HELLRAISER
FRANK CANNISTRA MISSED HIS OLD WHITE DATSUN UTE, ‘MRHELI’, SO HE BUILT AN EVEN BETTER ONE
With a triple rotor and rear-mount turbo, you won’t see this Datto ute making tip runs
THERE are two schools of thought when it comes to crafting a car that can travel at speeds somewhere in the vicinity of ‘the clappers’. The first posits giving it a powerplant that generates the kind of output required to move a container ship, while the second argues for making it so light that adding two occupants would double the kerb weight. Of course, there are some who recognise the benefits of both schools and concoct crazy creations like Frank Cannistra’s mean little Datsun ute.
Dubbed HEL113, this Datto is not Frank’s first foray into the wild world of brutally quick cars. “My brother is a Ford guy and has an XY GT, and my uncle has an original Phase III,” says Frank. “My first car was an XW Falcon and it felt like a really big tank of a car to me. I watched a few guys race RX-3S and I just loved them; I got caught up in the idea of a high powerto-weight ratio.”
With his perspective irrevocably skewed away from large cars, Frank built himself an RX-3 sedan, and followed that with a Datsun ute called MRHELI, with which he cemented his place in Sydney street car folklore.
While Frank describes the exterior of MRHELI as a “white piece of shit on Pro Stars”, the little ute more than made up for its appearance with a killer driveline. With a force-fed 13B under the bonnet, a Top Loader cog-swapper and a nine-inch diff, it was good for a cracking 9.40@145mph – and that was way back in 2000!
Fast-forward to 2015, and with MRHELI long gone, Frank had an itch that could only be scratched with another quick street car. He scoured the internet and found a dead-stock Datsun 1200 ute on Gumtree. “It was such a clean car; the tub looked like it had never carried a load,” Frank says. “I drove it for a couple of weeks, then took it to my mate Charlie Boutoubia.”
Charlie got stuck into the body, fabricating a bigger trans tunnel, moving the chassis rails inwards and replacing the tubs with new ones large enough to clear 305-wide Mickey Ts. While Charlie covered the panels in a thick coat of a Mazda colour that Frank simply describes as “red and glossy”, James Hehir of Groove Ryder Fabrications whipped up an ANDRASPEC rollcage. Frank was initially going to throw a 13B in the front of the ute just like MRHELI, but the allure of a triple-rotor was too strong to ignore.
Chris Fakinos, the man responsible for looking after Frank’s race car engine, was tasked with knocking up a healthy 20B based around a billet crank and Billet Boss centre plate. The rotors themselves and the other main components are all factory Mazda Cosmo items, although the ports were given a mild touch-up. Outside the spinning Doritos, a MOTEC M84 controls a sextet of Bosch injectors and LS coils, and copious amounts of E85 is supplied by an Aeromotive mechanical pump.
FRANK WAS INITIALLY GOING TO THROW A 13B IN THE FRONT, BUT THE ALLURE OF A TRIPLE-ROTOR WAS TOO STRONG TO IGNORE