Good things come to those who wait, and in this episode of Carnage, Scotty finally gets the freshly rebuilt L67 into the VN and goes for a long-overdue drive.

For those out of the loop, we L67-swapped this VN Berlina in early 2020, and it was a minter! At least until the factory-spec timing chain let go, taking a few valves and pistons with it along the way.

We found ourselves a new L67 and Scotty set about rebuilding it with upgraded parts to cope with more boost, and that turned into a bit of a nightmare. While he reused the original crank, rods and pistons, the new bearings destined for the bottom end caused major clearance issues when he introduced stronger ARP rod bolts into the mix.

With the help of our mates at Top Torque, we eventually got it all machined up properly. Scotty has spent that past couple of episodes piecing the mangin’ donk back together with a hot cam; MLS head gaskets and ARP head studs from Mace Engineering; reconditioned and ported heads with bigger valves; and a Mace boost pulley upgrade.

With that done, Scotty set about bolting it into the VN. While there were a few minor gremlins, the Tuff Mounts engine mounts and our Pacemaker Headers extractors made the big stuff really easy.

We’re still using the original VN Turbo 700 ’box and converter, but Scotty manualised it for simplicity some time ago. Fuel has been converted to E85 with the help of a Raceworks fuel pump and injectors, while brains are taken care of with a Haltech GM Sport plug-in ECU.

With all that done, Scotty fired up the new donk – success! After only a few kicks, it burst to life with no dramas, and it felt oh so good to be able to cruise this thing on the street after such a long hiatus.

The plan from here is to hit the drag strip as soon as we’re able to with current restrictions, and it may even get a cheeky tickle-up on the dyno by Zane at Maxx Performance before then. But in the meantime, there’s still Scotty’s VE Valiant ute to finish off – so there’ll be no shortage of Carnage content anytime soon.