2005 Vauxhall Monaro VXR V8

20 Dec 2017

My Monaro VXR

This is my pride and joy, my Monaro VXR or to be more accurate, HSV GTO Coupe (VZ). I bought the car a couple of years ago now, I first saw them back in 2005/6 at the BTCC at Knockhill. Vauxhall was at the event and they had one on display, it was red, sitting menacingly on a large metallic platform. I remember promising myself that I’d have my own one, one day.

It took me a while to get one though, the thought of a large V8 engine and the potential fuel costs has me in a state of hesitation. Eventually, one came up for sale and the timing was just right for me, the car, although a British registered car, was based in Ireland which was a good excuse for a holiday if nothing else so I packed my bags and headed off. Although it may seem like quite a bold statement, the Monaro is the best car I’ve ever owned.

They are not considered exotic, the car is a GT, I’ve had conversations with other owners about whether the car can fall into the exotic category and the response is mixed. When I analyzed the subjective term that is “exotic” a large portion of what makes up that definition points quite openly at the Monaro. It’s fast, comfortable, beautiful, thoughtfully designed, rare and interesting.

I bought the car in a completely standard state, it’s been suggested numerous times to buy them pre-tuned but I didn’t want to do that. I had my ideas in what I wanted from the car from a performance perspective and I needed one that hadn’t been worked on. This particular car had nothing done to it and that is one of the many reasons I bought it.

Engine

Although the car is Australian the engine is American. The LS2, which is the IV Generation V8 from GM, is a 6L V8 producing around 400bhp. As time has moved on, I’ve discovered that there are two performance markets open to me, Australia and the USA. In the states the car is known as the Pontiac GTO, in Australia, it’s called (I think) the HSV GTO Coupe (VZ). Performance on these engines is limited only by your wallet. Some of the modifications that have been made are things like:

MSD Coils.
Magenecor Ignition leads.
FAST 102 Intake Manifold.
VCM Induction Unit and hear shielding.
ProFlow Long tube headers.
Wortec Exhaust System with de-cats.
Pedders Xtreme Coilovers.
Remapped.
Mishimoto PCV bypass.
Pedders strut brace.
Pedders Quick Rack Steering.

There is more done and more to come with the biggest improvement in performance coming from the supercharger unit. I don’t just want to throw a supercharger at the car though, I am investing some time and cash in ensuring the engine is in a condition to accept the supercharger.

Origins

It can be a bit confusing, is it a Holden or is it a Vauxhall? The car is built in Australia by HSV (Holden Special Vehicles), or at least it was, HSV no longer makes them. Holden is the Australian arm of GM whereas Vauxhall is the British arm of GM, that means that when the car was brought over here for sale it was badged as a Vauxhall and aptly added to their VXR offering. HSV is the performance partner of Holden.

Anything that has a V8, is rear wheel drive and is built by HSV should never have to endure the pain of a Vauxhall badge, it devalues the car a lot in peoples eyes. Luckily, HSV was running a certificate of authenticity program for all HSV cars at their factory in Clayton, Victoria. The program used the VIN number of your vehicle to identify the car and its birth on their production line. I signed up and my certificate was delivered within two weeks in a lovely leather bound binder from HSV.

Livery & Wrap

The livery was put on this year whilst taking part in the Hell Yeah Rally which was a driving event around the Lake District here in the UK. The theme for the wrap was Overwatch , a first-person stylised shooter from Blizzard entertainment. The wrap focused on the main character the company use for marketing, Tracer! I opted for this mainly because Tracer is fast, that was enough for me. I adapted the Overwatch League logo and chose wrap from the 1080 series by 3M.

The rally has now finished and the sponsor stickers have been removed but the Overwatch theme will remain for a bit longer with rearranged assets. The wrap isn’t cheap, even though I did it myself and so it would be a shame to tear it all off just for one event. I’m going to be retaining the Overwatch base theme for a bit longer.

Outside of CarThrottle I keep most of my updates on Instagram along with other geekery and interests. If you want to have a look then you can find me at http://www.instagram.com/boyokendall/

May 2018

From day one I have promised myself that I’d supercharge it yet the bottom line was always been, the price is high. Nearly £8k in fact, that’s a lot of money to put down on tuning her.

Yet, my Monaro has gotten under my skin, it’s replaced my previous cars as my absolute pride and joy and that was the fuel behind making the leap and putting the cash down. When the time came for me to buy the charger, I knew that the company in the UK that dealt with these units has closed its doors, that meant I had to look overseas.

Brian Tooley racing in Kentucky came to my rescue and had Magnuson put a charger together for me and have it shipped here to the UK. The entire process took around 4 weeks to complete as the units are built and then subjected to testing at Magnuson.

I took a lot of time stripping down the engine for installing the unit and whilst you don’t actually need to do that I wanted to clean in and around the block and also replace a few parts. Along with this Magnuson TVS2300 supercharger I also installed a new Mishimoto alloy radiator for improved cooling with a deeper core.

The next step will be dyno run to finish off mapping the car and get that all important power figure.