TAKING IT TO THE STREET

Believe it or not, this 875hp, 451ci TD Corty is Daniel Nunziante’s mild street car

HAVING built a tubbed Cortina with no back seat, a nitrous-sniffing Cortina that was a Summernats Tuff Street Runner-up, followed by PSIDUP – a Cortina that holds the Australian radial-tyre ET record (see sidebar, p.66) – it was pretty much inevitable that Daniel ‘Pazzo’ Nunziante would follow those with, you guessed it, another Cortina!

“I love them,” says Pazzo, in case we hadn’t already gathered. “The others were not very family-friendly though. They got out of hand and turned into race cars – especially PSIDUP. Also, it’s hard to compete at that level and have my kids involved. So, I purposely built this one for the street, something we could all enjoy – jump in anytime we wanted and go for a cruise.”

Pazzo managed to prove this within a few hours of finishing the car. “Its maiden voyage was the run out to the start of Drag Challenge,” he says. “After finishing the exhaust late Saturday night, we drove it around the block for a half-hour to get a feel for the brakes. Then, on Monday morning, we all piled in and headed to Calder. That was the car’s first proper drive. It was like 30 degrees that day, but it ran great. It’s just a cruiser that drives surprisingly well, sitting just under 3000rpm at 90 kays.”

But while Pazzo might think of it as “just a cruiser”, it should be noted that it does have 875hp between the front rails. “Yeah, it’s tough,” he concedes. “But PSIDUP made 3500hp, and my new Mustang will make 5000. Having all that power and all that speed – it’s hard for anything else to compare.”

Glenn Wells is the engine whiz behind the big-inch smallblock. Glenn’s built a host of engines for Pazzo, as well as four or five for his dad, plus a heap more for his friends. “I send everyone to Glenn,” Pazzo says. “I’ve been using him for an easy 10 years. He looked after PSIDUP, which was the first radial car in Australia to run 200mph, as well as the first to run a six. He’s also looking after the 481X in the new Mustang.”

To make that power while staying 98 Pulp-friendly, Glenn went for maximum cubes – 451 of them to be precise – which has paid big dividends. “Other combos that have made similar power have felt lazy once you load up the car,” says Pazzo. “This engine is sharp, even with the big tyre and full of people.”

Helping to make it sharp are Higgins-ported Clevo heads, an ultra-tall Scott Cook intake, a Pro Systems 1050 carby and a monster solid-roller cam ground to Glenn’s own specifications.

“I hear a lot of people having lifter problems with solid-roller cams in street cars,” says Pazzo, “but all my cars have had solids, and – touch wood – I’ve never had a problem.”

Big power needs a big exhaust, which Extracted Performance nailed. It starts with two-inch primaries that step up to 2 1 /8, dumping into cavernous four-inch collectors. Through the X-pipe it steps down to 3 1 /5-inch, before exiting out through twin 3½-inch mufflers.

From the engine back, it’s as stout as they come: MDT Powerglide, chrome-moly tailshaft and Strange nine-inch with 35-spline axles by Chris’s Differential Services.

As manager at All Race Fabrications, Pazzo didn’t have to look very far for top-shelf fabrication work. The All Race crew, including Brenden ‘Bubba’ Medlyn (2016 Drag Challenge Champion), Brett, Kane and Ryan all helped out on the project. The adjustable rear chrome-moly control arms, cooling system, rear tubs and a host of other bits and pieces are All Race’s handiwork.

With the big rear meats being such a tight fit inside the minitubs, the adjustable arms were a must to keep the factory-style triangulated four-link centred and stable. There’s also a big

I PURPOSELY BUILT THIS ONE FOR THE STREET, SOMETHING WE COULD ALL JUMP IN ANYTIME WE WANTED AND GO FOR A CRUISE

SCF Race Cars rear sway-bar to plant the tyres.

What’s noticeably missing is a rollcage. “This is a street car, not a race car, so no ’cage,” says Pazzo. However, pop the boot and you see what looks like ’cage work; in fact it’s the mounting structure for the pair of two-way adjustable Menscer Motorsports coil-overs. “At $2600, they’re definitely overkill for the street,” Pazzo says. “However, like the double-beadlock wheels, they were left over from PSIDUP, so I thought I may as well use them.”

Colour choice was easy: “Years ago, when I painted the candy purple car [also called GASDUP], I used this silver as the base. It looked awesome, and I told myself: ‘One day I’m painting a car that colour.’ Also, seeing as PSIDUP was orange with a silver stripe, I thought I’d do my street car the opposite.”

Rather than go nuts inside, the factory poo-brown theme has been retained. SOC Audio & Upholstery retrimmed the seats, but the factory carpet was left as-is – albeit with a hole cut in it for the B&M Pro Stick shifter. The other noticeable interior upgrade is the Auto Meter Ultra-lite gauges. Other than that, all the original ‘charm’ is still there.

As happy as Pazzo is with how well this Cortina turned out, his kids love it even more. Having grown up around tough cars all their life, they’re understandably hard to impress. “We’ve all gone out to a couple of Saturday-night cruises; I just touch the throttle and my daughter yells at me, but then giggles her heart out,” Pazzo says. “This makes my boys and I laugh; we all have lots of fun cruising in it.” s

Now that’s what you call real street.

WHILE PAZZO MIGHT THINK OF IT AS ‘JUST A CRUISER’, IT SHOULD BE NOTED THAT IT DOES HAVE 875HP BETWEEN THE FRONT RAILS