Building a street daily-driver out of an EK wagon?

[rlane]

The Missus is after a cool car that she can use as a daily driver. She's small, not particularly strong and hates manual gearboxes.

She does, however, love the look of the FC/FB/EK series wagons.

My thought is:

Find a FB/EK in decent condition. Restore the shell & interior, store or sell the original driveline. Buy a low-mileage V6 Commodore VS (Ecotec) without IFS, get a front crossmember from V6Conversions plus the rest of their kit and fit the engine, trans, diff & brakes from the VS including however much of the loom is required to support all that.

Not planning any power upgrades - 200 HP in a FB seems like plenty to start with.

I've rebuilt 60's cars before - the EFI on the EcoTec and the electronics to drive 460-E make me nervous. Upside is better power and fuel economy...

Questions!

(1) Am I mad?
(2) It's a ton of work - what's my chance of finding one already done? Most upgraders seem to go with full street-rod V8s with a million horsepower - anything over maybe 300 HP in a FB seems like overkill to me for a street car. A V8 is going to be a bit heavy as well...
(3) If I was going to modernise a FB/EK - is the VS the right thing to pick as a donor? Newer than that and you're into AlloyTecs (too wide?) and IFS (forget it!)


Any other tips / thoughts / advice?

[Blacky]

Welcome to the forum rlane , firstly - make sure you get an FB , EK's are crap

Yes , you are looking at quite a bit of work and as you say finding one already built is quite difficult. The VS is a bit harder to use than the earlier non Ecotec motors due to the electonics for the transmission but I think V6 Conversions would have something to sort that out.

[bootlegger]

Just get an auto one and start driving it. The steering isnt that heavy. Ive seen heaps of woman driving them.

[rlane]

Just get an auto one and start driving it. The steering isnt that heavy. Ive seen heaps of woman driving them.

I thought it was a case of "so such thing" - I thought the auto came in with the EJ?

[Wagonman]

You should also look at doing a chassis upgrade, either your own design, or a Castlemaine Rod Shop kit. The mods you are thinking is pretty much what I am currently going through at the moment, other than fitting air-con, and a four-link rear setup. Yes, the wiring looks like a bastard, but if you mark everything as you go, you can't get into too much trouble (fingers crossed). Good luck!

[FBeing]

I thought it was a case of "so such thing" - I thought the auto came in with the EJ?

When the FB was facelifted and revised as the 'EK', the major change was a new optional automatic transmission. The introduction of the three-speed Hydramatic provided the first taste of automatic motoring for hundreds of thousands of Australians.
Other FB differences were minor: exterior badges and mouldings were changed and a redesigned grille featured wider-spaced parking lights/flashers. The Hydramatic was a fully imported American unit used in several GM vehicles overseas. It allowed the auto Holden to maintain respectable performance figures although the power of the Holden engine was not increased for the automatic versions. Economy was also closer to the manual than many expected.

Modern Motor magazine said: 'The Hydramatic is the most efficient automatic drive we've struck so far. Hydramatic is very, very sensitive to the demands the driver makes on it'.

[Devilrod]

Welcome rlane, my missus chugs around in my EK fine. No power steering, 161, trimatic, disc front. Open road averages around 10l/100klm, you don't need to go v6 but the extra go and economy is a bonus. VN-VP's are better donor vehicles but if your game you can make anything work. Or just a red running through a T700 can be anohter slightly easier option.

As has been said, auto's started in EK, but you can buy an "auto" tunnel from companies like CRS that fit great and can then allow the use of auto's in either FB's or EK's which were manuals (smaller tunnel) and still use factory carpet.

[EKjimmy]

a red motor and trimatic would probably be a lot easier than a commodore v6, but if you know what you're doing who says it can't be done, it's not that uncommon and there's conversion stuff for the ecotec v6 easily available.
a grey and a hydramatic....eerrrrr yeah they're crap and she would probably get annoyed with it, plus they're expensive to get rebuilt/serviced etc.
check out some build threads here and the fe/fc forum i'm sure there is a few ecotec builds around here, i just haven't looked for them

[Trev]

a grey and a hydramatic....eerrrrr yeah they're crap and she would probably get annoyed with it, plus they're expensive to get rebuilt/serviced etc.

You can say anything is crap if you have something better, and you can always find something better .
I have a grey with a trimatic as a daly driver, I don't mind it, only do about 40km per day so it's not over worked .
Being the wifes daly you should go with the V6, it will be some work but if you have experience with doing cars up you shouldn't have much trouble , Trev .

[EKjimmy]

grey with a tri would probably be okay, its just the lag with the hydra that's the killer. mine probably needs a service but not gonna bother with the bloody thing unless it goes boom

[Harv]

Rlane,

Don't listen to Blacky... he lives in the mountains and doesn't get into town much... EK's are much cooler (sorry Blacky... couldn't resist).

Chances of finding a V6 (or V8) converted wagon are pretty slim - they come up from time-to-time, but maybe less than five a year, and spread over the country (take a look back through the Cars for Sale section of the forum... not many V6 wagons).

I'm midway through a V8 wagon build now, and they are a lot of mucking around. I went carb and TH350 to avoid the wiring, but if I had my time again I would go injected and modern box - the wiring isn't too much harder than any of the other issues in the conversion. Carb is cool though (at least for me) as I find troubleshooting easier.