MEEEN STREK

> AFTER A 25-YEAR SLUMBER, BLUEY HILL’S LEGENDARY ‘MEEEN & GRUMPY’ HJ ONE TONNER IS ON THE VERGE OF A TRIUMPHANT RETURN – AND IT’LL BE PACKING EVEN MORE GRUNT

IF World-renowned Alien artist HR Giger had applied his vision to an engine build, the result might have looked like Bluey Hill’s latest Holden donk for his famed stepside HJ One Tonner (SM, Sep ’88). A beautiful melding of both hard-edged and organic industrial design, it has an almost

biomechanical look that Giger was famous for.

But the delicious visuals are just a by-product of what this build is truly about: glorious horsepower from one of our most iconic local engines.

Aaron Hambridge from Advanced Performance Machining is the man responsible for the build, and the final link in the chain of Bluey’s 25-year engine odyssey. “I’ve known Bluey since I was a kid – my dad Steve did the machine work on the original 308 in the HJ – and you wouldn’t meet a nicer, more genuine bloke,” Aaron says. “And what a fan of the Holden V8! There was no way his build was going to be for any other kind of motor.”

Interestingly, Bluey chose to stick with the

THE 308 CRANKED OUT 1023HP AND 780LB-FT ON AARON’S ENGINE DYNO, WHICH IS MORE THAN AMPLE FOR BLUEY’S PLANS

General’s 308 cubes for this new motor – yes, it retains the factory bore and stroke – but it’s based around an aftermarket Torque Power block and Velasco 3.062-inch billet crank. Four-inch Arias forged pistons and Oliver billet I-beam conrods sort the short assembly, while a Camtech solid-roller camshaft forms the basis of the valvetrain. Crower roller lifters and Jet Engineering pushrods activate Yella Terra Platinum shaft-mounted rockers, located on Yella Terra –9 alloy heads.

The towering inferno begins with a custom