FRANKENBOOST
If a VL Walkinshaw and a Nissan GT-R had an 869hp love child, this is what it’d look like
Tthe more fondly remembered HERE’S no doubt the VL is one of ‘peak bodykit’ under Tom early Commodores. The V8 reached Powertech 6Ei, aka the Walkinshaw, while Holden’s smooth the regular variants. Nissan RB30, more than ably powered MARK’S XW GT do single-peggers for miles But without proper set-up, they’d driveway on a rainy day, just trying to boot it out of your mum’s marauded by Nissan’s mighty while at the racetrack they were viciously Godzilla – the R32 Skyline GT-R. all this; he knows the score. So when, Huss Ghamrawi grew up amongst diagnosed a rusty R33 Skyline as a professional panel beater, he officially “The job was too far gone; GT-R as bin material, he also saw opportunity. going to die in it!” Huss laughs. the guy wanted to track it, but he was sills, quarters and pillars were all air. Being a northern Japanese car, the my scrap the shell, but I remembered “My brother Hamza was going to kit and an RB25 in it. Then I just got old VL Turbo that had half a Walky temple. “I rang around for a cheap thinking,” Huss explains, tapping his for $150. It cost me more to tow VL Commodore and scored this one it home!” workshop and cut the body off Huss took both vehicles to his mate’s chassis and a gutted VL Commodore each until he had a bare R33 GT-R lowered it over the Skyline chassis; body. “I put the VL body on a hoist and I would do it all over again,” he says I would measure, cut, weld. Then or 30 goes before it all cut right. No nonchalantly. “The process took 20 a welder, a tape measure and a piece jigs – just a plasma cutter, a grinder, of angle to bend stuff with. gut he admits, “but I had this “I’d never done anything like this before,” feeling that it was going to work.” he have done if it all went south? I admire his confidence, but what would I’d just chuck it all in the garbage!” “What’s the worst that could happen? but although many areas lined Fortunately no chucking was necessary, far from straightforward. Aside from up pretty close, the conversion was change was the wheelbase, which some tricky filler panels, the biggest a stock VL Commodore, but not where is about 50mm longer than that of you’d think. forward to bring it in line with the “I had to move the front wheelarch had to lengthen the side garnish and Skyline running gear,” Huss says. “I suit.” You wouldn’t know it, but Huss trim the front bar and spoiler to bespoke Walkinshaw-style front lip certainly remembered that when his over 200km/h; it Drag Battle at downforced its way off at Cootamundra out the back! went under his wheels and got spat stuff in this build took only four Amazingly, the bulk of the complex freshen-up after that. “Being weeks, with the car going in for a bodywork – around the screen, plenum, that a VL it had rust in the usual places Skyline shock towers, the only badly sort of stuff.” Huss also fixed up the the use. “It took me three weeks to get affected piece of Nissan he had to possible,” he says. rust out and the body as straight as working on the VL full-time. “Nope; It’s at this point I ask Huss if he was the Christmas break, too.” He shakes just after work, all weekend. Over just excited about something? I would his head. “You know when you’re an months if I didn’t have to wait for have done the whole thing in five engine and some other stuff!” brother Hamza knows how to screw Although it took some time, Huss’s an RB26 block and built it up with together a stout RB motor. He took intake manifold, GTX42 turbo and reciprocating bits by Nitto, a Hypertune the waste. a bunch of Turbo-1 gear handling for displacement, but this Nissan six Some say there’s no replacement water; with the RB now run in, Huss will blow that old adage out of the day, smashing through 40lb of boost. will rev this beast to 9700rpm all VLR747 has recorded 869hp at all Strapping it down to an all-paw dyno, the turbo is maxed out! four wheels; it should do more, but VL Commodore start for the first Listening to Huss’s Rb26-powered Following the whir of the twin Bosch time, you know something’s amiss.
WOULD DO IT ALL OVER WOULD MEASURE, CUT, WELD. THEN I I BEFORE IT ALL CUT RIGHT, AGAIN. THE PROCESS TOOK 20 OR 30 GOES GOING TO WORK BUT I HAD THIS GUT FEELING THAT IT WAS
044 fuel pumps, it stutters and carries on like a race motor, until Huss gives it a kick in the guts and it revs to life. It’s throaty; it’s clearly no V8, yet it doesn’t make a noise like any Holden six before it. “At a street meet at Eastern Creek, they could hear it from the grandstands! The commentators came over, microphone in hand, looking for an explanation! People just freak out!” Huss laughs. “Having built this car myself, it feels great; especially the feedback I get on it. The timeframe I built it in and the way it ended up coming out, it makes me very proud. “I wanted the power to race anything at the Creek and be a competitor; I got sick of all the Skylines winning everything.” Huss finishes by throwing down the gauntlet: “My brother’s got a GT-R and all our mates have GT-RS; all of youse better watch out; VLR’S gonna get ya!”
AT EASTERN CREEK, THEY COULD HEAR GRANDSTANDS. IT FROM THE THE COMMENTATORS CAME OVER, MICROPHONE IN HAND, LOOKING FOR AN EXPLANATION!