PSI’D OFF

HOME-BUILT NINE-SECOND TORANA

Aaron Jenkins does what he wants. If he wants to do something, that something is going to happen. That’s why this Torana exists, and why, beneath its severely exaggerated appearance, you’ll find a mechanical masterpiece built almost entirely by one man in the depths of a Waikato shed. If you’re thinking his name sounds familiar, there may be good reason for that. Over a decade ago, this magazine featured Aaron’s ‘SYCHO8’ Holden HQ Monaro on the cover of Issue No. 15. A street-legal family cruiser powered by a tunnelrammed 496ci big block with a NOS 250 shot on top, that thing could move — eventually, into the nines. What couldn’t move, though, was everything stopping it from going any quicker — it was far too nice to tub, let alone tear half the interior out for a roll cage. The best course of action seemed to be for Aaron to start from scratch, essentially building a drag car he could drive on the street. Selling the Monaro for money that he could put towards the mortgage, and keeping his wife happy in the process, he spent a boring three months with nothing in the shed to tinker with. He did have a plan, though, and it centred on a battered LX Torana hatchback. The next year was spent coming up with a 10-year build plan, as well as squirreling away whatever spare coin could be put towards the ambitious project. If you could have seen the state of the Torana before Aaron got started, you’ll understand why ‘ambitious’ best describes the build.

“It was basically a shell. Everything else, including the floor, was stuffed,” Aaron recalls. Though it did come with a back-halved chassis, what was there was in no way, shape, or form up to the standard Aaron wanted. That left him with only one realistic option — to build it himself. Daunting prospect though that was, he wasted no time in buying a copy of the LVVTA’s NZ Hobby Car Technical Manual [ NZHCTM; now known as The New Zealand Car Construction Manual ( NZCCM)] and reading each and every aspect relevant to his plans. In doing so, he was reassured regarding his ability to do what he wanted rather than deterred by requirements that were ‘too hard’. Aaron got himself a TIG welder; taught himself to weld; and, once happy with his ability, went to see his LVVTA certifier, Neil Miller, to show him what he could do. No dramas there. Aaron could finally begin the build, and you’ve gotta give credit where it’s due — he might be a house painter by day, but the man can weld.

Following the guidelines to the letter, Aaron spent nearly every spare moment working on the chassis he wanted under the Torana. A large rear chassis kick-up was fabricated, with a range of four-link adjustments, along with a Heidts independent front suspension (IFS) front subframe with frontmounted steering rack. The reasoning behind this was the legal requirement for a scratch-built chassis to be right-hand drive, plus it would free up cross-member space for a rear sump. Aaron also elected to run a manual steering rack, to provide much-needed space in the engine bay. As he’d proved himself a competent welder, he also got to work on the roll cage; if you didn’t already know it, you’d never pick that it was built in a shed in the heart of Waikato. That cage needed to be there. Aaron wasn’t doing all this work to go slower, and he’d dipped the Monaro into the nines before selling it. With his eye on eights, he intended to have the power to get there. An old-school V8 guy at heart, Aaron has a penchant for displacement — the more the better, especially if there’s a little something else on top. “I originally planned for a 600-cube big block with nitrous, but the cost of nitrous would have been too high,” he says. “It was expensive with the Monaro, and that was running a 250 shot — with the Torana, I’d want more like 500!” That made forced induction the next place for Aaron to look, and a supercharger was almost instantly ruled out of the equation on account of his need for drivability and street legality. Yep, after telling his son there was no way he’d ever run “those rice-burner things”, Aaron found himself thinking very seriously about a method of boost that he’d never given the time of day. His research led him to the conclusion that a twin-turbo 540 would be the best way forward, and the rest is history. Snapping up the 540ci Reher Morrison big block and Chuck Mann–built Powerglide out of Rex Duckett’s Corvette, Aaron had the bones of an eight second–capable package — more than enough for a street car! Of course, with a high rise and big Double Pumper running on C14, this high-compression warhead was not exactly built for boost. Streetability was key. This meant rebuilding it to be boost-friendly, with a package sourced from Steve Morris Engines in

the US. This included pistons, rods, a boost-profile camshaft, and top-end package. Most notable, though, is the pair of Master Power turbos sticking through the bonnet and feeding into the huge C&S Specialties blow-through unit. While Aaron had Mike at Sinco Customs take care of the aluminium intake welding, he was more than happy to have a crack at the rest, and the turbo manifolds, dump pipes, and wastegate pipes all look like they could have been fabricated at a professional shop. It’s all functional, too; on a diet of E85, the team at C&M Performance managed to extract a solid 799hp at the wheels and 1150hp at the crank, on just 8psi of boost. The rear-wheel figure will increase, as a stuffed stall converter was discovered to be causing a disproportionately high drivetrain loss. However, the rest of the kit is well equipped to hold up to the abuse it is inevitably going to receive. The JW Powerglide has been given a once-over by Chuck Mann, while the nine-inch diff now features a Detroit Locker, Strange 35-spline axles, and a seriously narrowed and braced housing. As much as the oily bits may seem right at home in a purpose-built drag car, Aaron meant for it to be street drivable, and that had to extend beyond a couple of windscreen tags — we’re talking sound deadening, carpet, headlining, and proper upholstery. A large portion of the Rare Spares catalogue found its way into Aaron’s shed, along with a second-hand fibreglass dashboard that he found for the right price. This was promptly butchered to fit around the roll cage, and, with it roughly in place, Aaron began to learn how to fibreglass, modifying the dashboard to fit as though it had always been that way. When he was happy with the result, it was sent with the door cards to DR Trim in Morrinsville, to be wrapped in black vinyl.