Innehållsförteckning för May 2017 från Street Machine

IT IS NO secret that certain members of the Street Machine staff love their old-school inline six-cylinder motors, and we also love it when diehards push such engines far past the limits their original designers envisaged for them. So we were stoked when Sydney father-and-son team Jeff and Matt Ramsay broke through the eight-second barrier with their FJ Holden ute, with Jeff running a scorching 8.90-second pass at 150mph at Sydney Dragway in March. And let’s get this straight – we’re talking about an all-steel FJ Holden that has been a race car since the late 70s, with a basic HR front end and a nine-inch rear. We detailed exactly what makes the old girl haul arse back in the September 2015 issue of SM, but suffice to say it…

LAST issue we looked into the early years of Chris Marks’s journey through car-hood. Like many of us, family and work commitments took precedence for Chris for a number of years, but his lust for new projects never waned. This time ’round we join him for the second phase of his life with cars, as he hones his skills tinkering with a variety of new rides. 01: BY THE mid-1990s Chris had moved west to Roma, but returned to Brisbane to swap his HQ ute for this ’65-fronted 1966 Pontiac Parisienne. “The trip back to Roma was a nightmare,” Chris remembers. “The car was ridiculously low and kept grinding its underside on the curvature of the road. It wore the clamps off the transmission cooler hoses, but I managed to…

“ I SAW AN 80-YEAR-OLD MAN DRIVE THE PREMIER INTO A CARYARD IN FOOTSCRAY AND TRADE IT IN ON A HOLDEN ASTRA.SO I BOUGHT IT OFF THE CARYARD ” MANY of us love to involve our friends and family in our hobby, to show them why we spend all those nights with skinned knuckles working on a car we curse ’til the early hours of the morning. Fortunately for Geelong’s Mark Thomson, his wife Jodie and sons Archie and Cohen love his tough turbocharged and injected HG Premier. “It means a lot to have my wife and two sons support my hobby,” Mark says. In fact, the reason he purchased this HG was to have a car the whole family could enjoy. “I bought it back in 2010 after completing…

MAN, this FJ is the bomb!” I accidentally say out loud, to no one in particular. I’m out scoping cars for both business and pleasure at the Adelaide Auto Expo, and I’ve just spotted a heavily customised humpy glistening under lights. This silver FJ is a fusion of new and old, with all the classic custom FX-FJ tricks – chop top, flip bonnet, rollpans, recessed number plates, two-door conversion – but in a classy, modern-style build. I feverishly hunt around but can’t locate the owner. Thankfully, there are prominent Pro Customs flags right beside the beast, so I’m soon in convo with Anthony Lanzotti and his talented Pro Customs team, the builders of this amazing ride. With a build of this calibre, there’s only one place to start, and that’s…

ANDREW LYNCH Machine: LYNCHY, 1981 TOYOTA KE55 COROLLA Engine: 6.0L L98 SMALL-BLOCK YOU only need to listen to the chanting crowds to know who the most popular driver in burnouts is. It’s Lynchy first, daylight second. The whirling dervish from Horsham, Victoria solidified his reputation as a balls-out tyre-shredder a few years ago, but Lynchy Mania reached fever-pitch at Summernats this year, where, despite ripping off two incredible skids in the Burnout Masters, he and his Corolla had to be content with fourth place. “I don’t do it to win, I just like travelling places and smashing tyres off,” he says. “I like to get out of the car at the end, not having hit any walls, tyres off, and be happy. If I did a slow burnout to please…

EACH March, the crowded bleachers at Auto Club Famoso Raceway in Bakersfield, California mark the unofficial start of the racing season for America’s west coast. Now in its 59th running, the Good Vibrations March Meet attracts hundreds of vintage and nostalgia speed freaks – both racers and fans – and this year’s event saw overflowing staging lanes and bustling pits. The competition is split up into classes ranging from Hot Rod, for machines over 30 years old running around the 11sec mark, all the way up to Nostalgia Top Fuel and Nostalgia Funny Car, both gunning for quickest ETs in the mid-fives. Cars are pre-’73 in almost all classes, and this allows for a great diversity in the racing field. Nose-high gassers face up against ground-hugging coupes; open-wheeled dragsters battle…

NINO FUNARI 1968 HOLDEN HK PREMIER “THIS is my HK Premier. Since I was 15 or so, I have always been into tough street cars and remember flipping through Van Wheels, which really kicked it off for me. I swapped my Pulsar for this Prem; it already had a Chev motor in it and I knew I had to build it into a tough streeter. The car was maroon when I got it, so I started by repainting it in Glasurit Cyan Blue. After the body and paint were complete, I drove the car for a month, then the motor let go. As I began to rebuild the running gear my wife was diagnosed with cancer, so the build was put on hold. Two years later, my wife was cancer-free…

> GAG OF THE MONTH DEAD RINGER AFTER Quasimodo’s death, the bishop of Notre Dame cathedral needed a new bell-ringer, and placed an ad for the position in the newspaper. Several people responded to the ad, and the bishop took them up into the belfry so they could demonstrate their skill. Unfortunately, the bishop felt that none of them were up to the task, and was about to call it a day when an armless man approached him and announced he was there to apply for the bell-ringer’s job. The bishop was incredulous. “But you have no arms!” he said. “No matter,” the man replied. “Watch this!” And he began striking the bells with his face, producing a beautiful melody. The bishop listened in astonishment, convinced he had finally found…

IT’S A horrifying image that was replayed many times during the Summernats 30 TV broadcast – the much-loved ONIT Torana aquaplaning into the barrier during Burnout Masters Qualifying. Canberra boys Matt Cowan and Mark Siracusa run the car in tandem, but Mark was the unfortunate one at the wheel at the time. “It was bound to happen sooner or later, but unfortunately it happened at the biggest burnout comp in Australia!” Mark tells SM. “But I think I’ve accepted it now. On the day it was a bit depressing. Me and Matty walked off the burnout pad without our car – that’s something we’ve never done before.” Mark’s meeting with the wall made Matt’s task in the Burnout Masters Finals the following day all the more difficult. But when they…

23 APR, NORWELL, QLD Rust & Chrome, Norwell Motorplex. Visit facebook.com/rustandchrome.net. 23 APR, SUSSEX INLET, NSW Sussex Inlet Bowling Club Car Show, Sussex Inlet Bowling Club. Visit sussexbowlo.com.au. 23 APR, ALBURY, NSW Volkswagens In The Square, Hovell Tree Park. Contact Reece 0437 770 503. 23 APR, ASCOT, WA Shannons Classic Car Show, Ascot Raceway. Visit councilofmotoringclubs.asn.au. 29 APR, BRISBANE, QLD Rods & Rockabilly Festival, Hamilton Hotel. Visit facebook.com/rodsandrockabilly. 29 APR, HEATHERTON, VIC Shannons Open Day, Shannons, Heatherton. Visit shannons.com.au. 29 APR, CASTLEMAINE, VIC The Boogaloo Invitational, Wattle Flat Reserve. Visit theboogalooinvitational.com.au. 29-30 APR, BUSSELTON, WA South West Indoor Motor Show, Georgiana Molloy Anglican School. Visit southwestindoormotorshow.com.au. 29-30 APR, MARYSVILLE, VIC Marysville Motoring Expo, Main St. Visit facebook.com/ marysvillemotoringexpo. 30 APR, KADINA, SA Copper Coast 500, Kadina Air Strip. Visit leukaemia.org.au/events/copper-coast-500-sprints.…

BREAKDOWN VEHICLES: 1957 Chevrolet 210, 1968 Chevrolet Chevelle, 1960 Cadillac DeVille, 1969 Chevrolet Camaro, 1969 Shelby GT500, 1978 Chevrolet Camaro, 1983 Ford LTD Crown Victoria, 1967 Lincoln Continental, 1973 Pontiac Grand Prix, 1971 Pontiac GTO, 1973 Plymouth Duster, 1973 Chevrolet Blazer STARS: Matt Lattanzi, Loryn Locklin, Grant Heslov, Billy Morrissette, Geoffrey Lewis, M. Emmet Walsh DIRECTOR: Stephen Sommers ACTION: High-speed illegal racing that mixes no rules with dirty tricks will have you on the edge of your seat PLOT: The local high school is set to close unless a motley bunch of seniors can raise $200K in two months, which they aim to do through high-end street racing AVAILABLE: YouTube FULL of hot cars and high-speed acing action, Catch Me If You Can is one film you shouldn’t judge by…

GOING, GOING, GONE IN THE March issue, Bob Kotmel wrote in his Stage Write column of how angry he was at “the politicians, unions and company executives who have combined to shut down the Australian car manufacturing industry come October”. It’s clearly a sentiment shared by many of you, as this sampling of responses on our Facebook page shows. Josh Scanlon – It’s not rocket science; if the government used all locally produced Holden and Ford cars or utes in police and emergency services vehicles, they could extend it into local governments, which would be enough to keep the industry afloat. Why do we need police in Lancers and Pajeros, for example? I believe this would keep the Aussie car industry alive. Brian Harman – I totally agree. This is…

POWERCRUISE IS THE EVENT WHERE YOU CANDO ALL THE THINGS YOU’RE NOT ALLOWED TODO ANYWHERE ELSE CHARGING around Sydney Motorsport Park at speeds well in excess of highway limits while leaving bushfires in your wake is a great way to spend your weekend. We know this because we bludged a ride in Daniel Souvleris’s KRANKI HJ ute at Powercruise 66, and with over 1700hp worth of 14/71-blown, 572ci big-block on board, it was a truly life-affirming experience. It is this very kind of four-wheeled tomfoolery for which Powercruise is so widely revered. It’s touted as the event where you can do all the things you’re not allowed to do anywhere else, and it ain’t far from the truth. The Powercruise concept is often imittated t d but perhaps never quite…

THERE aren’t too many car events that take a ‘gap year’ and then come back bigger and better than ever, but that’s just what the organisers of Motul Racewars – WA’s airstrip top-speed challenge – did. After three successful events at Wyalkatchem airport in 2013, ’14 and ’15, the organisers took a year off to find a new venue that would handle the ever-increasing performance of the competitors. Since that first event, the terminal speeds have increased from 275km/h to almost 325km/h, and with higher speeds you need more braking area and preferably a run-off area without barbed-wire fences. It was a pretty brave move to relocate the event to a venue that’s further away from the main population centre, but when that location is Albany – a former whaling…

THIS GLISTENING BLACK IMPALA CAUGHT BARNABY’S EYE ON EBAY. “I BOUGHT IT FROM CHICAGO, BASED ON ONE VIDEO AND 60 PHOTOS,” HE SAYS. “I TOOK A PUNT AND IT PAID OFF” THIS BUILD TAUGHT ME A LOT ABOUT THE QUALITY REQUIRED TO GET BIG HORSEPOWER. I ENDED UP WITH THE MOST POWERFUL CAR I’VE EVER OWNED A SUPER-clean black ’66 SS Impala packing 700hp wasn’t on Barnaby Lester’s radar. He was chuffed with the red one he had, with a stout 383ci pumping out 500hp, built by his go-to guy, Chris Dalton from Dalton Automotive in South Geelong. Having owned a string of locally built rides, he was pretty satisfied with his first American car. Then this glistening black version caught his eye on eBay. It had copped a…

EVER since we announced our Turbo Taxi project, we’ve been flat stick making it all happen within a fairly tight video deadline. It’s been a busy few weeks. For those late to the party, here’s the spiel. We’ve bought a 2010 FG Falcon ex-taxi, and we want to make it run 10s on LPG. When we say it like that it all sounds easy, but we’re discovering that it’s anything but. We paid $2750 for the 577,000km ex-cab, which was probably on the high side of things, but by spending a little more initially we ended up with a better car and it had no trouble getting a roadworthy certificate. On the other side of the ledger, the engine came with a fairly loud bottom-end knock, and while it wasn’t…

IF YOU ever needed proof that Ford’s venerable Barra six-cylinder engine has reached cult status, Damien Boyce’s gloriously stealthy XT Fairmont is it. Before the Barra arrived on the scene, the flagship performance engines for most Ford fans were carby-fed Cleveland and Windsor V8s. There have been EFI Windsors, quad-cam 5.4L Boss motors and even factory supercharged Coyotes in the years since, but none of these have been embraced by Aussie enthusiasts to the same level as GM’s LS series, for example. But the Blue Oval’s answer to the LS is well and truly here in the shape of the Barra inline six, and they’re now being stuffed into everything, including Holdens. Damien’s Fairmont represents a bit of a changing of the guard from the Windsors and Clevos of old…

EDDY, SET, GO! WE ABSOLUTELY loved Eddy Jausnik’s HK Monaro in your April edition. This car seems to encapsulate the old-school look with tough mechanicals to make it a kick-arse street machine – and it had a great story to boot. I’m sure the 595hp with six-inch rims makes for a wild ride. We have to ensure that new generations of street machiners appreciate these types of cars, so here is a picture of my 26-year-old son and six-month-old grandson swooning over the latest edition. Thanks for a great mag. Alan Brown, email YOU BEAUT UTE I WOULD like to find out if the WB ute with Xatal conversion I just bought was in Street Machine in 1983-84; someone on a forum commented that it was. I have attached some…

FRANK BOUGHT THE CHARGER WELL BEFORE HE WAS OLD ENOUGH TO HOLD A DRIVER’S LICENCE – AND THAT WAS BACK IN 1981 TO GIVE you an idea of how long this 770 Charger has been in Frank Pana’s life, he bought it well before he was old enough to hold a driver’s licence – and that was back in 1981. You gotta wonder how a teenage kid managed to get himself a roadworthy car – but Frank was clever. He worked as a pump jockey at a local servo and then went halves with his older brother. “We bought it together and then he got married two or three years later; I gave him some cash for the balance of the car and had it ever since,” he says. “At…

IT MAY have been subliminal, but many of us were learning the importance of a decent power-to-weight ratio before we even started school. Yep, thank you Hot Wheels. I still collect the bastards, but my first Hot Wheels car back in the 70s was a green weapon called Poison Pinto. It was based on Ford’s US small-car Pinto range, but stuffed full of blown V8 power – I’ll guess it as a big-block Chev to annoy the brand purists. That was followed up with a red Matchbox Mini sporting a radial aircraft donk and dubbed Mini Ha-Ha. Sure, there was some artistic licence used to jam such huge engines and a set of fats under those tiny bodyshells, but while I was busy performing outrageous stunts with my toy…

WHAT does it take to hit the Top 20 at Summernats? A meticulous build plan? An iron-clad strategy for gaining judging points? Or just the gradual realisation that your build has become something truly special? Mick Bellette’s journey to Top 20-dom took the latter path, paid tribute to his late brother along the way and scratched an itch for XW greatness that he’d harboured since his teens. “When I was a kid, I had an XW Falcon; my old man told me not to touch it as it was too good, but I knew better,” Mick laughs. “I put bucket seats and a V8 in it, but then I had to sell it because I couldn’t afford to run it on first-year apprentice wages.” As Mick started his panel beating…

UNLIKE A LOT OF RACE CARS THAT WEAR NUMBER PLATES BUT GET TRAILERED AROUND, WHIPYA IS ONE QUICK RIDE THAT SEES PLENTY OF HIGHWAY MILES HAVING recently run a PB of 8.93@157mph at Heathcote Park Raceway, there’s no doubting this LH Torana’s quarter-mile credentials. But unlike a lot of race cars that wear number plates but get trailered around, WHIPYA is one quick ride that sees plenty of highway miles. “It drives great,” says proud owner Matt Brame. “It goes everywhere. It’s awesome in traffic; it loves it! No matter how hot the day, it never runs hot. Last year for MotorEx, the missus and the two kids jumped aboard and we drove from Ballarat down to Melbourne and home again.” Still not convinced of its streetability? Take a look…

ON ITS FIRST DRIVE WE NOTICED THE FRONT TYRES WERE SHREDDING. APPARENTLY AFTER SWAPPING THE COIL-OVERS AND STEERING ARMS OVER, A WHEEL ALIGNMENT WAS A BIT MORE CRUCIAL THAN I FIRST THOUGHT! MY COUSIN Jay and I have a bit of a thing for old Toyotas. About three years ago, we were both apprentices, and he had a ’73 KE25 Corolla while I had a ’76 TA23 Celica – my first car. We had this idea to build a drift car, so when this old, pasty brown, golf-course-green-carpeted, 1977 MX32 Cressida showed up on Gumtree, it seemed perfect. We picked it up for $900 off a bloke in Melbourne. It had a munted water pump, had done the head gasket, wouldn’t fire and was completely stock. The idea was to…

THIS SHED IS A PLACE WHERE SKILLS ARE SHARED, BULLSHIT GETS SPUN ANDSTORIES GET EXAGGERATED ON TASMANIA’s wild north-west coast, at the end of a lonely runway there stands a shed. A modern tilt-up, it looks strictly business from the outside – a signwriting business, to be exact. But something’s afoot; lined up on the forecourt are nine tidy chrome-bumpered streeters. Photographer Nathan and I pull up as the sun sets behind the shed. The bay door is open and a warm glow emanates from inside, along with foot-tapping, bass-slapping rockabilly beats. Welcome to Dave Mason’s world. Dave greets us, slaps a Jack Daniel’s into each of our hands and brings us inside to meet the mates. Introductions are flying, but I’m lucky I won’t be tested on this; I’m…

The brief from Shane to Bushy at MB Performance Competition Engines was to take a proven NASCAR combo and make more power, reliably. Bushy retained the vast majority of the major components, but did plenty of development around camshaft specifications. Needless to say he’s keen to keep the final specs close to his chest. When he was done, he topped the engine off with a custom billet EFI manifold, and tuned the MoTeC on an engine dyno for bang-on 800hp at the crank POWER adders are all well and good, but there’s a real science behind extracting every last available horsepower from a stout naturally aspirated package. What we have here is a GM NASCAR-based combo, originating from Richard Childress Racing in the USA. It’s destined for Shane Woodman’s BMW…