Thursday, Jan 13, 2011 at 21:12
G'day Terry,
Here is a first hand report on the Brunswick conversion.
Rob re the V8 diesel. I brought the car (2003 GXL Manual Cruiser) off Greg Jones at Brunswick diesel. It was his own car and had approx. 30,000 k's on the clock when I brought it.Greg brought the Cruiser brand new as a 1HZ naturally aspirated diesel drove it to his workshop and did the conversion. The major components of the conversio included the fitting of the 6.5 chev turbo diesel, fitting hi-ratio diffs(3:7 to 1 I think) and a heavy duty clutch.
When we travelled around Australia as you know with the four kids and all the gear on the car and in the van we had a fair load. Including the van my best guess is between 2 and 2.5 tonne. With the Hi Speed diffs at 110kph the motor was doing just over 2000 rpm. The only time I did a rough calculation on fuel was when I did the sprint home from Torquay to W.A. The bit where I did the mileage test was between Torquay and Adelaide. Claire and the girls had flown home previously and I was by myself.I wouldnt like to say how fast I was going but no body was passing me and Im glad I didnt come across a radar. By my calculations on this stretch I got about 17 litres per 100k fully loaded and going much faster than anybody would go towing a van. Given the hi-ratio diffs and the low revs I would say that on average the fuel economy would be on par with a toyota turbo diesel and definately much better than a petrol cruiser.
In the northern territory somewhere between Darwin and the "3 Ways" I did have a heating problem one day. In fairness to the cruiser it must have been 45 degrees plus and to keep the temp down to normal I was doing about 90 kph. I didnt really push it because we were in the middle of no where and its possible that I could have maintained my normal speed (100/110 kph) at a higher temperature.The last thing I wanted to do was to risk boiling the thing out there in 45 degree plus temps. That was the only time on the whole trip including some heavy sand driving on Frazer that it even looked like getting a bit hot.
As a tow vehicle I would Say that the cruiser was more than adequate but Im not sure if there would be much in it as compared to the Toyota turbo diesel.The power output of both motors is very similar at about 155kw and the chev has roughly 50 nm of torque more tha the toyota turbo at 500nm. The hi ratio diffs do take a bit of sting out of it and its quite different to drive compared to the toyota turbo.I think that the big chev comes into its own when you get into some really serious heavy off road driving.The low down grunt is fantastic .When we were on Frazer and also around the beaches north of Noosa the sand was deep and soft. On Frazer we didnt have the van so the cruiser was packed with camping gear the 6 of us and all the other stuff. We were definately heavy and the sand was deep and soft With the tyres around 18/20 pounds we were unstopable .Where most people were bogged the cruiser was cruisin. Most my 4wd experience has been on the beaches and dunes of the SouthWest so I pretty much new what I was doing but having that big chev roaring under the bonnet was brilliant. Even Claire who couldnt care less said she loved that car at that time.
In finishing is it worth the effort to go the chev diesel? I probably wouldnt have gone in and got a conversion done myself but Gregs car was already complete and had a lot of other modifications when I brought it.When I brought the cruiser the cost of the conversion including the diffs was about $25,000.00 less your existing motor which Greg will trade. I had previously owned a couple of 60 series cruisers with firstly a 6.2 chevy and then a 6.5 so I was alresdy a convert to the chev V8 especially in the bush. The 100 series was a quantum leap up as the car was effectively brand new.Brunswick Diesel are very proffesional and the conversion looks like a factory fit.If you want a beast for the bush that grabs a lot of attention then this is the way to go.If your just towing a van with no thoughts of real offroad the toyota turbo is probably just as good.Either way if you did decide to go this way Id say give Greg a ring 0897261431.Smaller operators may be ok for the naturally aspirated 6.2 & 6.5 but the turbo is a completely different matter and Id recomend going to the proffesionals
Rob hope this helps you and any of the Bush Tracker crew .
Cheers
Neil
Terry, my current 100 series is a 2004 naturally aspirated diesel which I have now had for two years. When I bought it second hand ( for $38k), it only had 57000km on it. I immediately added a Garret turbo and a gas conversion which brought the total cost to $43k including Govt rebate on the Gas ($2k). It is a far better tow vehicle than my previous V8 petrol 100 series, and the fuel consumption dropped from 27l/100km to 17 when towing, and 12 without the van. It now has 115,000km on it and I've towed the BT for 26,200km of that.
When Neil was here in Nelson Bay with his rig, (about 2005), I hooked up the BT and took it for a short run. My impression was that the pulling ability was only slightly better than the V8 petrol, but as Neil says, the fuel consumption would be considerably less. So, I can't see a warrant for spending $25,000 on the conversion (which would have brought my vehicle's cost to $63,000 (less trade-in for existing motor)), for very little gain in performance, when the turbo/gas does the job nicely.
Food for thought and good luck.........Rob
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