Indholdsfortegnelse for February 2016 i Street Machine

LEGENDARY car builders, burnout royalty, several entrants in last year’s SM Drag Challenge, and the 2015 Street Machine Of The Year winner all turned out for this year’s annual Street Machine VIP party. Around 250 invited guests gathered at the George Harcourt Inn just outside Canberra to enjoy a cracking barbecue, a few quality bevvies and some high-energy classic rock tunes from local band Third Party, as well as the presentation of two of our sport’s most sought-after awards. The Laurie Starling Student Scholarship was established in 2014 to honour the memory of the exceptionally talented fabricator Laurie Starling and financially assist promising young automotive fabrication students, and this year the field was so strong the judges decided to award two scholarships. Laurie’s dad Rob and older brother Jamie were…

BROKE THE FAN BELT ON A CRUISE? BUY, BEG, BORROW OR STEAL SOME LADIES’ PANTYHOSE, TIE THAT TO FIT THE PULLEYS AND DRIVE HOME SLOWLY Y’KNOW, I’ve been writing my Dirty Stuff column in this magazine for a tad over 30 years now, beginning with the Nov/Dec 1985 issue. So Telfo suggested I put together a bit of a ‘fix-it’ piece, a list of 30 things that might go wrong with your ride and how you can sort them out – or better yet, avoid them happening in the first place. Hopefully they might help you avoid a tilt-tray trip home after your ride dies on a cruise. They’re all based on my 58 years of mechanical and electrical experiences with modified street machines. So here they all are, in…

HOT WHEELS I SAW the article you guys put up on your website about the barbecue made out of an HT Monaro (NZ shed complete with HT Monaro BBQ, streetmachine.com.au). Here’s one I made while in Darwin. The brake and tail-lights are incorporated into the headlights. Its maiden voyage was from Darwin to Melbourne, and we got a lot of looks and met some great characters along the way! Andy, via Facebook MUST TRY HARDER I HAVE just attended my first Summernats and would like to throw around a few things to make Summernats 30 even better. Has someone completed a safety assessment on what a Doorslammer with 8000hp would do hitting a moveable cement barrier if the throttle stuck on full song? I witnessed a standard car move a…

ALL MATT’S CARS HAVE SHARED THE 1960S RACER THEME: DITCH THE HUBCAPS, APPLY SOME LOW, ADD SOME NOISE, THEN RACE AS FAR as Matt Hart is concerned, the 60s was the purest era for motor racing; it’s a period he’s replicated on all his rides. But when his plucky Porsche was swamped by screaming small-blocks at a race meet, he knew it was time to rethink his take on the timeframe. Plenty of different cars have been given the Matt Hart treatment over the years, from an HR Holden to a Renault 10, but all have been tied together by the 1960s racer theme – ditch the hubcaps, apply some low, add some noise, then race. It’s a great way of instantly converting the cheap and cheerful classics of yore…

I MADE SURE I USED AS MUCH OF THE PAD AS I COULD, AND DROVE IT LIKE I STOLE IT WE’RE used to seeing plenty of carnage on the Summernats burnout pad, but this year’s Burnout Championship was insane, with a record number of entrants either rubbing up against the concrete or spewing fire in a bid for glory. Hundreds of tyres were sacrificed in front of the capacity crowd, but in the end Darren Bromage and his Holden tonner stood victorious above a field that featured some of the best in the business. “I wasn’t going to come this year but my mates talked me into it” Darren says. “We put a new auto into it two days before Summernats. It’s only just starting to sink in that I’ve…

I CAME ACROSS THIS HT ON EBAY. AS SOON AS I LAID MY EYES ON IT I KNEW I HAD TO HAVE IT AS A 10-year-old kid, Jamie McKay became infatuated with a Sebring Orange Monaro that was parked near his grandma’s house. He might have only been a young fella, but he knew a tough-looking car when he saw it, and he resolved that when he grew up, he’d own one. Winding the clock forward to 2007, the muscle car boom was in full swing and Jamie could see his childhood dream slipping away. “You used to see them all the time for four or five grand, then as I got older it got to the point where I had to do it – it was now or never…

LEON’S SPINNER SURE WON’T WIN ANY TROPHIES FOR PANEL AND PAINT, BUT THAT’S PART OF THE APPEAL THERE aren’t many cars as cool – or as popular – to customise as ’49-’50 Fords, a car we Aussies lovingly call the ‘single-spinner’. The ’51 Fords are pretty nice too, but thanks to a redesign of the grille, we have to call them ‘twinspinners’. So for the sake of clarity and brevity, let’s just call them all ‘spinners’. They’ve always been a popular car in the Aussie scene, although we only ever got the four-door sedans (and Mainline utes), but in more recent times there has been a raft of imports, many of them already customised. This one, on the other hand, while being an import initially, has had all the customising…

IN 1970, THE GTHO RAN AT 23 MEETINGS AND MADE THE FINAL IN ALL BUT SIX OF THEM – AND WON THE NATIONALS EVERY car enthusiast dreams of purchasing a classic muscle car from the great age of vehicle manufacture, and salivates at the possibility of their ‘barn find’ turning out to be something more – perhaps a famous event winner with a unique factory connection. Yeah, we can all dream. Well, that dream came true for Perth-based businessman Mark Negri, and it happened quite by accident. As a youth he’d noted a local occasionally cruising the streets near his home in a seemingly well-preserved XW GTHO Falcon, and about 15 years ago he was able to round up the $18,000 necessary to buy the car. He owned that Falcon…

IN 2014 the SM team took our first trip to the Yokohama Hot Rod & Custom Show, and it made such an impression on us that we just had to go back for the 2015 show, held at Pacifico Yokohama on 6 December. The show runs for just one day, but packs in 300 cars, 650 bikes and a ton of fun. The points of difference with other big indoor shows are subtle, but crucial. Each year, a handful of top cars and bikes from the US are invited to the show, creating a bunch of hype from the outset. These special guests open the show at 9am with the ride-in, cruising in from the back doors down a packed corridor of fans and photographers. Such a sight would send…

THE CAR IS A VERITABLE PENTHOUSE PET WHEN IT COMES TO DRIVELINE AND GO-FAST BITS NO MATTER what marque you follow, it’s hard not to be impressed by NASCAR engines. Ford, Chev and Mopar all make variants, and their huge-revving, 1000-mile endurance makes them the envy of any diehard street machiner. As the base for a street car they have plenty of wow-factor, just like this RP5 Mopar donk in Lee Baxter’s KC Centura. This car would have to be one of the wildest sleepers in Australia. Queensland-based Lee is no stranger to motorsport, and this build started when he was looking to fit an LS1 into a Jeep off-road racer, which he hoped to use in the Finke Desert Race. The class had a 6.0L limit and he naturally…

AUSTRALIA IS HOME TO SOME OF THE MOST TALENTED MEMBERS OF THE INTERNATIONAL PERFORMANCE AFTERMARKET, AND THE PRODUCTS WE DEVELOP AND MANUFACTURE HERE ARE EXPORTED THE WORLD OVER. STREET MACHINE’S TRUE BLUE SECTION CELEBRATES THE MEN AND WOMEN BEHIND THE PRODUCTS, AS WELL AS THE BUSINESSES AND PRODUCTS THEMSELVES THAT HAVE MADE AUSTRALIA THE INTERNATIONAL HOME OF HORSEPOWER. BUYING AUSTRALIAN SUPPORTS A THRIVING LOCAL INDUSTRY, AND KEEPS REAL PEOPLE IN REAL JOBS. HERE ARE A SELECTION OF BUSINESSES DEDICATED TO STAYING AUSTRALIAN MADE: What is your business name and what do you do? Lowe Fabrications. We sell top quality, Australian-made automotive accessories. We also have a sheetmetal fabrication shop, an in-house powder coating service, and a custom vehicle building division. Describe how your business came about. I’m a sheetmetal worker…

CHRIS EDWARDS 1961 FORD XK FALCON UTE “AFTER seeing this ute for sale on Gumtree I went and had a look, expecting it to be what I saw in the photos – a rusty old ute. It didn’t say anything in the ad about the home-built, blow-through turbo set-up on a crossflow six! On LPG and with an intercooler, no less! I bought it as something for my son to drive and eventually tidy up somewhat. Unfortunately we don’t know the true potential of the thing, as we took it to Saturday Night Roll Racing at Queensland Raceway for a shakedown and cracked the radiator. The only thing we have done to it is chucking on a blow-off valve and changing the number plates – all the rat rod stuff…

IN A WORLD where LS engines all tend to look a bit same-same, it’s refreshing to see there are still guys trying to stand out from the crowd. Chris Cutajar has given Adam Rogash and the guys at Melbourne Performance Warehouse the nod to build him this killer 440ci ProCharged LS combo for his silver VE ute. “We’re thrashing on it right now” Adam says, just a week before Christmas. “The plan is to get it to Summernats 29, but it’ll just be on a base tune.” MPW has developed a reputation for awesome LS engines and this beast should be no different. They’ve started with a Dart LS-Next block and filled it with all the top-shelf gear. “The Dart LS-Next block is a really good thing” Adam says. “They’re…

WE LOVE building project cars here at Street Machine, so much so that we keep giving them away so we can build another one. Our latest ride is this 1976 LX Torana hatch that we’ve fitted out with a healthy 355ci Holden V8, TH350 auto and 31-spline nine-inch rear, and one of you will win it! The Torana was purchased in 2015 as a 253ci V8 and four-speed combo. It was a 202ci SL hatch from the factory, but along the way someone added the A9X flares and spoilers, along with some V8 grunt. It made all the right noises, but wasn’t especially quick or shiny; we nicknamed it ‘50 Shades Of Blue’ due to its dull, mismatched paint scheme. Unfortunately our busy schedule meant we didn’t have the time…

30 JAN, HILLCREST, QLD Datsik Dyno Event & Show ’n’ Shine, 2/10 Tradelink Road. Contact 0404 293 461. 31 JAN, COBURG, VIC Custom & Classic Show ’n’ Shine Drive-In Movie Night, Coburg Drive-In. Contact John 0438 119 660 or Tony 0418 557 522. 31 JAN, PASCOE VALE, VIC North West Car & Bike Show ’n’ Shine, Cole Reserve. Visit www.standrewscc.com.au. 05-07 FEB, MCLAREN VALE, SA Southern Vale Rod Run, Main Road. Visit www.southernrodrunners.com.au. 06 FEB, NEWCASTLE, NSW All German Day Show ’n’ Shine, Newcastle Foreshore, Nobbys Beach. Contact Phillip 0418 660 000. 06-07 FEB, TOOWOOMBA, QLD Toowoomba Swap, Toowoomba Showgrounds. Contact 0499 990 622. 07 FEB, BACCHUS MARSH, VIC David Calleja Memorial Car Show, Maddingley Park. Contact Nadine 0431 440 920. 07 FEB, GEEVESTON, TAS Huon Aquaculture Wheels In The…

READERS of Gen-X vintage or older will remember the good old days when prime street machining projects and cool daily drivers were plentiful and cheap. Even the Aussie two-door offerings from the Big Three could be bought for a song, and regularly off their original owners, too! Andrew Brass has owned a string of neat rides, many of which were cornerstone models for young blokes in the 80s and 90s – with a few that ran stout numbers for their day, too. 01: WE ALL have to start somewhere. “That’s me aged 18 in 1983 with my first car, a TC Cortina running a 2.0-litre donk and manual trans” Andrew says. “It was 1983 and I was an apprentice mechanic at Fulcrum Suspension in Brisbane. It was a great car…

TIME CAPSULE WHAT would you do if you stumbled across this beauty after it had been parked up? Would you leave it as is or restore it back to factory specs? Here’s what our Facebook fans thought. Ron Mackrell – Continue the theme of building the best Holden possible by throwing a small-block Chev, Top Loader and nine-inch diff in it and ditch the factory crap. Stephen Lindburg – As I get older, originality strikes me as the way to go. Not sure why really; maybe it’s something about recreating the era when these cars were built. Chris Pace – C’mon, the 80s stuff wasn’t even cool in the 80s. All those scoops and that stinkbug stance! I wouldn’t make it factory original, but it wouldn’t look much like that…

THERE WERE BLOWN METHANOL BEASTS CRUISING ALONG, BRINGING TEARS TO THE EYES OF ONLOOKERS WITH a week to recover from New Year’s Eve, everyone was bright-eyed and well rested when it came time to head to Canberra for Summernats 29. While the SM crew gets there a little bit earlier to set up camp and maybe get a peek at a new car or two, the event officially starts at lunchtime on Thursday with the City Cruise. This year 260 cars lined up on the burnout pad before heading down Northbourne Ave, chucking a U-ey right out the front of Parliament House and then heading back to EPIC to kick off the cruising. Truth be told, it’s probably the only time you can do that run with green lights all…

I’M AIMING JUST TO GET THE WIN IN THE BAG AND ONCE WE’VE DONE THAT, WE’LL PUSH IT ON THE LAST RUN JAKE Edwards once again blew everyone away with a dominating performance in the Dyno Dynamics Horsepower Heroes at Summernats 29. The four-time winner nearly didn’t make it after shredding a tyre the Sunday before the event, destroying the rear passenger guard and requiring a lot of panel work to fix. “It was doing 242km/h at 1800hp when I felt it wiggle on the dyno, so I hopped out and saw the wheel sitting on the dyno roller” Jake said. He turned up to the Summernats dyno shed on Friday afternoon with a figure of 1025hp to beat, set down earlier that morning by Street Machine Drag Challenge winner…

TUFF STREET IS ALL ABOUT METH-CHUGGING, NITROUS-INGESTING CRIMES AGAINST SAFE, RESPONSIBLE MOTORING IN TUFF Street, the earth literally shakes beneath your feet. When a Commodore ute with open pipes and a 1500hp blown injected Hemi lopes past you, that’s just what happens. It’s no place for the meek. It’s where the ratbags of Summernats come to suck piss and party, and the default setting is unapologetically loud, wild and crazy. Of course, that’s precisely what makes it so awesome. As the name suggests, the cars that congregate in Tuff Street are the toughest on offer at Summernats. We’re talking meth-chugging, nitrous-ingesting, mechanically injected crimes against safe, responsible and economical motoring. There are, however, varying degrees of toughness. The Street Tuff class is for untubbed cars that, if you were game,…

THERE was action aplenty when the Australian Pro Street Association circus returned to Sydney Dragway for the season finale in November last year. While several class championships like Pro Street Unblown and True Street had already been decided, several others were poised on a knife’s edge. Frank Marchese from Dandy Engines and a few other racers had hired the Dragway for some testing in the lead-up. World-famous British DJ – and motorsport enthusiast – Carl Cox was set to debut his new Capri, which runs a Dandy-built 422ci Windsor featuring an alloy Fontana block, CHI heads, CID manifold, FuelTech EFI and a single 101mm Precision turbo. Unfortunately, it was loaded back onto the trailer without making a pass due to a problem with the converter. Cox is looking to run…

ALTHOUGH he’d chopped a couple of Model A coupes, which are prett much straight up and down, this is the first time Leon had chopped a car with some curves, so it made sense to invite a few of his mates down to help. “There were eight or 10 guys there lending their eyes, too,” he says. “Within an hour we had the roof off the car and by the end of the day we had the profile of the chop sorted.” They weren’t all just standing around drinking piss and eating snaggers, either – even our photographer Chris Thorogood got in on the action. When it comes to chopping a roof, there aren’t too many instruction sheets. At the end of the day it all depends on how low…

AFTER his initial success in racing, Ormsby felt he needed an edge with the XW. He certainly had it with the open access to factory knowledge and equipment, but that tended to also attract other racers like flies to a pie, and the Victorian was keen to throw them off the scent. “Ford had just given me a new close-ratio gearbox, and while I was at Ron Harrop’s workshop one day I mentioned to him that I didn’t want this to get out,” Ormsby recalls. “Ron said to me that what I needed to do was distract people, tell them it was something else that had resulted in the improvement in performance. He suggested I jack up the back of the bonnet as a way of diverting people’s attention.” Ormsby…

BESIDES the Hot Rod & Custom Show, Japan is full of cool stuff to do! Tokyo is very close to Yokohama and is well worth a visit. Photographer Thorogood and his mates found the best activity – hiring life-size Super Mario carts, dressing up as Mario, Luigi, Princess Peach and the rest and zooming around Tokyo! The carts are somehow road-legal and have headlights, indicators, a horn, drink holder and number plates. They cost AU$46 an hour. Best fun you can have sitting down! Details here: govoyagin.com/hosts/1540. Post-drive commemorative tattoos optional.…

01 WETTER WATER? IS YOUR ride getting too hot? If so, then cool it down with Red Line’s WaterWetter. The pre-mixed coolant is simple to use; just pour and it’s ready to go. It reduces rust, corrosion and electrolysis, while also cleaning and lubricating the water pump seals. And it’s compatible with all anti-freeze and coolants. For more info call Rocket on (02) 8825 1900. 02 KICK RRS GET THE zorst you’ve always wanted! RRS recently released a killer FatCat turbo exhaust system, comprising a 4in dump pipe, wide-mouth cat, negative-loss separator, parallel 2.5in pipes and high-flow muffler. Price is yet to be confirmed. For more information visit www.rrs-online.com.au, or give them a bell on (02) 9907 3755. 03 NEW SHOE PISTONE’S slim and sleek low-cut driving loafers are cut…

SHE’S STILL ORIGINAL. NO AIR, SO IN SUMMER SHE GETS A LITTLE HOT! DONNA Sim has been into cars since she was about six years old. Her older brother Tony – or TC, as he’s known – used to take her to car shows and the Castlereagh drags. She even decorated her high school textbooks with pages from Street Machine. “Girls at school had pictures of surfers; I had Street Machine!” she laughs. These days Donna is no slouch with the spanners, but she would rather keep her hands clean and enjoy a cruise in her tidy ’72 HQ Belmont. What was your first car? A Datsun 180B four-speed. I had it for two years. Initially I started learning to drive with Dad in his truck, standing beside him and…

I did Drag Week in 2006. It ran a best of 12.13@108mph and was the quickest AMC that year DAY three of Hot Rod Drag Week 2015 saw us at the historic Great Lakes Dragway in Wisconsin, where we bumped into Chopper Bob and his AMC AMX – complete with an eight-track player with Steppenwolf’s Gold in it. He’s definitely an AMC enthusiast – he’s got three – and he left us with a souvenir fridge magnet showing his pink AMX smoking the tyres before a drag race, with the slogan: ‘You can’t stop the Chop!’ Love the car, mate! It’s been like this for 28 years, a real street-and-strip car. It’s my daily driver. I painted it pink Firemist years ago when my daughter was born, and added flames…

BREAKDOWN VEHICLES: 1970 Ford Mustang, 1969 Chevrolet Chevelle, 1963 Dodge Polara, 1965 Chevrolet Corvette, 1975 Chevrolet Malibu, 1932 Ford coupe, 1971 Dodge Demon, 1976 Ford F-Series, 1984 Mercedes-Benz 500 SEL, 1970 Plymouth Duster, Shelby Cobra, 1950 Oldsmobile 88 STARS: Richard Grieco, Jay Acovone, Shelli Lether, Joseph Cortese, Christian Campbell, Alan Peterson, Martin Cummins, Brent Stait DIRECTOR: Albert Magnoli ACTION: Late-night street racing on the local back road features some decent old-school rides and plenty of heads-up action PLOT: Street racer and local hunk Nicky Donatello is at a crossroads with life and pondering the future of the local drag scene. He is unwillingly drawn into trouble with a local crime boss and has to race his way to a fresh start with his new girl STREET racing is the action…

I HAVE ALWAYS LOVED FCS AND OWNED MY FIRST SEDAN AT 21. I TOOK ON A TRAM WITH THAT ONE AND CAME OFF SECOND-BEST DO YOU own your dream car? If the answer’s a reluctant no, don’t fret, you are still in with a chance. See, Mal Apps has clocked up seven decades on this earth, so he had to wait very patiently to own his – this jaw-dropping FC dubbed Intrepid-C. “I have always loved FCs and owned my first sedan at 21. I took on a tram with that one and came off second-best” he laughs. A number of other early Holden models kept his interest, but it was nearly 50 years before FC number two found its way home. “I bought this in 2010 as an unfinished…

GRANT CONNOR’S SHAVED, SMOOTHED AND STUNNING XR FALCON SET THE BAR HIGH ROTORS are a love-’em-or-hate-’em deal, but who could deny the boundless appeal of John Saad’s mind-alteringly beaut Mazda RX-3? Come presentation time in the Summernats 29 Elite Hall, a clear winner emerged, and John’s Mazda was it. With a Top 10 finish and trophies for Top Undercarriage/Driveline, Top Engine Bay, Top Interior, Top Special Effects Paint, Top Pro Street, and 3rd Top Bodywork to boot, FATRX3 won just about every award it was eligible for. It also claimed the biggest gong on offer in the Elite Hall – Top Judged Elite – for the second year running. “It’s an unbelievable feeling!” John said. “To win six trophies plus go back-to-back with Top Judged Elite is amazing. All I’ve…

THE SUNDAY FINAL SAW EVERYONE PUTTING IT ON THE LINE, WITH MELTED BUMPERS AND MORE SMOKE THAN A HIPPY CONVENTION WHEN it comes to burnout competitions, the Summernats Burnout Masters is the finals series, or if you want to use an American term, the playoffs. What started out as an invitation to 20 of the nation’s best tyre-killers has grown into a year-long qualifying season that sees guys and girls travelling all over the country to try and get a spot in the big show – Summernats. Thirty cars had already qualified for the Burnout Masters final, but there were still three spots up for grabs on Thursday arvo in the Last Chance Wildcard Shootout. When you have guys like Matt Purnell, Peter Grmusa and Phil Kerjean – some of…

RESTOMOD WANTED TO MAKE A BOSS 302 ’STANG WITH ALL THE HANDLING, CREATURE COMFORTS, BIG BRAKES AND HIGH-PERFORMANCE RELIABILITY OF A PRO TOURER BACK in 1969 and ’70 a Boss 302 Mustang was a seriously hot piece of gear on windy roads. Unlike big-block muscle cars that were at home on the drag strip, the Boss 302 was a youth-oriented model designed to homologate Ford’s mega-buck Trans-Am circuit effort for those years, and they were properly exotic. But RestoMod Performance from Melbourne wanted to make something even cooler: a Boss 302 ’Stang with all the handling, creature comforts, big brakes and high-tech, high-performance reliability that comes with a pro touring build. Their ’69 fastback ticks all those boxes, with a quad-cam, injected Coyote 5.0L Ford V8 putting out 270kW (362hp)…

IT’S NOT ACTUALLY AN SS; HDT RETROFITTED LEFTOVER BROCKY PERFORMANCE PARTS TO AN OTHERWISE STOCK 5.0L V8 CAR YOU’D be forgiven for thinking Steven Schultz’s VK Commodore is just another HDT Brock SS mock-up. However, it actually does have some bona fide HDT DNA. A motor mechanic from Port Lincoln in South Australia, Steven stumbled upon an interesting piece of Holden history when he swapped his VS wagon for this VK sedan several years ago. “The car isn’t actually an SS” Steven says. “It’s an SL Commodore but it went back to HDT and had the 134 pack installed.” For those who aren’t up on their HDT terminology, back in the 80s the 134 pack involved the retrofitting of leftover Brocky performance parts to an otherwise stock five-litre V8 car…

AS THE STREAM OF POLISHED AND PREENED RIDES ROLLED THROUGH THE GATES, WHAT STOOD OUT IMMEDIATELY WAS THE INCREDIBLE DIVERSITY ON SHOW FEW other Australian events attract as many enthusiasts as the Victorian round of MotorEx Cruise For Charity, and this past November an impressive 2354 vehicles cruised out to Lardner Park for some show ’n’ shine, dyno-testing and tyre-frying action. Cruise For Charity has always been big, but for the 2015 event it was partnered with the Tread Cemetery burnout competition, which saw spectator numbers pass the 9000 mark. More importantly, $83,915 was raised for children’s family cancer charity Camp Quality. A unique feature of C4C Melbourne is its twin meeting points, Cranbourne Turf Club and Williams Landing Railway Station. The early morning’s gloomy weather and odd spot of…

YEP, this is the actual truck that Larry Ormsby used to transport his famous GTHO back in the day, restored to within an inch of its life. The truck took some tracing. It had been sold by Ormsby to circuit racer Murray Carter, who replaced the old Ford six and manual trans with a Phase II 351 and auto gearbox. In the late 70s it was sold to sports car racer Paul Trevethan who in turn passed it on in the late 90s to a Victorian speedway racer. When Mark tracked it down it was in sad condition and being used on a Christmas tree farm. He flew to Victoria, did the deal and drove it home. It was put through almost the same level of rebuild as his XW,…

WHEN it comes to modifying classic muscle cars, everyone is keen to bolt more horsepower up front, but many often forget about the need to get more ‘go juice’ through to fuel the beast. Most 60s and 70s cars come with a small 5/16in fuel line, and it’s important to remember that the narrowest point in the fuel system dictates how much fuel it can flow. Start pushing the power north of 300 horses and that factory fuel line isn’t going to be doing you any favours. With our recent HQ GTS tribute giveaway car, for example, we upped the power to around 420-430hp, and at those levels the 5/16in line just isn’t big enough, especially when you throw half-a-dozen 90-degree bends into the equation. So here’s how Gary O’Brien…

WE HAD IT DONE IN FOUR-AND-A-HALF SATURDAYS! IT WAS A TEAM EFFORT BETWEEN FOUR OF US BUILDING a cool cruiser sometimes feels like it takes a month of Sundays, but Ricky Fenwick took his HT Kingswood from grandma-spec stocker to 1000hp smoke machine in literally that time! That’s quite a snail you’ve got there! What’s the combo? It’s the engine out of our Mitsubishi Triton ute X275 racecar that went 8.60@160mph. It’s a six-litre LS2 stroked out to 400 cubes, with LS3 heads that pretty much are untouched. The turbo is a GT47 Garrett with an air-to-air intercooler in the grille. Fuel is methanol with eight 2400cc injectors and eight 2000cc injectors, all run by Holley Dominator EFI. Behind it is a Powerglide and a nine-inch we bought out of…

DEAD DUCK A MAN and his pet duck walk into a bar, both of them ready to tie one on. They start off slowly, drinking beer and munching nuts, but as the night wears on they progress to spirits, and then tequila shots. By the time the bartender announces last drinks, the man and his duck are blitzed, but the man demands: “One more for me, and one more for my duck.” So the bartender pours the drinks and the man and the duck throw them back. Suddenly, the duck falls over dead. The man throws some money on the bar, puts on his coat and starts to leave. The bartender says: “Hey man, you can’t just leave that lyin’ there!” The man replies: “That’s not a lion, that’s a…

WIN! WIN one of three Mothers packages, including glass cleaner, carnauba cleaner wax, car wash, polishing pads, a pack of microfibre towels and more! See www.mothers.com for details.…