This week’s episode of Carnage, has Scotty continuing on with some TA Torana fun, this time attempting a cheap, rattle-can rebuild on a crusty 1256cc inline four engine.

So, why? Why not just put a V8 or whatever in it now? Well firstly, we want to get this little Torana registered, which is far easier to do when it’s standard. Secondly, these old engines are so simple it’s like upscaled Lego, and a whole gasket kit – including a headgasket – only set us back $28!

Tearing down the 63hp behemoth revealed some interesting design quirks, like just two intake ports for the manifold to feed all four cylinders. It reminds us how basic engines were and could be.

The water pump on this engine was one of the failure areas Scotty had to address, and with the valve cover off, he also discovered most of the valve stem steals were also trashed.

With the head off, Scotty found the first major roadblock for the day. When attempting to pull the valve spring retainers out, he found one of the exhaust valves wasn’t seating properly, and it’d likely need professional head work to fix it. Given this is a cheap as chips job, that wouldn’t fit the budget.

He thought he was onto something with our spare Torana four pot engine we have lying around. But, after undoing everything and getting ready to pull the head off that motor, he found the head bolts were not only a different thread, but physically narrower to the first engine. Balls!

Curiosity then started to run wild, and even the bore size between the two engines was drastically different, likely making the spare engine an 1159cc unit. That means our black coupe had a change to an earlier, smaller engine at some point in its life, doing us no favours to fix the 1256cc engine we started off with.

It was at this point, we decided pursuing these ancient four pots wasn’t worth the effort, and especially the money. So, it’s time to make this thing fast! We want a modern four banger for this thing, and on the cheap. Let us know what we should stuff in this thing below, and enjoy today’s episode thanks to Kemppi Australia and VPW Australia.