Innehållsförteckning för August 2016 från Street Machine

THIS year the WA Hot Rod & Street Machine Spectacular celebrated two decades of putting on the best indoor car show in the state, and it was a ripper, with a huge variety of cars, all of outstanding quality. The obvious drawcard was Chris and Colleen Bitmead’s Detroit Autorama-storming XBOSS Falcon, back in Perth for a ‘home ground’ appearance and its first showing on Aussie soil. It was featured on the show artwork and in much of the media blitz leading up to the event – including some coverage from mainstream media – so there’s no doubt it attracted people who wouldn’t have ordinarily attended. With a bit of luck they’ll remember how good the show was and bring along a few of their friends next year. As always with…

16-17 JULY, MELBOURNE, VIC Meguiar’s MotorEx 2016, Melbourne Showgrounds, Ascot Vale. Visit www.motorex.com.au. 17 JULY, CLONTARF, QLD 17th Annual Corvettes Down Under Classic Car Show 2016, Pelican Park. Visit www.corvettesdownunder.com.au. 17 JULY, ROCKLEA, QLD All American Car Show & Swap Meet, Rocklea Showgrounds. Contact Ian 0418 782 768. 17 JULY, SEVENTEEN MILE ROCKS, QLD Centenary Rocks Carfest, Rocks Riverside Park. Contact 0423 917 127. 24 JULY, MUDGEERABA, QLD The Original Gold Coast Swap, Mudgeeraba Showgrounds. Visit ww.gcaac.com.au. 24 JULY, EASTERN CREEK, NSW Grudge Kings, Sydney Dragway. Visit www.sydneydragway.com.au. 31 JULY, WILLOWBANK, QLD Mopar Sunday 2016, Willowbank Raceway. Visit www.moparsunday.com.au. 31 JULY, EASTERN CREEK, NSW All Ford Family Day 2016, Sydney Dragway. Visit www.allforddaynsw.com. 31 JULY, TOWNSVILLE, QLD Cyclones Show ’n’ Shine 2016, Strand Park. Contact Bernadette 0401 948 754. 31…

LAST issue we introduced you to Ian Lording, who shared some fantastic historical shots of the Australian surf and van culture in the late 60s and early 70s. It’s both a rarity and a privilege to access so many personal photos from this era, especially as the associated costs of photography at the time made it very much a luxury pursuit – a far cry from the endless phone pics and selfies we take for granted today. Here are some more snaps from Ian’s collection for you to enjoy. 01: THE Suicide Savages were the original guys who surfed Point Leo (aka ‘Suicide Point’) on the Mornington Peninsula. “They were the pioneers down here and a ragtag bunch of riff-raff who ruled their home break with an iron fist,” Ian…

BIRTHDAY PRESENCE CONGRATS on your 35th anniversary! I picked up the July issue last night, and turned straight to the Best Of The 80s bonus mag. Now this is either sad or deserving of a pat on the back, but nearly all of those cars I remember, and still have the issues that most of the original stories were in. I bought my first issues of Street Machine in 1982 while I was studying at TAFE here in Perth; I dreamt of buying my first hottie reading those issues. In 1984 I managed to finally get my dream hottie, but sold it in 1989. I bought it back in 2013 and hope to have it restored by mid-2017. Best of luck and continued good fortune, and quite possibly I may…

I WANTED A CAR THAT WAS CLASSIC IN THE LOOKS DEPARTMENT BUT REFINED IN THE RUNNING GEAR, TRIM, SUSPENSION AND BRAKES SOUTH Australia’s George Poulson owns the beautiful VJ Valiant two-door you see here, which is somewhat ironic, as he reckons he was never a fan of Val hardtops. “I found them big, ugly and disproportionate, but now I’m a changed man!” he laughs. “I’ve owned Chargers through the years, including a 440-powered VK that ran 10s in the late 90s, and was actually on the hunt for another. But they were all overpriced and rusty, so I decided to broaden my horizons and found this.” That was back in 2007, and George could see the potential in Chrysler’s often-forgotten, overweight brother to the stumpy Charger. With very little rust…

I WANTED SOMETHING DIFFERENT; I FIGURED, WHY GO BLOWN WHEN EVERYONE IS DOING THAT? UNVEILED at the recent WA Hot Rod & Street Machine Spectacular, Tim Nelson’s naturally aspirated XA Falcon hardtop packs some serious punch. The West Australian has the hard-hitting Calypso Green coupe all set to go toe-to-toe with the country’s biggest and baddest burnout competitors. Purchased five years ago as a retired drag car, the big coupe was in average condition at best. “I sent it to a workshop in Perth to have some work done to it, and for whatever reason it was left out in the weather for two months,” Tim explains. “The C-pillars started bubbling under the paint, so I pulled the pin and dragged the shell over to see Greg Hogan at Stripped…

PACKED WITH QUALITY METAL, FROM TRAD RODS TO ELITE CUSTOMS, THE 46TH QUEENSLAND HOT ROD SHOW SAW THE EVENT GO FROM STRENGTH TO STRENGTH THE Queensland Hot Rod Show took over the Brisbane Convention Centre in late May, the 46th running of the event and the second time it’s been held at the South Bank venue. Organised by the Queensland Hot Rod Promotions crew, the weekend-long show saw around 130 rods, bikes and customs filling the hall, with some of the hottest rides in the country making the trek to the Sunshine State. From traditional flathead-powered hot rods to state-of-the-art street elite marvels boasting donks worth as much as your mortgage, there was literally something for everyone. Airbrushing and pinstriping demos, a charity auction in support of Youngcare, and the…

WHAT do you do when you’re a 17-year-old second-year apprentice welder and you just have to have a V8? You buy a near-new BA XR8, of course! Well, that’s what Brent Tanian did, at least. But he also had access to a private burnout pad in his hometown of Collie, so it wasn’t long before the big-end bearings in the Falcon’s stock engine decided enough was enough. The fix was to toughen up the Boss 260 donk with forged internals, lots of polished bits and slam it on the ground over a set of 20-inch Budnik Fontana rims. “That build took eight months, and was a really nice street car that only did two shows – Motorvation and the first Gazzanats WA – and picked up some trophies,” Brent says.…

I HADN’T DONE MUCH WORK ON CARS BEFORE THIS ONE, SO IT WAS A BIG LEARNING CURVE > 22, WANNEROO, WA A FORD fan through and through, Jono Calautti’s first car was a P-plate-spec slammed XR6 ute. As soon as he turned 18 he bought his first V8, this ’82 XD Fairmont Ghia, which he has since transformed into an awesome home-built street machine. Nice XD, what’s in it? It has a Streetbuilt Racing 351 Cleveland with a solid-roller cam, steel crank, 2V heads, flat-top pistons and it’s topped off by a 650 Holley. The transmission is a reverse-pattern manualised-valvebody C4 with a 3500rpm stall, which goes into a nine-inch 31-spline Truetrac rear end with 4.11 gears. It made around 310rwhp last time I put it on the dyno and…

H OLDEN V8s are cool, but it won’t be too long before finding a good block is going to be harder than finding a floppy disk drive. Enter Craig Bennett from Torque-Power; he’s casting up brand new Holden blocks with a few oil system tweaks to make them even better. “We can do lots of different options with these for the same price – bigger cam bearings, bigger lift diameter, bigger bores,” Craig says. “We’ve also fixed the problems with the factory block such as bore thickness, deck thickness and the oiling system.” Craig caters for a whole range of customers, but he makes no bones about the fact that the majority of his products are geared towards the high-end user. This particular engine didn’t need to use the full…

LAST year, we worked with Sidchrome to support their Project Kombi initiative. Working with the kids from Chisholm TAFE and the Australian VW Performance Centre, we followed along as they turned a very sad Kombi into a super-cool cruiser, with a big horsepower injection and a total restoration. The car was then won by a lucky Sidchrome customer, who has been spotted driving the thing all over WA. It was so much fun, it had to be done again, but this time the team have opted for something with a little more horsepower than the VW could offer. But what? Something Australian? Something American? Maybe even something British? After much debate, they settled on a mix of all three, namely an AC Cobra replica. The original Cobra started life as…

THE recent wild east coast weather gave Brashernats a break over the June long weekend, and 8000 revheads were treated to an insane day of burnout action at Sydney Dragway. With three Summernats Burnout Masters tickets up for grabs, the fans got one hell of a show. The vibe was more akin to a party than an event – that’s how Mick Brasher likes to run his shows; he wants to make you feel like you’re a guest in his house. From the pad to the pits, the whole event was laidback and friendly, but while many of the drivers are good mates, they leave all that behind when it’s time to hit the pad. Steve Loader was the man to beat in the finals and he tipped in the…

I am changing a few things to make it even quicker, but I don’t want to share the details just yet WHEN it comes to quick naturally aspirated streeters – true street cars – it’s hard to fault Todd Foley and his VH Commodore. It runs mid-nines driving to the track and still runs a Trimatic transmission and BorgWarner diff, just like General Motors intended. His passion for the Holden bent-eight is so strong that he organised the first Holden-Powered Nationals (SM, Jul ’16) earlier this year. We caught up with Todd to have a chat about his Commodore and what plans he has for the future. Hey mate, your VH is a quick unit, why did you stick with the Trimatic and Borgy rear? Initially it was just about…

DOZEN MATTER ON PAGE 132 of this issue we have a cool write-up on an amazing V12 LS1 project that’s been put together by brothers Shane and Matt Corish of V12LS.com. The guys took two standard LS1 V8 engines, cut them up, and smashed them together to form a V12. It’s a very cool piece of engineering, and the lads are set to debut it at SEMA later this year with a view to selling it commercially. We posted a video of the V12 in action on our Facebook page; here’s a sample of the response it received. Nicholas Bromfield – The question needs to be asked: If they had two LS1s, why didn’t they make a V16? Missed opportunity. STREET MACHINE – Way too long. V12 is as long…

THE BLUE OVAL BRETHREN DESCEND ON HEATHCOTE PARK RACEWAY FOR THE FORD FORUM NATIONALS I HAVE to admit, I didn’t have high hopes that this year’s Ford Forum Nats at Heathcote Park Raceway would go ahead. As I drove up from south-east Melbourne, wipers at full speed, roads covered in water, temperature hovering around five degrees, all I could think was that I’d hate to be one of the guys coming from interstate. But about half an hour from the track something weird happened – it stopped raining, and the road became bone dry. I might get to see some racing after all! The Weather God must be a Ford man. And Ford nuts in general must be bred pretty tough, because there were well over 100 people braving the…

X-RATED Owner: Casey Johnson Car: XR Falcon 500 Engine: 351ci Cleveland Trans: C10 Diff: Nine-inch Rolling stock: Rocket Racing (f), Cragar mags with Radir cheater slicks (r) SUPERBIRD Owner: Casey Johnson Car: XC panel van Engine: 250 crossflow Trans: Three-speed column-shift Diff: Standard Rolling stock: ET mags, 15x7 (f) and 15x8.5 (r); BF Goodrich/Hankook tyres with hoon writing XR WAGON Owner: Casey Johnson Car: XR Falcon wagon Engine: 302ci Windsor Trans: C4 Diff: Standard Rolling stock: Standard wheels with GT hubcaps (f & r); one-inch whitewall tyres LIKE many of the Junkers, Casey Johnson has an arsenal of toys at his disposal, and all are period-styled and cool as shit. His X-Rated XR Falcon is built as a straight-liner, but still sees plenty of street use. The pano is a…

THE OWNER WANTED ALL THE STOMP, STOP AND STEER OF A PRESENT-MODEL HSV WRAPPED IN A CLASSIC 60S CAMARO JUST about every feature car that Telf or Scotty lets me write about for Street Machine blows me away. It’s an honour to help Aussie street machiners tell their stories to all our awesome readers and viewers, and I just about always learn something about the craftsmanship, innovation and just plain hard work that happens every night after dinner in private garages – or every day in restoration shops – all around the country. Every now and then, something comes along that blows me away even harder. And this green Camaro is one of those. It’s a commissioned build by Extreme Body Repairs in Dandenong for a shy 40-something Melbourne bloke…

WE HAVE covered many events at Sydney Dragway since it opened in 2004, but Fitted Friday IV was the first we’ve attended that didn’t involve any actual drag racing – if you don’t count meetings disrupted by rain! Despite the absence of any quarter-mile action, a large crowed packed the pits on a freezing evening for the fourth running of Tarik Aly’s annual event. Why would thousands of punters give up Friday-night Netflix to pay for the privilege of standing around in icy conditions to look at cars? For starters, anyone living near a big city would have noted the massive resurgence in cruise nights and Donut Derelicts-style car park meets over the past few years, but not many cater for the late-model brigade – often due to the heat…

WIN! WIN one of three Eagle One gift packs, including Wax-As-U-Wash, 20/20 Glass Cleaner, Wax-As-U-Dry, Nevr-Dull Wadding Polish and Wipe & Shine Detailer. See www.eagleone.com.au for info! BRAD WARD 1996 FORD EF FALCON XR6 “MY FRIENDS and I built my XR6 together. The engine now runs Ross Racing pistons; Spool rods; Tunnel Vision plenum; Jim Mock Motorsport exhaust manifold; Precision 6766 turbo with a Turbosmart 50mm Pro-Gate wastegate; ID2000 injectors; Tunnel Vision twin-feed fuel rail; and twin 044 fuel pumps with a surge tank, running E85. It’s all controlled with a Haltech Sport 1000 with wide-band control. Gearbox is a T56 six-speed manual with direct twin-plate clutch, running to a Harrop Truetrac with 4.10 gears. It puts out 420kW (563hp) at the wheels at 20psi. Body mods include a Scorcher…

THE stand-out best feature of last year’s inaugural Red CentreNATS in Alice Springs was the fact that entrants with cars that, shall we say, push the limit of street registration were able to cruise around the streets of Alice with the full approval of the authorities. It was awesome to see the likes of Lynchy and Gary Myers enjoying the sights in cars that are normally only seen on the burnout pad. The same scheme is on offer for this year’s event (2-4 September), and to highlight the point, the Red CentreNATS crew organised for Jason Bright to take his Team BOC V8 Supercar for a promotional spin around town. We didn’t see any skids from the number #8 (a la Whincup at Summernats 29) and neither will we at…

PLANKKING SIMON, congratulations to you and your predecessors on your 35th anniversary! I have been reading the mag since the early days of Van Wheels and have seen it evolve over the years. All of the changes have been for the positive. I only have one suggestion: Bring back Plankkman! Tom, email SIGHT FOR SORE EYES HAVING just read your 35th anniversary special it was great to look at some of the trends from the past. How things have improved, especially the stance and wheel locations on the cars. I remember most of the featured cars and saw a lot of them in the flesh – I guess this is starting to indicate how old I am! But the best thing about your 80s special was that one could read…

We wanted the focus to be on the engine bay, interior and boot, which meant a lot of things had to be hidden away A FEW years back we started hearing rumours about this crazy Torana that was getting built to do everything. ‘What do you mean, everything?’ we asked. Burnouts, drags, show ’n’ shine – everything! At the time we thought: ‘There’s no way.’ Oh sure, you can build a car that will do all of that, but it won’t do anything particularly well. Well, this LH Torana, built by good mates Mark Siracusa and Matt Cowan, proves us wrong. The covers came off this glorious green machine at Summernats 28, and even then no one could quite believe that Matt and Mark were planning to burn rubber in…

I wanted mod cons in an old car – the look of the 1950s, until you lift the bonnet! AS YOU may have already guessed from the pics, Queenslander Darren Ryan is a card-carrying humpy fan. “I’d always liked the look of the FJ humpy shape, as my dad Ronald Ryan speedway-raced them in the 1960s A-grade,” he explains. Darren particularly liked the idea of owning an FJ ute, and figured he’d get around to it one day. But several years ago, fate stepped in and gave him a sharp nudge, in the form of a mystery illness. “The doctors thought I had lung cancer and the prognosis wasn’t good,” he says. “After the test results came back I found I actually had [the inflammatory disease] sarcoidosis.” Though afflicted with…

DALE FROM CASTLE HILL EXHAUST SAID: “YOU’RE GETTINGMARRIED AND I’LL GET YOU THERE.” THREE HOURS LATER THE HQ MADE 606RWHP AND I WAS OFF TO MY WEDDING! GREG South’s eye-punching HQ Kingswood looks good enough to take trophies at our best indoor shows, and, thanks to a twin-turbo 427-cube LSX, it has enough power to smoke out the straight at Powercruise. But he didn’t build it for either. We’ve all got one mate who has the fastest or angriest car in the group, and so it was for Greg. One day, he decided enough was enough: “I thought my mate’s twin-turbo V8 Commodore needed some competition, and I had an HQ sitting in my mum’s field for a few years,” he explains. As the proprietor of G Force Automotive in…

IF YOU’VE been bitten by the drag racing bug, there are few things better than being able to step back in time and feel like you’re right back at the roots of the sport. Nowadays, it’s quite in vogue to revive traditional events with a big song and dance and a hefty entry fee, but one place you’ll never need to make sure you’re wearing period-correct leather chaps is on the runway at Eagle Field airbase. Situated in Firebaugh, California, roughly halfway between San Francisco and Los Angeles, Eagle Field opens its gates each May for nostalgia drag racing in its purest form: heads-up, flag-drop eighth-mile grudge matches. It’s a real throwback to the gritty racing of the 1950s and 60s, with low-tech track facilities, open pit and staging lane…

I DECIDED THE BEST WAY TO REALLY EXPERIENCE WHAT GOES ON WAS TO CAMP OUT IT’S not been a fun time to be a land speed racer in the US in recent years. Ongoing problems with crust thickness at the famous Bonneville salt flats saw the annual Speed Week trials cancelled in 2014 and 2015, leaving many speed-chasing hot rodders with an itch they can’t fully scratch. The dirt course on the dry lakebed at El Mirage in California also had some patchy weather conditions last year, shortening the season there. Fortunately, this year the US land speed racing season began as planned with the Southern California Timing Association (SCTA) opening event at El Mirage on the weekend of 14-15 May. It’s always a big deal, and I decided that…

WIN! WIN one of three Mothers packages, containing a bunch of awesome gear to make your ride looks its best. See www.mothers.com for details, picture for illustration purposes only Send your photos of fun with cars to: Sunday Too Far Away, Street Machine, Locked Bag 12, Oakleigh, Vic 3166, or email high-resolution images (1mb+) to: sundaytoofaraway@bauer-media.com.au . Please send copies of prints as we are unable to return your photos.…