outside the square

[turbogu]

hey all, just thinking out side the square here, have been looking into an extra cab conversion on my gq and it got me thinking rather than chopping a good ute up try and find some thing else to bang on the patrol chassis and have been throwing ideas around about a navara body, any one got any specs like wheel base and track on a navara compared to a gq?

i know ill prob get laughed at for this decision but i like being different so any one got any specs or comments, also, what sort of motors will fit in a navara engine bay, i want to put a turbo tb 42 in mine cause the v8 died not long ago, is a navara engine bay big enough to take one???

prob try and stick to a later model one cause i like there shape more if i could find a decent donor shell, even if its a bit bugger'd from an auction

well, any thoughts or comments would be great (as long as they're not to nasty!!!!)

cheers sean

[mavtestpilot]

I reckon it would be a nice conversion if you can do it. Know idea on specs but have seen a navara in Brizzy with 35 simexs on. It needs some trimming to fit them. To fit your 37's will take some serious work with the grinder

Easiest way to line everything up would be to use the cab and make up a tube tray. If you did a dual cab, it would make it a good practical all rounder. There are heaps of navaras around, so its only a matter of time before they are easily available at the wreckers. If you do it, I'd love to see the pics

[turbogu]

thanks for the vote of confidence mate, i reckon it would look pretty good too, especially with a 7" lift on a smaller size car than the patrol, was thinking along those lines, dual cab, tube tray, tube winch bar, internal cage, no back seats and kinda expecting some massaging of the gaurds

any one got any photo's of lifted late model navara's so i can get a bit of an ide of what they look like when they had some money thrown at em???? would prefer to see the current shape but open to any thing at the mo, also any one know if the later models gaurds, grill etc will fit any earlier model, might be easier to get any early one and give it a face lift

cheers sean

[Beastmavster]

Current shape would look good. they look pretty tough really, and they have pretty big wheel arches anyway.

I guess if you're mounting a body on that's not stock you'll be able to mount it to any height so long as you get engineers approval for the cab swap anyway.

[GQ TROL]

We looked at doing this before deciding to build our current truck. Liked the look of the late model Navara wagon, had plenty of potential. But because we wanted to use the TD42 engine we had to pass on it, as the engine is too long for the depth (front to back) of the engine bay and wouldn't fit without some serious hacking of the firewall.

Everything was going to be space-framed, like oval track race trucks, so was just gonna chop the shit out of guards, firewall etc to make it fit and then lengthen the front guards to gain the depth we needed, bring rad forward etc, but that meant alot of weight forward of the front axle.

So its entirely possible....but in the end it was gonna be too much work for us.

[holeyhardtop]

afaik so long as the donor body was no older than the chassis then it would meet the correct crash type safety standards and subject to the engineer being satisfied with the new body mounting it would all be ok. On engines the old 720's can fit holden 5litres in them so i'd imagine a late model would be the same.

hmmm...late model extra cab navara, 5.7 stroked holden v8, GQ chassis? would look very tough and haul arse