THOSE who have been following the exploits of our L67-swapped VN Berlina project on Carnage will know that the car has been out of action for a few months, after the timing chain let go on the supercharged donk.

The damage wasn’t catastrophic, but it did result in a few bent valves and some witness marks on the corresponding pistons. The mission from there was to take the heads to Johnny Pilla at Powerhouse Engines for some porting and new valves. But those plans almost immediately went down the drain.

Johnny and his team of engine wizards found the L67 heads had more cracks in them than a 50-year-old dash pad, and deemed them a write-off. Sourcing a new pair of heads on their own proved to be tricky, so in the end we just opted to get a whole new donk.

All we knew prior to seeing the new mill in person was that it had been sitting for years under a workshop bench. So in this episode, we tear into the thing, with some interesting results.

It had a claimed 180,000km on the dial when it was removed from what we assume was a VS Commodore. The teardown revealed a much cleaner engine inside than the old 400,000km junker from the VX we originally threw into Supermang, so the claim about mileage is probably correct.

However, much to Scotty’s amazement, just about every bolt holding this thing together was finger-tight at best. Had we installed the donk as-is, it would have certainly ended up another broken L67 in the Carnage engine graveyard – although that might’ve made for some great footage!

As was planned with the old VX L67, the heads are currently with Powerhouse Engines for new valves, springs, porting work and all the good stuff. In the meantime, Scotty will prep the bottom end with some fresh rod bolts before we throw it into the VN and run it up on the dyno with even more boost!

Keep an eye on all things Street Machine and Carnage for more Supermang content coming soon.