Mike, I think you're going to have a great Vette when you finish. Looks like you are off to a good start. Just curious where was the first photo taken(looks like a submarine?) Also there is a lot of great info here so please visit often. We're all Corvette enthusiasts and friends, some like yourself are just a little further away.

 

better watch out, there's quite a few of us aussie's on here from the ACA.....

i'm regular here and so is craigh and a few more of the more frequant users.

been here since i b4 bought my vette, asking questions of what to lookout for b4 i took the plunge.

i flew from adelaide to cairns to look at mine, 6hr flight, so had to make sure it was correct b4 i splurged.

we may not know everything at home, but it's great to come on here a get a better answer

can ask a question late at night down our way, got to sleep, and usually there's an answer waiting for ya in the morning.

 

That Submarine is the HMAS Otway and it's in a town called Holbrook about half way between Sydney and Melbourne.

Here it is in Google maps

Holbrook Submarine

I quite often stop there when driving between Sydney and Melbourne. It's a good spot to take a break. I thought it would be a good photo opp to have the sub in the background.

There's some detail on the HMAS Otway here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMAS_Otway_(S_59)

There's also a submarine museum in Holbrook http://www.holbrooksubmarinemuseum.com/

Cheers

Mike

 

I've done a resto mod on my 68 SB Convertible, now with a ZZ4 and TKO 600 five speed. Now somewhere in never never land of progress doing a resto mod on my 70 BB..I like to think I'm over 1/2 way. It's an onion car. Every time I peel of a layer of the onion to correct past buggerizing, I find another layer of defects.

Keep in touch with your progress. On the 68 and 70, I bought all new engine harnesses...you mentioned a possible front end electrical problem. Yesterday, I published a post on progress on my 70. You can do a search on my forum name 68/70Vette. For repro parts, you have all the usual forum sponsors. For salvage parts, I recommend J&D Corvette. Since most of their salvage cars are from the US Southwest, there's a good probability that the donor car for your salvage part came from the Southwest; i.e salt corrosion free and humidity rusting free. J& D ships internationally.

Noticed your car has a left hand steering wheel. Not good for two lane country roads. I lived in Australia for 9 years. My last car was an Australian 1991 Ford Falcon. It had the big displacement heritage Ford 6 cylinder engine, with a Honda aluminum overhead cam cylinder head. The Bosch fuel injection (from BMW), a Borg Warner 5 speed tranny, limited slip rear end and hard springs and shocks. I drove it from Coober Pedy to Woomera (250 miles?) at a speed of almost always 100 mph.....my cousin had made a similar illegal high speed trip (100 mph) in the US with his Pontiac GTO and I wanted to duplicate his trip...although his trip was as not as long as my 250 miles. It was a two lane road, and I drove in the middle of the road for fear of my left wheels going onto the shoulder. Really loved the Australian Ford Falcon. When I got back to the US, I eventually bought a 1997 Ford Thunderbird, which looks very much like the 1991 Falcon.

 

Thanks 68/70Vette.

I've been collecting a bunch of parts for the car over the last couple of months. I'm a regular customer of Summit Racing and I've bought some parts through Ecklers Corvette parts. It's nice that so many parts are readily available.





I'm a fan of the Aussie Ford Falcon myself and have had several over the years. I currently have a 2002 Falcon XR8 Pursuit 250. It's an interesting car because it was the last gasp for the 5.0 Windsor motor before Ford introduced the 5.4 Modular motor here. Ford Australia built the motor into a real hot rod to try and knock out the the new LS motors GM had introduced. From the factory it got a stoker crank, billet rods, lightweight pistons, main bearing girdle, CNC ported heads, roller rockers and special intake manifold setup.

335HP and 370ft/lb torque

There's a vid ford produced on the making of this motor
I believe it was the most powerful Windsor 5.0 based motor Ford ever put into production.

The Pursuit 250 is the Ute version and one of only 248 cars built.




Cheers

Mike

 

Hey doorgunner Csx66 forgot to mention its tomorrow here already

 

Congrats on your new (to you) Corvette..looks like a great platform for you to work with.
I like the path you are going with this.
Thanks for posting, really enjoy the build threads.

 

Dropped the bare block and crank into the machinist today. Should look a lot better after a bath in the hot tank. Should hear sometime early next week whether the block is any good to rebuild.






Cheers

Mike

 

Welcome Mike
Yep, another Aussie checking in.
I also scan all the vette forums down here in Aus, and there's not so much activity.
You've come to the right place. There's a wealth of help, knowledge, and information on here.
You just can't beat this forum.
Also great place to buy parts

Good luck with your project.
Rgds
Ross
www.prodigy-z06.com

 

G'day and welcome Mike, yep yet another Aussie sayin hi, I'm located in Brissy and have
had my 69 l46 since 2009 and a menber for about just as long. As said by others, this is,
the best place to come to for info on your car with no end of help available from many
knowledgable members.

Cheers,
Mark

 

Thanks Ross and Mark.

I'm a big fan of car forums. Great place to learn, share ideas and meet interesting people. Especially if you're into working on your own cars. I'm on a Tickford forum for my Ute, a Land Rover forum for my Discovery 2 and a Cobra forum for another project car i'm tinkering with.

Nice car in you profile pic Mark.

Cheers

Mike

 

My wife had been out shopping and when I got home a couple of little Corvettes were sitting on my desk in the study. My wife really gets me. I think she is a keeper.




They will go in the cabinet with the other models but not before I broom broom them around the desk for a bit.



Cheers

Mike

 

Just thinking out loud here. After reading the forum for a while and looking at my car and thinking... I'm now tempted to run side pipes. I have to build a whole new exhaust since the old on is buggered. The car will be on Club registration which is bit more lenient on that sort of stuff.

The other thing that makes me think of going this way is the bodgy repair that was done on the rear infill panel around the exhaust outlets. I'm going to have to repair/replace it at some point so I could use a filled in panel. There is also some damage around the bottom of the back edge of the front guards where the pipes would exit under the body. I wouldn't feel so bad about notching into this area and the rocker panel for clearance.

I built my own headers and Side pipes for my Cobra. I reckon I could make something nice from stainless for the Vette.




So what's the general consensus on side pipes?

Cheers

Mike

 

EDITED:


Similar to chrome exhausts on Harley Davidsons......DON'T fry the calf!

 

With Cobras they call it a snake bite.

 

It looks like you do great work Mike and a lot of people like the side pipes. I do like them on the 69s but somehow to me I don't care as much for them on the later years. Many would disagree with me and my tastes tend to run a little more toward the original look. It's your car and judging by the work you've done they would probably look good.

 

Side pipes are a personal thing, I prefer the look of them on a C2. When you stand way back and look at a C3 side on you can see where the designer tried hard to give the car its waisted shark like look and the rocker panels being silver help accentuate this. When you add side pipes it detracts from this view and makes it look like a shark with a couple of remoras hanging off it. JMPO so don't flame me if you have side pipes:-)
I believe from what I have read here on the forum that you can get better performance with a good through exhaust compared to side pipes. I can see where they can improve ground clearance though, I have bottomed out the exhaust under the diff a few times here on our bumpy back country roads.

 

Anybody ever see someone try to mount a protruding skid plate or some sort of caster-type apparatus to the bottom of the differential (or somewhere else more solid) so it hangs down just a bit lower than the pipes to take the brunt of a "bottoming out" event rather than the pipes themselves?

Just curious,

paul

 

are sidepipes legal over here?
I can't see how they could be viewed any differently to cobra pipes.....

 

The rules around side pipes have relaxed a bit lately. The limitations that meant you couldn't run them have changed. The main one is that you couldn't have an exhaust that exits towards the foot path. That rule has been removed.

The other limitations are around having the exhaust exit rearward of the rear most opening window by a certain distance. Not an issue in a roadster though and probably not on a coupe either. As long as they meet the noise requirements and have adequate heat shielding they are OK in Victoria.

The ones on my Cobra have cat converters inside them to meet emissions.

It's still something I'm thinking about. Probably something I look at more seriously once I get the motor front end back in and I can hold some pipe up along side the car and see what they look like.

Cheers

Mike