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starfire 4 rods
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castellan Offline
#1 Posted : Tuesday, 6 April 2010 8:50:46 PM(UTC)
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I have some one saying that all the 1979-82 toyota corona starfire 4' motor conrods have toyota motor company on them.
Is that true?
If it is then what's the go.
Was toyota responsible for the design and made the first bach.
I have never heard of the starfire 4 conrod being any different to the blue 6 cyl motor rods.
Toyota would not of assembled these motors. would they ?
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HK1837 Offline
#2 Posted : Wednesday, 7 April 2010 12:30:13 AM(UTC)
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I seriously doubt it. Did they tell you on 1/4/10?

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classic oz wreck Offline
#3 Posted : Wednesday, 7 April 2010 6:44:46 PM(UTC)
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ive pulled heaps of starfire motors apart to sell the rods and ive never seen it...im with byron on what day they told you..

going to church makes you no more a christian than standing in a garage makes you a car...

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castellan Offline
#4 Posted : Thursday, 8 April 2010 8:22:48 PM(UTC)
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No. today cosmo20btt on the australian ford forum has said that it had Toyota motor company written down the sides of the rods.
He had a customer with a blow up XT corona and got a motor out of a smashed commo.
The commo block was cracked. so he pulled it down and repaired the corona motor with the commo internals.
He said it on 3/4/10. and some months before.
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Silverfox Offline
#5 Posted : Thursday, 8 April 2010 9:42:42 PM(UTC)
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OZ and Byron correct.
Starfire can be fully credited (read blamed...ha) on GM-H.

Senator John button had a plan to enhance the local auto manufacturing base which included manufacturers being required to have a minimum percentage of local content accross their product range. Whole cars were also simply re-badged and sold as a different brand. I think the reward for this was a degree of tarrif protection on other products. Another forum member may remember more of this.....please post a comment.

The end result of this wierd set up was an amazing mish mash of cars unique to Australia. Often resulting with inferior cars (like the Corona, which was clearly better with the Toyota Motor) but others turned out well (VL Commodore six is an excellent example) Some examples which come to mind. XH Nissan ute, Toyota Corona (Starfire) VL Commodore six, Toyota Lexcen, Laser, Capri, Meteor, TX5, Telstar using Mazda components, Holden Astra.....amd more. Similar stuff hapenning today.



Way back in the olden days it was common knowledge that Starfire rods were beefier. Commonly used in high performance rebuilds. I dont understand why the rods werent just used across the board. I remember that the four had some issues with balance and harmonics (please correct if my memory is crook) which created the need for the heavier rod.

CHeers
Nick

Edited by user Thursday, 8 April 2010 9:44:56 PM(UTC)  | Reason: Not specified

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Mike81973 Offline
#6 Posted : Thursday, 8 April 2010 11:01:36 PM(UTC)
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Hi,
I have made notes on the various heavier Holden rods
( unmolested )and have found the following;

The rods varied quite a lot, for an example a engine can be made up of rods from many different batches and have different markings accordingly.
some of these are; AF A5, A8, B5 ,B6, B8
GM
BH A1
NF
NF 47B
AF B9, B6
NF A6, B53, A 53,
NFA 53
Holden
NF E40
DH 2 M1
DH 2 N1
GM 202

Some of these were hard to read so might be a little out, but you can see there is a huge range of rod markings.

The caps markings are diffwerent to the main rod, these are included, in this list.

The 4cyl rods seem to be a bit thicker around the bolt boss of the caps than the 6cyl versions but I have not weighed them.

Mkie81973

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castellan Offline
#7 Posted : Friday, 9 April 2010 9:37:36 PM(UTC)
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I have always thought the starfire rods were the exactly the same as the blue motor and the black 6 cyl.

MIKE81973 are you on about the markings of just holden blue & black 6 cyl. not the red 6 cyl. or XU-1 rods.
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classic oz wreck Offline
#8 Posted : Friday, 9 April 2010 10:36:28 PM(UTC)
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castellan..you are correct about the blue/black and starfire..

going to church makes you no more a christian than standing in a garage makes you a car...

www.classicozwreck.com.au
going to church makes you no more a christian than standing in a garage makes you a car...

www.classicozwreck.com.au
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Dr Terry Offline
#9 Posted : Friday, 9 April 2010 10:56:05 PM(UTC)
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quote:
Originally posted by Silverfox
Senator John button had a plan to enhance the local auto manufacturing base which included manufacturers being required to have a minimum percentage of local content accross their product range. Whole cars were also simply re-badged and sold as a different brand. I think the reward for this was a degree of tarrif protection on other products. Another forum member may remember more of this.....please post a comment.

The end result of this wierd set up was an amazing mish mash of cars unique to Australia. Often resulting with inferior cars (like the Corona, which was clearly better with the Toyota Motor) but others turned out well (VL Commodore six is an excellent example) Some examples which come to mind. XH Nissan ute, Toyota Corona (Starfire) VL Commodore six, Toyota Lexcen, Laser, Capri, Meteor, TX5, Telstar using Mazda components, Holden Astra.....amd more. Similar stuff hapenning today.


Hi Nick.

What you say about the Button plan is basically correct but the Starfire 4 & some others you have mentioned pre-date the plan. From memory the plan was invented in during the 1984/85 era of the Hawke Government, & took some years before cars became reality. The Holden Starfire was invented mid-70s & released in 1978 in the UC Sunbird update.

AFAIK the cars resulting from the plan were:
Nissan XF Ute (Ford XF Ute rebadged)
Ford Corsair (Nissan U12 Pintara rebadged)
Ford Maverick (Nissan Patrol rebadged)
Holden Apollo (Toyota Camry rebadged)
Holden Nova (Toyota Corolla rebadged)
Toyota Lexcen (Holden Commodore rebadged)
Nissan N13 Pulsar/Holden LG Astra (50% share - Nissan Body, Holden Engine). This one was probably the the only one which worked the way the plan intended, although the Corollas & Novas were made by Holden in their plant, so they did actually share facilities.

Others including:
Nissan engine in VL
Ford Laser/Mazda 323
Ford Telstar/Mazda 626
Tri-Matic in Corolla & Corona
Starfire in Corona
Holden rear axle in Toyota Crown

All pre-dated the Button plan

Dr Terry


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Mike81973 Offline
#10 Posted : Saturday, 10 April 2010 8:20:58 PM(UTC)
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Hi Castellan,
These rod numbers were from original Starefire and Blue 6 engines, I have not pulled down any black engines as yet.
Perhaps by the black engines they started mrking them differently, do any of the readers know what those markings are?
( it was interesting that one was marked GM 202 )

The XU-1 rods were stronger around the gudgeon pin hole but were weaker around the big end, I do not know what the markings were, but by other reports they were made in a batch of 250 from the Commonwealth Aircraft Factory or something?

Obvoiusly by the time Holden started making the Starefire and Blue engines they worked out that it was better to copy the big end design of the V8 and add extra metal on the rod side faces to strengthen the weak point created by the cut away relief for the bolt heads.

Several of the XU-1 parts were contracted out, for instance 250 extractoras by Perry and 250 Cyl heads by Perfectune ( Yella Terra ).
ref. motoring books.



Mike81973

Edited by user Saturday, 10 April 2010 8:37:28 PM(UTC)  | Reason: Not specified

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Mike81973 Offline
#11 Posted : Wednesday, 14 April 2010 11:29:27 AM(UTC)
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Hi Mike here again,
saw the rods from a black six today and the markings are a bit different, most had no markings and a couple had Holden on the main part of the rod only, the caps had no markings.

These rods could have been beefed up slightly on the cap too as previously descriped for the starefires.

What we need is some weight measurements? however due to the different batches of rods there could be a huge range of weights, I know when I bought some new ones in 1979, several had to be sorted through before they were close enough to balance.

I suspect that Holden could have originally weighed their rods and then matched up the batch weights rather than grinding them all to be close enough.

Mike



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Mike81973 Offline
#12 Posted : Tuesday, 24 August 2010 1:28:53 AM(UTC)
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To add to this information,

late HZ ZR ( ZL )prefix 3.3 engines also used the heavier rods and had the side bulges in the sump to help with oil return control and sump gasket sealing.

This may not be reflected in the workshop manuals as higher torgue settings for the rod bolts, as I know much litriture at the time failed to pick up the change, I had to personally tell the local engine reconditioner to upgrade the early blue motor specs for his blue engines and this was well after the heavier rod introduction.
The heavier rod thing is likely to be a mid 1979 change over thing across the whole range and nothing specific to Starefires at all!

Mike

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Edited by user Tuesday, 24 August 2010 9:57:26 PM(UTC)  | Reason: Not specified

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castellan Offline
#13 Posted : Tuesday, 24 August 2010 7:10:59 PM(UTC)
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You maybe right i have seen the ZL prefix with the blue motor exhaust valve rotators. IT HAS 3.3 ON THE BLOCK.

Edited by user Tuesday, 24 August 2010 11:28:41 PM(UTC)  | Reason: Not specified
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Mike81973 Offline
#14 Posted : Tuesday, 24 August 2010 9:55:09 PM(UTC)
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Hi,
Sorry that should have been ZL 3.3 of course. ( 31 E 9 )

Been looking at too many ZR 253 blocks on the weekend!
My earliest ZR 253 is 20 B 9 24674 so looks like the change over of both ZL and ZR blocks were about the same time.

I have also seen later QR blocks so there must have been an overlap, this matches up with my other information.
Holden had two casting areas each with a seperate mould making area supplying each of them.
One line was also many months ahead of the other when 6cyl block changes took place in mid 1974.

There must also have been some confusion when the final stage of the 253 process took place ( the engine numbers )
as one 253 block upgrade I have here has a QR engine number, I suppose that once assembled no one could tell which ones had the internal upgrades, this kind of confustion unlikely didn't happened in the 1974 6 cyl block upgrades as the changes were external.

Mike

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blameyone Offline
#15 Posted : Thursday, 26 August 2010 11:30:44 PM(UTC)
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Dr Terry, You could go on I think with that what cars parts fit or were common to others. or were etc. How far can you go back, but was'nt the 1st Datsuns, to come to Australia Morris. ? mid 60s I think. And If you like the 6 stud pattern on chevs wheels used up to at least the late 1940s would fit chevs all the way back to at least the mid 1920s....Jack.
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Mike81973 Offline
#16 Posted : Friday, 27 August 2010 4:35:49 AM(UTC)
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Hi,
If you read todays posing about of topic subjects you will see that general discussion is being put in a different category.

If you want to start accross make parts match or even accross Holden parts match by all means start a new topic.

Before I go you can add this to your new topic;
the first Isuzu trucks were labled Bedford,
Datsun were labled Nissan in the cross over,
and Dodge Trucks had a change over model also.

Mike

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HK1837 Offline
#17 Posted : Friday, 27 August 2010 3:04:50 PM(UTC)
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Mike

Just to qualify, the change to Z prfixes happened not because of any changes, but because Q series numbers reached 999999, so Qx999999 was followed by Zx1001. It is normnal for blocks with older casting numbers to appear with an engine number later that a block with a later casting number. Where you see it displayed quite clearly is with Chev engines with the assembly date stamped in the engine number. GMH engines were no different.
All good stuff though isn't it!

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If we all had the same (good) taste, who would buy all the Fords?
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Mike81973 Offline
#18 Posted : Friday, 27 August 2010 9:38:37 PM(UTC)
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Thanks Byron,
I have now made a note in my file, so should have it sorted out now.

So it looks like the ZL engine prefixes started late 1978 or early 1979?

Yes it is intersting stuff, thanks for your help.

Mike

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Dr Terry Offline
#19 Posted : Friday, 27 August 2010 11:28:46 PM(UTC)
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quote:
Originally posted by Mike81973
Thanks Byron,
I have now made a note in my file, so should have it sorted out now.

So it looks like the ZL engine prefixes started late 1978 or early 1979?

Yes it is intersting stuff, thanks for your help.

Mike

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Mike,

The Zx engine number prefixes officially began (at the engine plant) on 1/9/78.

Do you have a copy of my book, it's mentioned in there in the appropriate chapters (HZ, UC etc.).

Dr Terry

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