Innholdsfortegnelse for December 2015 i Street Machine

20-22 NOV, NARROGIN, WA Narrogin RevHeads 2015, Narrogin Town Centre. Contact Patrick 0437 898 325 or Stew 0439 098 492. 21 NOV, PETRIE, QLD Sims Rock ’n’ Roll Show ’n’ Shine, Old Petrie Town. Contact Simon 0449 291 000. 22 NOV, CULCAIRN, NSW Culcairn Show ’n’ Shine & Swap Meet,Culcairn Football Ground. Contact Brendan 0438 298 717. 22 NOV, MEREDITH, VIC Meredith Car Show & Family Day, Meredith Football Grounds. Contact Leon 0407 871 151. 27-28 NOV, ADELAIDE, SA Adelaide Auto Expo 2015, Adelaide Showgrounds. Contact Geoff 0410 356 356. 27-29 NOV, GEELONG, VIC Geelong Revival, Ritchie Boulevarde, Geelong Waterfront. Visit www.geelongrevival.com.au. 27-29 NOV, SHEPPARTON, VIC Shepparton Springnats, Shepparton Showgrounds. Visit www.autofest.com.au. 28 NOV, COORIEMUNGLE, VIC Prison Break Weekend, Camp Cooriemungle. Contact 0417 983 578. 28-29 NOV, MORUYA, NSW Shannons…

IT’S FUNNY how a love for certain automotive marques or models can span many years. Owning these rides can create lasting memories and experiences that keep them close to your heart. For Colin Paynter, his choice of cars over the past four decades has gone full-circle, beginning and ending with two different ’39 Hudson 112s, with a bunch of tough Valiants and a 30-year stint with some US Mopar muscle in between. 01: COLIN bought his first car – a 1939 Hudson 112 sedan – from a Warragul wrecker when he was 15. It only had 40,000 miles on it. “I paid $50 for it and clocked up plenty of miles cutting laps of our driveway” Colin laughs. “At 16, I took it to the drive-ins using the plates off…

STREET ELITE AS WE went to print, Street Machine Drag Challenge 2015 was just wrapping up. The 50-odd cars that competed drove 1400km on the road and raced at four tracks over five days. We posted regular updates on streetmachine.com.au and our Facebook page, and it seemed a lot of you enjoyed sharing in the epic adventure. Rhys Davies – Probably the coolest car event in Oz I reckon. Well done Street Machine. Brad Pettitt – Hands down the best thing you can do in a car. Better then sex! LOL Chris Pace – Awesome. How crazy is the green HQ ute off the line? Greg Richards – I thought these were supposed to be street cars? Tim Bailey – They’re all registered and will be driven over 1400km, some…

AS FAR as 21st birthday celebrations go, the 2015 Street Machine Supernats was really one for the books. On the surface Supernats might seem pretty similar to a lot of other events, but there’s something unique about it that has kept people coming back each year for over two decades. Sure, there are burnouts – lots of burnouts – but it’s not just another skid comp. There’s drag racing for the huge variety of cars and trucks that enter, too, but it’s not a street meet, and there’s a show ’n’ shine, go-to-whoa and even a Grand Champion award, but it’s not Summernats. Whatever’s in the Supernats secret recipe – first cooked up more than two decades ago by organisers Ahmet and Gil – it’s clearly tasty. The event now…

JAY Bloss has a rough history with Holden Geminis. Around 10 years ago he and wife Carlie built a TF Gemini show car that was scheduled to debut at Summernats 19. The bright pink baby was finished three weeks early and featured a crazy flame interior and a Toyota turbo four-pot under the bonnet. But it wasn’t meant to be. On the way to Summernats, just three weeks after the car was finished, it came off its trailer and was damaged so badly it was unsalvageable, good only for the scrap-metal yard. Jay always said he’d get another Gemini one day, but a fling with fast street cars, not to mention a fairly nuts nitrous-injected, Clevo-powered Sigma burnout beast, meant it would be almost a decade before another Gem wound…

CLEAN, crisp and packing a blown small-block – it’s no wonder that after 30 years with this tough Valiant Regal hardtop, George Kollis is still smitten. “Back in 1986 it was just a dirty old Valiant” the South Australian remembers. “I was looking for a daily thrasher, but I actually walked away when I first saw it. There were lots of dents and rust, and plenty more cars to choose from in those days. The owner, Italo, was an old bloke who talked us back for another look, so we gave it a proper inspection. My brother Nick and I peeled back the crusty seat covers and the trim was like brand new. I muttered to Nick: ‘F**k me, the interior is immaculate!’ So we cut a deal for a…

MUMBO FOR DEEGAN GOULBURN, NSW racer Chris Deegan is stepping up in Pro Street, ditching the small-block Chev from his Torana in favour of the combo that ran so successfully in Steve Sarkis’s 10.5 Pontiac: a 540ci KB Oldsmobile that has previously run 6.48@219mph. The Olds combo includes a carbonfibre hat, 16/71 supercharger, MSD Pro Mag, complete fuel system and recently freshened bottom end. While this deal would certainly have the goods to put Deegan’s Torana in the sixes, a bit less tune would see it as a 7.50 contender all day, every day. The car is currently at Street Car Fabrications for a bunch of work, including notched rails, new pipes, front and rear engine plates, fuel tanks, breather cans and a braced rear-end housing. It currently runs a…

01 DOWN THE BARREL INCREASE airflow with one of Quick Fuel Technology’s new 450cfm four-barrel carburettors. Designed for small-displacement four-cylinder, six-cylinder and V8 engines, the carburettors retain all the features found in larger cfm models. An alcohol version for oval-track racing is also available, as are custom applications. For a full list of these features visit www.quickfueltechnology.com.au or contact APD on (08) 8363 5566. 02 HUMPY HANDLES THE Rare Spares range of repo goodies for your old Holden is truly staggering, including this WH1010 ‘FJ Special’ window winder handle. Produced with care in chrome finish, they easily replace those faded, chipped and pitted original handles to bring the vehicle to a showroom standard. They’ll set you back $65.95. Info: www.rarespares.net.au. 03 POWER TRIP THESE alloy power steering reservoirs are a…

ANY car enthusiast worth their salt will spot a sharp, two-door muscle car from way off. And if it looks grandpa-spec, that just piques the interest all the more. So when we spied Corinne Miller’s crisp, venetian-sportng VJ Charger XL, we naturally had to find out more. Cool Charger Corinne, what’s it running? It’s got a 340 with a 904 Torqueflite trans and a nine-inch. Very tough! Have you owned it for a while? Yeah, it’s my first car. My partner Jarrod introduced me to the car scene before I even had a licence. I learnt from him that if you only like one make and model you’ll miss out on driving some really awesome cars. So I’m not partial to a particular model; we own Fords, Holdens and Valiants.…

EVERYONE loves a hot rod with a bit of classic engineering up front, like a flathead V8 or even a four-banger, but they require some mechanical sympathy and a bit of maintenance to run their best. “I’m doing this ’32 roadster for a customer and he was quite keen on running a flathead” Ron from Kustom Bitz says. “I love flatheads, but when he told me he wanted to drive it up and down the east coast doing all the hot rod runs, I knew I had to set him straight. The trouble is, flatheads are great if you want to trailer your car to the event and then cruise around there, but if you’re going to be doing big miles you’ll be forever working on it” Obviously that was…

AS WE go to press, the Street Machine Drag Challenge 2015 has been run and done, with Victoria’s Quentin Feast and his twin-turbo LH Torana taking the overall win, as well as the top trophy in the Radial Blown class. But he didn’t have an easy time of it; the Commodores of Terry Seng and Adam Rogash were right there in the mix and after five days the winning margin between Quentin and Terry was just 0.031sec, with Adam just 0.417sec further back. It was a surprise victory for Quentin, who destroyed a transmission on day one at Calder Park while Terry began with a 7.86@166mph. “When we had that trans problem on day one and then Terry ran a seven, we thought: ‘No one is catching him’” Quentin says.…

BREAKDOWN VEHICLES: 1970 Porsche 917, 1970 Ferrari 512, 1970 Alfa Romeo T33, 1970 Aston Martin DBS, Ferrari 275 GTB, Ford D-Series, 1970 Rover 3500, 1969 Porsche 911, 1970 Chevrolet Corvette C3, 1966 Ford Transit STARS: Steve McQueen, Elga Andersen, Siegfried Rauch, Ronald Leigh-Hunt, Fred Haltiner, Luc Merenda, Christopher Waite DIRECTOR: Lee H Katzin ACTION: Gritty and realistic race drama based on the real-life Le Mans 24-hour endurance event. The slow-motion crash scenes add an exciting element to this near-documentary film PLOT: American racer Michael Delaney struggles with guilt following the death of a fellow driver, amidst the action and turmoil of professional motorsport REGARDED as the peak and, sadly, the beginning of the end of Steve McQueen’s career, Le Mans was a real labour of love for the then-Hollywood A-lister…

THE boys at Down Town Kustoms in Taree, NSW have made a name for themselves with a few off-tap builds that are as much coachbuilding and manufacturing as they are traditional street machine building or hot-rodding. Along with their SHQRP HQ Monaro build, Glenn Profilio’s FC ute is a masterclass in how to build a proper pro touring car to an elite standard. The handmade chassis, sorted suspension and stout LS drivetrain are easy to spot, as is the incredibly straight body. But much of the genius in the ute – known as Refined – is almost totally hidden. For instance, only the middle few centimetres of the roof skin is left over from the original Holden sheet metal. This wasn’t just done for aesthetics; Refined was built as a…

A OUTLAW SHOOTOUT THE Moits Mustang of Paul Mouhayet bagged the $10K first prize in the much-heralded blower vs turbo face-off. B SHOW & GO CHAMPION PHIL Kerjean had a killer weekend, finally bagging the Show & Go Champion award after coming very close in past years. As well as scoring wins in the Superskids and Top Graphics/Paint, he spent more time thrashing the tyres than just about any other car there. C TOP WHEELSTAND CHRIS Stevermuer really went for it in the wheelstand competition, sitting his orange Torry on the back bumper and dropping every jaw in the place. D SHOW & SHINE CHAMPION BOB Gallo’s Supremacy XC Falcon – his take on Adam LeBrese’s SMOTY winner – took out the Show & Shine Champion gong, as well trophies…

SINCE 2008, the Chopped Rod & Custom show in the tiny Victorian goldfields town of Newstead has been promoting chilled-out automotive good times, based around a love of traditional-style rods, customs and bikes. The show adopted its now-signature dirt drags in 2010 and has grown like crazy ever since. The brainchild of brothers Ryan and Kyle Ford and their mate Paul Williams, Chopped is very much a product of its environment. Historically , the Castlemaine area was one of the early centres of hot rodding in Australia, with Ryan and Kyle’s dad one of the key early adopters. But perhaps even more importantly, the fact that the guys have a strong network of family and friends around them has allowed them to turn a casual weekend show at a footy…

PERFORMANCE Car Mania returned to Winton Raceway in September for three fun-packed days of smoke-filled mayhem. A variety of driving events, including powerskids, drag racing, burnouts and plenty of track time on the circuit, saw carloads of mates smoking the tyres. After 10 years, PCM still has its original relaxed country atmosphere, and thanks to redevelopment over the past decade, Winton is now a first-class facility, with a great pit area and plenty of shed space available to competitors. Some of the pit garages resembled rubber forts, with stacks of innocent, unsuspecting new treads awaiting destruction. There was no prize money on offer, just bragging rights for those who came out on top in the competition events. A bumper crowd turned out to watch the Saturday arvo heads-up drag racing.…

JUST as the 28C GTR XU-1 of Peter Brock revelled in the wet conditions of the 1972 Hardie-Ferodo 500, Toranafest 2015 soldiered on in the face of some pretty miserable weather and ended up having a win. Hosted by the Hunter Valley Torana Club, the weekend-long event had some serious pulling power, with a total of 339 Toranas in attendance, representing every Australian state and territory except the NT. A bunch of diehard Torry disciples from the Apple Isle even made the pilgrimage across the creek with their cars aboard the Spirit of Tasmania! For me and my wife Kirsten, travelling to the ’Fest meant a much less daunting two-hour commute north from Sydney, but the fact that we were making the trip in her freshly completed LC Torana, MINTY,…

WHEN you think of the term ‘street machine’, a mustard yellow old-school Corolla may not be the first thing that comes to mind, but with its nine-second timeslips, Chris Ethell’s turbo V8 example definitely fits the bill. What a wild swap! Was it a long build? I bought it off my mate Scott Hoffman from Cleveland Exhausts, pretty much how it is now. Scott built the car and also has a 2JZ-powered KE20 that’s just stupid fast – it’s in the sevens. I always liked the car and have two others at home. I didn’t think he’d sell it to me, but I badgered Scott for months and eventually he needed a bit of money so I plonked cash down in front of him. Have you done much to it…

COMICAL ONE day Superman was feeling a bit frisky. So he decided to ask some of his superfriends if they knew where he could get a bit of action. First he asked Batman: “Hey Batman! Who’s good in the sack around there?” “Well Superman, everyone knows that Wonder Woman is the best lover” Batman replied. “Why not give her a go?” “Hmmm, I’d love to, but Wonder Woman and I are friends. I don’t really want to do anything that might spoil that.” “Okay, your loss” Batman replied, and sped off in the Batmobile. A while later Superman was flying along and spotted the Green Lantern, so he zoomed down to greet him. “Hey GL, I’m looking for some action. Who’s the best lover around here?” “Everyone knows that Wonder…

THESE days we all want massive-cube big-blocks and huge injector hats to sling us down the drag strip, but there are a bunch of guys and gals that can’t go past a trusty six-pot. Eight years ago the late Mark Stewart launched the Six Banger Nationals with the Warwick Drag Racing Club in Queensland, and the event continues to grow each year, with 90 entries facing the starter in 2015. The event is open to both old-school and modern high-tech sixes, be they in a straight or V6. Mick Borg took out the Modified class and the Grand Champion award in his formidable Holden-powered digger, narrowly beating mate Bob Sinclair in his front-engine dragster, with a 6.112-second pass. Toowoomba's Andrew Hoey took out this year’s Blown/Turbo championship in his wheelstanding,…

LAST month I wrote that the best part about my job is handing the keys to a 520hp muscle car over to a lucky reader, but I forgot that surprising the winner of the Valvoline Street Machine Of The Year award with the news that they had won is also a pretty good giggle. It isn’t always easy to set up, but once I’d called Nathan Booth’s dad Stephen (making sure he was safely seated first), it became clear that we’d be able to arrange one hell of a surprise for the 2015 SMOTY winner. Stephen called his son and asked if he could come over on Sunday to help him fit some roller rockers to his own HR sedan (SM, Oct ’12). He then called a select crew of…

LETTER OF THE MONTH AUSSIE, AUSSIE, AUSSIE NO ONE can say the ANZAC spirit has died in Australia. I have just returned from the USA where I attended Drag Week and witnessed almost impossible odds faced by the Australians that competed. Five drag strips, 1200 miles to attend them all, carry your spares and crew in the vehicle and over 300 competitors all trying to win their respective classes to be the fastest street-legal cars in the world. I can’t speak highly enough of our boys that held out until the end and got the task done. They did us proud. PS: Your photographers were the hardest workers of them all in covering the event. Rod Hadfield, email TURNING JAPANESE I RECENTLY completed a RB30 five-speed conversion in my VH…

ALTHOUGH motivating a Ford with anything other than Dearborn power might sound blasphemous to the Blue Oval brethren, it’s no secret that GM’s LS donks have a lot to offer; they’re cheap, plentiful and produce bulk power. Melbourne’s Jon Freni clearly had few qualms fitting one to his XW Fairmont. “I’m the guy that goes to a hot rod show and rolls his eyes at every ’32 Ford with a 350 in it,” he laughs. “I can thank my brother Dave for helping me think outside the box; his XP runs an RB25/30 and a dirty big turbo.” Jon has always loved Fords, and in 2006 decided that his next one had to be, quite specifically, a factory Lime Frost XW Fairmont GS V8. “It took 11 months before we…

YOU’RE probably sick of hearing it, but yes, this is another of those builds that got more than a little out of hand. While Matt James’s ’64 Compact Fairlane wasn’t one of those ‘I was just going to give it a little tidy-up’ jobs – it was a total heap of junk to start with – it was just meant to be a neat street car built for cruising. Well, that idea went out the window a long time ago. “My dad had a ’63 Compact Fairlane for his first car and always wanted a ’64 but could never afford one” Matt says. “I was right into dirt bikes up until I was 21, and got out of that and started tinkering around with a few old Commodores. [What became]…

STARTING a custom build with any kind of Monaro these days is guaranteed to raise the purists’ ire, but Dave Guilfoyle didn’t build his stunning HQ with others in mind – after all, he’s going to keep this one forever. Dave snapped up the coupe in 2009; it was red then. “It was a tidy streeter when I got it – tunnel ram, grey velour interior, Skyline seats” the Victorian says. “But it screamed ‘90s’, and badly! It just wasn’t how I wanted it.” Building cars for a living has given Dave mad skills, but precious little progress occurred on the Monaro over the following year, as the customer cars that came through his business, DJ Automotive & Towing, took precedence. “We did a bit here and a bit there”…

ALTHOUGH he didn’t inherit it from his folks, Greg Hogan is a natural-born car guy. “My parents gave me a VW Beetle to keep me slow!” he laughs when recalling his very first ride. “By the time I sold it, it had a 2180cc stroker and was good for a 13-second quarter!” Not bad for an old ‘Whoppi’, but the Bug was clearly not Greg’s steed of choice. He went on to own and love a succession of track-focused road/race cars before turning his attention to a 1969 Camaro. Greg and the Chev found one another at the perfect time in each of their lives. “It’s in the plates: ‘CRISIS’, as in ‘mid-life’” Greg chuckles. “Back in my early days we’d race the cops at the Dandenong drags; these weren’t…

LAST month, we looked at how the datalogging functions of the Haltech ECU in Arby’s WAR440 Valiant could tell us how its engine performed in last year’s Street Machine Drag Challenge. This time around, we’ll speak to a number of racers and tuners for their thoughts on what datalogging can do for you. Mark McCoy is an applications engineer at MoTeC, and the tune-up man for 2014 Drag Challenge champion Quentin Feast and his eight-second turbo LS-powered Torana. Mark says there are still racers who are reluctant to use datalogging. “On the street/drag level, there’s still an impression that there’s a bit of witchcraft involved” he says. “Most guys are more comfortable with a carb and points than they are with a laptop – fair enough. But look at what’s…

STEVEN LEWIS 1977 HX HOLDEN GTS MONARO “I BOUGHT this HX GTS Monaro when I was 15 years old from a friend of the family. I ended up selling it to a mate, but regretted it and had to buy it back! It stayed as a standard 350-cube street car up until about five years ago, when I had it built by a shop here in Alice Springs. We did a 383 stroker with Brodix heads and stuck a nine-inch diff in the rear hooked up to a Powerglide trans. We repainted it in the original factory blue colour, stuck on a set of Center Line Convo Pro wheels with Mickey Thompson radials then started to get into drag racing. So far it has run an 11.5sec quarter-mile. At the…