the Buix5 - commodore 3.8 swapped NA8

MEMES · Postby **MEMES** » Mon Sep 03, 2018 1:57 am

bit of an update, have been super busy with the trueno this weeked.
went over the car and checked a few things out, and fixed a few as well.

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Super safe battery clamp

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replaced the crusty sticky disgusting stock wheel with a new genuine momo i had chilling in the shed

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popped open the the fairly agricultural intake to discover the worlds smallest, shittiest pod filter. how lovely :frown:

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this is pretty high on the list of things to replace, the fabric has heaps of holes in it. it's more of a rock screen than an air filter :shock:

It also has the stock na8 cat back exhaust. super stealthy but im guessing its also super restrictive.
i pulled about 50kg out of the car so far which has helped too. pretty tempted to bin the aircon since it doesnt work.

not sure on how much power it makes. its really good at extracting tears from gt86 drivers. lined it up against a friends 270whp mx5. he hosed me easily, but not by as much as i was expecting which is good. With a better intake and exhaust it should gain about 10-15hp. found out you can also tune the stock ecu's which is a huge plus!!
if anyone has any info on this car or knows who built it id be very interested in having a chat.

cheers

Nevyn72 · Postby **Nevyn72** » Mon Sep 03, 2018 6:26 am

I like how the speedo only goes up to 120kph, I hope that's not a bad sign of overall performance! :shock:

bruce · Postby **bruce** » Mon Sep 03, 2018 12:43 pm

That battery needs to be attached to a tube and to the body vent hole.

bruce · Postby **bruce** » Mon Sep 03, 2018 3:32 pm

There are two vents on that battery. I plugged one and tubed the other.
Also make sure that the battery is not touching the bodywork as it gets pretty close.

floda · Postby **floda** » Sun Sep 30, 2018 12:59 pm

mx5 V8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e9JKLYngp1c

vass · Postby **vass** » Sun Oct 14, 2018 1:33 am

I have the original motor out of this car. I bought it from the owner who fitted the commodore motor, he even took me for a drive in it. The owner lived in Beldon and was a mechanic specialising in Mobile jet ski servicing and repairs. The story goes that he bought the car off of a client who had it parked up in the back yard with the head off it. Apparently that owner parked the car up after it started to blow a lot of white smoke and thinking it needed a top end rebuild, took the head off and lost interest quickly.
He bought the car like that wanting something to do in the off season and went about fixing it. He told me he took the engine apart for a re ring and bearing but was suprised how good it looked and re-ringed it only because it was apart not because it really needed it.
When he put the motor back in he realised the modulator for the auto transmission was stuffed causing transmission fluid to be sucked up into the manifold and the engine to blow smoke (there was nothing wrong with the motor) This was fixed and he drove it around for a while and was super disappointed.
He told me Mazda should never have put an auto in a small engined car (he had a mint early model Camaro parked in the garage so I guess he was used to power) and that's when he decided to put a more high powered motor in the car. Back then (it's been at least 6 years when I bought the motor) Commodores where a dime a dozen, from memory he picked up the whole car and went about doing the transplant. I remember asking him what he had to do to put it while admiring his work with the bonnet up. I still laugh today thinking about it, because he said not much and then rattled off all the work that had to be done, I believe it has a VN header on one side and a different commodore one on the other. The other memory I have is that there was a bit of work to get the power steering to work.
I don't have his number as I bought it out of gumtree at the time but he operated out of an old F250 ambulance sign written with his business details.
Perth's a small place so perhaps someone on the forum recognises him from this description.