Last time on Carnage, Scotty got the freshly built 318ci Chrysler small-block into his dad’s old VE Valiant ute for the final time, and now he’s working through the process of getting the car ready to fire up and drive.

The first hurdle was the clearance of the A999 ’box Scotty is using behind the engine. The transmission is from a truck, and Scotty found that the extension housing wasn’t playing nice with the floor of the VE.

Luckily, Scotty had a similar car-style 904 transmission casing lying around in the workshop, with an extension housing that was the same length but without the beefy bracing the truck ’box housing used. A quick swap of extension housings solved that issue without too much stress.

The driveline problems didn’t stop there though, because it turns out the spiffy flexplate Scotty fitted to the 318 doesn’t suit any starter motors readily available. That’s easily solved by ordering a new flexplate, but the transmission will obviously have to come back out to fit it.

We’ll also have to get our friends at GJ Drivelines to sort us out with a tailshaft, because while the original ’shaft from our VE Lockdown Wagon project does fit, it isn’t exactly suited to the task.

The wizards from Pacemaker Headers supplied a killer set of extractors for the build, but Scotty still needs to fab a mid-section underneath the transmission to mate the headers to the rest of the system already on the Val.

Last on the job list in this episode is sorting out the water pump pulleys. We’ve got a beefy and beautiful new alloy radiator from the craftsmen at Aussie Desert Cooler, but clearance at the front of the engine is tight, so Scotty has ordered pulleys to suit.