FLUID MINDSET

“I HAVE a ute, but it has no room for my racing bag with all the gear in the tray,” laughs Robert. This is because the tub now houses most of the important fluids needed to keep the XR on the road, including the intricate cooling system and the fuel system needed to feed the hungry big-block.

Front and centre in the rear is the fuel tank – a 98L monster. It is flanked by the transmission cooler and Optima battery, with the Holley fuel pump drivers used to control the electric fuel pumps mounted on the floor behind the tank.

Up front are the CO2 bottles for the wastegates and the fire system bottles, while the header tank and recovery tank for the cooling system have been mounted behind the driver’s-side bulkhead. The 20L cooling system is filled by plugging a garden hose in underneath the header tank, as Robert explains: “I didn’t want to have to fill the whole thing up with a soft drink bottle, so we put that valve in.” The tray-mounted radiator sucks air from underneath the car and blows it out the tub, and it seems to all work perfectly.

“My brother researched how to set up the radiator in the tray and size the piping, and then made it all,” says Robert. “When Nads from Fueltech came to tune it, he hit the key and it just idled perfectly. It doesn’t overheat, it runs great and I’ve never had a car that went through that process so easily.”