Holden Commodore VE — Daniel Woolhouse (Pro)
Known for taking ex–cop cars and turning them into tyre-slaying weapons, Fanga Dan doesn’t do things by halves. That’s why, when presented with the issue of what lock kit to run, he and the team decided that it was going to be best to make their own. This consists of scratch-built chromoly lower A-arms, with a rose-jointed front end, and the front carriers have been milled out to create their own lock kit. Ackermann was a large portion of the calculation, and a lot of research was poured into what the guys in the States run in their late-model Camaros, which Fanga tells us has a similar chassis. They tested the pivot points in different places to find the sweet spot, and now that it’s set, they don’t touch it — although there is still some Ackermann dialled into the sweet spot.
“If someone throws an ugly run in front of you, you don’t want to have a set-up that means you can’t deal with it. Over the years of testing, we’ve found that we can max the angle and whip her around like a short wheelbase car, but it becomes undrivable in battles,” Fanga says. “We ran a whole season like that and would qualify well, but run into issues during battles, so we sacrificed a small amount of lock for a smoother drive.”
S14 Tein Super Drifts adorn the front and rear strut towers, which carry a special exemption due to the need to alter the towers to suit.
“Commodores usually have an ugly plastic bearing that runs in a case, but they always smash — if you’re hitting rumble strips, they will just blow to bits. We haven’t shifted the towers, we’ve just made it so instead of a single nut with washer, it now has a three-bolt top to allow for proper top hats.”
The steering rack has been shifted to get the angles right, while a set of custom sway bars can be found in the front and rear.
“The front one runs through the inside of the engine bay, underneath the crank pulley, comes back up through some swivels, and drops through the towers on an angle so it doesn’t interfere with the lock.”