I'm not too sure how many people know about my street driven love. I've been an avid Holden fan in V8 Supercars and Group A for years. I had posters of the Alan Grice Bathurst winning VL on my wall when I was a kid. My Dad has owned 6 Commodores from VB sedans, VH wagons through to his current VZ SS ute. I only really went away from them when Craig Lowndes did when defecting to Ford and returned late last year with my purchase of a brand new 2009 manual SS in Phantom (Metallic Black).
Part of the reason I'm posting the car on here is to hopefully show people there is life in Aussie cars. Sure, there's a terrible stigma attached to Commodores such as Chev badges, chrome wheels and garish GT stripes. But I want to show people how truly amazing a car Holden have built. Still regarded as the best Australian built chassis, the VE drives like a much more expensive European car. The car will easily seat 5 adults in comfort with 8-10" leg room for a 6' passenger behind me as the driver. This is an enormous vehicle as anyone who has driven one will attest to. They're actually quite un-nerving to drive at first. Add to that the L98 all alloy 6000cc V8 engine producing 270kW and 530Nm mated to a six speed manual transmission - the SS Commodore in manual trim will do 0-100 in 5.6 seconds. Not too shabby for a car that weighs over 1,800kg. What's even more impressive is how easy it is to get the 0-100 sprint down to 4.5 seconds!!! I'll be showing this in the not too distant future.
I bought this car to tow the time attack car to the race track. I am still yet to fit a tow bar as I haven't had the time to hit the track due to family and woirk commitments. I started a new job in recruiting in mid July and that has taken a large amount of my time. With me now selling the Honda I've decided to tinker with the untapped resource that had previously just been sitting in the garage being under-appreciated. So here we are at the build thread for my SS.
To start with, here's a picture of the day I picked it up. Please forgive me for the lack of quality when it comes to initial images. These will be replaced with better quality pics in time.
For the first four months of ownership the car was driven to and from Hornsby from Wallsend (Newcastle F3 exit) for the commute to work. The car averaged 8.6l/100km and is the most comfortable car I have ever travelled long distances in. Gear ratios have a lot to do with this. For reference, the Chevrolet gearbox has a very simple (SPEED/6th gear = **00rpm) final drive ratio calculation. At 60km/h in sixth gear it revs at 1,000rpm. At 120km/h in sixth gear it revs at 2,000rpm. At 180km/h it revs at 3,000rpm. The great thing is that the car can be driven at 1,000rpm easily. With 530Nm I can drive the car without throttle input and the easiest way to slow to a stop when cruising is to put the car into neutral - testament to the torque and drivability of the L98.
I quickly put 14,000kms in 3 months on the car and moved to Sydney in mid February when it became a garage furniture item. It only hit the 16,000km mark two weeks ago. The car had become quite neglected. It hadn't been washed in nearly a month, had a few scratches from Superlap and shopping centres abuse and was 1,500kms overdue for a service. I became quite upset with the mistreatment I had given it. Last Saturday I took the car to Tunehouse in Marrickville to get the service attended to. The guys did a great job in showing me a detailed report on paper and on the car, explained common faults with VEs and reported that my car was showing none of those signs and drove like a brand new car, not even needing new diff oil which is more often than not changed at 15,000kms. Tony was polite and knowledgable and was a joy to deal with. I can't recommend these guys enough.
This brings us to the start of my build thread. I believe that every build or modification must have a plan. My plan is to build a tough looking, unique and damn fast muscle car using a combination of OEM, local aftermarket and JDM parts.
Starting with styling. - I chose the SS over every other car in the HSV/Holden range because it is the cleanest and most powerful in it's design. The VE HSV range looks like a "design a car" competition. It has just too many concepts in the one vehicle to look like it was designed by anyone other than a 12 year old boy on Need For Speed. The SS body kit is tough, yet understated. The differences between the SS and SSV are the exclusion of leather, 19" alloys, sat nav, dual zone climate control and projector headlamps and unique tail lights. For $8,000 most of these weren't of any interest to me. I don't like leather, don't use sat nav and the 19" alloys are only 8" wide (the same as the SS wheels).
My concept for exterior styling is to clean the car up. Holden use the same body kit for the SV6, SS and SSV. The only difference between the SV6 and SS are the badges, which the SS has a total of 5 unique badges. One SS on the rear, two on the rear doors and a V8 6 litre badge on both front wings. In my opinion these tart the car up and go against the clean design of the SS. Today I removed the rear Holden badge and all SS badging. I am in two minds about the front badge. I may paint it the same Phantom black as the rest of the car for a truly menacing look from the front.
BEFORE
AFTER
My only other plans for the body styling are SSV projector headlights with 6000k HIDs and SSV tail lights. I fitted the SSV tail lights today when I was debadging the car. The are a black housing with a single red circular lobe for the tail and brake light with sliver trims and clear reverse light. On a black car they look better than on any other colour and a welcome replacement for the standard "Omega" tail lights.
The SSV headlights and HIDs will be fitted on Thursday this week. I'm a firm believer in "no projector, no HIDs" so that's the reason why I'm swapping the headlights. There will be no corner cutting on this car. The car is also booked in for a full window tint in 18% this coming Saturday. An all black car deserves nothing but the very darkest practical window tint film to keep things looking serious. I'll have updated images with all this done before next weekend.
Moving on to the engine I am planning on simple breather mods and professional tuning. The joys of the L98 are capacity and potential with basic bolt ons. I have chosen to run headers, hi flow metal cats and a full twin 3" stainless exhaust and dual twin tip stainless mufflers along with an OTRCAI (over the radiator cold air intake). The OTRCAI allows the most forced and cooled air to enter the plenum with the shortest ram distance. It also allows for MAF sensor removal which is fundamentally the only difference between the Clubsport R8 and the SS. The Clubsport R8 has 317kW as opposed to the 270kW in the SS. When dyno tuned, the car should be outputting a massive 270kW atw. An increase of 65kW over stock average numbers. Torque will also increase to over 600Nm and fuel economy actually improved by close to 2 litres/100km. After this however it's the law of diminishing returns. That kind of power is fine for my daily and will certainly get the car into the high 4 second 0-100 sprint and bring it close to high 12 second passes. Again remembering we're dealing with 1,825kg of car here.
The stock suspension on the SS provides solid handling for a factory sedan but I want lowered ride height and better turn in and corner speed. I'll be replacing stock suspension with Bilstein spring/shocks and Whiteline sway bars and bushes. This will lower the car by 2.5". Perfect for daily duties and bringing the wheels closer to those massive flared fenders....
Which will be filled with 19" Work Meisters powder coated in hot orange. I could've easily decided to leave the wheels matt black but every second black Commodore has black wheels. I wanted to get a little European inspiration from the 997 GT3RS for this. Definitely the most eye catching part of the car. Specs for these wheels are as follows.
Front - 19x9 +25 (stock 18x8 +45)
Rear - 19x10 +45 (stock 18x8 +57)
As you can see the wheels are going a long way outboard. The stock offset is very weak and doesn't do the car any favours. These wheels will require guard rolling, but it's not an immediate requirement as they're still three months away due to a custom order from Work Wheels.
The only other thing I have on my shopping list is a mild stereo upgrade which will include a 10" sub in a clever install that doesn't take up any bootspace and a set of high quality 6.5" splits in the front and rear of the cabin powered by a small amp. I want to retain the factory head unit due to dashboard design.
So that's it for now. Keep checking as I am going to be doing this over about 6 or 7 stages in the next 6 months. I might do a track day at Wakefield Park just to see what the car can do, but definitely a WSID run to see if the 12s are possible.
I'll have more pics (in better quality) uploaded to replace these dodgy iPhone ones soon too. I hope you enjoy!
Part of the reason I'm posting the car on here is to hopefully show people there is life in Aussie cars. Sure, there's a terrible stigma attached to Commodores such as Chev badges, chrome wheels and garish GT stripes. But I want to show people how truly amazing a car Holden have built. Still regarded as the best Australian built chassis, the VE drives like a much more expensive European car. The car will easily seat 5 adults in comfort with 8-10" leg room for a 6' passenger behind me as the driver. This is an enormous vehicle as anyone who has driven one will attest to. They're actually quite un-nerving to drive at first. Add to that the L98 all alloy 6000cc V8 engine producing 270kW and 530Nm mated to a six speed manual transmission - the SS Commodore in manual trim will do 0-100 in 5.6 seconds. Not too shabby for a car that weighs over 1,800kg. What's even more impressive is how easy it is to get the 0-100 sprint down to 4.5 seconds!!! I'll be showing this in the not too distant future.
I bought this car to tow the time attack car to the race track. I am still yet to fit a tow bar as I haven't had the time to hit the track due to family and woirk commitments. I started a new job in recruiting in mid July and that has taken a large amount of my time. With me now selling the Honda I've decided to tinker with the untapped resource that had previously just been sitting in the garage being under-appreciated. So here we are at the build thread for my SS.
To start with, here's a picture of the day I picked it up. Please forgive me for the lack of quality when it comes to initial images. These will be replaced with better quality pics in time.
For the first four months of ownership the car was driven to and from Hornsby from Wallsend (Newcastle F3 exit) for the commute to work. The car averaged 8.6l/100km and is the most comfortable car I have ever travelled long distances in. Gear ratios have a lot to do with this. For reference, the Chevrolet gearbox has a very simple (SPEED/6th gear = **00rpm) final drive ratio calculation. At 60km/h in sixth gear it revs at 1,000rpm. At 120km/h in sixth gear it revs at 2,000rpm. At 180km/h it revs at 3,000rpm. The great thing is that the car can be driven at 1,000rpm easily. With 530Nm I can drive the car without throttle input and the easiest way to slow to a stop when cruising is to put the car into neutral - testament to the torque and drivability of the L98.
I quickly put 14,000kms in 3 months on the car and moved to Sydney in mid February when it became a garage furniture item. It only hit the 16,000km mark two weeks ago. The car had become quite neglected. It hadn't been washed in nearly a month, had a few scratches from Superlap and shopping centres abuse and was 1,500kms overdue for a service. I became quite upset with the mistreatment I had given it. Last Saturday I took the car to Tunehouse in Marrickville to get the service attended to. The guys did a great job in showing me a detailed report on paper and on the car, explained common faults with VEs and reported that my car was showing none of those signs and drove like a brand new car, not even needing new diff oil which is more often than not changed at 15,000kms. Tony was polite and knowledgable and was a joy to deal with. I can't recommend these guys enough.
This brings us to the start of my build thread. I believe that every build or modification must have a plan. My plan is to build a tough looking, unique and damn fast muscle car using a combination of OEM, local aftermarket and JDM parts.
Starting with styling. - I chose the SS over every other car in the HSV/Holden range because it is the cleanest and most powerful in it's design. The VE HSV range looks like a "design a car" competition. It has just too many concepts in the one vehicle to look like it was designed by anyone other than a 12 year old boy on Need For Speed. The SS body kit is tough, yet understated. The differences between the SS and SSV are the exclusion of leather, 19" alloys, sat nav, dual zone climate control and projector headlamps and unique tail lights. For $8,000 most of these weren't of any interest to me. I don't like leather, don't use sat nav and the 19" alloys are only 8" wide (the same as the SS wheels).
My concept for exterior styling is to clean the car up. Holden use the same body kit for the SV6, SS and SSV. The only difference between the SV6 and SS are the badges, which the SS has a total of 5 unique badges. One SS on the rear, two on the rear doors and a V8 6 litre badge on both front wings. In my opinion these tart the car up and go against the clean design of the SS. Today I removed the rear Holden badge and all SS badging. I am in two minds about the front badge. I may paint it the same Phantom black as the rest of the car for a truly menacing look from the front.
BEFORE
AFTER
My only other plans for the body styling are SSV projector headlights with 6000k HIDs and SSV tail lights. I fitted the SSV tail lights today when I was debadging the car. The are a black housing with a single red circular lobe for the tail and brake light with sliver trims and clear reverse light. On a black car they look better than on any other colour and a welcome replacement for the standard "Omega" tail lights.
The SSV headlights and HIDs will be fitted on Thursday this week. I'm a firm believer in "no projector, no HIDs" so that's the reason why I'm swapping the headlights. There will be no corner cutting on this car. The car is also booked in for a full window tint in 18% this coming Saturday. An all black car deserves nothing but the very darkest practical window tint film to keep things looking serious. I'll have updated images with all this done before next weekend.
Moving on to the engine I am planning on simple breather mods and professional tuning. The joys of the L98 are capacity and potential with basic bolt ons. I have chosen to run headers, hi flow metal cats and a full twin 3" stainless exhaust and dual twin tip stainless mufflers along with an OTRCAI (over the radiator cold air intake). The OTRCAI allows the most forced and cooled air to enter the plenum with the shortest ram distance. It also allows for MAF sensor removal which is fundamentally the only difference between the Clubsport R8 and the SS. The Clubsport R8 has 317kW as opposed to the 270kW in the SS. When dyno tuned, the car should be outputting a massive 270kW atw. An increase of 65kW over stock average numbers. Torque will also increase to over 600Nm and fuel economy actually improved by close to 2 litres/100km. After this however it's the law of diminishing returns. That kind of power is fine for my daily and will certainly get the car into the high 4 second 0-100 sprint and bring it close to high 12 second passes. Again remembering we're dealing with 1,825kg of car here.
The stock suspension on the SS provides solid handling for a factory sedan but I want lowered ride height and better turn in and corner speed. I'll be replacing stock suspension with Bilstein spring/shocks and Whiteline sway bars and bushes. This will lower the car by 2.5". Perfect for daily duties and bringing the wheels closer to those massive flared fenders....
Which will be filled with 19" Work Meisters powder coated in hot orange. I could've easily decided to leave the wheels matt black but every second black Commodore has black wheels. I wanted to get a little European inspiration from the 997 GT3RS for this. Definitely the most eye catching part of the car. Specs for these wheels are as follows.
Front - 19x9 +25 (stock 18x8 +45)
Rear - 19x10 +45 (stock 18x8 +57)
As you can see the wheels are going a long way outboard. The stock offset is very weak and doesn't do the car any favours. These wheels will require guard rolling, but it's not an immediate requirement as they're still three months away due to a custom order from Work Wheels.
The only other thing I have on my shopping list is a mild stereo upgrade which will include a 10" sub in a clever install that doesn't take up any bootspace and a set of high quality 6.5" splits in the front and rear of the cabin powered by a small amp. I want to retain the factory head unit due to dashboard design.
So that's it for now. Keep checking as I am going to be doing this over about 6 or 7 stages in the next 6 months. I might do a track day at Wakefield Park just to see what the car can do, but definitely a WSID run to see if the 12s are possible.
I'll have more pics (in better quality) uploaded to replace these dodgy iPhone ones soon too. I hope you enjoy!
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