Indholdsfortegnelse for August 2018 i Street Machine

WE’RE still mourning the loss of the local car manufacturing industry, but it’s beaut that HSV is still converting, re-engineering and modifying vehicles on home soil. It’s probably the closest thing to an Australian vehicle manufacturer we have left, and that’s worth celebrating. In a post-VF Commodore world, HSV has turned its attention to fettling Holden’s Colorado dual-cab, and the resulting SportsCat and SportsCat+ models have all the fruit. We have secured a brand-spanking-new SportsCat+ to give away, complete with lifted and heavily revised suspension, an automatic de-coupling sway-bar, monster AP Racing brakes and 18x10in alloys with meaty Cooper Zeon LTZ Pro hoops. On top of that, there’s a revised aesthetic package and a sumptuous, feature-packed leather interior. Here’s how you win the thing: • Get on over to magshop.com.au…

SOMETIMES the best documentaries are those that get you hooked on subject matter that you may not normally gravitate towards. On Any Sunday is the perfect example – you don’t have to be a motorcycle fan or even mechanically minded to get a kick out of this iconic flashback, filmed just as the 1960s were morphing into the 70s. Director Bruce Brown was a master of his craft who created fun and enthusiastic documentaries. A few years earlier, his legendary doco Endless Summer brought the sport of surfing into family homes and onto screens worldwide. On Any Sunday was his attempt to do the same for motorcycling, and although it didn’t have the same commercial impact upon release, it has gained a wide cult following over subsequent decades. It’s easy…

ADAM’S LEGACY HELLO Street Machine, I was hoping to have my precious little boy Adam D’Alberti featured in your magazine. He was diagnosed in June 2017 with a rare type of leukaemia, JMML. Unfortunately my best friend and little co-pilot lost his battle with the disease on 2 April this year, aged four. Through his fight with JMML, Adam underwent multiple bone marrow transplants, various surgeries and extensive chemotherapy. He battled all of this like a true hero and fought hard to beat his cancer. Adam was a true car nut. He has been around my cars all his life. His first word was ‘Dad’ followed by ‘Ro-ro’ (Monaro). I have had many HK Monaros and various other chrome-bumper cars during his life. He was very careful around them and…

• Up at 7am, quick breakfast before hitting Bursons. Leon grabbed a new headlight and Aaron fixed his charging woes. We hit the highway by 8.30am, with smooth roads and clear skies. We detoured to Macksville and Bowraville to break up the highway driving – such cool little towns • Lunch at the Coast Hotel in Coffs Harbour – chicken parmigiana, chips and a drink for $16! • Quick photo opportunity at the Big Banana and back on the road for the last three hours towards Coolangatta • Arrived at Cooly safe and sound. It was a bit wet, but there were plenty of cool cars cruising the streets.…

IT WAS MIND-BLOWING TO WATCH KELLY BETTES BECOME THE FIRST WOMAN TO WIN THE TOP FUEL TITLE IN OZ • Up early and out to Willowbank for the Winternationals. Try as we might, we couldn’t jag a power-park, so the trucks had to sit in the paddock with everyone else’s rides • We soon discovered the full scale of the event, with 30,000 spectators over the weekend and more than 500 teams • It was awesome to see the Pro Slammer guys duking it out, and mind-blowing to watch Kelly Bettes become the first woman to win the Top Fuel title in Oz • After the racing, we headed back to Surfers for some more fat laps and tea at Hooters. We left the trucks with some mates, flew home…

DRAG racing is a sport best served dry, so when grey Victorian skies opened up on Heathcote Park Raceway just before the Australian Ford Forums Nationals were to be held there, the outlook for the weekend’s racing was a bit bleak. For the past 11 years, the Australian Ford Forums have partnered with Heathcote to put on a drag event for their members over the Queen’s Birthday weekend. At this time of year, the temperature at Heathcote hovers around the ‘pretty cold’ mark during the day and drops to ‘bloody freezing’ at night. Nevertheless, you’ll always find more than a few ladies and gents from all over the continent making the trek to Heathcote, some even camping in the pits. They dress in layers and huddle around glowing fires, just…

IF YOU’RE the proud owner of an HQ-WB Holden but you’re not so proud of its road manners, then you might want to check out what Castlemaine Rod Shop has on the shelves that will drag the old girl kicking and screaming into the 21st century. For proof of concept and to test out product development, CRS always uses a running car, and that’s what this rather mundane-looking HJ Kingswood is. I had a chat to Heath from CRS to find out a bit more about what went into the car. “We got this one off a young bloke in Shepparton who bought it off the original owner,” he said. “It had a big sound system and big amp, but we ripped all that out. It still had the original…

01 NEED A LIFT? NEED a hoist to work on your cars at home but only have a standard-height garage? Well this Portable Single-Post Hoist from Hero Hoists could be perfect for you. As the name suggests, it’s just a single post with four arms, so it can hold a car while only taking up a small amount of garage space. The single-poster has passed CE and TUV testing and is certified for commercial use in Australia. For more information visit herohoists.com.au. 02 CONTROL FREAK IDEAL for mechanically injected or carburetted street, race and burnout cars, the Haltech Elite VMS is a one-stop, one-point-of-contact solution for complete ignition timing control. The box works on engines with standard and CO2-style boost control, and can control up to six stages of nitrous,…

SIMON WHITE 1972 HOLDEN HQ SEDAN “I PURCHASED my HQ about 18 months ago as a roller. Initial plans were to drop a 350 SBC in it and take the family cruising, but that soon escalated into turning it into a genuine everyday 10-second street car. It now runs a 427ci small-block Chev built by Pat at RAW Performance Industry in Adelaide, backed by a TCI TH400 and nine-inch diff with 31-spline axles and 4.11 gears built by Phil Purser at Final Drive. The entire combo was dyno-tuned by the best in the west, George Separovich at Blown Motorsports, and produced 508rwhp. A few other changes were made: a reverse-cowl bonnet to cover the intake and keep the boys in blue happy, a full set of Auto Meter gauges inside,…

DANKO Knezevic from Adicted Performance in Hallam, Victoria, spends his days building high-horsepower street, strip and burnout engines for all of his customers to play with. So it’s taken the best part of 15 years to come up with a new combination for his own Ford Capri streeter. Back in the day it ran 10.60 with a 4V Cleveland, but this new deal is quite a step up. Danko has built up a Dart Windsor block, measuring 434ci and stuffed with a Callies crank, GRP rods and custom Diamond pistons – all machined by Cable & Burns. Up top it’s fitted with 218cc CHI heads, a custom CHI intake manifold (modified for EFI with a big Wilson throttlebody and elbow), and a custom fuel rail with 235lb Moran injectors fed…

YOU might remember that a couple of Carnage episodes back we bought a Ford Territory. It was utterly vile, and smelt like it’d spent the majority of its years carting rubbish around a tip. But the state of it didn’t matter to us, because we planned to put it on a serious weight-reduction program with the aim of making it fast. We gutted the interior, removed all the body panels and then went right to town, slicing off the roof and rear quarters. The Territory’s starting weight was 2130kg, and we got it down to a still-hefty 1475kg. Considering all that was left was a floorpan and driveline, we could barely believe it was still that heavy. Aspirated and in lightweight configuration, it ran 14.98 down the quarter at Calder…

22 JUL, MUDGEERABA, QLD The Original Gold Coast Swap Meet, Mudgeeraba Showgrounds. Visit gcaac.com.au. 28 JUL, NAMBOUR, QLD Nambour Swap, Nambour Showgrounds.Visit scacc.org.au. 28 JUL, EASTERN CREEK, NSW Ford Super Swap Meet, Sydney Dragway. Contact Godfrey on 0402 060 424. 29 JUL, EASTERN CREEK, NSW All Ford Day, Sydney Dragway.Visit allforddaynsw.com. 29 JUL, WINDSOR, NSW Windsor Hot Rod & Custom Car Show, Windsor Leagues Club. Contact Lep on 0412 826 539. 29 JUL, CLONTARF, QLD Corvettes Down Under, Pelican Park, Clontarf. Visit corvettesdownunder.com.au. 29 JUL, BAFFLE CREEK, QLD Baffle Creek Car/Bike Muster, 569 Coast Road. Contact Brian on 0408 541 494. 03-05, CLEVELAND, QLD GreazeFest Kustom Kulture Festival, Redland Bay Showgrounds.Visit greazefest.com. 04-05 AUG, CLARENDON, NSW All Holden Day Swap Meet, Hawkesbury Showground. Visit allholdenday.com.au. 11 AUG, LAWNTON, QLD Sims…

WE RECENTLY unveiled our fourth Carnage project car: a Volvo 240 with a Toyota 1JZ under the bonnet! We do things on the cheap, so obviously the car needs some work, but we’ve got big plans for it, including possibly switching to a big single turbo and really cranking up the boost. So stay tuned for future Carnage episodeson this car! But before all that, the most important question is: What should we call it? Michael Stephens – Seeing as how the car was made in Sweden, it should get a Swedish/Nordic name. How about Loki? Loki is the god of mischief and destruction, which fits in perfectly with Carnage. Dillon Hall – Thor-zilla? Lost his hammer, now has a Toyota katana to ‘chop’ his opponents on his way back…

FIRST, let’s address the green elephant in the room; why is there a Holden two-tickety-three in this Ford product? There’s been plenty of discussion on the socials, so it’s best we get it out the way. “I fell into 253s, really,” says Shannon Heraud, owner of this phat combo that drew big crowds at Meguiar’s MotorEx 2018. “When I first started skidding, I ran an NA 253 in my Torana, then I picked up another for basically nothing.” An apprenticeship and a United Diesel Nissan blower later, Shannon was dropping burnouts with the best of them. “It always did well and people liked it,” he says of his trusty thongslapper, “so we just kept going with it.” Shannon was never tempted to just chuck an LS in it like so…

FOR custom car fans, Grant Mahoney’s extensively modified HQ Holden wagon is a welcome blast of fresh air in this era of obsessive nut-and-bolt restos. Not that Grant is totally adverse to restorations: “My previous project was a matching-numbers HX Sandman panel van,” he says. “So I couldn’t stuff around with that too much, could I?” he laughs. “So I figured I’d sell that and get stuck into my dream custom wagon.” The project started not with a car, but with a pair of HQ guards. “I was staring at the guard flutes on the Sandman and thought I could do better,” says Grant. “I was bored after finishing the HX, so I got some guards and made my own flutes. Then I needed a car to bolt them to!…

ROAD trips with mates in old cars – is there anything better? I’ve been on my fair share during my Street Machine career, but they’ve been a bit thin on the ground of late. So when Leon Davies of Big L’s Chop Shop fame proposed a trip from Geelong to Coolangatta for Cooly Rocks On, I was keen as. Leon had earmarked his ’48 F1 pick-up as his conveyance of choice. Nicknamed Trucky, the F1 has been just about everywhere, including Alice Springs for Red CentreNATS. Telfo suggested I take my ’59 Chev wagon, but I wasn’t totally confident about its ability to get me to Queensland and back. Not yet, anyway. Leon stepped in and kindly offered his ’65 F100 to drive. Unlike the ’48 – which has such…

AT BURLEIGH HEADS WE HAD ACAI SMOOTHIES FOR THE SECOND TIME IN A DAY. WHAT’S HAPPENING TO US? • Up and at ’em! Took the cars for a cruise around Coolangatta, power-parked Bruce out front of the Coolangatta Hotel. Grabbed our show passes and some breakfast • Left Bruce behind and cruised the other two trucks to Surfers. Power-parked in the middle of Cavill Avenue and went cowboy hat shopping. • Late lunch in Burleigh Heads, where we had acai smoothies for the second time in a day. What’s happening to us? • Returned to Cooly, found Bruce waiting patiently. Hung out and watched the cars cruise until bedtime.…

FORD’S full-size Galaxie is an American icon, having served as police cars, family trucksters, cabs, and even race cars powered by the thundering 427ci big-block. Along with taking scalps in the NHRA, Galaxies were used by Ford to take NASCAR glory in the mid-60s with drivers like Fred Lorenzen. So how come we don’t see more killer Gals being built like Malcolm Niall’s epic ’66? Built by Cronic Customs, the big-hipped West Aussie coupe boasts super-smooth paint and panel, pro-touring suspension and a sweet quad-cam Coyote five-litre injected V8. Malcolm bought the car in Melbourne as an American import, thinking that the Coyote V8 he already had would be a good fit. Adam Spiteri from Cronic Custom recalls: “Initially, the Galaxie was just like so many other cars, as it…

SHOCK horror! In a move that will no doubt draw the ire of self-professed ‘purists’, Anthony Ghinis has fitted a Nissan motor to a genuine LC GTR Torana. But in many ways, sticking an RB30ET three-litre inline six in an LC makes far more sense than the more-favoured small-block Chev, LS or even the homegrown Holden 308 V8. For starters, an RB conversion doesn’t require modifications such as steering relocation like a V8 swap does, and a lighter-weight, alloy-headed inline six would do far less harm to the revered, Bathurst-winning agility of an LC/J. Furthermore, opting for an RB over a V8 retains that legendary six-pot ‘feel’ for which GTR Toranas are known, not to mention the fact that the Nissan-sourced RB was indeed factory-fitted to a Holden almost two…

BUILDING an elite-level car can be a painful process. It often takes years and costs a small fortune. But for David Desreaux from Canberra, the most painful part was having nothing cool to drive while his prize Holden HG GTS Monaro was in pieces. “About three years ago I stripped my Monaro and sent it to Paul Sant at ProFlo Performance in Sydney,” David says. “Obviously to build an unveil-level car is very expensive, which is why it’s ongoing. I started to get upset that I didn’t have anything to drive in the meantime, and I’ve always wanted an HG Premier.” David got wind of an HG Prem for sale that had been kept in a container for the previous 20 years, but by the time he chased up the…

A48-YEAR-OLD, 1700kg Aussie four-door that can run eights at over 170mph while remaining nice to drive on the street for hundreds of kays – it sounds like a fantasy, right? But Mark Van Der Togt’s 1970 Futura is exactly that machine, as he provedbywinning thefirst Street Machine Drag Challenge Weekend. He has owned the car 20 years, and took it off the road from 2005 to 2009 to rebuild it into a twin-turbo street-and-strip monster. “It’s had a few rebuilds as we’ve developed the package,” Mark explains. “Back when we started there wasn’t anybody building turbo Ford stuff in Australia, and we’ve had heaps of teething problems that we’ve sorted through.” What is really cool is that the XW is powered by a small-block Ford. “It’s basically a stock Dart…

ON FRIDAY NIGHTS I’D HANG LAPS DOWN THE MAIN STREET OF BALLARAT IT WOULD seem that Ebony Cassar’s fate was predetermined after growing up immersed in her family’s hot rods and street machines. Ebony and her hubby Daniel now own the Fast Lane Speed Shop in Ballarat, and her past is filled with rides that many would be envious of, including her most recent purchase: a two-door pillarless ’57 Chevy Bel Air. Tell us about your automotive upbringing. I grew up with a car-mad dad and three older brothers who were all into different styles of cars. My dad [Robert Forbes] started the Ballarat Road Rodders in 1970 along with some mates and one of my mum’s brothers. So, my childhood was filled with going to hot rod runs across…

THE MAD PROFESSOR ROD Hadfield needs no introduction to most folks reading the mag, but if you’re new to the scene, let’s just say that Rod is not only a highly prolific builder of amazing cars, but also one of the originators of today’s aftermarket industry and a racer on both the salt and the drag strip – and probably some other places as well. Rod has been playing with cars since the late 50s and now his daughter Allison has written about his adventures in an amazing biography dubbed The Mad Scientist of Australian Hot Rodding: Rod Hadfield. We’ll talk more about the book next issue – to grab a copy, visit graffitipub.com.au. WIN A SPORTSTER! ONE of our favourite places on earth is Hare & Forbes Machineryhouse. Seriously,…

We’ll be coming back – I think we’ll spray it and try to break something! WE SPOTTED Josh Dowell in his AU Falcon track car at the AFF Nats, with his dad Troy and a bunch of mates also racing, so we thought we’d have a chat to see what makes him tick. Tell us about yourself, Josh. I’m an apprentice mechanic from Wang, just up the road from Winton. I come from a car family; my sisters and I race motorkhanas out at Carboor with the North Eastern Car Club. We drive a dead-stock Hyundai Excel and we flog the crap out of it – just limiter-bash it all day! How’d you get into racing? One of my mates told me there was a scholarship out at Winton [a…

WELL THAT’SA DRAG I’VE been building a car at home (left) for Drag Challenge, but my mate just told me that this coming year’s event is fully booked! I’m a bit shitted, but I may as well ask if there are any stand-by cancellation policies in place for poor mutts like me who didn’t plan on entering until the car was fully built. I’ve put an HSV LS2 into a Centura in the shed, and it’s getting tuned up this week, all going well. Fits better than a factory six. Cheers! Michael Doviak, email HEY Mike! There is a waiting list, just email streetmachine@bauermedia.com.au to get on it. As paid-up entrants drop out, we’ll put you in touch with each other so you have the opportunity of buying their entry.…

THE DRIVE TO PERTH IN THE VB WAS THE BEST THING I’VE EVER DONE. FEW people better embody the car scene than Damien Lowe, or ‘Chubby’, as he’s better known. He inherited a love of modified cars from his dad Pete at a young age, and has gone on to build his life and livelihood around his passion. He has achieved great things with his beloved VB Commodore, wrenched on a stack of award-winning show cars, and inspired, mentored and collaborated with scores of aspiring young car builders. Chubby’s VB has been in hibernation for what seems like an age, but it resurfaced recently at Meguiar’s MotorEx in the early stages of what is quite clearly a comprehensive, ground-up re-think. What better time to sit down with one of the…

WHEN Shannon speaks about his late father, it’s pretty obvious where he gets his mechanical nous and attention to detail from. Peter Heraud started his career as a draughtsman, working for British Aerospace and Government Aircraft Factories, before starting up a succession of design-related and automotive CAD engineering businesses. Meanwhile, he helped raise three boys and kept a healthy interest motor racing, hooning around the likes of Calder, Winton and Sandown in a succession of rotary Mazdas, then a Farrell Clubman, pictured above. In the early 2000s, Peter prototyped his own computer-controlled CNC milling machine with a view to selling them to the big dogs like GM and Ford. Instead, he kept it, using the machine himself and subcontracting back to the companies he’d originally intended to sell to. Shannon…

IT WASN’T REALLY ABOUT THE DESTINATION – THE ADVENTURES YOU HAVE ON THE ROAD WITH OLD CARS AND GOOD FRIENDS ARE LIFE FUEL • Left Geelong at 6.30am, tiptoeing out of the house trying not to wake the sleeping baby • Battled thick fog, unable to see more than 3m in front of the car • Picked up Sean Hammond in Melbourne • Outside of Euroa, met up with Leon and his partner Leah in Trucky • Fuel stop in Glenrowan. Very sad Ned’s Burgers appeared to be closed • Lunch stop with the Dog on the Tuckerbox in Gundagai at 2pm. Before leaving for this trip I had smoked some pulled pork for six hours. Here, I heated it up in the servo microwave • Drove straight through to…

FAMILY can drive us berko at times, but it can also be a beaut source of vehicular awesomeness. Hand-me-down cars might seem daggy at first to teenagers wanting the latest and greatest, but often, these family heirlooms worm their way into our hearts and wind up being built into righteous street machines. Such is the case with Steve Stojanovski’s ’71 Ford Capri. “My uncle bought this car brand new back in the day, so it has always been in the family right up until I got it from him in the early 2000s,” Steve says. What Steve took over from his uncle was nothing like the candy-coated, tubbed, big-inch Windsor-powered brute you see on the pages before you. “It was a four-cylinder model and he was going to get rid…

IN 2005, avowed Mopar man Ian Neary built an award-winning ’59 Ford Skyliner, which led to an invitation from the New Zealand distributor of Mothers car care, Peter Ellmers, to join him as a judge for the Shine Award at the annual SEMA Show in Las Vegas. Peter, who has judged cars at SEMA for many years, thought it would be a good opportunity for Ian to see what can be done to cars if you have the passion and the time. On his return to NZ, Ian’s focus for a new project had changed. “I now wanted to build my own version of automotive muscle car art,” he says. New Zealand might be a small country in terms of its population, but they punch well above their division when…

I’VE ALWAYS HAD AN EYE FOR STYLING, ALWAYS THOUGHT SEARCH ‘Snapper and Frank’ on YouTube and you’ll find a little flick shot near Inverell, NSW, featuring an FX ute with a little bit of plumbing coming out of the engine bay. It’s had over 740,000 views, no doubt due to the fact that Frank (the ute in question) became world famous as Cranky Frank in Mad Max: Fury Road. It all started when Snapper – or Colin John Macey to his mum – “got a little carried away”. A couple of Snapper’s old mates were approached by scouts for the Mad Max film, and they reckoned Frank would impress them. It did; the film guys thought it was such a cool thing, they bought it. Director George Miller had wanted…

WITH THE 14S AND THE PIZZA-CUTTERS ON IT, YOU CAN BE DOING 60 OR 80 KAYS AND SPIN THE TYRES RIGHT OFF IT TO GET the full rundown on what went into this HJ, check out the tech article on page 114 – there’s a lot more to this car than we can fit on three pages, that’s for sure! Basically, this is one of the many development cars that Castlemaine Rod Shop keeps on hand to make sure that any kits the company designs fit and work as intended. Ideally, the Rod Shop guys like to start with the most unmolested car they can find, but, since people have been hotting up and modifying these cars for more than 40 years, that’s not always that straightforward. Heath Waddington at…

ACID TEST A LITTLE boy was sitting in the gutter, playing with a bottle. Just then the local priest walked by and asked: “Hello there young lad! What’s in the bottle?” “Sulphuric acid!” the little boy replied. The priest was mortified. “Give that to me!” he demanded. “Take this bottle of holy water instead. It’s just wonderful. Last week I rubbed some of this on the belly of a lady and she passed a beautiful little baby.” “That’s nothing,” the boy replied. “I rubbed some of this on my dog’s backside and he passed a Porsche!” R Solburning, email DOGGED PURSUIT A MAN walks into a bar with a small dog. The bartender says: “Get out of here with that dog!” The man replies: “But this isn’t just any dog…