Indholdsfortegnelse for June 2018 i Street Machine

19 MAY, COWRA, NSW Horsepower Madness, Cowra Showgrounds. Contact Adam on 0466 210 756. 20 MAY, MITCHELL, ACT Shannons Canberra Cars, Bikes ’n’ Coffee, Exhibition Park, Northbourne Avenue. Contact Steven on 0439 766 957. 20 MAY, MANDURAH, WA Shannons Southern Coffee Cruise, Mandurah Western Foreshore. Contact 0419 191 535. 20 MAY, MODBURY, SA Civic Park Historic Car & Motorcycle Show, Civic Park. Visit adelaidecruisinclassics.com.au. 20 MAY, TANILBA BAY, NSW Tilligerry Motorama, Tilligerry RSL grounds. Visit tilligerryautoclubinc.com. 20 MAY, NANANGO, QLD South Burnett Car Club Show ’n’ Shine, Junior Rugby League Football Club. Contact Kieran on 0422 404 598. 20 MAY, EBBW VALE, QLD Fine Iron Rod & Custom Club Show, Ebbw Vale Soccer Grounds. Contact Lulu on 0431 671 174. 20 MAY, NERANG, QLD Pride & Joy Car Show, Country…

A-GRADE HARDWARE IS NEEDED TO HOLD 11PSI WORTH OF HURT FROM THE HUGE FOUR-LITRE WHIPPLE PD BLOWER EVEN if you’re not into first-generation Commodores, you probably know they never came with a bench-seat option. But Craig Morrow’s has one, to go along with the swag of awards he took home at Summernats 31, including outright Tuff Street Champion. Craig’s mini-tubbed 1050hp VH, known as ST1NKY, wowed punters in Canberra thanks to the way he integrated original SL/E styling elements (like the cool single-spoke tiller), along with mods from different eras, all sitting on a drag-ready engineering platform. And he’ll get the neckbeards crying with rage when they hear he started with a genuine 308 VH SL/E! “I’ve always been a one-eyed Holden man,” Craig says. “I love the SL/E…

“WE TOOK IT OFF THE ROAD WITH THE INTENTION TO DO IT UP,” JUDY EXPLAINS, “BUT IT WAS NEVER SUPPOSED TO BE THIS LONG!" THANKS to the halo effect of factory-correct muscle cars, our little hobby of street machining has had its ranks swelled by people restoring/refreshing and cruising more modest timewarp stuff in the past few years. Few can afford $100K-plus for a race special, but the kid cruising a stocko Commodore, Kingy or Falcon 500 isn’t laughed at anymore. Isn’t fashion funny sometimes? But even with these renaissance cars sparkling in the street machining spotlight, at the top end of town there remains the elite-type car builders who continue to inspire us with mind-bending builds such as this terrific green, two-door-converted FB Holden sedan. It’s owned by Peter…

THE AUSSIE TEAM SUFFERED A SERIOUS BLOW WHEN PETER RAINES’S ’57 CHEVY, BAD ASS TO, BROKE AN AXLE IF YOU haven’t caught up with happenings in the Kiwi hot rod scene recently, prepare to be surprised. It’s been growing in leaps and bounds, with American car imports jumping markedly and the number of events more than quadrupling over the past 15 years. In fact, New Zealand has been described as the So-Cal of the South Pacific by some. The ease and speed of air travel these days has spawned a wave of hot rod tourism in the Shaky Isles, with some even bringing their own cars over to participate in events. Yep, when it comes to hot cars, New Zealand is really punching above its weight. A case in point…

ONCE MICHAEL HAD THE CAR RUNNING RIGHT, IT WAS TIME TO ADD THE REAL PARTY-STARTER: A REBUILT EATON TVS1900 SUPERCHARGER FOR sale: beige 1983 Volvo 240GL, 89,000km, one owner, located in Perth. An advert like that wouldn’t get many traditional street machiners sweaty, but it was exactly what Michael Wray had been looking for. “Years ago I’d had an earlier 240 Volvo with a 350 small-block and a Top Loader, and it was fun, but certain things weren’t done right. I wanted to build another one,” the Melburnian explains. “My car was originally built in Clayton, Melbourne, where they used to build HSVs, and was sold new to a lady in Perth in 1983. The old lady’s grandson sold it after she passed away and it only had 89,000km when…

BROOK GUNNING 1966 MUSTANG COUPE “I WAS looking for something to race that wasn’t my street car, so when this car came up on a Facebook drag racing page I drove from Albany up to Perth the same day to buy it. It was a roller in blue, and not in the greatest condition. I’d been trying to buy the Fontana engine from a local lady for years, and just before this year’s Racewars it finally came up for sale. It’s an all-aluminium 383 with Blue Thunder heads that used to be in Graham Kennedy’s drag Capri. I changed over the carby and chopped up the headers to suit the Mustang. The two-speed Powerglide and transbrake all came out of the Capri as well, and after a few runs on…

TURBO 383CI CLEVOR > RC PERFORMANCE ENGINES, ADELAIDE, SA THIS boost-snorting beauty is the heart of Drag Challenge veteran Phil Edmondson’s eight-second XB coupe (see page 60). As you can imagine, hurling a 1700kg Falcon down the tarmac at such a pace requires just a tad more power than it left the factory with: a snazzy 1423 Clydesdales, to be exact! The man behind the muscle is Rino Conte of RC Performance, who was responsible for the entire build of this turbocharged 383ci Clevor. Starting with an SVO 9.2in-deck block that Phil picked up second-hand, Rino added a forged Scat stroker crank and a set of Oliver rods, while the slugs are custom-made CP jobbies that bring the static compression down to a very boost-friendly 8.2:1. Valve control is courtesy…

FANS of Carnage and the Turbo Taxi will remember that the bright yellow cab aquaplaned off the road and into a tree during Drag Challenge 2017 (see editorial, SM, Feb ’18). The car copped a bit of damage, but other than Scotty’s pride there were no injuries. As penance Scotty spent his Christmas and New Year’s break repairing the FG Falcon before Summernats, where the Taxi was cruised in front of thousands of adoring fans. Since then the pressure has been on to get Turbo Taxi back out to the track and beat the 12.0009-second time we achieved at Heathcote way back in June last year. Fast-forward to 2018, and with the Taxi back in shape we tried to eke an 11 out of it at Calder Park Raceway. Unfortunately,…

The cold weather is closing in, so what better time to turn your attention indoors and reclaim your garage? Here’s how to transform it into an all-weather project-car workshop and DIY home improvement centre! First step to getting your garage ready for business is to banish the clutter – or organise it at least. A couple of sets of sturdy galavinsed shelving units in either 4-tier or adjustable 5-tier configuration will get everything off the floor, and provide plenty of storage room and flexibility. For valuable power tools and sporting equipment, a lockable storage cabinet keeps them safe and secure. It’s also great for keeping garden pesticides and paints away from younger family members. No home workshop is fit-for-duty without a heavy-duty workbench with built-in drawers. It’s also worth snagging…

I HAD THREE XU-1 TORANAS WHEN I WAS A KID, BUT ONCE I SAW THAT ’CUDA, I WAS LIKE: ‘HOLY SHIT!’ UNLIKE many people who have built street machines over the years, the owner of this amazing ’74 Plymouth ’Cuda actually started out with a plan. “I saw the episode of Overhaulin’ with the ’Cuda build for Joe Rogan and I immediately started looking for ’Cudas,” Antony Atkin begins. “I just so happened to have an issue of Street Machine that had an amazing Mustang build in it, which led me to Southern Rod & Custom.” It’s great to know that not only does SMinspire people to build awesome cars, but it also gives shops like SR&C a platform to showcase their amazing talents. As for that inspirational Mustang, it…

SOME people know exactly what they’re going to end up with when they start a project car, but Phil Edmondson didn’t begin building his righteous XB coupe with the intention of running an eight-second pass in it. “I grew up in a small country town in New Zealand, and one day I saw an XA coupe cruising through. I’d never seen one before and it sort of stuck in my mind,” Phil says. “While I was looking for parts for my brother in 2004, a friend of a friend said he knew of an XB coupe for sale. It was a clean, rust-free shell that had been built as a budget drag car with a half-’cage and a big-block. The trans exploded and tore the floor apart – that freaked…

BENEATH THE HALLOWED SHAKER SCOOP LURKS A 630HP BK RACE ENGINES-BUILT CLEVO STROKER, WITH THE HANDLING AND BRAKING UPGRADES TO MATCH THE sad reality is that most of us will never have the means to build a 600-plus horsepower XY GT replica, so it’s a pretty sweet deal that Nulon is giving one away. We’ve followed the build closely over the course of the past nine months, and now that the car is complete, it’s time to show it to you in all its glory. Beautifully finished in Track Red with full GT warpaint and rolling on Globe wheels, the car presents from the outside as a nicely executed concours resto, but beneath the hallowed shaker scoop lurks a 630hp BK Race Engines-built Clevo stroker, with the handling and braking…

IT’S NOT EVERY YEAR THAT SPECIALISED STREAMLINERS TRAVEL HALFWAY AROUND THE WORLD WITH AMBITIONS OF NOT ONLY EXCEEDING WORLD LAND SPEED RECORDS BUT SMASHING THEM THE crowd for Speed Week was a record in 2018, as was the number of entrants, the number of runs and the outright speeds achieved. The volunteer-run Dry Lakes Racers Australia has much to be proud of. It’s not every year that specialised streamliners travel halfway around the world with genuine ambitions of not only exceeding world land speed records but smashing them. I wasn’t the only one to make the trek to isolated Lake Gairdner, deep in the South Australian outback, to see them do just that or die trying. The world land speed record for a piston-powered wheel-driven streamliner is a two-way average…

WE LOVE it when people come along and follow Street Machine Drag Challenge events from track to track as spectators, and even more so if they’re doing it in a cool car! When Mark Sauer rolled through the gates at Willowbank Raceway on Day One of Drag Challenge Weekend, we wondered if he would race his awesome HJ Holden campervan. The answer was unfortunately no, but we were happy to have him come along and spectate for the weekend instead. It’s a little-known fact that Holden actually sold One Tonners with a Freeway campervan accessory package right off the showroom floor. It came with basic appliances like a fridge, stove, oven and a bed big enough for two – everything you need for a nice weekend away! Mark has converted…

POLISH your chromies and grab some tallies, because if there was ever a movie that could be dubbed an ‘Australian Graffiti’, The FJ Holden is it. The poetically named Kevin Evans (Couzens) is a young bloke doing all the typical young-bloke things: running amok with friends, skirting foul of the law, chasing chicks and working on cars. Kevin earns a crust stripping cars at the local wreckers by day, hangs at the club in the evenings and street races at night, seemingly carefree but perplexingly carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders. His best mate Bob (Stever) – by name and hairstyle – is Kevin’s right-hand man, and the devil on his shoulder when it comes to mischief. But when Kevin falls for local girl Anne (Dickinson), it…

IN A recent two-part story on our website, Simon Major reminisced about some of the classic – and cringe-worthy – style trends and mods from street machining history. And it seems that plenty of you could relate to his tales of drop pipes, fluoro wipers, wild graphics, slapper bars and letterbox scoops… Grant Pearson – “The epitome of the bucket-seat conversion, contoured Recaros with mesh headrests were numero uno, and you knew you’d made the big time if you had them fitted in the back as well.” Didn’t know I’d hit the big time ’til now! Ross Perna – Remember in 1980 the old man’s HJ Kingswood 202 went in for a muffler change and came out with extractors and twin dump pipes? Sounded cool then; today, not so sure.…

IT’S RARE FOR A CAR SHOW TO BE HELD IN THE PRESERVED REMNANTS OF THE FACTORY THAT BUILT SO MANY OF THE VEHICLES ENTERED IAIN Carlin looks spent. “I think this is the best show we’ve ever done,” the Chrysler Club of SA president sighs as he leans against the bootlid of his tidy brown VF Valiant sedan. “I’ve been talking to people and normally you’ll get one or two complaints, but today I’ve not heard a single gripe.” The people have spoken; the 2018 Shannons Adelaide Chrysler Festival has been a resounding success. The unique ambiance has been unlike anything we have experienced; after all, it’s rare for a car show to be held in the preserved remnants of the factory that built so many of the vehicles entered.…

OVER the four years we’ve run the Street Machine Drag Challenge, it has been a five-day event taking place mainly in the southern states. This year, Telfo and Scotty decided to mix up the recipe by adding another Drag Challenge event to the calendar, a shorter three-day affair that finally spread the love up north. That’s how we found ourselves at Queensland’s Willowbank Raceway on Friday 13 April for the start of the inaugural Drag Challenge Weekend. The plan was simple: a day’s racing at Willowbank, followed by a road trip to Warwick for a second day of racing at the town’s eighth-mile track, then heading back to Willowbank Raceway for the grand finale on Sunday. Around 80 cars turned up to do battle across five classes, with plenty of…

1> STEPHEN MICALLEF Cubes are king in all-motor classes, and Stephen Micallef’s HQ One Tonner has 632 of them. This Outlaw Aspirated win was Stephen’s third in a Drag Challenge event with the mental nine-second Holden – no mean feat. 2> RAHIM TARR Rahim’s Falcon ute is evil by name and by nature. The matte-black beast powered through Drag Challenge in the bottom 10s, with a best pass of 10.18@127mph at Willowbank on Day One. 3> STEVE REIMANN The only car at the event with the illustrious honour of having competed at Drag Week in the US as well as Drag Challenge Weekend here in Oz, Steve’s Dodge ran in the 11s on Day One, then overcame diff dramas at Warwick to round out the Outlaw Aspirated…

I WANTED AN OLD-SCHOOL THEME, AND THE MANUAL ’BOX MAKES IT DIFFERENT FROM MOST OF THE OTHER TORANAS OUT THERE ANUAL transmissions are an M endangered species in the modern era, particularly in pro street applications. So for all the many and varied merits of Jason McGrath’s awe-inspiring LC Torana, it’s the fact that it retains a four-speed manual trans (aka millennial anti-theft device) that we think is coolest. “There were a few reasons behind wanting to stick with the manual,” says Jason. “For one, I wanted the car to have an old-school theme, and the manual ’box makes it different from most of the other Toranas out there. But more importantly, I run my own diff and manual gearbox workshop, so if the Top Loader breaks, I can fix…

MANY of the feature-car yarns you read here in Street Machine tend to fall into one of two categories: cars built wholly or partially in the shed at home, or those built by one or more workshops at the behest of paying clients. Skirting around the periphery are the cars built by workshops for self-promotion; projects imported in their completed form from overseas; or vehicles found half-completed in the classifieds and taken the last few miles to the finish line. However, there are always more ways to skin the proverbial cat. Sydneysider Adam Cleary found another way to get the job done. The 45-year-old commissioned a workshop on the other side of the world to build his dream Buick. Back in 2011-12, Adam was spending a lot of his time…