapouriser. Thoughts off the top of my head. One of my employees turbocharged his 4.9l inline-6 in an Ford F-150. We rigged up a ghetto nozzle ring, mounted directly to the turbo inlet, boost referenced the vapouriser and it worked amazingly well! Very little "tweaking" was required to hit the correct A/F ratios under all driving conditions. If you cannot find a nozzle ring the correct size, anyone competent with a lathe can scale one up in aluminum from a known sample.

storm
Posts: 796
Joined: Wed Jan 10, 2007 10:10 pm
Location: NSW, Australia

Re: Australian L67 build

Post by storm »

The M90 is capable of working with a "vacuum" restriction the trick is to have the restriction open as quickly as possible. As soon as you have a regular efi throttle body you have a vacuum restriction on front of the blower. My ideal setup would be 2 GRA throttle bodies, but their isn't alot of room in the engine bay of a VS Commodore to sit these things.

What do you mean by "nozzle ring"? If I get you correctly you are probably referring to what we call a spud.
Fuel flow requirements calculations
Engine air flow requirement calculation: CFM = Cubic Inches x RPM x Volumetric Efficiency (VE) ÷ 3456

turbine guy
Posts: 44
Joined: Tue May 06, 2008 10:51 pm
Location: Fort St. John, BC Canada

Re: Australian L67 build

Post by turbine guy »

Not sure what they may be called in OZ, but in Canada, we call them "nozzle rings" or "injector rings". Typically, they range from triple 25mm orifice ring for a 5.7l Chevy, dual 30mm ring for 7.5l Ford, or single rings for industrial units anywhere from 20mm up to 90+mm. Some are adjustable on the propane outlet via threads between the two relative parts. If I can figure out how to paste pictures I'll do so. (Its been a couple years since I was on this site.)

storm
Posts: 796
Joined: Wed Jan 10, 2007 10:10 pm
Location: NSW, Australia

Re: Australian L67 build

Post by storm »

Here's a picture of what we call a spud. This particular one is for a Holden V6-V8 (they use very similar throttle bodies).
spud-ring.jpeg
spud-ring.jpeg (9.83 KiB) Viewed 11267 times
Fuel flow requirements calculations
Engine air flow requirement calculation: CFM = Cubic Inches x RPM x Volumetric Efficiency (VE) ÷ 3456

storm
Posts: 796
Joined: Wed Jan 10, 2007 10:10 pm
Location: NSW, Australia

Re: Australian L67 build

Post by storm »

Thinking out loud about air and fuel flow for the L67. These are 3.8 litre that can be stroked to 4.2 litres. There is at least 1 Australian company that builds them to 4.7 litres but I think the rod/stroke ratio may put to much side load on the pistons/bores because they are a short deck block. The higher deck Buick 3800 would be ideal for this though so that may be another project for the future.

Anyway, thinking about airflow and fuel flow again my thoughts are moving more towards vapour injection. I have been watching AMR LPG products for a while and they have been advertising for years that they were developing LPG vapour injectors, they had already developed a regulator so I was just waiting for the injectors to see what they were like. I took a look at their website today and they have injectors available now. So my thoughts are use this regulator and these injectors or Prins injectors run the system with an aftermarket ECU like an MS3Pro or a Haltech Elite, or stick to the OEM ECU and use a Moates module so that I can flick the LPG switch and have a tune that suits the LPG rather than a tune setup for petrol.
Fuel flow requirements calculations
Engine air flow requirement calculation: CFM = Cubic Inches x RPM x Volumetric Efficiency (VE) ÷ 3456

storm
Posts: 796
Joined: Wed Jan 10, 2007 10:10 pm
Location: NSW, Australia

Re: Australian L67 build

Post by storm »

I have just completed half of a top swap on my old engine. By half I mean the cylinder heads. I went to work a few weeks ago at a new school and on the way in my engine developed a problem and was running extremely rough. I babied it home in the afternoon where it promptly spat off the bottom radiator hose in my shed. The cooling system had pressurised due to combustion pressure leaking into it. So over the last few weekends, and today which was my first day off this month, I stripped the old heads off, cleaned up the L67 heads, fitted new valve springs/retainers/collets, fitted VRS kit, and refitted the ecotec manifold. It has run a few times in the last week but due to the coolant hoses to the regulator becoming very hard and brittle because they run behind the engine I haven;t had any water in it so have only run it for 30 seconds to check for vacuum leaks etc. Today it got new hoses and at 5 pm tonight it was filled with water and left to bleed air out overnight.

Because of the total, and probably irreversible, collapse of Australian automotive manufacturing (I mean cars not parts) I decided to do the entire car up and since the Covid lockdown I have spent in excess of AU$6K on the suspension and engine on this car. I'll never buy a new car, they simply are not worth the hassle, so keeping my old cars going and safe to use has become my automotive priority. Over the next few months I'll get the parts to rebuild the Eaton M90, a set of exhaust headers, a cold air induction kit, new high flow injectors (this car is duel fuel so I will retain petrol injection) compatible with E85, and during the Christmas/New Year break I'll rebuild the engine and fit the M90.
Fuel flow requirements calculations
Engine air flow requirement calculation: CFM = Cubic Inches x RPM x Volumetric Efficiency (VE) ÷ 3456

storm
Posts: 796
Joined: Wed Jan 10, 2007 10:10 pm
Location: NSW, Australia

Re: Australian L67 build

Post by storm »

A bit of an update on this. The old Ecotec 3.8 V6 had another problem which meant I had to swap the engines over it is still running as an Ecotec not an L67. What happened to the original engine was it spun a cam bearing and snapped the camshaft between cylinders 2 and 3. So I did a block swap and have been running it in that form since then. I have been searching for a machine shop to line bore and hone the crank and cam tunnels as well as ensure the decks are square to the crank tunnel. I have decided to go with Brushworks Slick Sixes, its a shop that specialises in Ecotecs and L67s. The machining is a bit pricier but the quality of workmanship is 2nd to none on these things.

In the meantime I have purchased an LPG injection kit which will be fitted to the current Ecotec and then to the L67 when it is built. This is the kit I have purchased, I have communicated with Michael (the owner of AMR) a few times and he has been very helpful and informative. I'm going to try to do a video series on this install but won't be making any promises as we are in lockdown here and as an essential worker I am on call each weekday. Hopefully the school holidays will give me time, if the kit is delivered in time, to get it done.
Fuel flow requirements calculations
Engine air flow requirement calculation: CFM = Cubic Inches x RPM x Volumetric Efficiency (VE) ÷ 3456

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