Hats off to Holden!

I never intended this blog site to include either myself or Craig’s biased opinions on anything, but I felt this strong urge to voice loudly my opinion on the heavily subsidised, massively under-engineered,  crack-smoking Australian company called Holden (after reading this blog entry on the www.drive.com.au blog site.. http://blogs.drive.com.au/2006/10/commodore_quality_issues_do_th_1.html).

I’ll begin by saying Ive always had a “thing” against Holden - and Ive never been a “Ford man” either. I guess I would say I’m a Valiant kind of man haha (my first car was a 1970 Valiant Safari Wagon). Valiants in the old days were honest, powerful cars that quietly achieved in the shadow of much larger and higher budgeted car manufactures.

Anyway, I was trying to work out why I hate Holden so much. I thought, could it be the “P Plater” ute drivers with the Chev badges on the back and front, blasting out ACDC (or equivalent), attempting to drag anything off from the lights (and losing)? Could it be the Red VN V8 wagon with a hole in the exhaust I saw driving in the middle of two lanes with a left rear wheel that was so unstable it looked like it was going to fall off!? Could it be the numerous newer Commodores with personalised plates that attempt to spell as many words as they can fit in 8 letters that are related to dragging someone off from the lights and winning?! Could it be the massive crowd of young VL drivers that constantly voice to anyone not listening that their car is the best model ever made?! Could it be the 5 year old Barina with the badly sun damaged roof?! I could probably go on but Ive realised why I hate Holden so much.. its actually the same reason I love Holden (well love is a pretty strong word, ill settle for “like” then). Its the way they market their cars. “Australian 1 – Germany 0″ is what was said in one of the newer VE Commodore ads. I cant believe they are even attempting to compare their cars to anything made from Germany! They market their cars as being so unbelievably amazing, reliable, powerful, fun, popular, sexy etc. etc. and the majority of people actually believe it!!

I don’t even need to take examples of things that Ive read on the internet, because I can just talk to my extended family, friends of friends, receptionists, acquaintances etc.. that all have bought a Holden in their time and have all had horrendous experiences with poor quality, design and workmanship throughout the entire range of Commodores (and other models). I think its amazing that Holden still manage to sell any cars after everything Ive seen and heard throughout my life. Ive come to the conclusion that a crude stereotype exists that shows me people that buy cars from Holden are either ill-informed, unaware, haven’t done their homework, or know absolutely nothing about cars.

The young people out their that stick Chev badges on their Commodores should really be sticking “Daewoo” badges on them because that’s what they are really buying – polished turds.

Intercooler found..

Here is a pic of the intercooler we are going with. Its a “China cheapie” but brand new for $99 from www.JustJap.com. We figured it will probably would be the same if not better than a second hand stock unit (eg. Rx-7 intercooler) and for $99 we couldn’t complain. We would probably be battling to find a 2nd hand one at that price anyway. The measurements are a tiny 300 x 225 x 55!

Exciting stuff.. well we think so anyway

Well we’ve finished tuning the rom for now.. ie its running reasonably well, and we want to get into the next stage, so tonight we began that aforementioned new stage.. fitting the supercharger.

We started by draining and removing the radiator to give us more access to our desired location for the SC12. We decided it would also be nice to take the front wheels off to provide even more access, so we jacked her up and ripped the wheels off. That gave us easier access to the bolts holding the front bumper (except one which is a real bastard to get at), so off it came. We now had a pretty good view of the old aircon/power steering bracket which is where we planned to mount the supercharger. So of course.. off it came

We then played around with positioning the SC in the space we had, and seeing how we can fit everything in. It seems that the outlet piping from the SC needs to sit between the SC and the block, which is a little bit of a pain. We also need to find an intercooler thats small enough, and has suitable inlet/outlet ports for our piping requirements. Were also looking into a radiator with a smaller width and thicker core to replace the existing one so we will have room for the intercooler.

Click on the image below for a view of the planned location of the SC.