GO-FAST JUICE

Being built for drag racing, the biggest alteration is at the rear end — mini-tubbed rear guards that easily swallow a pair of 15x12-inch Weld wheels and 28x11.5 Mickey Thompson drag tyres. Underneath is a back-halved chassis with ladder bars chosen for their ease of setting up, hanging a Currie nine-inch diff off a set of custom coilovers with drag shock inserts, all done in-house by Zac. That Currie housing holds a Strange full-spool, 31-spline drag axles, and 3.5:1 gears — just as tough as the trans-braked and reverse-pattern TH400 by Chuck Mann at Rotorua V8 Performance. The reason for this mechanical overkill should be pretty bloody obvious if you’ve been paying any attention.

“Having already had boosted LS engines before, I stuck with that motor choice, but, instead of going big cubes like everyone else, I went smaller and went to a factory GM 5.3 iron block — it’s a very cost-effective engine and can obviously still make some really good power with boost,” Zac tells us. Using an iron block casting removed the main shortcoming of the alloy LS; its tendency to split under high-boost, and with the machining completed by Franklin Engineering and the short block assembled by local LS guru John Vollebregt, it’s a beefy bit of kit. The iron block runs an LS1 crank, Eagle H-beam rods, Wiseco pistons, and a custom-profile turbo cam, so there’s enough tough equipment in there to pump out some serious numbers, and that’s before the monster top end package comes into the picture.

GM ‘241’ LS1 heads have had the ports cleaned up and been fitted with double valve springs, and the Holley Hi-Ram intake and 105mm throttle body take everything the huge BorgWarner S480 turbo sends their way.

Such an induction set-up also entails a voracious appetite for fuel, especially considering the use of E85, and that base has been covered via a Jaz fuel cell with two AEM pumps, eight Bosch 2200cc injectors, and an SX rising-rate fuel-pressure regulator (FPR).