Yeah no worries. I have already drilled out 500 spot welds on the roof skin and left rear quarter. Plus a few others here and there. Wish I could post photos here. I had a thread on the my Sandman forum. Unfortunately that site seems to no longer exist.

Thanks Terry

I never had a VT 5.0L V8 but I thought they were just like the GEN 3, because they used the wider poly-grooved, not as wide as the Gen 3 belt, I would of seen them but I must not of had a real good look at how it truly is.

I remember changing my Sequential 5.0L VS ute when she chewed up a air-con belt once. I thought what a good idea to have the air-con compressor down low in that spot with a short belt and I can sort of remember the setup how you adjust it up, you screw some bolt and she expands the belt.
But I just thought that my ute was just like the VN on and I knew hat the VT 5.0L was different, some years ago I tried looking at the setup on the net but could not fine one that showed directly what the VT 5.0L setup truly looks like.

So I believe that my Sequential V8 ute had two V belts, one for air-con only and the other did the rest, I still have the spare belts hanging in the shed for it that I never used.

The VT 5.0L have electric fans and my ute had the old clutch fan job.

I have always hated looking at Air-con belts that are long as I think that they drain more power to run, the power drain on my HG 253 auto when reving It out overtaking in 2ed was a pain over say 4500 rpm you felt the old ford type compressor hammering away like mad, as I would turn it off when overtaking.
I have seen the long air-con belts how they can shake about like a bastard, put the air-con on and lift the bonnet rev it up to 5500 and watch the bastard hammer away, the new scroll type compressors would be much better tho dragging much less power and smother, but mine was like you had a joey under the bonnet trying to get out and kicking away like a bastard.

One thing about radiators, my HG had a tight closer together say 7mm between the runners that channel the water through than all the rest of Holden's, that were wider apart setting look of say 10mm. even the HQ to HZ V8 HD 3 core is wide apart type.
So I am wondering was my HG V8 type some air-con type of radiator that they up graded too, instead of going to a 3 core. it worked real well.

Depends. Some Trimatic are the original LH shift style of the original box and use a LH side shift T-bar, examples include HT-HG, later UC and Commodore, can’t recall with certainty if WB console shift are LH shift or not. Other Trimatic were modified for Aussie RH column shift and HQ-HZ, LH-LX console shift used the same box with a RH side shift. Commodore T-bar is the same for Trimatic and TH400/TH350.
Then there is the Statesman cable type T-bar, but again I can’t remember if the later WB Statesman with Trimatic used the same shifter or not. From memory the WB T-bar had extra console mounts on it making it different to earlier ones. This type of shifter was used on Statesman from I think sometime in HJ through to HZ and maybe WB.

The rod type T-bar are pretty much the same for Trimatic, TH350 and TH400. You just have to knock the roll pins out and swap it around underneath.

179kW they were. The 195kW versions were even better, my mate just bought a nice VT SS manual with the HBD 5.0L, wasn’t running just needed a coil.

You couldn’t get a 350ci engine in a Holden or Calais, it was only in HSV vehicles, so you couldn’t really compare them anyway.

Talk to COME about a 350 crank for it, they will sell a balanced kit. The heads are good things, and compared to iron SBC heads they are great and on a 350ci engine work well. There is no reason why a Holden V8 with roller cam and correctly done heads/intake won’t go just as well as an LS1. What they are really good for is putting on an old red 308 stroked in a pre ADR27A car meaning no limitations on tune, cats etc. But performance stuff for Holden V8’s are dearer than SBC hence why people don’t bother that often.