Innehållsförteckning för April 2021 från Street Machine

THE SB4 ENGINE USES A 7.0-LITRE LS7 BOTTOM END AND MERCURY RACING’S OWN DOHC CYLINDER HEADS FOR A THUMPING 750HP THE epic, American-style pro touring ’69 Camaro you see here began its journey from tired RS to corner-carving masterpiece thanks to the intervention of owner David’s long-suffering family. “I have always liked Camaros, and had been looking at them online for ages,” David begins. “My son Zac was around eight at the time and went off his brain at me saying I’ll never get one of these cars. My wife Frances was also quite tired of me talking about Camaros and searching for them every night. She ended up looking at my browsing history on Carsales, and organised my workshop mechanic to go look at this car.” Dave’s family then…

FOR many years, a Chevy C10 was a dream car for Rachael ‘Durbz’ Durbidge. Not one of those common pick-ups, though, but a panel truck – a sort of oversized panel van. Rachael saw it as the perfect canvas for her to work her magic on, and in case you haven’t heard of her before, she’s kind of a big deal in her chosen field. Rachael, originally from Gawler, SA, started a spray painting apprenticeship at age 15, and has never lost the passion for it almost 20 years later. If you want to check out some of her history, dig up SM, Apr ’16, where we covered her achievements up to that point in her life. Fast-forward five years and Rachael is now living in Perth, WA, working both…

SLATHERED in lustrous gloss black, Justin Walker’s colossal two-door 1964 Galaxie 500XL is a real head-turner, sporting a perfectly proportioned chop and highlighted by big rims and a hefty blower poking through the bonnet. But it was a long, somewhat hellish ordeal for the Kiwi to get it to this point. AS I BACKED THE GALAXIE OFF THE DELIVERY TRUCK RAMPS, THE CAR FELL OFF TO ONE SIDE AND BENT UNDER THE REAR QUARTER In the late 2000s, Justin was chasing a cruise car, his main criterion being that it had to be bigger than his tubbed, ’caged, two-seater pro street ’64 Falcon Sprint. “I wasn’t focused on a ’64 Gal, but I liked the look of this one in dark maroon paint, chopped and mini-tubbed; it had been featured…

WHEN your streeters run 200mph on 275s and you want to step up into radial racing leagues, you need to be swinging a bigger bat to compete. But Frank Marchese and Dan Szabolics, along with Dan’s father Wally, aren’t going in blind with this ProCharged, 3500hp, billet Pro Line Racing Hemi. The monster mill is housed in a 2004 Pontiac Firebird that has already proven itself in radial racing both here and in the USA. Frank is fettling it using all the experience gleaned from his years at Dandy Engines, in partnership with Dan and Wally, who have their own runs on the board having built killer cars like Dan’s twin-turbo 632ci HQ Monaro (SM, Dec ’19) and blown LX Torana (SM, April ’20). Frank, the 2018 Street Machine Drag…

THE TOW CAR STARTED HAVING ELECTRICAL PROBLEMS, WHICH RESULTED IN THEM DRIVING ACROSS THE NULLARBOR AT NIGHT TIME WHILE HOLDING TORCHES OUT THE WINDOW IT’S a pretty big achievement to get your car into the pages of this mag, especially if you’re on the west coast. Even more so back in the 80s and 90s, when just getting someone across the Nullarbor to take photos was a major undertaking. Not sure, but maybe they didn’t have cameras in Perth back then. One car that smashed that mould was Dave ‘Bam-Bam’ Martin’s chopped HQ sedan, which appeared in Street Machine not once but three times! Admittedly, its first appearance (SM, Jul-Aug ’87) could be classed as a micro-feature, taking up little more than half a page of the magazine’s real estate.…

IT RUNS ANALLY-HEADED 250 SIX, BUT AS SOON AS I’M OFF MYP-PLATES, I WANT TO PUT A BIGGER MOTOR IN IT WE ALL remember our first cars fondly, but Seth DePiazza will certainly never forget his, as the 17-year-old apprentice panel beater built this killer ’77 XC Fairmont GXL. With a smoothed and body-coloured engine bay, four-linked rear end and mega 20x12in Intro billets out back, this more-door is the perfect P-plate beach cruiser! What led you to the big-hipped 70s Ford sedan? I really fell in love with coupes – I have been going to Summernats since I was six or seven and tough coupes really stuck out to me, especially Gary Myers’s XA. I couldn’t afford a coupe, so I started looking for sedans. I think being around…

> GAG OF THE MONTH TRY MY PATIENTS FIVE surgeons are discussing who makes the best kind of patient to operate on. The first surgeon says: “I like to see accountants on my operating table, because when you open them up, everything inside is numbered.” The second responds: “Yeah, but you should try electricians! Everything inside them is colour-coded.” The third surgeon says: “I really think librarians are the best! Everything inside them is in alphabetical order.” “You know, I like construction workers, the fourth surgeon says. “Those guys always understand when you have a few parts left over.” “You’re all wrong,” the fifth surgeon says. “Politicians are the easiest to operate on – no guts, no heart, no balls, no brain and no spine. Plus, the head and the…

THERE are a few truly big accolades in the field of custom car building – Street Machine of the Year, Summernats Grand Champion and the Ridler Award, for example. Now you can add to that list the Hot Wheels Legends Tour, a worldwide virtual car show that sees the winner immortalised as a 1:64 scale die-cast vehicle! Last year’s winner was Riley Stair’s incredible 1970 Pontiac Trans Am – a car that has taken the pro touring concept to a whole new level and shows off Riley’s awesome fabrication skills. The Trans Am and the other 2020 finalists were judged in a ceremony at Jay Leno’s Garage, with celebrity judges including Snoop Dogg, Brionna Lynch and Gabriel ‘Fluffy’ Iglesias making the hard calls. This year will see the fourth instalment…

THE opening scenes in this sequel to The Fast and the Furious see three drivers gearing up for a race around the streets of Miami. Tej Parker (Ludacris) is coordinating the illegal shindig, and opts to call in runaway ex-policeman Brian O’Conner (Walker) to make up the numbers. Brian races from his bedroom and jumps into a silver coupe, firing it up to the undeniable tune of an RB26 before flogging it out into the night. This scene alone would etch the Nissan Skyline R34 GT-R into the hearts and minds of thousands of newly crowned petrolheads worldwide. Brian finds himself thrown straight back into the world he tried to run away from. His R34 gets totalled straight after the race in a pursuit with the feds, who force him…

THE 2021 Powercruise season kicked off in hot and smoky style in mid-February as Queensland Raceway hosted Powerplay #38 for some 450 entered modified cars. Much like the Big Bash is to test cricket, Powerplay rolls all the cruising, drifting, powerskids, off-street racing and show ’n’ shine of a three-day Powercruise into just one day. It makes for non-stop action – a token lunch break of just 20 minutes highlights this – from the first cruising session at 8am all the way to burnouts under night skies. What did we learn? Well, the track at Willowbank is a brutally hot place in February; locals come out in force, with many building cars specifically for these events; the racing action is very competitive; and the mullet has made a glorious comeback…

VERY few indoor car shows have come to fruition around Australia over the past 12 months, which made the Adelaide Auto Expo, held at the Wayville Showgrounds over the last weekend of January, all the more satisfying for Croweater car nuts. Organiser Geof Tartoosie had copped a no-go from the government for the original November dates due to COVID uncertainty, so it was second time lucky for the event locals refer to as the Extreme Auto Expo (or Extreme for short). In truth, Extreme is actually only one component of the show, alongside the Hot Rod Show, Zippel Cruise, Barn Find Auction and Dream Car Garage (for the supercar set). This year, the event spanned three pavilions, offering plenty of space for COVID compliance, with the silver lining being ample…

THE WHOLE EFFECT IS THAT OF A ROAD-GOING SPORT SEDAN, AND THE TORANA HAS THE SPICE UNDER THE BONNET TO BACK UP THE LOOKS ASK Gerrard McCrostie what his next project might be and his answer is firm: “None. Life is complete.” Gerry says this not only because he’s thrilled to own and drive this awesome yellow Torana – although he is – but because his doctors have told him his time is almost up: melanoma – cancer. So, like Gerry has lately, we will try to focus on the good things, namely his wild LC, dubbed the XU-3. And yep, despite the LJ grille and tail-lights, the car is actually a genuine LC GTR – but more on that later. “I’ve had a passion for cars all my life,…

WITH COVID tax inflating the asking prices of most desirable (and many previously thought undesirable!) Aussie cars, the barrier to entry for our sport can look fairly daunting. But have no fear; there is still plenty of great raw material out there. With a small budget and a truckload of passion, even the most unassuming of models can be transformed into something special. A case in point: the humble XH Falcon panel van. The last of its kind, the XH married the ancient rear of the XD Falcon van with the nosecone and dash of the then-new EL Falcon sedan. And while much of the XH was super old-school (check out the barn doors at the back!) it did benefit from the 4.0-litre straight-six, four-speed auto and much improved suspension…

LUKE FEATHERSTONE 1973 HJ ONE TONNER “MY HJ Tonner was panel-beaten and painted in acrylic 19 years ago by me. It’s got a 421ci small-block Chev up front that made 445hp at the wheels on the Dalton Automotive chassis dyno. The full-manual, reverse-pattern, transbraked Turbo 400 was built by Paul Rogers, and runs a 4800rpm Dominator converter. A nine-inch diff with a 4.11 full spool and 31-spline axles rounds out the driveline. Recently I had the rear end upgraded to a Motor Fab split mono-leaf with sliders and traction bars. The car runs on premium pump fuel and has gone 10.62@129mph, with a little left in it. Wheels are 15x3.5 and 15x8 Weld Draglites, with 275/60 Mickey Thompson ET Street rear tyres for traction.” CHRIS BROOKES LC TORANA “I PURCHASED…

WIN! WIN an awesome digital multimeter from our friends at Wurth, valued at $175! Please include your mailing address with your submission.…

WE ALL know the drill: Buy a car, get it regoed in your name and pay the stamp duty on the purchase price. Where it can get a little murky is when you buy an unregistered car, spend a small fortune fixing it up and then have to work out its value when it comes time to register it. Chris Bitmead, owner and builder of the Street Machine of the Year-winning XBOSS XB Falcon, got a rude reminder of this recently. He received an email from the Western Australian Office of State Revenue (OSR) that suggested he might owe as much as $65,000 in stamp duty and associated penalties! “Back in January 2019, the state government instructed insurance companies to provide information on classic vehicles manufactured prior to 1990 with…

Write to: Your Stuff, Street Machine, Locked Bag 12, Oakleigh, Vic 3166 or email streetmachine@aremedia.com.au. Make sure you include your address (not necessarily for publication). Keep it short and sweet! > LETTER OF THE MONTH FORTY NOT OUT FORTY years is a bloody long time in anyone’s books. But here we are – 40 years of Street Machine; 40 years of blood, sweat and gears. As the automotive aftermarket has evolved, so has Street Machine along with it. As I sit here reading the latest issue, would anyone ever have thought that one day on the front cover would be a Land Cruiser (right) – 540ci, 8/71-blown big-block sticking through the bonnet, ’bagged on 24-inch rims, with its sole purpose to go out there and wage war on tyres! What is…

ACCORDING to Darren Schembri, driving his brawny XY Fairmont can get a bit hairy. “Once a bit of boost comes in, it gets pretty scary,” he says. Mind you, he immediately follows that with: “It’s a lot of fun!” Yep, it’s fair to say this car is a bit of a handful. After all, the twin-turbo, 440-cube small-block that lives up front cracks the 1000hp mark at just 9.8psi of boost, before ramping up to 18psi and a ballistic 1400hp! Now, before you go assuming that Darren’s bitten off more than he can chew, the Fairmont has lived in his garage for 22 years. In that time, it’s had a number of normally aspirated engines, including a 520hp mill good for 10.8@123mph, a 650hp donk that ran 10.22@131mph, and a…

IT TAKES a determined person to chase the project car snowball down the hill. You go in thinking you’re just repairing rust in the battery tray, which leads to a multi-year saga as the project is reconfigured into something far more thorough than you ever anticipated. Scott McPherson must have a particularly hyperactive determination gland; he went through the process twice on his immaculate HG ute! The ute came into Scott’s possession as a roller, painted white and rolling on Center Lines. “I stripped it and repainted it myself in the shed at home,” Scott says. “I had the car for about three years, but I sold it to build something else. I used to build and sell cars; I wasn’t one to hold on to a car for too…

SYDNEY’S Tony Moit is around five years younger than his brother Michael, who owns the mental WOG-007 Cortina we featured in the SM Yearbook 2020. Tony spent his teenage years tagging along with Michael as he immersed himself in the 1980s hot car and street racing scene, so it’s not entirely surprising that he was keen to get into a tough ride as soon as possible – even before he got his licence. But the car he chose was a little out of the ordinary. “Everyone was doing Cortinas and Capris, and I wanted something different,” Tony recalls. “I found this 260Z sitting in some overgrown grass with a blown motor and gearbox and asked the owner if they wanted to sell it to me. When they said yes, I…

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1985 NISSAN BLUEBIRD SCOTT BROWN “HERE’S my latest money pit, a Nissan Bluebird wagon I’ve had for three or so years. I decided that the original motor needed a freshen-up, so it came out and went in the bin. That’s when things got out of hand. It now has a 1UZ-FE 4.0-litre V8 out of an SC400 Lexus. Behind that is a T56 six-speed manual ’box. The diff was replaced with a shortened AU Falcon diff with a Truetrac centre on custom four-link bars and Viking double adjustable coil-overs. Front suspension is now S13 Nissan Silvia coil-overs. Front brakes are yet to be determined. Exhaust is a full mirror-polished, stainless-steel, twin 2.5-inch to single three-inch custom system. The car rolls on Performance Wheels Formula rims – 17x7 up front and…

KATE Russell has a magnetic personality and can chinwag about cars, bikes and trucks until the cows come home. And Kate is the real deal, getting down and dirty to build her extremely cool ’53 Chevy sled named Colin. When did you get the ’53? In 2018, off Gumtree; it’s an original Aussie-built RHD. The Chevy was matte-black with red interior, registered and running. There was not much rust – just in the usual spots. I’d gone to look at the car and told Dad about the lack of rust. He didn’t believe me, so he had a look himself and then told me he’d buy it if I didn’t! Did you get stuck straight into the mods? I was FIFO and would do up the Chevy on my breaks,…

01 TAKE CONTROL DRAG cars, track cars and daily drivers are all subjected to different forces through different handling set-ups. The suspension and driveline experts at QA1 know this, and have now released their GM 2.0 Tubular Control Arm range. They’ve been designed to suit QA1’s Pro Coil coil-over shocks, improving upon factory geometry. Street Control Arms increase positive caster, and use polyurethane bushings for ongoing durability. Pro Touring Control Arms use longer upper ball-joints for improved caster gain, leading to better cornering grip. Bushings are made from an ultralow-friction composite for easy movement. Finally, Drag Race Control Arms have adjustable droop-stop, allowing you to perfect front end rise during launches. The control arms are available to suit plenty of GM vehicles, including the 1964-1972 A-body, 1967-1981 Camaro and Firebird,…

THESE days, it’s not uncommon to come across regular streeters with four-digit power levels, and a boosted LS motor is a popular way to join that club. They might be decried as boring by some, but an LS can make great power with good reliability and easy maintenance schedules, as this latest Harrop-supercharged iron block from Sydney’s Warspeed Industries proves. Using mostly off-the-shelf parts, this build should make 1000hp reliably, thanks in part to the intercooled Harrop TVS2650 pump sat on top. Starting with a 6.0-litre Gen III LQ4 that had been dragged out of a South Carolina river, Warspeed’s Troy Worsley had Jenkins Performance Engines in Penrith machine the block and balance the bottom end, after it was hot-tanked multiple times. “Even though this is a balanced assembly from…