LEMON ZEST
HAVING LONG PARTED WITH HIS FIRST YELLOW XY FALCON, MAT ‘GUDGE’ BUDAJ DECIDED TO BUILD ANOTHER – THIS TIME WITH FEWER DOORS
Everything is better once tubbed, and Gudge’s staunch XY ute is a case in point
MAT ‘Gudge’ Budaj remembers how it all started: “When I was 15, I pitted for Manuel Galea, who raced an RX-4 with a 400ci small-block. His brother had a plain yellow XY.” That teenage XY vision made such an impression on Gudge that he ended up building his own yellow sedan with a GT interior, Center Lines and an avgas-slurping 351 Clevo with closed-chamber 4Vs and 12.5:1 comp. In the early 2000s, Gudge parted out the car and sold it off, but the itch to build another never left. When a friend mentioned an XY ute he’d seen rusting quietly out the back of a panel beater’s in Werribee, Gudge thought he’d have another crack at it.
“It was a Ford parts delivery car, and it was pretty rough!” he says of the now-splendid ute you see here. The lower sections of the quarters had been replaced shoddily and covered with bog, but there was more nastiness still to be discovered. The shell was handed to Geoff from Street Tech Fabrications to be fitted with mini-tubs and a new tray floor, but two days later he called Gudge with the bad news. “It ended up staying with Geoff for 300 hours!” he says. “He replaced the lower sections of the quarters, wheelarches, floorpan, tray floor and radiator support.”
Along with repairing the damage, Geoff moved the chassis rails and springs in to make room for the 12.5in-wide Mickey Thompsons, added the mini-tubs, mounted the diff, deleted the battery tray and made the all-steel reverse cowl.
With the ute now ready for panel and paint, Gudge was introduced to Ali at Kanjo Kustoms. Ali straightened out the shell and poured on the sweet yellow Glasurit jam, and Gudge is ecstatic with the result: “I fitted the Center Lines to it as soon as it came off the tilt-tray and just sat there looking at it for a while.”
There’s quite a bit going on underneath all that yellow steel. Up front, Gudge and Geoff binned the factory Ford suspension and steering in favour of an RRS set-up. The upper arms, springs and shocks are gone, replaced by RRS coil-over struts and reinforced lower arms. Along with the massive suspension upgrade, the vague old steering box was turfed and replaced with RRS’S manual rack set-up. Down the back, the diff is suspended by reset XY leaves (and we mean really reset), with Caltracs to aid in putting the power down and Viking coil-overs to control the travel. “It
THE CLEVO WAS HANDED TO GUDGE’S GOOD MATE SLUBBER WITH INSTRUCTIONS TO BUILD SOMETHING ANGRY AND STREETABLE
didn’t ride nicely and sat on the bump stops, so Geoff installed the coil-overs, which improved the ride a hundred times,” Gudge says. Stopping duties are handled by RRS’S twin-piston PBR calipers and 297mm discs on the front and E-series Falcon discs on the rear.
When the time came to choose the propulsion system for his ute, Gudge had only one thing in mind: a cranky Clevo. One of the only parts left over from his first XY was the block, which had already been filled with resin up to the water jackets, so it was handed to his good mate Slubber with instructions to build something angry and streetable. While Gudge was working interstate, his wife Carmen and Slubber took care of the engine build. To the prepped block they added a Scat stroker crank, Scat rods and Aero pistons, with a main cap girdle for extra rigidity. A second-hand set of CHI 3V 225cc heads and matching single-plane intake were procured and bolted on, with a Quick Fuel 950cfm carb topping the mill. Gudge doesn’t know exactly what specs the big hydraulic-roller cam has, as he left its selection up to Slubber, but he’s extremely happy with the combo. “It’s very responsive,” he says. “It’s crazy on the street, but I’ll drive it anywhere.”
Removing spent gases from the engine is left to a set of Pacemaker four-into-ones with two-inch primaries and a twin three-inch system. Behind the donk are more components left over from Gudge’s first XY: a 5000rpm stall converter spinning a toughened C10, both of which were checked over before they got put back to work. The Clevo’s estimated 550hp is delivered to those fat Mickey Ts through a nine-inch with 4.11:1 Richmond gears and 31-spline axles.
Inside, things are mostly Gt-spec, with GT buckets, wheel and door trims in the ubiquitous black. All the factory gauges have been swapped out for Auto Meter Sport Comps, and there’s a B&M Quicksilver shifter for choosing gears. There is a stereo, but let’s face it: the rumble of the nasty Clevo is probably all the soundtrack Gudge needs.
With the XY out on the road on a weekly basis, the next project in the Budaj stable is Carmen’s LX hatch. “Carmen loves cars; she’s Holden through and through,” says Gudge. “The hatch has minitubs, a four link and 305/35/19s in the back, but she’s undecided on the engine. One thing’s for sure: It won’t be an LS!”
I FITTED THE CENTER LINES TO IT AS SOON AS IT CAME BACK FROM PAINT AND JUST SAT THERE LOOKING AT IT FOR A WHILE