Innehållsförteckning för January 2019 från Street Machine

29 DEC, WARRNAMBOOL, VIC Show 'n' Shine, Lake Pertobe. Text 0484 872 411. 03-06 JAN, CANBERRA, ACT Street Machine Summernats 32, Exhibition Park in Canberra. Visit sum mernats.comau, 04-06 JAN, BAIRNSDALE, VIC Throttle Stomp Kustom Style Weekend, Bairnsdale Dragway.Visit throttlestomp.com. 05 JAN, PHILLIP ISLAND, VIC  2019 Kustom Nationals, Phillip Island. Contact (03) 9796 2251. 06 JAN,BRIDPORT, TAS Bridport Car Show, Bridport Village Green. Contact lucypaull@yahoo.com. 06 JAN, SCORESBY, VIC Modified Nation Motor Show, Caribbean Gardens. Search Facebook for more info. 13 JAN, LAUNCESTON,TAS 2019 All USA Day, UTAS Stadium. Contact Tom on 0407 135 371. 13 JAN, BALLINA, NSW North Coast Street Machines Show 'n' Shine, Seagulls Rugby League Grounds. Contact Noel on 0422 065 899. 18-19 JAN, KWINANA, WA Motorvation, Peth Motorplex. Visit motorplex.com.au. 18-20 JAN, SYMMONS PLAINS, TAS…

SADLY, the Aussie-made Falcon has been missing from our showrooms for over two years now, and Ford will soon be replacing the Falcon V8 Supercar with the current Mustang. As reported by our friends at Wheels, Ford unveiled the new shape at a test a month or so ago in Queensland, and due to the two-door ’Stang body needing to fit the Supercars control chassis (which is designed for four-door sedans), the end result is a pretty funky one. We posted pics of it on our socials to see what SM fans would make of the Frankenstang. John Upton – I’m not a Ford fan, but it still looks better than the new Commodore. Geoff Hughes – You guys might like to know that all Ford has done is stretch…

I SUNK 2200 HOURS INTO THE XP; THAT’S WHY IT TOOK ME 19 YEARS TO BUILD THESE days everyone expects everything to be finished yesterday, be of top quality, yet cost next to nothing. That’s what makes David Scholz’s custom XP Falcon a breath of fresh air. The build took almost two decades and its scope expanded significantly in that time, yet he never wavered from the goal of hand-building his own cruiser. Okay, so David owns and runs DJ’s Sandblasting & Restoration, but this actually hindered the process more than it helped. “I build customers’ cars for a living, so my main problem was finding the time,” he says. “I sunk 2200 hours into the XP; that’s why it took me 19 years to build.” Back in the 90s…

IT WILL come as a surprise to no one that the build on Anthony Caruana’s sweet XD Falcon kicked off with a far tamer result in mind. “It was supposed to be a quick rust repair and jam job, but it got out of hand after we went to MotorEx Melbourne a few years ago,” says Anthony. Soon, the initial budget was thrown in the bin and the XD went from stock S-Pack to the arrow-straight, dark silver cruiser it is now. Anthony’s had a bit of a thing for the boxy lines of the XD since he was a young fella. “When I was 18, Dad gave me an XD for my first car,” he says. “In 2000 I stupidly got rid of it for a VT Executive because…

1 ST FRANK MARCHESE 1970 FORD XW FAIRMONT Time: 33.224sec ONE of the quickest street-registered drag cars in Australia, Frank Marchese’s FAIRXW packs over 2000rwhp from its twin-turbo World Products Windsor. Running on Roo16 race gas, the car’s 7.36@192mph pass on Day Four stands as the quickest and fastest pass we’ve ever seen at DC. 2 ND HARRY HAIG 1972 HOLDEN HQ KINGSWOOD Time: 33.374sec HAVING run a 7.40 at Swan Hill prior to DC18, Harry Haig had his HQ SS set to kill, with the Robby Abbott-built, twin-turbo 540ci BBC-powered missile leading the Outright standings for the first three days. Harry was 0.15sec off first place in the end, but easily won the Turbosmart Outlaw Blown class. 3 RD LORENZO GULLOTTO 1987 HOLDEN VL CALAIS Time: 33.906sec LORENZO rebuilt…

HARRY Haig is an institution at both Street Machine Drag Challenge and Hot Rod Drag Week in the USA, and he brought his twin-turbo big-block ‘Shonky’ HQ SS back to Turbosmart Outlaw Blown for the 2018 running of DC. The Quey is powered by a 540ci big-block Chev inflated by a pair of 88mm Garrett GT47 turbos, running pump gas on the road and methanol on the track to make an estimated 1860rwhp at up to 24psi. With a Holley ECU controlling the combo, Harry’s biggest issue is getting all that horsepower to the track. “It’s pretty much the same combo as last year, but we had all sorts of dramas just getting here this year, so I don’t care about ETs, I just want to be here on Friday,”…

“I ALWAYS wanted to do Street Machine Drag Challenge, and I love watching Drag Week in the States,” said first-time entrant Daniel Cassar. “It’s a good way to prove that your car can drive on the street.” Daniel and his wife Ebony (Iron Maiden, SM, Aug ’18) own and run Fast Lane Speed Shop out of Ballarat, so he knows his way around cars, and he whipped up a fresh ’32 Ford three-window coupe for his Tuff Mounts Outlaw Aspirated entry. Sitting above the coupe’s IFS front end is a tough 406-cuber built by James from Melway Competition Engines, topped with a 950 Quick Fuel carby and Street Dominator manifold. The combo is good for 680hp at the flywheel. It’s backed by a Paul Rogers Performance-built Powerglide with a 6200rpm…

PANEL beater Jon Mitchell has been a part of every Drag Challenge to date, and his stunning purple 512-cube Dodge Challenger 440 has been a regular since our second event. Both were back for DC 2018, but these days Jon and mate Andrew McLellan (who competed alongside him in the Tuff Mounts Outlaw Aspirated class in his delectable orange Plymouth ’Cuda) have a challenge within the challenge. “We call it the ‘E-body Challenge’, and we’re neck and neck,” Andrew said. Yet the battle of the curvy Mopars was soon cut short when Andrew dropped out after Day Two, leaving Jon to fly the flag alone. He did so with aplomb, consistently handing in mid-10-second timeslips that saw the Dodge in third place in Tuff Mounts Outlaw Aspirated after Day Four.…

PEOPLE travel from all over the country to be part of the mad week of Drag Challenge, but some come from further afield than others. This year the Longest Distance Travelled award went to West Australian Matt Carey and his 2007 VZ SS ute, but his story involves a bit more than just towing a race car a long distance. In 2007 Matt had a dirt bike accident that left him permanently wheelchair-bound, but that hasn’t stopped him from racing cars like his VZ, which he drives with a custom hand-control set-up. Matt hails from Tom Price, 1500km north of Perth, so it was never going to be easy to get his black beast all the way across to Victoria for DC. Thankfully his dad Russell was willing to tow…

PLENTY of Street Machine Drag Challenge entrants call their rides ‘street cars’, but Queensland’s Mark Talbot actually uses his ’69 Ford Capri to drive to work every day. The orange coupe ran strong in the Haltech Radial Blown class at DC 2018, despite having only been finished four months earlier and having had almost no shakedown. “I drove it on the highway for 10 minutes before turning up at Calder on Sunday,” Mark laughed. “I’d been driving it to work every day since I finished it and doing a lot of suburban stuff, but I hadn’t been on the open freeway much. This thing hasn’t even been on the dyno – or a drag strip until Monday at Calder Park!” The forged Barra under the Capri’s bonnet came out of…

THE mad people that choose to take on Drag Challenge often travel thousands of kilometres to be a part of the circus, but not many of those are game enough to drive their race cars to and from the event. Brenton Miller is one of those madmen, piloting his little Chrysler Centura on a 9000km round trip from Earlville, Queensland to participate in DC 2018, earning him the Longest Distance Driven trophy. Brenton is one of 18 soldiers who took on the first DC in 2014, and having missed a few rodeos since his last appearance in 2015, he was determined to represent the Centura name this year. He doesn’t even own a tow vehicle, let alone a trailer, priding himself on the ability to drive his cars to and…

AFTER following Street Machine Drag Challenge twice as a spectator, Rod Jones vowed to get his Dart 427ci small-block Chev finished and into his ’33 Ford tudor for DC 2018. He met the deadline with a week to spare. “But I knew my 8¾-inch Mustang diff with 4.11s would be the weak link; I expected to break an axle,” he said. Sure enough, the diff let go on Day Two at Swan Hill, though a broken carrier was the issue. A mate’s mate soon located another centre in Mildura, and six hours later, Rod was back at Swan Hill to fit the $250 single-spinner 2.78:1 innards. Then he was again Mildura-bound, via the designated DC route. Rod set his Drag Challenge PB on Day One with an 11.94-second pass, backing…

MANY street machiners will have a begrudging respect for the Sigma, Chrysler Australia’s bigger-than-most four-cylinder family car, even though it more-or-less killed the Valiant. Designed by Mitsubishi in Japan but adopted, extensively re-engineered and manufactured in Australia, the Sigma was to Chrysler Australia what Commodore was to Holden at the dawn of the 1980s: a smaller, lighter, fuel-efficient family car. But Dominic Pelle didn’t care about all that, because for Drag Challenge 2018, he stuffed a freakin’ enormous LS2 V8 into one, plumbed it with a turbo, had it all legit engineered for street rego, and hoped to throw down a string of eights! Dom isn’t new to the DC game; he’s participated in the past couple of events with a turbo LS-powered HK Kingswood that he drove down from…

KAREN Bawden has been racing her ’69 VF Valiant hardtop for seven years, and got her first taste of DC at our inaugural Drag Challenge Weekend in Queensland earlier this year. She was back for Drag Challenge proper, towing the Val from Townsville to Calder behind a Toyota Coaster motorhome. She then managed to keep the VF in the game all week, with only a few niggles. “The passenger window didn’t want to stay in its cradle; my deep-dish sump found the road a couple of times but it didn’t rip a hole; and on the last day we had an electrical gremlin, so I ran two really slow passes,” Karen said. “We had spares of everything that we could carry without a trailer. My plan was mainly to survive…

SYDNEYSIDER Alysha Teale and her matte-black HERHQ sedan are Street Machine Drag Challenge stalwarts and always feature high on the DYO leaderboard. At DC 2018 Alysha and her Quey had had yet another dream run with the proven 383ci Chev/TH400/nine-inch combo. “I have been so lucky with this car and engine,” Alysha said. “Anytime something does go wrong I seem to be at or near home.” This year the K&N Dial Your Own class was ultra-competitive, and Alysha smashed it to place ninth in class for the week. “Obviously it’s nice to win, but I have always said if I can’t win the aim is to be at least Top 10,” she said. She also had some sage advice for those looking to enter DYO: “Just practice; I race a…

GRANT Grech’s LS2-powered LX Torana hatchback definitely has sleeper vibes with the kiddie seat in the back, and he laid down every pass at Drag Challenge with the pew still firmly attached. Strapped in that chair for the highway stints was Grant’s five-year-old son, Liam. “Liam had a stroke just before Drag Challenge last year,” Grant explained. “So I said to him that once he was better we’d do Drag Challenge together.” Liam not only recovered superbly from his stroke, he now also helps Grant to do the wheel nuts and jack up the car. “It’s really good for his motor skills, plus he loves cars – he won’t go to sleep if I’m out in the shed!” Grant said. Thankfully the Torry is relatively well-mannered to be able to…

COREY Benning’s bright blue ’74 TD Cortina turned plenty of heads on Drag Challenge 2018, with the immaculately presented sedan chock-full of Ford Barra power. Running in Haltech Radial Blown, Corey’s car stood out, with the big four-litre DOHC turbo six almost oozing out of the engine bay. “It wasn’t easy to fit; there was a fair bit involved in getting the Barra in there,” he said. Corey picked up the tidy TD four years ago, engineered with a Clevo V8 and C10, but that combo didn’t last the time. “I hurt the Cleveland, so I pulled it out,” he said. “I had a Barra there and wanted to see if it fit, which it kind-of did.” After running a stocker BA motor, Corey turned up to Drag Challenge with…

IWAS at the GraysOnline warehouse checking out the Ford Territory that we planned to cut up for a Carnage episode, when I spied a Dodge Phoenix sitting all alone in the corner. “What’s happening with that?” I asked. “It’s going up for auction soon,” was the response. So, I wandered over for a closer look. I knew it was a ’63 because of the way the inner high-beam lights sat lower than the headlights, but the grille was missing and there was a transmission sitting where the engine should have been. The interior looked intact, but half of the exterior looked like it had been attacked by a child armed with their first belt sander. It wasn’t a great look, but it wasn’t a deal-breaker, either. The grille would make…

YOU don’t need to have joined Mensa to know that Holden’s HQ Kingswood is one of the most iconic Aussie cars you can poke a servo pie at, and – resplendent in factory Barbados Green – Andrew McQualter’s longroof is a slice of 70s Australian motoring royalty. However, this family-hauler hides a 909rwhp sting in the tail courtesy of an iron-block LS and BorgWarner snail hanging off the heads. Running at Drag Challenge 2018 in Haltech Radial Blown, Andy’s HQ was a picture of reliability, except for a torched plug lead and boot at Swan Hill on Day Two. This consistency is the result of a well-sorted combo that has seen plenty of testing. “It is an LY6 iron-block LS with CP Bullet pistons, Lunati H-beam rods, Camtech 233/244 cam…

CHICKA Waight’s dad Les has been building race cars since Chicka can remember. “He’s always out in the shed tubbing cars, building ANDRA ’cages and stuff,” he says. “As a kid I was always wandering out to the shed trying to get involved – and probably getting in his way.” Not anymore; father and son just completed the adventure of a lifetime – Drag Challenge 2018 – behind the wheel of Chicka’s sweet HQ Premier. What’s the story behind your HQ? It’s a genuine 1971 HQ Premier I got as a bare shell when I was 16. I actually swapped it for an HZ Kingswood I had at the time and I was going to do up the six in the HZ, but Dad told me to go for an…

AS WELL as a plethora of later-model, big-mumbo cars at Street Machine Drag Challenge, we’ve seen a swing towards later-tech – and of course big-power – engine transplants in the past couple of years. But what we now regard as traditional street machine-y stuff still puts a big grin on many peoples’ faces, too, even if it’s not as fast. So it was great that on the first day of Drag Challenge we saw this: Sydneysider Dave Chapple’s lovely time-warper HK Monaro complete with a traditional-tech Holden V8! Where did you find this? Can you believe my wife Roselyn found it on Gumtree and told me to go and buy it! It was in Coffs Harbour. She’s the best wife. I tell everyone I won the lottery when I ended…

RB BROTHERS HEY guys, what’s happening with Aiden Taylor’s VL? The first video was posted over a year ago. Is it done yet? Your VL is the same colour as my first car (I wish I did that one up). Here’s a pic (top left) of my VL, just back on the road. Not quite your beast, but at least it might be some motivation. It runs a Series 1 RB25, budget-built with mostly second-hand parts. HKS 3037 turbo, stock bottom end, manual, and it made 400rwhp on 98 at 20psi. I’ve had the head off, got a 6boost manifold, Kelford 272 cams and springs from NZ and an MLS gasket. I’m still running a 28-spline Borgy with 4.11s and no worries. Hoping to see over 500rwhp on ethanol, and…

WHEN it comes to Australian star cars, there’s only a handful that made the same impact as Fox’s 1970 Dodge Challenger from 1982’s iconic flick Running On Empty. The majority of movie cars are destroyed in the process of becoming legends, or else parted out and scrapped after filming, or, dare we suggest it, restored to purist spec. It’s lucky – actually, it’s a friggin’ miracle – that the FOX1 Challenger has survived 37 years unscathed. No need to scream spoiler alert; you should all know it was actually a black VH Valiant sporting silver frost wheels and cutaway B-pillars that blew up when Fox committed harakiri after losing to Mike at Kemps Creek in the movie – not the real FOX1. As one-of-one builds for the movie, both the…

AFTER three weeks of thrashing to build our ’63 Dodge Phoenix (see p182 for the full rundown), the moment had arrived: I was attaching new number plates and we were ready to hit the road. All the pain, the missed weekends, the late nights, the angry looks from the wife – it was all worth it. We were headed north to Cobar in NSW for the Running On Empty Festival – though we were already running a day late. With a loaded Esky and enough tools and spares to support a V8 Supercars team, Paul ‘Gus’ Cronin and I waved goodbye to Telfo and the SM crew and headed out the gate. Following behind we had the video and photo duo of Matt Bourke and Ellen Dewar in a Ford…

PROJECT cars rarely tread a logical path. They often blow out from mild plans into full ground-up rebuilds that see the finished product go far beyond the owner’s modest initial intentions. Warrnambool’s Matt Lampard knows this all too well, having taken his HZ SL Kingswood from cool cruiser to mid-eight-second, 1440rwhp monster in just three short years. But he has had a heck of a lot of fun along the way! “In three years this car has had three very different builds,” Matt explains. I TOLD LUKE FOLEY I WAS SICK OF SEEING HIS TAIL-LIGHTS. I TOLD HIM I WANTED TO FLIP HIM THE BIRD TO AT LEAST HALF-TRACK He purchased the HZ from Canberra with a 454 big-block under the square-set bonnet, but that didn’t last very long. Selling…

WHEN I BOUGHT THE CAR IT WAS BASICALLY A BARE SHELL – NO GLASS, THE GUARDS AND BONNET WEREN’T EVEN ON IT IFIRST spied Rob Cinanni’s HK Monaro back in early 2016. It was parked amongst around 600 other cars at the start point of Big Al’s Poker Run, of which there would have been at least a dozen other HK-T-G Monaros on show. I’m not sure what made it stand out from all the others; it could be that I’m a sucker for Warwick Yellow HK Monaros, or the fact it sat just right on (at the time) Weld Racing rims, or maybe it was the way the injector hat just stuck out above the bonnet. Most guys running blown motors want the whole world to know and do…

1 ST DARREN PARKER 2017 HOLDEN VFII SS-V REDLINE SPORTWAGON Spread: 0.008sec 2013 Australian Super Stock champ Darren ran his well-modified (heads/cam/trans/gears/rear suspension) SS down the strip around the 11.77sec mark all week. The car is capable of an 11.59 (a PB at Swan Hill), but by driving it to suit each track, Darren won K&N DYO with a spread of just 0.008sec. 2 ND PAUL TOPPING 2014 HSV VF CLUBSPORT Spread: 0.012sec DRAG Challenge first-timer Paul Topping had his Magnuson-blown, Morpowa-tuned, E85-burning Clubby neck-and-neck with his mate Darren for DYO class honours. Running around 10.90, the Clubby was the quicker car, but by looking at the data, Paul threaded the needle to a well-deserved second place. 3 RD STEVE NIGHTINGALE 1972 XA FALCON 500 Spread: 0.014sec WITH a 427ci…

LORENZO Gullotto’s VL Calais was on a hunt from the very start of Drag Challenge 2018, challenging the front-runners in the Haltech Radial Blown class with lightning-fast ETs and impeccable on-road cruising manners. “We didn’t do too much testing in Perth, but the car is working really well so far,” said Lorenzo, competing in his second Drag Challenge in the VL after coming over for the 2017 event with a crew of West Aussies. “We know the combo has power to run numbers, but it is all about getting it to the track.” That power comes from a 388ci LS motor based off an aftermarket Dart SHP block, with Trick Flow 255 heads and a pair of Gen II 68mm Precision 6870 turbochargers mounted under the headlights, good for 1460rwhp…

IN RACING, as in many areas of life, consistency is the key. And it was the razor-sharp thousandths-of-a-second consistency of Darren Parker, driving his VFII Commodore SS-V Redline Sportwagon, that earned him the K&N Dial Your Own winner’s trophy at Drag Challenge 2018. With timeslips in the 11s, his Commodore daily obviously isn’t standard under the bonnet. Being one of the last built, his SS-V Sportwagon has a 6.2-litre mill from the factory, which Darren has upgraded with a CNC-ported heads-and-cam kit. The trans and exhaust have been tweaked, too, and the diff gears dropped. The result is 470hp at the wheels. The rear suspension – independent in all Commodores for the past two decades – has been settled down with a bunch of bits imported from the US and…

YOU simply can’t miss John Ricca’s eye-searing VL Commodore. The factory Absynth Yellow BT1 ex-highway patrol car is a valuable collector’s piece today, but that hasn’t stopped John from enjoying sending it down the quarter-mile in under eight seconds! Running in Turbosmart Outlaw Blown at Drag Challenge 2018, the first-gen Commodore wears 30-inch tyres under a tubbed rear end, with a wild stroked three-litre RB six (built off the original block!) up front topped with the twin-cam head from a GT-R Skyline. “It has a 3.2-litre Nitto stroker bottom end, including a billet crank, with an RB26DETT DOHC head on top and a Wolf ECU,” said John of his hybrid inline six-cylinder – an engine with status and performance in the turbo Japanese six-pot scene. “The turbocharger is a Gen…

MITCH Pullen’s HiLux has been doing the rounds on the internet as an unusual participant in the growing drift scene, and this year he chose to expand that reputation by taking on our annual Street Machine Drag Challenge. The 2009 ’Lux Workmate was bought as a humble work ute while Mitch was still on his Ps, but his itch to tinker with things eventually got the better of him and soon the standard donk had a big turbo egging it on. That didn’t last too long though; the ‘unbreakable’ HiLux blew the crank out, prompting Mitch to look for other ways to make the power he wanted. The first stage of the build involved dropping a standard LS1 into the front and going skid racing at the local drifts. That…

FOR last year’s Drag Challenge, the boys from Adelaide Motorsport Fabrication brought their Krankenstein ’58 Ford Mainline gasser along for the wild ride, its outlandish styling catching the eye of many who attended. For 2018, Gavin Edmonds and driver Andy Milne decided they had to bring something even wackier, and with only four months in hand until Drag Challenge they began turning a bare-metal ’34 body and chassis into a street-ready dragster. They chucked a Chrysler 354 Hemi under where the bonnet should be, along with a New Process Chrysler four-speed manual ’box. A Winters Nostalgia quickchange rear end allows the boys to switch between a 4.11 and 3.5 diff ratio with ease. Gav and Andy also did all the fab work themselves at their shop: fuel tanks, tubs, wheelarches…

FROM beside the Swan Hill startline, it sounded like a kid dropping a box of Lego: the rattle of parts being scattered, then silence. It was the moment a supercharged 6.2-litre LS V8 grenaded as Kim Smith cleaned the tyres of her bright red HSV Maloo ready for a pass on Day Two of Drag Challenge. The oil streaming from under the ute’s nose made it obvious that Kim’s third run at Australia’s toughest street car event was absolutely over. Her tears as the track crew and a few spectators helped push her wounded car from the startline – and pick up pieces of piston skirt – would have melted a murderer’s heart. “Everything is shattered inside,” Kim told us after the benefit of a few days’ recovery and a…

FIRST-time Drag Challenge entrant Simon Jones tackled the week in his rare 1941-fronted ’37 Willys roadster. “It’s one of 150 Aussie-built steel TJ Richards bodies,” he said. Under the matte-black hood is a 347ci Windsor with CHI Cleveland heads and intake, topped by a Barry Grant Demon 750 carby. Behind that is a full-manual C4 trans and a Dominator 3200 stally feeding back to a nine-inch with a mini-spool, 3.9s and 31-spline full-floater axles. The package is good for 363rwhp. Heading into Drag Challenge, Simon’s PB was 11.80 seconds on the quarter, which he trumped by running 11.7s all week and then nailing his DC PB on his final pass at Calder on Friday night: 11.72@116mph. “The car ran good for all of Drag Challenge; I had a water leak…

WHILE it looks like a neat daily driver, David Best’s Cosmo Purple VY SS is an absolute beast, running mid-eights and putting out over 1200rwhp! Competing in Drag Challenge 2018 in the Haltech Radial Blown class, David’s late-model Commodore appeared a few years ago at DC with a centrifugally supercharged 402ci LS and IRS rear end, but that is all long gone now. Powerhouse Engines built David a 430ci combo based around a Dart LS Next 2 block, inflated by a pair of Turbonetics billet 76mm 7575 snails on the low-mount manifolds from Adam Rogash’s NOSHOW VT Clubsport. With fabrication, tune and fettling by MPW Performance, the new combo made 1202rwhp on 19psi, running E85 at the track and 95RON PULP on the street. “I bought the manifolds and got…

DEAN Soderblom’s ’76 LX Torana has been around for a fair while now, but he just finished dropping in a new motor in time to compete in Haltech Radial Blown at Drag Challenge 2018. “I’ve had the car about 15 years and used to drag race it with a small-block Chev and ’Glide,” Dean said. “But then I went on Drag Challenge a few years ago in an LS Commodore and decided I needed to have a go.” He nabbed a supercharged 6.2-litre LSA crate motor and had Matt at Webster’s Dyno & Performance in Wodonga whip up a custom cam. The Gen IV LS also copped valve springs, and a pulley upgrade to push 12psi through the stock TVS1900 1.9-litre blower, which made 578hp at 5800rpm. “We had converter…

WHAT if Ford kept making the XH panel van and ute through to 2004, and had stuck a turbo Barra four-litre six under the bonnet? Adrian Abela’s pano answers that question, and the Victorian brought his three-seat commercial along to Drag Challenge 2018, cruising three-up and running 10s! “We pulled this van out of the wreckers and eight months later it was at Drag Challenge. My 15-year-old son Josh suggested it and I thought it was a great idea,” Adrian explained. “Josh pretty much did all the spanner work to put the Barra in the car and get it working, all in our spare time, as I was too busy with work to figure out what mounts or crossmember or manifolds we needed.” Starting life as a BA-era engine, the…

THIS issue we welcome ‘Doctor’ Tim Bartrop to the Street Machine fold. An experienced automotive engineer, Tim will pen a series of yarns talking us through the dos and don’ts of car modification – starting this issue with the don’ts. This feature deals with the most common mistakes Tim has encountered in the course of his automotiv engineering work. BUMP STOPS NOT fitting bump stops is by far the most common fault I see, particularly on modified vehicles where chassis, front suspension and diff changes have been made. Bump stops are designed to limit overall suspension travel so that wheels don’t contact the body panels and suspension components don’t clash with chassis elements. Frequently they are not there on cars I inspect, and what I find is diffs hitting the…

01 DRESSING UP WE OFTEN rave about how capable LS engines are, but what isn’t so great is the aesthetics. The LS is certainly not as much of a looker as its older Chevy small-block cousins, so whatever can be done to pretty it up, should be done. Holley has a new range of LS valve covers, and their main purpose is to get rid of those ugly coil packs and replace them with the ‘Chevrolet’ moniker. It’s not all looks though; the new covers have more internal clearance for valvetrain components while still using the OE baffling system. You can choose from five different finishes including polished, satin and crinkle-black, with a billet aluminium oil cap included. Visit performancewholesale.com.au for more information. 02 PUMP IT UP HIGHER horsepower equals…

PAUL MATWIJOW VL CALAIS “MY PARENTS have owned modified cars since the 1970s, and ever since I drove their VL Calais when I was 17 back in 1988, I’ve wanted to own one myself. In 2015 my dream finally came true when I purchased a pretty standard 1987 VL Calais 333 pack, with a 5.0-litre V8 up front and optioned with a sunroof. Since then I have given it a complete overhaul. She now runs a 355 stroked to 396ci, topped with fully ported heads, Torque Power high-rise manifold and a Holley 750 Street HP carb. The engine is backed by a stage-three manualised Trimatic with 2800rpm stall, and a Torque Loc diff with 3.45:1 gears. The car has been resprayed in Alabaster White, while the interior has been custom-trimmed…

IT’S LIKE I’M 18 YEARS OLD WITH MY BLONDE SPIRAL PERM AND MY PACKET OF WINNIE BLUES ON THE DASH; I’M ABSOLUTELY TRANSFORMED INTO MY HEYDAY NIKKI Bourke is an inspirational, get-out-and-do-it kind of gal with an unwavering passion for cars. You may remember seeing photos of her mud-spattered face at Chopped, from tearing up the dirt circuit in her topless ’25 Dodge. She’s also kept her very first ride, a genuine LC GTR Torry! When did you get the LC? I bought it in 1982 for $1200. All I wanted was a two-door Torana, and I wouldn’t settle for anything else. After looking at 12 of them, I saw this and I knew that it was the one. In hindsight I should’ve bought the cream XU-1 that I looked…

EARLY Tom Cruise films tended to have a bit of a formula: young, inexperienced but highly gifted young man has to learn the ropes of a very challenging scenario before overcoming adversity and winning the day in the end. And sure, Days Of Thunder pretty much follows that recipe, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t one of the best car flicks to come out of the 1990s. Inspired by the life of Tim Richmond, an actual Winston Cup driver from the 80s, and packed with wheel-banging, bump-drafting action from the high-banks of NASCAR’s speedways, Days Of Thunder tells the story of Cole Trickle (Cruise), a hot-shoe Indy car racer who turns to stock cars as a way of securing a career as a professional race driver. Ably assisted by wily…

PHOENIX REBORN I TAKE my hat off to Scott Taylor and the Carnage team for assembling the Dodge for the Cobar trip – so many proven old-school methods in compromising and adapting components to fit. Scott’s meticulous approach to preparing parts is to be admired. Telfo looked a little bit nervous about the shrinking timeframe, but the lovely old Phoenix will be ‘reborn’ and will live to fly again with some serious grunt it didn’t have in 1963! I bet Telfo will want to have a fang around in the finished project! Can’t wait to see videos of Mr Dodgey in action. Thanks for a great project on a great old car! Geoff Scard, email…

IF 9.8-second quarters normally aspirated isn’t impressive enough from this hulking 2020kg (4450lb) streeter, there’s a 250hp NOS hit on standby to amp things up to 11! “This car has been in the family 40 years,” says owner Michael Vergis. “My uncle bought it originally, but after crashing it, he left it sitting in our yard for years.” At the ripe age of 17, Michael decided he’d give the big ol’ Impala a new lease on life. “I had no idea what I was getting into,” he says. “As I started pulling stuff off, other parts started falling off. The more paint I stripped away, the more body filler and rust I found.” AS I STARTED PULLING STUFF OFF, OTHER PARTS STARTED FALLING OFF. THE MORE PAINT I STRIPPED, THE…

HE key ingredient to any good T street machine should be a dose of A-grade, bad-arse attitude. And, in case you somehow glossed over the monster on the pages in front of you, Jason Spiteri’s ’64 EH Holden has that street-brawler ’tude in spades. From the ground-hugging stance to the bigs ’n’ littles rubber, and that 675hp 427ci small-block hanging out the bonnet, this classic sedan looks ready to punch nannas in their stupid lovely faces. “My first car was an EK ute with a 138ci six and three-on-the-tree, and then I had an EH as my daily,” Jason says. “Just as I was going to start tubbing my EH, a friend of my dad’s told me about this other EH on eBay. It had chassis connectors, a Falcon nine-inch,…

IN THE lead-up to Drag Challenge 2018, Frank Marchese from Dandy Engines copped a lot of heat about whether his leaf-sprung XW Fairmont could be considered a proper street car. He’s certainly silenced those critics after driving it 1300km through rural Victoria with a trailer on the back and a bunch of seven-second timeslips in the glovebox! Despite having never run Drag Challenge, FAIRXW was a serious contender from the moment Frank pulled it into the Calder Park pits. With a new World Products 450ci motor inflated by a pair of 88mm Precision Pro Mod turbos, and run by a FuelTech ECU, the big four-door sedan had run a string of sevens in testing, with a PB of 7.00@203mph. Running on VP Racing Roo16 race gas at the track and…

EXPERIENCE counts for a lot when you attack any form of racing, but not many can lay claim to five consecutive class wins in Drag Challenge events like Alon Vella and his Mk1 Ford Capri can. Having won four Radial Aspirated titles (three in regular Drag Challenge and one in our first Drag Challenge Weekend earlier this year) coming into DC 2018, Alon was well rehearsed in what was needed to keep his little Capri at the front of the field, so a top-ranked result wouldn’t have raised too many eyebrows. Even so, his sheer dominance throughout the entire event was remarkable, starting off with a margin of 1.1 seconds at the end of Day One and never looking back, stretching the gap to an eye-watering 5.2 seconds by the…

JAKE Edwards’s LH Torana has owned the Summernats Horsepower Heroes dyno competition for more than half a decade, run eight-second passes at the strip, and powerskidded the length of Sydney Motorsport Park’s front straight. But Jake reckoned driving the retina-bashing sedan on the road as part of the Drag Challenge 2018 Turbosmart Outlaw Blown class was what got him really excited. “I’ve owned this car since about 1993, but I think I’ve only done about 2000km in it in all that time,” said the Canberra local. “It’s been great doing all the other events with the car, but to be driving it on public roads after so long is just great.” While Jake made over 2000rwhp with a 496ci big-block Chev and a ludicrous 114mm turbocharger, the LH fronted at…

JAY Robinson did well representing the triangle-motor brigade at Drag Challenge 2018, with his Mazda Capella running in the nines in the Haltech Radial Blown class. “It’s a Series V RX-7 two-rotor 13B with a bridge port and a Borgie S372 SX-E turbo currently running approximately 20psi,” Jay said. “We kept it safe for Drag Challenge just to get it to the end of the week. We had it on the dyno three weeks beforehand and it made 429rwhp.” Running on 98RON pump fuel with water/methanol injection, the Mazda set a new PB of 10.25@132mph at Heathcote a couple of weeks before Drag Challenge kicked off. “I’ve had the car about five years, and it started off running 12.7s with a manual,” Jay said. “I changed to the Jatco auto…

ONLY a handful of people can claim to have taken on every Drag Challenge marathon since its inception in 2014, but Nathan Ghosn is one of them. Despite battling issues all week, Nathan used all of that past experience to pull out a third-place finish in this year’s Pacemaker Radial Aspirated rankings. Running in tandem with class winner Alon Vella, Nathan has always been a top performer in the Radial Aspirated class at DC, but unlike his compatriot, Nathan’s run at DC 2018 was not so smooth, with a suspected blown head gasket in his Capri’s 370ci Ford donk. To add to the dramas, they also had to deal with electrical gremlins, gearbox cooling-line dramas, minor overheating (as expected) and even a cracked windscreen as they pushed their way through…

ENTERED into Turbosmart Outlaw Blown for Drag Challenge 2018, Marcus Howe’s XW Falcon nearly didn’t make it to the event after an on-track mishap. “About four weeks ago I was doing a circuit racing event and tapped the wall,” Marcus said. “It got the front and rear quarters on the passenger side, so it was a bit of a push to get it over to Melbourne for the start of Drag Challenge.” Thankfully he managed to get it fixed and the big full-weight X-dub was on song, running 9.32@147mph at Swan Hill on Day Two, with a 9.49@144mph at the same track on Day Four. The four-door can get down and boogie in single digits thanks to a 434ci Dart Windsor under the bonnet, making 750hp aspirated. Running a pair…

WHILE it might look like it is ready to head down to the local farmers’ market, Shane Neumann’s XF Falcon ute packs a big, Barra-powered punch. Having run a pre-Drag Challenge PB of 9.80@149.9mph, the sky-blue commercial might not have been in contention for the Outright win, but Shane still gave other competitors in the Haltech Radial Blown class a fright at Drag Challenge 2018. The bullbar and canopy give the ute a bit of a sleeper look, and Shane wouldn’t have it any other way. “My dad bought this car new in 1990 and I wanted to keep it looking exactly how he had it,” he said. “It was one of the last 4.1-litre sixes with a three-on-the-tree, and it was his work hack until he gave it to…

AFTER taking the Turbosmart Outlaw Blown win at Drag Challenge Weekend earlier in the year, Noel Inman and his constantly wheelstanding ’22 Model T were keen to back it up at DC proper. Unfortunately, a blown C4 ’box in Mildura on Day Three quickly put an end to Noel’s campaign due to the timeframe required to collect the parts and wield spanners. Still, once the ’22 had received a gearbox transplant, Noel headed to Calder on Friday to lay some passes. “I’d recently put in the new C4 and converter, which only made a dozen or so passes before it let go,” he said “Now I’m using the old C4 that’s tried and true, and runs the same numbers. “I can dial the car in pretty well – and it’s…

PETER Haravitsidis’s XY Falcon is a black beauty that needs to be seen to be believed. After debuting the new beast at MotorEx earlier this year, Peter decided the best way to break in his new build was by taking on one of the hardest tests you could ever do with a tough, show-quality XY: Street Machine Drag Challenge. Peter bought the car 20-odd years ago as a factory-fitted 302 Fairmont GS in Monza Green, and luckily for him it was relatively rust-free. Over the years it has been home to a number of engine packages, including a 351, 383 and 427, as it tore up the street and strip. When the time came to give the car some cosmetic love, Peter decided that he may as well go all…

THIS was Carolyn Rosser’s third Street Machine Drag Challenge, but the first behind the wheel of the family’s LS-powered VX Commodore, which saw hubby Mick and their two boys relegated to crew. “I almost chickened out!” Carolyn admitted. “But the Commodore didn’t miss a beat on the track or street – the heater and a/c worked a treat on the road and we used cruise control most of the trip, too! “My aim was to not make a fool of myself, to finish and enjoy our week away as a family – oh, and to manage a decent burnout! I hoped to place in the top half of the DYO field, so I was really pleased with 21st [out of 69 K&N DYO finishers].” Look out for the Rosser family…

TIM Sullivan’s crusty-looking farm ute turned plenty of heads at Drag Challenge 2018, with the heavily patina-laden commercial packing plenty of snot at the rear tyres courtesy of a turbocharged big-block Chev. But the Tasmanian didn’t just drag the ute out of a paddock and turn up to Drag Challenge on a whim. “It was an old bloke’s tip bus and my dad told me about it,” Tim said. “I already had the chassis and driveline ready to go, and was going to put another truck body on it, but I thought: ‘Bugger it, I want to get it on the road as soon as possible.’” The 454ci Mark IV big-block has a solid-roller cam and Dart heads, but most people were talking about the recent addition in the back.…

NOTHING starts a pub argument as quick as politics, religion, or what a ‘true’ street car is. Alex Moshopoulos’s XY Falcon will quell some of that banter, having run mid-eights but also clocking over 10,000km on the street in the past three years, which made him a real threat in the Turbosmart Outlaw Blown class at Drag Challenge 2018. Powered by a twin-turbo 411ci Windsor making 1091rwhp at 25psi, the show-quality XY has a full interior, immaculate paint and super-cool stance. Built by Zoran from Competition Engines off a Dart block with AFR 225 heads, the injected eight runs an Autronic ECU, twin Garrett GTX3582 snails and 1650cc injectors drinking E85 corn juice. It is backed by a two-speed Powerglide transmission, 2900rpm 10.25-inch SDE converter and a nine-inch running 3.5:1…

BACK in July 2018, I wrote a little piece for the SMwebsite about my wife Sarah, her MG, the subsequent, relief-ridden sale of said MG, and the creation of our progeny that followed. I finished the column with: “We were never sure if the MG was going to get us there, and right now, we’re excited as to where we are going”. Well, I’ve got to admit, that was a bald-faced lie, because at the time my wife was critically ill. In October, she died. I really liked my wife. I mean, I loved her. At least twice; there’s evidence of that. But I liked her because we shared so many interests. I get really upset when fellas tell me they’ve had to sell their pride and joy because their…

MITCH Bean’s ’68 Camaro finished third in the K&N Dial Your Own class at our first Drag Challenge Weekend early in 2018. Running nines across the three days, the twin-turbo LS-powered F-body cracked into the eight-second bracket not long after our three-day event, but all wasn’t well with the alloy LS2 under the bonnet. “After Drag Challenge Weekend we wound some more boost in and it went 8.8@151mph, but the oil pressure was reading low,” Mitch explains. “We checked the logs and it seemed fine, so I went back out and ran an 8.90, then put it on the trailer, took it home and stuffed it in the shed. Later on I cut the filter open and it was full of copper; the motor had spun a bearing! “It now…

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THURSDAY, 29 November 2018 was the FX Holden’s 70th birthday. It should have been a day for celebration, but it is what it is, and what it is apparently isn’t much. A cursory glance across Holden’s website showed four lead stories; the new (GMC) Acadia, the (Chevrolet) Colorado, the (Chevrolet) Equinox and some info on the great deals you can get across the range. Not much on the anniversary, then. Unlike the 50- and 60-year celebrations, Holden has resisted flinging out a bevy of special editions with upgrade packs and chromey badgework. Maybe the company is saving itself for the diamond jubilee in five years’ time, but who knows where the once-proud brand will sit by then? Lang Lang and the recently expanded Holden engineering team dodged a bullet yesterday…

WHILE there’s no shortage of turbo and blown LS combinations getting built to punch out four-figure horsepower numbers, it’s not too often that we see a Ford Modular motor built to the same level. Cliff Pilon has screwed this one together in his shed with a helping hand from Cave Hill Engines, who did all the machining. It originally powered a GT500 Mustang, but plans are to slot this one – along with a Tremec 6060 ’box – into a BF Super Pursuit ute! Cliff knows that the leaf springs and stock diff probably won’t be up to the task, so it’ll cop a nine-inch and four-link as well. Best known locally as the Boss 260/290 engines that powered numerous XR8 and FPVfettled Falcons over the years, this one’s a…