JASON GHILLER FROM TUNNEL VISION SAID IT’S THE MOST POWERFUL NATURALLY ASPIRATED ENGINE THAT’S BEEN ON HIS DYNO

“It had a blown small-block in it before I bought it and it was a reasonably clean car, but when we blasted it the rust was horrific,” Matt says. He eventually found a solution in the form of an almost rust-free WB six-cylinder with just 115,000 kays on the clock. The new ute was stripped back and all the good bits from the HZ were bolted on before Paul from JPS Automotive doused it in Interceptor Yellow with a splash of white pearl over the top.

Matt’s old boat, Eruption, wasn’t going to be powered by any old Chev truck engine, so the big-block is something pretty special. “It originally had an eightlitre engine; then I moved to a Procharged big-block about 15 years ago, but I got sick of breaking belts all the time,” Matt says. “I thought I’d build a killer Unlimited-class aspirated big-block, so my engine builder Matt Vandersluys got onto Taylor at Texas Race Engines. They built the engine and the manifold for it.”

The swept volume of the aluminium Merlin block totals a monstrous 565 cubes, with heavily worked aluminium Oldsmobile oval-port heads and that impressive sheetmetal TRE tunnel-ram on top. Inside the block, a Lunati crank wears Oliver rods and Bill Miller pistons, and a lumpy Bullet cam sends signals through Crower lifters, Manton pushrods and Victor valves. Gone are the dual carbs and avgas of Matt’s boat racing days; in their place is a sweet EFI system and pump 98 that allows for much more street-friendly power delivery.

Don’t think the swap to boring old 98-octane has mellowed this monster motor much – how does 737hp at the rubber grab you? “Jason Ghiller from Tunnel Vision tuned it,” says Matt. “He said it’s the most powerful NA engine that’s been on his dyno, and it was about 40 degrees, too!”

After the debacle with the shell, Matt had the team at All Race Fabrications treat the chassis to a birthday as well. The old Holden copped some serious reinforcement to match the power increase, along with a modern rack-and-pinion front end, a triangulated four-link and the super-subtle