FE-FC Holden Discussion Forum

Forty seven degrees on my back verandah and a friend of mine brought his sons Commadore around so I could repair the exhaust manifold . His son has decided to collect the 4-6-8 cylinder versions of vc will be a interesting collection in years to come . Anyway the 4 cylinder versions of the vb and vc had the early holden 5x108 stud pattern on 13" and am wondering what the rotor and calliper are? Did the simply use uc torana or are they something different ?

There is no 4-cyl version of the VB, they are VC/VH only (& VK in NZ).

The 4-cyl Commodore brakes are very similar to late UC Girlock. with the main difference being the 12mm wheel studs.

Dr Terry

wonder if the 2l vn is slimmer with a different front end

To my knowledge the VN 2.0 litre uses the same front brakes, wheels & stud pattern as normal V6 Commodores of the era.

Dr Terry

Wait, there was a two litre???
Sounds as crazy as a HJ with a wankel engine

Export model, mainly to NZ.

It wasn't as bad as it sounds. The engine was 10:1 compression version of the 2.0 JE Camira motor, with 83kW.

No powerhouse, but a big improvement on the VC/VH 1.9 litre effort.

Dr Terry

Wasn't the commodore 4cyl called the starfire, the same engine as in the sunbird?

Yes & No.

It was called the Starfire only for the Sunbird.

The VC/VH Commodore version was improved in many areas, especially the fuel system, although the basic engine remained the same.

The Starfire in the Sunbird got a bad name, it was referred to as Misfire & Backfire etc.

GM-H just called it the 1.9 Phase 2 4-cyl engine in the Commodore, there was no mention of the word 'Starfire'.

Dr Terry

What was the difference between the UC starfire with the varajet carby and the VC commodore with the varajet carby .My friend with the 4 and 6 cylinder commodores copied the relevant pages from his workshop manual for me as I thought there might be a difference in size or jets to the starfire[my workshop manual] but they seem to be the exact same pages[ Gregory's manuals] .The reason I asked Terry is because you said there was a huge improvement in the fuel system .After running a single 1 7/32 Stromberg for 20 years and having the motor breaking down when the throttle is held open for extended periods ,I decided to try and improve the fuel system by changing to a varajet . I know most people will laugh but I thought I would ignore everybody and try it just because I like the idea of a vaccum secondary and figured the people who complained about these carbies were people who have had a dodgy one and as my old van is only 179 and there was no difference in jets or size between 4 and 6 cylinders [202] I figured it would power it ok. Adapted it to a hi-torque 350 holley manifold and adapted a sports air cleaner to it. I already had the manifold and the air cleaner so the carby cost me $10 on ebay and the adaptor cost me less than $6 in aluminium and some time to cut out . Its a huge improvement on the old Stromberg . Haydn

The term 'fuel system' is how they put it the GM-H blurb, however in reality it was more like camshaft/ignition/head/tuning improvements. The VH version also had air injection & a primitive form of electronic ignition.

Whatever they did was an improvement, the UC Starfire was a disappointing thing to drive in many ways, but the Commodore 4 was much more user friendly.

I'm a big fan of the Varajet carby, they are basically a 2 barrel version of the Q-Jet. When set up properly they drive well & are a good economical choice for a Red carby upgrade.

Dr Terry