Last time I looked under one of Larry’s cars was eastern creek 1996 and Larry told me straight up to F off . I don’t think he appreciated me taking pictures haha
@@perkinsengineering One fairly cold early Sunday morning on the Lakeside infield in 1995, he pointed out to my missus that "She had left her headlights on". That stopped us dead in our tracks! The old Lazza was a bit of a mischief maker.
@@obiemichaels9675old fella I used to work with did the same thing under Bob Janes Torana when he was a kid, and got the same response. Only he was dragged out by his ankles first 😆
Ive seen him go off a few times over the decades, one time the team couldn’t get the qualifying motor out because they made a in car change to the exhaust! He was yelling “You mean to tell me a set of headers are f ing us? Maybe we need to be smarter than a set of f ing headers! “ or something like that he said! Must have been another bad day!
Yes, so pleased to see underneath. It's so so clean. I appreciate all the little details. Our family car was a dark blue VL sedan back in the day. An odd fact - my dad and his family migrated from Scotland in 1954 - and my grandmother was good friends with Tom Walkinshaw's mum. It really is a small world.
Thanks for the little extra video Jack. Love seeing all those little fabricated odds and ends. That make up a racecar. Ive Seen some pretty agricultural looking stuff on racecars over the years. Everything on the cars you show us seems to be funtion over form, but still very neat without going overboard.
Everything had to made to a standard, this includes engineering drawings, and then the capability of mass production to sell to customers and competitors. Cheers!!
Thoroughly enjoyed this Jack, reinforced what a powerhouse Perkins Engineering is in our motorsport history. Also obvious how your knowledge is expanding - you know these rockets inside and out!
That's a ripper , that really shows how much engineering was in them in that era thanks to your Dad . I'm assuming front callipers are Harrop too. Thanks Jack look forward to next episode.
Good to see under the old girl. You still have the old vl motor lying around? Maybe, if your not to busy, a vl commodore replica in castrol colours you could build?
As someone who stills plays in car clubs with these early model Commodores it would have been nice to see more detail of how the K-frame was " modified" to accept the adjustable radius rod instead of the normal Z style bar and the lower control arms.
There's one for sale on our website! Check it out here: perkinsmotorsport.com/collections/featured-products/products/perkins-engineering-prototype-slide-manifold
Nice video, next time can you tell us some specs of the engine- ie comp ratio , valve sizes and exhaust diameters . Love to know how he got 500+hp out of a 5ltr . Great work
You can find a lot of this information online or in magazines like Street Machine who covered engine specs in 1993/94 and again in 2022/23. 1993 Engine was 10:1, 2.020" inlet valves and standard exhaust, 550hp 415ft/lbs torque at 5500rpm
This is amaaaaaazing. What an awesome experience it is to look under this masterpiece. Are Perkins Engineering going to share any photos or general info on the internal design of the wet sump? Would be fascinating to a lot of Holden V8 enthusiasts including myself.
@perkinsengineering damn. I thought there'd be some old photos or drawings, or other technical details regarding oil priority modifications, alterations to aid breathing or promote oil return to the sump, etc. I had no idea it wasn't dry sump by this era!
I used a 3 link from the top of the diff on my Sports Sedan and it worked very well. Hooked up hard and handled ok. They do not bind unlike 4 links which are often bad! With wheels in the air. Simple panhard with 3 height settings. Would have been far better with better shocks but they cost money! Had old adjustable Konis that never left the full hard setting. All way around. Still ran top 10 in national SS events in SA and Vic. As the VL, I have a classic speedway Supermodified that runs exactly the same on the outside. Runs well on rough tracks. It did have 4 links originally, front and rear. It was referred too by someone as a 2" steam pipe sway bar. Beam axle. What is with those drilled rotors, I had some that lasted about 10 laps of Mallala and cracked. Seen plenty others as well. Used grooved ones. Mostly ex Tourer rears I was scrounging. 13" was plenty big enough for a 920kg XU1 Chev. With VL style AP callipers
Any info or pics I can check out. wouldn’t be for another couple years after they ran the VL before I even existed.. and this is the first I’m learning of many different things. Been the case a lot thanks to this channel and the people that comment, it’s bloody awesome. you’ve got me intrigued to be honest
@@cpzmelbs You can see the amount of time & trouble invested in making our local family cars fast & entertaining. Group C rules allowed these improvements which made the cars safer & a whole lot faster. The whole idea was to showcase locally available cars & to provide exciting entertainment & it worked beautifully. Some folks with too much money lost the plot & they rammed Group A rules down our necks in 1985. This allowed endless swarms of specialised factory mass produced racecars in from Europe & elsewhere. The big dollar Aust teams elected to run these massively powerful Euro rockets up against our locally developed family car based sedans. Suddenly we were swamped with megabuck whizz bang tin pot toys from overseas & all the hard work we'd invested in local motor racing went largely down the drain. We'd had 6 cylinder & V8 Holdens fight it out on track with V8 Falcons since 1968. These local cars sounded awesome & the racing was intense. The engines were race prepped family car engines. They were real cars anyone could buy, prep & race. Group A killed it. We ended up watching Cosworth powered kid's toys dominating which sounded like a fart in a trumpet winning race after race. Even Ford fans cheered for V8 Commodores because they were sick of 4 cylinder fart rockets until Nissan arrived with their criminally fast twin turboed 4 wheel drive GTRs which clearly demonstrated Group A was a sick joke no one wanted. Larry did the patriotic thing. He stuck with his Holdens, worked like mad to make them stronger & faster & he & a few others put up a damn good fight right up until the numbskulls finally woke up & tossed out the nutty Group A rule book in 1993. Group A became so infuriating, the crowd at Bathurst in 1992 started pelting full cans of beer at Jimmy & Skaifey after they won the event with a monster car aptly named Godzilla. By this stage, Aust racing enthusiasts had had an absolute gutful of expensive purpose built foreign cars dominating our sport. It was appalling & outrageous & folks were angry. This great Perkins built VL shows us just how much work went into setting up a Commodore to make it competitive under Group A rules. She's a work of art & a fine example of what formed the basis of V8 Supercars years later. Even Peter Brock drove a Coswoth Sierra at Bathurst in 1990. No one wanted to ever see anything like that. Thankfully Larry kept V8 Holdens alive throughout the entire irritating Group A period. Without him & other visionaries like him, we would never have come away with what became V8 SuperCars. We owe Larry plenty. He was the backbone of Australian Touring Car Racing.
@@perkinsengineering Many thanks, Jack. This episode is golden. Showing us what lies beneath one of Larry's fabulous engineering marvel time capsules is a real treat. Thankfully, early Commies are now running in Historic categories & they are competitive against imported performance coupes. Do us all a huge favour & rattle a VK together for historic racing. I'm sure Castrol would back such a project. 308 Commodores regularly hammered 350 Chev Camaros at Bathurst for years in Group C. I'm sure you could replicate that & the fans would love it.
thankyou jack ,this was so cool to cee . appreciated greatly. im super curious as to how they compare to the HDT cars- it would be a long shot but if anyone could do it you are most likely too succeed -a side by side comparrison would got viral , luv your work . cheers
There weren't any HDT VL Walkinshaws, but there were HRT ones. The 1988 HSV and 1989 HRT cars were actually PE cars so the fundamentals were similar. In 1990 they possibly did some different "stuff", maybe we could sneak under the 1990 winner at Eggleston Motorsport for a look ;)
Correct. 1992 spec very different to 1990 also. In 1990 it was a Holinger 5 speed gearbox and twin throttle engine, 92 was 6 speed gearbox and slide manifold as an example.
Wasn't the Tom Walkinshaw "bum drag" at Bathurst '88 caused by rear suspension binding causing a breakage? This after the Brits supposedly ignored the Australian advice?
Awesome to see that this beauty has survived. Do you know what happened to the VL that Larry campaigned at the start of 1993? It is the one that wound up on its side in the Symmons Plains and trap.
@@perkinsengineering, that's pretty cool. I'm passionate about preserving our racing heritage, and you deserve nothing but praise for your work on that front. Keep it going, mate.
@@blueyhis.zarsoff1147 It was determined 4 links bound up, restricting suspension flex & travel which impacted on power down out of tight corners. Best recipe for nose heavy - front engine - rear wheel drive is very stiff front where most of the weight is & to keep the car flatter when cornering & softer at the rear so both back tyres can freely maintain contact with roadway. This concept was explored & proven with the narrow track GTR XU-1. Narrow track underpowered little Torana beat all GTHO Falcons at Bathurst in '72 because Harry worked out how to get best rear wheel grip out of corners. Stiffened up Toranas were notorious for lifting inside wheels when cornering. Stiff front, soft flexible rear helped address this. Some quicker early Toranas used 4 cylinder Torana rear coils with fully adjusted Konis up front. As more & more curbing appeared on apexes, it became more challenging to get cars settled, back tyres biting & power down out of tight & twisty sections. Someone figured this out (possibly Walkinshaw's engineers) & they tried removing one upper arm. It must have worked because Walkie went along with it. Sadly for Walkinshaw, his earliest attempt at 3 link failed at Bathurst causing the rear suspension on his car to completely collapse whilst Larry's sister car, better engineered in Aust by Larry did not break it's rear suspension. Larry's car suffered engine failure but only after Walkinshaw commandeered Larry's AUSTRALIAN prepped car & revved the pick handles out of it which blew the engine ending it's strong RELIABLE performance. Had Larry's local Aussie car won, Pommy Walkinshaw would have looked like an idiot compared to Aussie Larry. It's fairly evident jealous Pommy deliberately ruined Aussie prepped car. The VL Commodore was a fairly flimsy thing. Losing weight was paramount. Rear suspension pick up points were just thin sheet metal pressings attached to the thin sheet underbody & flimsy reinforcings. Removing one upper rear arm made VLs faster but concentrated stresses on just one small area of underbody instead of spreading that stress evenly over 2 areas. Larry perfected it. Walkinshaw made a mess of it.
Hey Jack, thanks for the 'Tour d' VL', with that three link rear axle positioning, do you get any fore and aft flex across the diff housing under extreme power?
I mean you shouldn't because the diff housing is out of a F100 truck and its very strong/stiff. Through the nature of the Crown Wheel and Pinion you will possibly get more roll or load on one side, possibly altering the ride height or spring compression through the coil springs and shocker but not through flex if that makes sense. Cheers!!
Didn't this car get prorested in 92 in qualifying because teams couldn't believe the turn of speed it generated and in the top ten the tv commentator made a comment about it being an old car and he quipped "its pretty new under the bonnet!"
Jack has taken the time to reply to most of these comments, folks. Please like the comments & replies to help YT promote this video. The more interest we can attract to our sport, the longer we can keep it alive before bureaucratic grubs smother it with dreary electric junk.
@@perkinsengineering At a Guess, when the "Watts Linkage" became a thing on the rear ends, binding was no longer a problem thus 4 links were the better option.
@@TheHogart Yep. Panhard Rods are cheap, nasty & frightening especially on a straight road with dips or humps. I drove my Missus near new TE Gemini Van from Toowoomba to Dalby at around 140KPH about 42 years ago when that road had causeway dips every few Ks. Crazyarse torquetube Borgy back end fixed at the nose turned the back axle left & right as the Panhard Rod shoved the axle sideways on dangle then compression. Car literally pointed left & right alarmingly as rear steer took control. Am absolutely certain it was alarming treacherous torquetube rear suspension that ended the life of Mike Burgmann on Conrod at Bathurst 1986. Am strictly Holden. Not a Ford fan. However, must praise Ford Aust for employing Watts Linkage system on all coil sprung trailing arm Falcons from 1983. I remember Tricky (Dick Johnson) struggled to sort Ford's then new Watts Link rear but he did end up fixing it. He may have even experimented with 3 link? You'd have to ask him.
You nailed it. I was thinking exactly the same thing. That single link mount on the R. R. axle tube looks a tad flimsy to me. I can see the old 304 could probably chew that off fairly easily when trying to haul out of the Cutting. Love the way she still has a fairly typical wet sump & GM type oil pump. I see a lot of crazy expensive trendyarse dry sump set ups needlessly grafted onto Holden V8s & 6s lately. This was a highly competitive car in her day & the old Holden oil pump obviously did the job nicely. Walky back ends seemed to collapse evenly left & right. I'd love to know why?
No I don't unfortunately, largely because there are literally zero photos around and I can only recall what others have told me. I would need to double check the stories!! I believe the bolt sizes were really small too. Let me chase it up. Cheers!!
Wow! That "shitty" tail shaft won 3 x Bathurst's and ran strong and reliable for us until 2009 when we sold up! No need to try make the wheel more round! Cheers for watching!
@@perkinsengineering yeah as a panel beater by trade I put a floor jack under the tow bar on a VL and it put kinks in both rear quarter panels the chassis is weak and light as a feather to me there a glorified holden carmirra junk good 👍 job on getting it to stick to track
Use the hoist. As someone now retired who spent a lot of time crawling under cars I wish I had a hoist and would probably have less aches and pains. I remember an earlier episode where it was explained they didnt use hoists in the workshop was so they were used to working on the cars under the same conditions as a racetrack
@@perkinsengineering The lower front suspension arm, the very front one on the drag arm and the inner of the lower arm. What's the size of the rear radius rods?
Is it true that the VP 5Lt engines did have a LP letters welded to the back of the block, just asking as there's rumors that Larry Welded his LP initials on the blacks he used for the engines he had etc. 👌✌👍🦘
@@perkinsengineering Thank you for the reply, cheers, remember selling aircraft 316 welding wire to russell at the Moorabbin factory workshop back in 1999,( which was used to tie off the engines areas after completion, so that no teams can open up the engines and change anything) also still have the VT racing poster signed by LP. cheers 👌✌🦘👍👍
I love the cooler designs and arrangements PE has designed.
Cheers!!
Larry Perkins the legend, in more ways than one, congratulations Larry, thanks for the memories.
Cheers!!
Thanks Jack, it’s great to see the engineering that goes into components you rarely see.
Cheers!!
Last time I looked under one of Larry’s cars was eastern creek 1996 and Larry told me straight up to F off . I don’t think he appreciated me taking pictures haha
Must've caught him on a bad day! Cheers!!
@@perkinsengineering
One fairly cold early Sunday morning on the Lakeside infield in 1995, he pointed out to my missus that "She had left her headlights on". That stopped us dead in our tracks! The old Lazza was a bit of a mischief maker.
@@perkinsengineering it was probably pretty justified haha
@@obiemichaels9675old fella I used to work with did the same thing under Bob Janes Torana when he was a kid, and got the same response.
Only he was dragged out by his ankles first 😆
Ive seen him go off a few times over the decades, one time the team couldn’t get the qualifying motor out because they made a in car change to the exhaust! He was yelling “You mean to tell me a set of headers are f ing us? Maybe we need to be smarter than a set of f ing headers! “ or something like that he said! Must have been another bad day!
Any man with a heartbeat loves the VL Walkinshaw. Awesome hot rod Jack
Cheers!!
Very cool jack, you can never stop learning about race cars. P/S your win yesterday, brilliant in front of your 💞 that was special 🏁
Not wrong there! Many thanks also. Cheers!!
Yes, so pleased to see underneath. It's so so clean. I appreciate all the little details.
Our family car was a dark blue VL sedan back in the day. An odd fact - my dad and his family migrated from Scotland in 1954 - and my grandmother was good friends with Tom Walkinshaw's mum. It really is a small world.
You're welcome! Cheers!!!
Thanks for sharing your projects Jack and keeping the old girls alive 👍
That's it! Cheers!!
The engineering & detail is truly amazing under there! Thanks for showing.
Our pleasure!! Cheers!!
Thank you ..always wanted to see under a full race VL!
Cheers!!!
Congrats on the super 2 win mate… I was screaming at the tv the whole time!
Many thanks! Cheers!!
Nah thank you for what ya do jack. These old cars have a soul exactly what the new cars don’t have! 👍
Glad you like them! Cheers!!
I could watcht these detail video`s all day long, and then not get anything done in my own garage :) Thankyou again. Love it.
Cheers!!
Love seeing the old L.P cars from the day. Being a vw guy, love to see more of Larrys Beetle
Cheers, yeah that's something we can look to do in the future!
Thanks for the little extra video Jack.
Love seeing all those little fabricated odds and ends. That make up a racecar.
Ive Seen some pretty agricultural looking stuff on racecars over the years.
Everything on the cars you show us seems to be funtion over form, but still very neat without going overboard.
Everything had to made to a standard, this includes engineering drawings, and then the capability of mass production to sell to customers and competitors. Cheers!!
Thoroughly enjoyed this Jack, reinforced what a powerhouse Perkins Engineering is in our motorsport history. Also obvious how your knowledge is expanding - you know these rockets inside and out!
Cheers!!
That's a ripper , that really shows how much engineering was in them in that era thanks to your Dad . I'm assuming front callipers are Harrop too.
Thanks Jack look forward to next episode.
Yes Harrop 4 pot front calipers too, same as the 93 and 94 rockets. Cheers!!
As always, interesting and informative. Great to see underneath. Cheers
Cheers!!!
An awesome looking car 👍🇦🇺
Isn't it!!! Cheers!!
Who doesn’t love a Walky ?
Especially a LP tuned one she’s pretty new under the bonnet
Haha great line that! Cheers!!
Good to see under the old girl. You still have the old vl motor lying around? Maybe, if your not to busy, a vl commodore replica in castrol colours you could build?
Haha unfortunately not!
Geez that nuts. So many moving parts to them, even back in the early 90’s
Cheers!!
Always interesting. Always entertaining. Thanks Jack 👍
Glad you enjoyed it, Cheers!!
Looking great Jack! Interesting setup of the RARB and 3 link......
Cheers!!
Love the VL always thought it was the nicest looking Commodore. I bet it is a rocket ! Cheers for letting us take a look.
It really is! Cheers!!
Another awesome video. Thanks heaps for giving as a bonus one! Looks amazing underneath. Can’t wait to hear it run up.
Yes that one may be next actually! Cheers!!
yes .... VERY cool car JP!
love the factory standard stamped front cross member shown there :)
Cheers!!
Thanks Jack. Another great video. Some beautiful engineering there. Cheers
Many thanks! Cheers!!
You're doing the lords work Jacko
Cheers!
Thankyou for another informative video from yourself,Loved it
Glad you enjoyed it, Cheers!!
As someone who stills plays in car clubs with these early model Commodores it would have been nice to see more detail of how the K-frame was " modified" to accept the adjustable radius rod instead of the normal Z style bar and the lower control arms.
Oh ok, basically only another set of holes, nothing serious in terms of modifications!
I want one of those cross ram manifolds for my Holden V8.🔥
There's one for sale on our website! Check it out here: perkinsmotorsport.com/collections/featured-products/products/perkins-engineering-prototype-slide-manifold
Jack Perkins in a Ford Mustang at Townsville ?? Are my eyes deceiving me ?? Jack say it ain't so !!!
Mustang for the Win! Cheers!!
Absolutely love it
Cheers!!
Nice video, next time can you tell us some specs of the engine- ie comp ratio , valve sizes and exhaust diameters . Love to know how he got 500+hp out of a 5ltr . Great work
You can find a lot of this information online or in magazines like Street Machine who covered engine specs in 1993/94 and again in 2022/23. 1993 Engine was 10:1, 2.020" inlet valves and standard exhaust, 550hp 415ft/lbs torque at 5500rpm
Bloody epic!
Cheers!!!
This is amaaaaaazing. What an awesome experience it is to look under this masterpiece.
Are Perkins Engineering going to share any photos or general info on the internal design of the wet sump? Would be fascinating to a lot of Holden V8 enthusiasts including myself.
We don't have any wet sumps lying around unfortunately!
@perkinsengineering damn. I thought there'd be some old photos or drawings, or other technical details regarding oil priority modifications, alterations to aid breathing or promote oil return to the sump, etc. I had no idea it wasn't dry sump by this era!
I used a 3 link from the top of the diff on my Sports Sedan and it worked very well. Hooked up hard and handled ok. They do not bind unlike 4 links which are often bad! With wheels in the air. Simple panhard with 3 height settings. Would have been far better with better shocks but they cost money! Had old adjustable Konis that never left the full hard setting. All way around. Still ran top 10 in national SS events in SA and Vic.
As the VL, I have a classic speedway Supermodified that runs exactly the same on the outside. Runs well on rough tracks. It did have 4 links originally, front and rear. It was referred too by someone as a 2" steam pipe sway bar. Beam axle.
What is with those drilled rotors, I had some that lasted about 10 laps of Mallala and cracked. Seen plenty others as well. Used grooved ones. Mostly ex Tourer rears I was scrounging. 13" was plenty big enough for a 920kg XU1 Chev. With VL style AP callipers
Any info or pics I can check out. wouldn’t be for another couple years after they ran the VL before I even existed.. and this is the first I’m learning of many different things. Been the case a lot thanks to this channel and the people that comment, it’s bloody awesome. you’ve got me intrigued to be honest
@@cpzmelbs
You can see the amount of time & trouble invested in making our local family cars fast & entertaining. Group C rules allowed these improvements which made the cars safer & a whole lot faster. The whole idea was to showcase locally available cars & to provide exciting entertainment & it worked beautifully.
Some folks with too much money lost the plot & they rammed Group A rules down our necks in 1985. This allowed endless swarms of specialised factory mass produced racecars in from Europe & elsewhere. The big dollar Aust teams elected to run these massively powerful Euro rockets up against our locally developed family car based sedans. Suddenly we were swamped with megabuck whizz bang tin pot toys from overseas & all the hard work we'd invested in local motor racing went largely down the drain.
We'd had 6 cylinder & V8 Holdens fight it out on track with V8 Falcons since 1968. These local cars sounded awesome & the racing was intense. The engines were race prepped family car engines. They were real cars anyone could buy, prep & race. Group A killed it. We ended up watching Cosworth powered kid's toys dominating which sounded like a fart in a trumpet winning race after race. Even Ford fans cheered for V8 Commodores because they were sick of 4 cylinder fart rockets until Nissan arrived with their criminally fast twin turboed 4 wheel drive GTRs which clearly demonstrated Group A was a sick joke no one wanted.
Larry did the patriotic thing. He stuck with his Holdens, worked like mad to make them stronger & faster & he & a few others put up a damn good fight right up until the numbskulls finally woke up & tossed out the nutty Group A rule book in 1993.
Group A became so infuriating, the crowd at Bathurst in 1992 started pelting full cans of beer at Jimmy & Skaifey after they won the event with a monster car aptly named Godzilla. By this stage, Aust racing enthusiasts had had an absolute gutful of expensive purpose built foreign cars dominating our sport. It was appalling & outrageous & folks were angry.
This great Perkins built VL shows us just how much work went into setting up a Commodore to make it competitive under Group A rules. She's a work of art & a fine example of what formed the basis of V8 Supercars years later.
Even Peter Brock drove a Coswoth Sierra at Bathurst in 1990. No one wanted to ever see anything like that.
Thankfully Larry kept V8 Holdens alive throughout the entire irritating Group A period. Without him & other visionaries like him, we would never have come away with what became V8 SuperCars.
We owe Larry plenty. He was the backbone of Australian Touring Car Racing.
Nice work!
Cheers!!
@@perkinsengineering
Many thanks, Jack.
This episode is golden. Showing us what lies beneath one of Larry's fabulous engineering marvel time capsules is a real treat.
Thankfully, early Commies are now running in Historic categories & they are competitive against imported performance coupes. Do us all a huge favour & rattle a VK together for historic racing. I'm sure Castrol would back such a project.
308 Commodores regularly hammered 350 Chev Camaros at Bathurst for years in Group C. I'm sure you could replicate that & the fans would love it.
thankyou jack ,this was so cool to cee . appreciated greatly. im super curious as to how they compare to the HDT cars- it would be a long shot but if anyone could do it you are most likely too succeed -a side by side comparrison would got viral , luv your work . cheers
They are quite a bit different, 5 years of evolution and extra homologation bits and pieces between the hdt models and this of Larry's from 92.
There weren't any HDT VL Walkinshaws, but there were HRT ones. The 1988 HSV and 1989 HRT cars were actually PE cars so the fundamentals were similar. In 1990 they possibly did some different "stuff", maybe we could sneak under the 1990 winner at Eggleston Motorsport for a look ;)
Correct. 1992 spec very different to 1990 also. In 1990 it was a Holinger 5 speed gearbox and twin throttle engine, 92 was 6 speed gearbox and slide manifold as an example.
@@perkinsengineering
Yes please! Let's see what Percy & Grice used to win against all that turbotrash!
@@perkinsengineering Not that Larry's ever snuck a look at the underneath of a HRT car 😄
What a glorious machine!!!!!
Cheers!!!
It's interesting that the VN Group A didn't have a front undertray.
Don't worry, initially the VP didn't either!
Wasn't the Tom Walkinshaw "bum drag" at Bathurst '88 caused by rear suspension binding causing a breakage? This after the Brits supposedly ignored the Australian advice?
Yes and quite small bolts I believe!!!
Thanks Jack!
Cheers!!!
Awesome
Cheers!!
Thanks Jack, great. Was the VL body more slippery than the later cars or does it just look that way?
Well I guess so, largely because the later cars had big rear wings and bigger front spoilers so that equals more drag and downforce.
Jack - great video as always. Quick one - on these restored rockets, are they covered in PPF so they can run again on track?
That's up to the car owner. This one has a clear film over the front of it actually. Cheers!!
What a tuff car would scream on the track😂😂😂💪💪💪
Absolutely! Cheers!!
Especially without a 7500 rev limiter!!!!!
Awesome to see that this beauty has survived. Do you know what happened to the VL that Larry campaigned at the start of 1993? It is the one that wound up on its side in the Symmons Plains and trap.
This is that car!
@@perkinsengineering, that's pretty cool. I'm passionate about preserving our racing heritage, and you deserve nothing but praise for your work on that front. Keep it going, mate.
@@adamclarke7394
I'm with you there!
Always nice to know when your explaining the engineering that what PE have done is because of a rule or clever engineering?
Cheers!!
@@perkinsengineering
Meaning can you add more?
Why did that race car only have a 3 link, an engineering advantage or forced by the rules?
@@blueyhis.zarsoff1147
It was determined 4 links bound up, restricting suspension flex & travel which impacted on power down out of tight corners.
Best recipe for nose heavy - front engine - rear wheel drive is very stiff front where most of the weight is & to keep the car flatter when cornering & softer at the rear so both back tyres can freely maintain contact with roadway.
This concept was explored & proven with the narrow track GTR XU-1. Narrow track underpowered little Torana beat all GTHO Falcons at Bathurst in '72 because Harry worked out how to get best rear wheel grip out of corners. Stiffened up Toranas were notorious for lifting inside wheels when cornering. Stiff front, soft flexible rear helped address this. Some quicker early Toranas used 4 cylinder Torana rear coils with fully adjusted Konis up front.
As more & more curbing appeared on apexes, it became more challenging to get cars settled, back tyres biting & power down out of tight & twisty sections.
Someone figured this out (possibly Walkinshaw's engineers) & they tried removing one upper arm. It must have worked because Walkie went along with it. Sadly for Walkinshaw, his earliest attempt at 3 link failed at Bathurst causing the rear suspension on his car to completely collapse whilst Larry's sister car, better engineered in Aust by Larry did not break it's rear suspension. Larry's car suffered engine failure but only after Walkinshaw commandeered Larry's AUSTRALIAN prepped car & revved the pick handles out of it which blew the engine ending it's strong RELIABLE performance.
Had Larry's local Aussie car won, Pommy Walkinshaw would have looked like an idiot compared to Aussie Larry.
It's fairly evident jealous Pommy deliberately ruined Aussie prepped car.
The VL Commodore was a fairly flimsy thing. Losing weight was paramount. Rear suspension pick up points were just thin sheet metal pressings attached to the thin sheet underbody & flimsy reinforcings. Removing one upper rear arm made VLs faster but concentrated stresses on just one small area of underbody instead of spreading that stress evenly over 2 areas.
Larry perfected it.
Walkinshaw made a mess of it.
Thanks Jack another great video. Was the third link ever moved to the other side for different race tracks?
Good question, not sure! I'll chase it up with those who know, this era is a bit before my time! Cheers!!
Hey Jack, thanks for the 'Tour d' VL', with that three link rear axle positioning, do you get any fore and aft flex across the diff housing under extreme power?
I mean you shouldn't because the diff housing is out of a F100 truck and its very strong/stiff. Through the nature of the Crown Wheel and Pinion you will possibly get more roll or load on one side, possibly altering the ride height or spring compression through the coil springs and shocker but not through flex if that makes sense. Cheers!!
The shirt is too white😂, I've got one, scared to wear it😂 great gear tho!
Hahaha yeah not the best colour for working in the shed!! Cheers!!
nice mate
Thanks 👍
Hell yes jack!
Cheers!!!
Didn't this car get prorested in 92 in qualifying because teams couldn't believe the turn of speed it generated and in the top ten the tv commentator made a comment about it being an old car and he quipped "its pretty new under the bonnet!"
Someone even stuck a Ford badge on the front of it!!!
@@perkinsengineering the gaul of it all!
Jack has taken the time to reply to most of these comments, folks.
Please like the comments & replies to help YT promote this video.
The more interest we can attract to our sport, the longer we can keep it alive before bureaucratic grubs smother it with dreary electric junk.
Cheers!!
Was the three link a loop hole? Why was the three link not carried over to v8 supercar, the nz and some sports sedan lads favour 3 link?
Good question and I'm not sure! I'll have to chase that up! Cheers!!
@@perkinsengineering At a Guess, when the "Watts Linkage" became a thing on the rear ends, binding was no longer a problem thus 4 links were the better option.
@@TheHogart
Yep.
Panhard Rods are cheap, nasty & frightening especially on a straight road with dips or humps.
I drove my Missus near new TE Gemini Van from Toowoomba to Dalby at around 140KPH about 42 years ago when that road had causeway dips every few Ks. Crazyarse torquetube Borgy back end fixed at the nose turned the back axle left & right as the Panhard Rod shoved the axle sideways on dangle then compression. Car literally pointed left & right alarmingly as rear steer took control.
Am absolutely certain it was alarming treacherous torquetube rear suspension that ended the life of Mike Burgmann on Conrod at Bathurst 1986.
Am strictly Holden. Not a Ford fan. However, must praise Ford Aust for employing Watts Linkage system on all coil sprung trailing arm Falcons from 1983. I remember Tricky (Dick Johnson) struggled to sort Ford's then new Watts Link rear but he did end up fixing it. He may have even experimented with 3 link? You'd have to ask him.
Jack . Do know what the difference in the rear suspension between tom's car and your dad car . As tom's car rear collapsed
You nailed it. I was thinking exactly the same thing.
That single link mount on the R. R. axle tube looks a tad flimsy to me. I can see the old 304 could probably chew that off fairly easily when trying to haul out of the Cutting.
Love the way she still has a fairly typical wet sump & GM type oil pump. I see a lot of crazy expensive trendyarse dry sump set ups needlessly grafted onto Holden V8s & 6s lately. This was a highly competitive car in her day & the old Holden oil pump obviously did the job nicely.
Walky back ends seemed to collapse evenly left & right. I'd love to know why?
No I don't unfortunately, largely because there are literally zero photos around and I can only recall what others have told me. I would need to double check the stories!! I believe the bolt sizes were really small too. Let me chase it up. Cheers!!
The 3rd link is a decent piece of tube, larger and stronger than the lower arms. Yes KISS - Keep It Simple Stupid! Cheers!!
@@perkinsengineering
It's the actual bracket welded to the axle housing that looks like it could sheer off.
☝️💪🇦🇺☝️💪🇦🇺☝️💪🇦🇺
Cheers!!!
So runs a ford diff and still has a shity Centre bearing in the tail shaft still just a crumble door shitbox
Wow! That "shitty" tail shaft won 3 x Bathurst's and ran strong and reliable for us until 2009 when we sold up! No need to try make the wheel more round! Cheers for watching!
@@perkinsengineering yeah as a panel beater by trade I put a floor jack under the tow bar on a VL and it put kinks in both rear quarter panels the chassis is weak and light as a feather to me there a glorified holden carmirra junk good 👍 job on getting it to stick to track
As great as this is, I’m disappointed you didn’t just raise it on the air jacks and crawl around under it. Would’ve been much more period authentic 😂
Hahaha yeah I know, need to start using the hoist though or else I'll be regretting the purchase!!!!! Cheers!!
Use the hoist. As someone now retired who spent a lot of time crawling under cars I wish I had a hoist and would probably have less aches and pains. I remember an earlier episode where it was explained they didnt use hoists in the workshop was so they were used to working on the cars under the same conditions as a racetrack
What's the size of the rod end bearings on the suspension rods?
They are varying sizes, any ones in particular?
@@perkinsengineering The lower front suspension arm, the very front one on the drag arm and the inner of the lower arm. What's the size of the rear radius rods?
Is it true that the VP 5Lt engines did have a LP letters welded to the back of the block, just asking as there's rumors that Larry Welded his LP initials on the blacks he used for the engines he had etc. 👌✌👍🦘
Yes they have "LP" on the back
@@perkinsengineering Thank you for the reply, cheers, remember selling aircraft 316 welding wire to russell at the Moorabbin factory workshop back in 1999,( which was used to tie off the engines areas after completion, so that no teams can open up the engines and change anything) also still have the VT racing poster signed by LP. cheers 👌✌🦘👍👍