Innholdsfortegnelse for February 2021 i Street Machine

SADLY, the curtain came down on legendary US engine builder Sonny Leonard on 10 January. The quietly spoken Sonny, from Lynchburg, Virginia, became internationally famous when Bill Kuhlmann bought one of his 615-cube mountain motor kits in 1987 and became the first Doorslammer racer in the world to break 200mph. I met Sonny in his old shop when Street Machine founder Geoff Paradise sent me to the USA to crew for Kuhlmann in 1989. At the time, Sonny was building engines for some of the best racers in America. While I was there, a 707ci motor destined for legendary racer Ronnie Sox’s Pro Mod Comet was ready for pick-up. Sonny also showed me the dyno sheets for Rickie Smith’s Pro Stock engine, as well as other Pro Stock racers he…

SPINNING PLATES HAPPY New Year! Congrats for another excellent Street Machine for January 2021. It was great to see Peter Hansen was able to keep his WEPN rego plates. Finally, a victory for common sense – and then poor Stephen Sherry cops the same treatment! What next? Helicopter parents offended by the TANTRM plates on John Dennis’s Escort (below)? Surely the DSTROYA rego plates on the Monaro on page 94 are inciting violence? The plate that offended me the most was JOYRIDE (right) on Terry Blanchard’s Corolla on page 14 – it’s inferring that Joy is the town bike! Ridiculous! One thing that intrigued me though was something in the article about Steve Roussis’s XY Falcon. In the caption for ‘Exterior’, it says: “Personal touches see extended chrome front windscreen…

I WAS DETERMINED TO BUILD SOMETHING DIFFERENT THAT WASN’T ALL SHOW AND NO GO, OR NO SHOW AND ALL GO AS A young boy, Steve Mar tin was fascinated with cars – especially Toranas. “I would draw Toranas all over my school books and rarely paid attention in class, as I’d be dreaming of driving them and working on them,” he says. “I’ve owned every Street Machine since I was 10 years old and hoped that, one day, I too could have a car in the great magazine.” Given Steve now owns this surgically clean, 1000r whp twin-turbo sedan known as MADLX, how could we not make his dream come true? Debuting at Summernats 32 as part of the Meguiar’s Great Unveil, Steve’s sedan is a smoothed, finely engineered machine,…

WATCHING the door creep open to reveal Ralph Biagi’s garage is enough to send any Mopar fanatic insane with glee. First, a shiny chrome bumper peeks out, then a gleaming red tail-light, then a fat yellow arse, and, finally, it’s there in all its glory: a 12-second, 500-cube Dodge Challenger. “The Challenger was my dream car when I was younger,” Ralph says. “I still enjoy driving it.” Restored before it was cool, it presents as an immaculate streeter, despite Ralph having to adapt Celica stainless mouldings to the fat-arming zone and a wooden broom handle into a window runner. “You can get replacements now, but it still works perfectly,” he says of his bush-mechanic solution. It’s not the car I’m here to see, though. But before I get to the…

ROLL Racing Brisbane has a simple selling point: “All the street-style racing you can handle without the risk of getting into trouble.” That’s a hell of a hook for anyone with a performance car and a desire to keep their licence, and it’s working a treat – Roll Racing Brisbane has 14 events listed for 2021 at Ipswich’s Queensland Raceway. But there’s more to its popularity than just a catchy slogan, starting with the incredible value-for-money it offers. For $80 you score hours of track time, racing your mates or whomever you line up against, with the added bonus of a pitlane chockers with import, domestic and supercar eye-candy. No disputes – well, less disputes than at the drag strip – and hundreds witnessing the showdowns. Canvassing some of the…

THE UNTESTED COMBO AND INCREDIBLY HOT WEATHER HELD HIM BACK SOMEWHAT, BUT JAMES MANAGED A BEST TIME OF 11.29@120MPH RUNNING a Roots-blown large car like an HQ sedan at Drag Challenge is a tough gig when the temps start soaring. Given that Drag Challenge Weekend 2020 was hotter than an Australia Day chilli eating competition in Alice Springs, it meant blokes like Toowoomba’s James Gardner and his awesome blown, plastic-powered HQ were up against it. James’s history with the HQ began in 2019, when the then 25-year-old snagged it from Warwick, Queensland at a bargain price of just $5000. He promptly gave the six-cylinder sedan a birthday in the form of a respray in factory white and a budget Eaton M90 supercharger set-up. “I think it went 9.10 seconds over…

PETE MURRAY HR HOLDEN “I BOUGHT my ’66 HR Holden Special in 2013. The paint is the same as when I purchased it from the previous owner: Tarana Turquoise body and Venetian White roof. It had a three-speed column shift and a red 161 engine, but I have changed the motor to a 202, 60thou over, with Starfire rods, Yella Terra roller rockers, Stage 3 Yella Terra head and topped with factory X2 twin carbs. It now has a fully manual two-speed Powerglide with a Hurst ratchet floor shifter. The front brakes are HQ discs with Girlock calipers, and the car rolls on 17-inch Streeter wheels. The interior has been fully redone, with factory bench seats, door trims and upgraded material inserts, with all the original stitch lines kept. Still…

WE NORMALLY kick off the Summernats weekend with the annual Valvoline Street Machine Of The Year VIP party, and despite COVID’s best efforts, we weren’t going to be denied a chance to raise a glass. With Summernats Slam rocking Sydney Dragway, a COVID-safe crew including 2020 SMOTY winner Aaron Gregory and his mates, Street Machine staff and industry VIPs took over the Cricketer’s Arms pub around the corner from the Harbour City’s drag strip. The formalities began with Rob Starling presenting Murwillumbah-based designer and all-’round whiz-kid, Aidan Donald, with the Laurie Starling Scholarship for Innovation and Excellence in Automotive Fabrication. The hyper-talented 21-year-old behind Aidan’s Design & Illustration specialises in awesome car renderings, the likes of which have been used by top-line shops like ProFlo, Full Throttle Custom Garage, Southern…

I BOUGHT THE FALCON BECAUSE I COULDN’T AFFORD A ’69 CAMARO… AND THEN I SPENT THE EQUIVALENT OF FOUR ’69 CAMAROS ON THE FALCON! WHILE bleaters on the internet complain about how bored they are when someone builds a car to their own tastes, anyone who has a project car that uses a left-of-centre drivetrain knows how much brain, wallet and gumption is involved. Townsville’s Daniel DiBella took the less-trodden path with his XB Falcon sedan build, though he never actually intended to end up with the killer 900rwhp streeter he now enjoys. “I had a nice XE Falcon street car with a small-block Ford in it, and I sold that,” explains Daniel. “The XB had been a race car out of Brisbane, and it was tired. It had been…

THE Valvoline Street Machine Of The Year VIP party always starts the year off right. Despite a new location and slightly reduced numbers due to COVID-related considerations, there was a special vibe about the 2021 running of the time-honoured piss-up. As well as SMOTY, we also announce the all-important Laurie Starling Memorial Scholarship recipient at the party, which this year was won by the incredibly talented Aidan Donald. The 2020 SMOTY winner, Aaron Gregory, happened to be Laurie’s close mate and right-hand man at The Chop Shop, so the crowd was stacked with Laurie’s mates and family, and all of them had plenty of reasons to celebrate. Here’s how it went down. THERE WAS A SPECIAL VIBE ABOUT THE 2021 RUNNING OF THE TIMEHONOURED PISS-UP…

MONTHS of pent-up frustrations from COVID-induced lockdowns were unleashed at South Coast Raceway in Portland, Victoria on 12 December during the first burnout competition since restrictions eased in the state: the South Coast $5K Burnouts. ”I was quite chuffed at how many big names of the sport came out to enjoy the day,” said event director Brad Frost. “We had 70 entrants, and 67 fronted up. It was a pretty even playing field right across the three classes.” South Coast Raceway’s updated skid pad got its cherry well and truly popped with the likes of Clint Ogilvie, Rick Fuller and Steve Edsall bringing their wild blown rigs down to compete. “Previously, the pad was 27x30m with a 20m-long, 6m-wide entry,” said Brad. “It had been a few years since we…

BUILDING a high-calibre street machine is a massive task; most builders struggle to create one showstopper in their lifetime. But Anthony Fabris is not your typical street machiner. He has amassed an impressive anthology of significant builds (see sidebar, p. 95), and this LS-powered, Barbados Green HQ coupe is his latest. “I wanted to build a dedicated driver this time around,” says Anthony. “I’ve always loved the lines of the HQ coupe, so I decided to build one.” About six months into the search for a suitable two-door, Gumtree answered the call – an unfinished project in undercoat that was only about half an hour away. Experience had taught Anthony that the best strategy is to get the driveline and chassis sorted before making anything shiny and pretty. To this…

WHILE Barra and LS sycophants fill the internet with incessant bleating about which junkyard engine is best, the rest of us got properly excited when Ford whipped the covers off its 2020 F250 Super Duty pick-up truck. The Blue Oval walked away from traditional cam-in-block V8s in the late 90s, but its latest pick-’em-up has gone back to an overhead-valve pushrod design and big cubes. Say hello to Ford’s ‘Godzilla 7.3’. Named after the fabled King of the Monsters, Ford’s new engine should have street machiners excited. While the 5.0-litre Coyotes and Mod motors have been increasing in popularity of late, the sheer size of their overhead-cam cylinder heads and expense make them less appealing to punters repowering cars. In production trim, the 7.3-litre, 90-degree V8 spits out 320kW (430hp)…

DESPITE being fairly light, rear-drive, cheap and packing generous engine bays, Toyota Coronas were ignored for yonks by street machiners looking to build a fast streeter. However, people like Queensland’s Luke Redman recognised the Corona’s solid underpinnings and killer potential and he has built himself an awesome, 700rwhp example that is gunning for the eight-second zone. “I don’t own a car trailer, so I drive my cars to and from the track. I want to run an eight-second pass and keep it street registered,” Luke says. “I actually bought the shell from Kristian Goleby as a freshly painted roller. It was destined to get a 1JZ, but he had too many projects, so I grabbed it and then he and I redid most of it because the engine went way…

WHILE we feature plenty of bent-eight motors, the sight and sound of a blown inline six is dear to the hearts of many at Street Machine, and looking at this masterpiece of a Holden red motor from Damian Baker and Mick Green at BG Engines in Sydney, it is easy to understand why. This pump-fed 186 might look old-school, but it packs some killer tricks to make far more power than grandpa’s HR ever had! To start with, there’s no cross-breeding of different six-pot generations, as Damian explains: “The block, head and crank are all HK-series red motor. And we go that way because they have a steel crank, but we have added an SRP 9:1 forged piston and a Scat H-beam forged rod. We’ve also half resin-filled the block…

SMALL-town mechanic Bobby (Adler) is thirsty for some excitement in his life, so he packs up and hits the road for the action of LA’s Van Nuys Boulevard cruising strip. With his cool Ford Econoline allegedly sporting ‘425 Turbo’ power, fat chromies, sidepipes and more rake than Bunnings, he definitely has the look down to slip right into this late-70s scene. Bobby is soon enjoying the benefits of his newfound freedom, and before long he hooks up with local spunks Moon (Wood) and her galpal Camille (Prophet). The girls challenge Bobby to a race against Moon’s super-cool Dodge Tradesman, but the trio get busted by the cops and spend the night in the slammer. There they meet the impressionable and naïve teen Greg (Bowen) and lost-in-life 60s rodder Chooch (Hayward),…

HARVEY’S GREATEST LOCAL SUCCESS WAS A WIN FOR HDT IN THE 1983 BATHURST 1000, ALTHOUGH HE DROVE ONLY THE FIRST 21 LAPS JOHN Harvey was a champion driver who just happened to live in the shadow of an even greater champion. Not many racing drivers would have been happy to play second fiddle to anyone, even Peter Brock, but ‘Harves’ was no ordinary racing driver. He’d already had his time in the sun, having once been regarded as a potential Formula One star, but as so often happened in the 1960s, a huge accident changed the course of his life. In reality, the next 55 years were something of a bonus. This true gentleman died of lung cancer on December 5 (Brock’s number!) at the age of 82. Harvey was…

WHILE we missed the traditional pilgrimage to Canberra for the four-day feast of horsepower otherwise known as Summernats, there is no denying that Sydney Dragway rocked for three straight days with the inaugural Summernats Slam event. A mid-December outbreak of COVID-19 in Sydney threatened the event, but there was still a killer vibe to be enjoyed as a capacity crowd of 4000 came to enjoy all the meats of our cultural stew. Despite public health orders keeping crowd numbers capped, Andy Lopez and the Summernats team pulled out all the stops to ensure the event was COVID-safe. This included automated hand-sanitiser stations, check-in boards and following steps to ensure social distancing, and car enthusiasts were appreciative and respectful of these measures as they readied themselves to enjoy finally being at…

ADVERSITY can sometimes bring about the creation of something incredible. Take Terry Grant’s HK Monaro, for example – looking at it now, you’d never guess that it was previously a failed resto with bog falling off it. Fortunately, Terry didn’t let that bad experience stop him from transforming it into a beautifully crafted example of the model his dad had always coveted but never owned. “In 1970, my father Ron went to buy a Monaro and came home with a Premier instead. All his life he kept saying: ‘I should have got that Monaro.’ My mate Tony Beatty had bought himself an HK Monaro and restored it to original, like it just rolled off the showroom floor. I said to him: ‘If you ever find another one, let me know,…

FOR a long time, I thought I had the noisiest car in the neighbourhood, even raising the ire of one of my neighbours. Then one day I spied a very low, very tough-sounding F100 cruising past my house, and it was clear my car had some competition in the volume stakes. A while later, I spotted the F-truck in the staging lanes at Perth Motorplex, so I went over and introduced myself to owner Matt Dec. It was good to find out I wasn’t the only car nut in the area. You don’t often see pick-up trucks built in the style of Matt’s 1976 F100; usually they sit way up high on tall rubber with plenty of ground clearance. That’s pretty much how this one started out, too, but it…

A FEW years ago, at a time when Aussie pesos were worth more than freedom dollars, Steve Bowman was on the hunt for some old-school muscle with a bit of a difference. No stranger to fast cars – he used to compete in Super Sprints in a WRX and had a 13B-powered RX-2 that ran low 12s in the mid-90s – Steve decided he liked the look of the ’62-65 Chevy Nova. “After an extensive internet search, I imported this 1965 one from the States,” says Steve. “It was owned by a sheriff near Antelope Valley in California, and had a ground-up resto in 2008.” Steve trundled around in the Nova for the best part of a decade before a little niggle became too much to bear. “It’s a factory…

BACK in 1971, the panel van was regarded as little more than a delivery platform for small business and a convenient mobile home for surfers. Hot rods, customs and drag racing were the big things on the car scene back then, but change was coming. Three young guys from Sydney’s northern beaches saw the panel van’s potential as both a mobile art gallery and a high-performance vehicle, helping launch a craze that dominated the Aussie hot car scene for a decade. The three guys – Patrick Soars, Ed Covey and Chris Yock – were all members of the Manly Rod & Custom Club. Pat is the subject of our story, and while he went on to great success in the business world, he still loves panel vans. Patrick is the…

LEANNE Tinning used to cruise the steamy streets of Darwin in a blue HQ Holden powered by a 350 Chev with a Top Loader. It’s only taken a couple of decades, but she’s back in the driver’s seat and has levelled up. Is this your old cruiser? No, we sold it in 1992 when my daughter Jaimi-Lee was born. My husband Chris promised that he’d build me another one, and it’s taken a while. We couldn’t find one with a good body, and when we did, Chris still had to source a set of doors. He made a 3000km round trip to Alice to get some, only to find they were rusty, but then a great set turned up locally. This Premier is the same colour – Space Blue –…

01 FLUSHED WITH SUCCESS INSUFFICIENT oil flow is a sure-fire way to kill any powerplant at a rate of knots. Valvoline has developed an easy, non-solvent-based Engine Flush additive designed to eliminate the residual sludge and sediment that lurks within your motor. These contaminants are dissolved and removed when your oil is drained, ensuring your next oil change leaves you with a squeaky-clean donk. It also helps to free sticky valves and lifters, as well as reduce nasty blow-by. Check it out at valvoline.com. 02 FINDING THE THREAD ANYBODY who has pulled apart a car (or virtually anything else) knows how irritating stuck or stripped fasteners can be, especially when you don’t have a replacement on hand. Traditional tap and die kits can be useful to fix bolt threads, but…