Tweet
**WARNING**
picture heavy, drifting and turning a good car into an impractical daily.
Hey guys, ive been pressured into signing up and making a thread here by Dioxide with the threat of a dick punch if I failed to meet his demands so here goes.
After getting fed up with my earlier commodore racecar/stance/daily project (as seen here)
I decided I needed something nice to daily around.
So after alot of searching, reading reveiws, thinking hard about what would be sensible and good on fuel with a good build quality and something I wouldnt see the need to modify I bought a car that meets absolutely none of the aforementioned points
A 2004 holden vy ss wagon
Basically, it was a bunch limited run vy wagons with all the nice options and features from the "sporty" ss.
5.7l(346ci) ls1
T56 speed
3.46:1 m80 lsd
Red leather
all rolled into a family wagon for kid hauling.
It was basically the opposite of what I had first set out for. But never the less, I promised my self it was a nice car and could leave it stock and be happy... and that was my first mistake.
After 2 weeks of enjoying the stock exhaust and marveling at how quiet they had made an ls1, and how nice it was to be able to speak without raising your voice... I bought a full exhaust.
Hurricane headers and highflow cats with a redback twin 2.5" cat back and some nice 2.75" tips.
3 weeks of cruising around content with a nice throaty but somewhat subtle burble and I decided it was still a bit "soccer mum-ey" so i removed the rear muffler, much to my mothers dismay haha
A few months passed after that, with me enjoying my v8 cruiser and taking long road trips to scenic locations
The height had been bugging me but I put it to the back of my mind because lowering it would start a whole other flurry of mods
Im a bit of a wheel junky (unfortunately good wheels in 5x120 are far and few between in Aus) so I frequent alot of for sale pages and ebay and such just seeing whats out there at any current time.
Amidst my browsing one day I came across a set of Rays in 5x120
They were g-games 99b, which id never heard of before but were 19x8.5 +35f and 9.5 +40 rear which seemed like a nice upgrade over my stock 17x8 +48 wheels.
Only problem was they were 2 states away and one rear had a crack from driving on a flat. So I dismissed them.
A month later they came up again cheaper with the seller needing cash
$450 and a week later, I had some rays
At this point the height was really starting to annoy me so I concluded if I found some cheap springs id grab them
By this time it had been a while since id seen any track time and the next drift night just happened to coincide with my day off (which never happens)
So I packed up the wagon with some spare wheels and headed to the track. Ive got videos somewhere ill have to try and dig them up.
Surprisingly the wagon was pretty capable in stock form, with me soon being able to link the track in my barge, unsurprising I was more than rusty and I soon ran out of talent..
I spun off the track, hitting the edge of a ripple strip on my way through.
The result?
A very bent z bar, bent shock, smashed wheel bearing, bent lower control arm, flogged strut bush, and much to my dismay...
a bent and rashed g-game
After 2 weeks of being angry at myself, getting rides to work with my brother and neglecting the wagon, I set about trying to fix it.
At first I thought it was just a bent z bar
the one on the left if how its supposed to look.
But after id replaced it, it soon became apparent there was something very wrong
So I aligned it as best I could and limped it off too my suspension guy.
After hearing the extent of the damage I was pretty depressed. That night, while nonchalantly flipping through some facebook forsale pages, I found some cheap coilovers..
And the next morning and a 4 hour drive in my girlfriends car later
Part of my brain, still being sensible we set it at a street friendly height also swapping to some newer 18" ss wheels from an 07
Parking next to another commodore wagon gives you an idea of the drop
picture heavy, drifting and turning a good car into an impractical daily.
Hey guys, ive been pressured into signing up and making a thread here by Dioxide with the threat of a dick punch if I failed to meet his demands so here goes.
After getting fed up with my earlier commodore racecar/stance/daily project (as seen here)
I decided I needed something nice to daily around.
So after alot of searching, reading reveiws, thinking hard about what would be sensible and good on fuel with a good build quality and something I wouldnt see the need to modify I bought a car that meets absolutely none of the aforementioned points
A 2004 holden vy ss wagon
Basically, it was a bunch limited run vy wagons with all the nice options and features from the "sporty" ss.
5.7l(346ci) ls1
T56 speed
3.46:1 m80 lsd
Red leather
all rolled into a family wagon for kid hauling.
It was basically the opposite of what I had first set out for. But never the less, I promised my self it was a nice car and could leave it stock and be happy... and that was my first mistake.
After 2 weeks of enjoying the stock exhaust and marveling at how quiet they had made an ls1, and how nice it was to be able to speak without raising your voice... I bought a full exhaust.
Hurricane headers and highflow cats with a redback twin 2.5" cat back and some nice 2.75" tips.
3 weeks of cruising around content with a nice throaty but somewhat subtle burble and I decided it was still a bit "soccer mum-ey" so i removed the rear muffler, much to my mothers dismay haha
A few months passed after that, with me enjoying my v8 cruiser and taking long road trips to scenic locations
The height had been bugging me but I put it to the back of my mind because lowering it would start a whole other flurry of mods
Im a bit of a wheel junky (unfortunately good wheels in 5x120 are far and few between in Aus) so I frequent alot of for sale pages and ebay and such just seeing whats out there at any current time.
Amidst my browsing one day I came across a set of Rays in 5x120
They were g-games 99b, which id never heard of before but were 19x8.5 +35f and 9.5 +40 rear which seemed like a nice upgrade over my stock 17x8 +48 wheels.
Only problem was they were 2 states away and one rear had a crack from driving on a flat. So I dismissed them.
A month later they came up again cheaper with the seller needing cash
$450 and a week later, I had some rays
At this point the height was really starting to annoy me so I concluded if I found some cheap springs id grab them
By this time it had been a while since id seen any track time and the next drift night just happened to coincide with my day off (which never happens)
So I packed up the wagon with some spare wheels and headed to the track. Ive got videos somewhere ill have to try and dig them up.
Surprisingly the wagon was pretty capable in stock form, with me soon being able to link the track in my barge, unsurprising I was more than rusty and I soon ran out of talent..
I spun off the track, hitting the edge of a ripple strip on my way through.
The result?
A very bent z bar, bent shock, smashed wheel bearing, bent lower control arm, flogged strut bush, and much to my dismay...
a bent and rashed g-game
After 2 weeks of being angry at myself, getting rides to work with my brother and neglecting the wagon, I set about trying to fix it.
At first I thought it was just a bent z bar
the one on the left if how its supposed to look.
But after id replaced it, it soon became apparent there was something very wrong
So I aligned it as best I could and limped it off too my suspension guy.
After hearing the extent of the damage I was pretty depressed. That night, while nonchalantly flipping through some facebook forsale pages, I found some cheap coilovers..
And the next morning and a 4 hour drive in my girlfriends car later
Part of my brain, still being sensible we set it at a street friendly height also swapping to some newer 18" ss wheels from an 07
Parking next to another commodore wagon gives you an idea of the drop
Comment