Thread: The Iron Knob

The Iron Knob LS1 Disco

So Many wonder what goes through the head of a man when he desides to put an ls1 into and discovery 2 (td5) haha. Well it's a costly procedure and a draining one at that, however myself, I do like a challenge and this is an example. Many said it was impossible it wont work the electrics the mounts the added torque pffft nothings impossible? or maybe I'm just stubborn :-}

Bought the vehicle before easter back in 2013 for a trip down south, did its job was a great car however I always found a lack of power and grunt this always lingered in the back of my mind.

Push forward two years as a daily she was going good well maintained it never let me down, noticed the red light on dash come on one under the cooling gauge that's weird pulled over turned it off had a look all good turned ignition on gauge read half not hot all good red light was gone? turned it back on no worries by the time I realised my coolant dropped and the gauge registered as it was probably reading air. Well lets just say its was one of my reasons for this conversion, I do however recommend to anyone to go purchase a redarc or similar or low coolant alarm doesn't matter what car u have it is an engine saver at that! https://www.redarc.com.au/low-coolant-alarm

Annd it begins, whilst I did consider other engines, 5 cyl puma, diesel v8s, replacement td5? being a skip, v8 drooling mad max loving beer drinking footy cricket playing lunatic just couldn't go past a ls. I know my way around em there easy for parts (not in this case) and big shout out to Dion & Frank from Just Commodores for getting just the one for me.

Up on the stand she went and out came the td5 was the fun part, sold the td5 to a young bloke and his dad said they were gonna do a project together rebuild and a weekender hope they went well, I actually, with the help of a couple of mates took the td5 the auto and transfer all out through the engine bay ahah some weight.

The trans I sold to a fella who asked me to remove his and install mine that was unfortunately and drama I did not do the job myself I handballed it I was too busy let just say I refunded the guy the labour I charged on top the box? this project was becoming more and more stressfull.

So the time came for deciding how this was gonna happen, after extensive research and planning I had a strategy. I sourced a mob over east marks 4x4 they do an adapter for a 4l80e box to the lt230 so I was in business placed the order and had a box built through wholesale autos also over east they arrived swiftly and heavily on the pocket and the crate? countless hours after work with flood lights were spent over the next weeks sorting this out trial fits and drinking sorry thinking.

The adaptor itself is well thoughout however due to intolerances in the casting that's all I can put it too it actually was slightly problematic I had to die grind a section out of the cast to clear a bolt to the transfer and one of the plug screw they supply is cheap made out of ali just snapped and I screwed it in I changed the others to steel plugs. With the trans now assembled to the transfer I ordered some brackets off the net alot of good reports they were a trans dapt bracket you cut and weld in easy? few trail fits and lining up she was in

Anyone who has done this themselves know that if it was for a customer and payment is made upfront or in progress payments this can be done within a month maybe 2 weeks if done regularly. However when your financing it and doing it this takes time so well skip 3 months or so haha.

I finally got to the point of bringin the trans and transfer in from under and straight away realised they were brackets to be made, one I fabbed up from the side of the adapter to the chassis was quite a nice fit the other was the existing mount on the transfer that used to bolt on to a bracket welded to the chassis however because the adapter clocks the transfer over anticlockwise it now sat just proud but plumb with the crossmember that bolts up to the chassis underneath? I reinforced the crossmember made a locating mount and she sits nicely.

Skip 2 months
So if you wanna use a commodore pulley setup you can't so here's where the cheap parts locally I thought would be good on the budget blows out.
the ac compressor would interfere with the power steering box so no aircon? Also the alternator won't fit on the other side between the block and chassis and when fitting the commodore radiator that don't fit between the body so I went to the td5 radiator as I believed it could do the job however I now noticed I wouldn't fit a filter or intake pipe on the front of the throttle body between that and the rad so after a lot of swearing it was back to the drawing boards?

Skip 1 month
I always like getting quality gear so naturally holley was the way to go and well if something doesn't bugde then ill just go over it so up was my option here, I put the order In for the holley efi carb style manifold and shiny steel throttle body to go with it comes with black rails brackets the t/b has iat, iac, and tps plugs Ill admit I was excited a kid at Christmas. Im now broke thankfully my dear parents helped me out and I do have to give them a round of applause here as it gets worse.

So between paying my folks back and going mad, I bit the bullet ordered the holley accessory drive kit with the ac compressor and corvette power steering pump just get the lot cause commodore gear doesn't fit. I couldn't not have aircon! The waiting game was tough cause I ordered things separately thinking I could use commodore parts only for it to finally come from the states and then I need something else and by this time people are starting to doubt me and whether I know what im doing and well I'm like ?**** OFF I KNOW WHAT IM DOING?, but you can't not in this situation its hasn't been done before (that I know of) its trial and error you don't have it in your hands before you buy you have to wait till it arrives then you know what todo then. Jegs in the states however were great there online system is fantastic just watch out for the Australian customs anything over 1000 bucks they sniff around they got me had pay import charges bloody thieving grubs.

So by now I have a bloody good looking setup and yes 1 commodore part? the alternator haha. The pulley kit relocates the compressor a sanden type and alternator vy ss type to up high and the power steering pump sits inside a cradle on the drive kit you use a 97+ corvette pump, reservoir, p/s line also pulley. Interesting setup really hadn't done one like it before on an ls motor its well made.

Now came time to order the air cleaner, all the plumbing, source the pcm and harness to run the ls and get the ball rolling. I ordered a vz ss cooling pipework kit and modified it to suit the td5 radiator and it worked well, the ls1 water pump has two ports for the heater core, Dion (Just Commodores) came to the rescue he had a pump he pulled the heater fittings out of and core plugged em up. The td5 radiator has two ports for the heater core so the td5 expansion tank was retained and that tees off the heater line to the core and back to the rad.

The power steering and auto trans were the next objective I ordered a ps cooler and trans cooler with a fan and fabbed up mounts behind the bulbar to affix them then came the plumbing well that was interesting. There were a lot of hardline to hoses and fittings and well where else other than aeroflow.

It was Christmas again for me going through the online catalogue and getting what not, I quickly realised this was an expensive regime and that was the start, the braided hoses are the best option and by the time everything came a lot of the hardlines needed flaring and what not so well I now have a hydrallic double flaring tool 37 and 45 degree ratchet flaring tools deburers the works haha gotta have the right tool for the job aye?

With the trans power steering lines radiator plumbed time came for fuel cause well besides the electrics that was the only thing stopping me from starting the beast? well by the time removed the tank I thought hmmm they do a v8 petrol discovery aye? haha something went in my favour I looked at the spec on the v8 petrol pump and it puts out 3.5 bar enough to run the ls1 it's a return less swirl pot design and it perfectly fits straight into the td5 tank which I flushed and aired out and the existing wiring just plugs in beauty? plumbed up the plastic lines to the rails using some fittings and braided hose and it had fuel.

Now came time for wiring linking up the trans and getting it started, I quickly realised my electronic shifter setup was no good for the 4l80e so well being the bandit I am the b&m ratchet was the way to go however with the new auto and motor my clearance in the trans tunnel was very limited especially trying to bring a shifter cable out so it was good opportunity too give the girl a lift aye, went with 2? body lift was relatively straight forward to install had to adjust a few things like the fuel filler and steering column to box they were simple tho.

With the shifter now installed and operational it was time to start the wiring now for the depths of this blog ill leave it at its fully functioning in the vehicle the auto and motor are both controlled by the pcm, the pcm receives brake signal for throttle relaxing, and the pcm controls the discovery fan in front of the condenser. The instruments work bar the cooling gauge I've installed and aftermarket type tho and everything else has been retained other than cruise control, dhc, t/c, and m/s modes on obviously the old trans. The wiring I might have to do a separate write up on.

Now lastly was the belt, now the holley kit did not come with a belt nor could I find much detail on it however I stringlined it and after trying a few it took a ba falcon belt, a ba falcon belt really well she sure is a bastard of a car. With all that sorted was time to fire her up, out came the laptop and after a bit of a play on hptuners I found the pcm I had to be tuner locked ****. Dion came to the rescue again with a different pcm I could now load a stock mafless tune with a couple of mods and she started?

Few trial drives and I quickly noticed there was some serious tuning todo, the trans wasn't shifting and I started on the main things finally got the trans to shift then it was off to a now friend Matt from Waters Motorsport todo the fine tuning?

All was left now was the aircon and exhaust, Charlie from carlie mufflers sorted the link up job which shut it up and gave a nice note. The aircon was tricky I bent some 5/8 and ? pipe up and I was off to enzed in Welshpool where the boys specially welded fittings to the aluminalloy pipe and also made rubber hoses up for the compressor I assembled it all and was off to my good mate Brent who did the gas for me. It was a cool drive home and all was left was a nice bonnet scoop for a bit of air and a 2nd visit to Matt for some tweaking in the pcm.

I like to follow suit so I put a ba flacon bulge scoop on the boonet to match the drive belt haha it looks okay it does the job gets cool air into the air cleaner and keeps the iat down. The final tune went well and she sure picks up some grunt with it breaking traction in 2nd I'm more than happy she a real weapon a thirsty one.

Drove it across to Adelaide with some mates to watch the 3rd Feb 2017 Green v Mundine Spectical it really over performed got over 600km to a 95l tank and it loves the open road oh and Iron Knob is a town in SA which you go through when driving to WA hence how it got its nick name, set some land speed records there. However my time now has to come to an end with modifying every car I own the money ive spent not only on this vehicle but others before it has put me well behind so unfortunately she up for sale it's time to knuckle down as don't need a car as I have a work vehicle. But that spark in a mans cylinder doesn't ignite without a bit of fuel, so the money I'm saving is going towards a shop I wish to open where motor conversions and fabrication will be something I specialise in. I'll be sure to put up the details and more photos soon

Nice one.