Commodore

CURRENT ISSUE ON SALE FRIDAY 4TH FEBRUARY!

Contents over the fold.

Envy Dyno turbo Falcon and Marrano's Enhancement Division twin-turbo Commodore ute both put out 1100+rwhp. More images and details over the fold.

None of us want to see our cars end up like this:

If you live in Victoria, it could now happen to you. The Victorian police just this week have annouced they will be enforcing the latest phase of their 'anti-hoon' campaign. Pictured above is the first car to be punished by this new legislation.

With the aid of a court-order and under particular circumstances, the Victorian police can confiscate your ride, hand it to the SES for some quick jaws-of-life practice, then send it to the crusher.

Justification for this new ruling was made clear by the Deputy Comissioner for Road Policing, Ken Lay.

"If we permanently seize a vehicle that is not of a high safety standard, in that it doesn't have features such as ABS brakes and airbags, I cannot in good conscience send that vehicle back into the community." Said Lay. In order for your car to be taken from you and crushed, it has to be:

1) Impounded more than three times (or on it's third time)

2) Owned outright with no outstanding finance

3) Deemed unroadworthy, unsafe OR not meet a four-star used car safety rating. The RACV's (developed by Monash University) Used Car Safety Rating guide is being used as referral material when determening how unsafe a used car actually is.

The first car to meet its demise was a 1997 Holden Commodore owned by a Hamilton resident. Over the fold is a video released by the Victorian Police.

In the latest issue of Zoom we feature Vince Rigoli's Datto 1200 ute. As part of the big ECU feature in previous issue Zoom 147 we ventured out to V&E Rigoli to document a walkthrough of the installation of an EMS 8860 ECU in a piggyback configuration to a Holden VZ SSZ ute.

The SSZ ute had been fitted with a GT42 turbocharger from the Garrett range and had modifications to the fuel system. The factory Holden fuel system is a dead head system, that is an EFI system without a return line to the tank. This causes issues for modified engines so Vince fitted aftermarket fuel rails (and bigger injectors) with an aftermarket fuel pressure regulator.

For full details you can purchase a back issue copy of Zoom 147 from our subscriptions service, but check out the below footage I shot at V&E Rigoli as Vince briefly describes the modifications to the ute and demonstrates what happens when initially tuning the ute.

Note he says the ute only has 330-340rwkW, but it makes much more than this at the wheels after tuning during the power run (at the end of the below video).

Dale from Castle Hill Exhaust had an underpants-soiling moment at the 1000ft mark in the 8sec GT55-equipped LS1-stroker-powered CHE race car yesterday.

"Shook the tyres hard and split the alloy water pipe, water under tyres at 160mph."

Dale manages to save the car from kissing the wall in a big way by deploying the 'chute.

You can see the video posted below: 

Dale says there will be a few changes made to the setup. "Firstly is to remove around 250hp off the trans brake." Dale says that is easy and can reduce the boost to 12psi, then "use the PCS to bring the boost back in as we go down the track."
Second thing is that they "need to have a look at the oil pickup tube, the pressure takes a little while to come up so may need to upsize that or replace the oil pump."

In 1996 Australia voted in a coalition government of the Liberal and National parties that stayed in power for a decade and Zoom was educating an enthusiast readership used to small-block V8s and carburetor-based fuel systems. Turbochargers were considered ‘cheating’.

Apologies for the quality of the cover image. We don't actually have a copy of the mag so I pulled the image from a PDF and the details below from the backup of the working files (including actual negatives!).

 ZOOM JUNE/JULY 1996

(ISSUE 2)

 Car features

- Ultimate home-built Statesman

 - 4AGZE-powered home-built beach buggy

 - 1983 EFI XD Falcon

Specs: 351 Cleveland MoTeC injection with Edelbrock hi-rise manifold, MoTeC D2 ECU, ported 4V heads, Crane Hydraulic roller cam, TRW forged flat top pistons, Genie extractors, Tremec TR 3550 5-speed, ET Clutches modified McLeod street/strip clutch, Ford 9in diff’ with 3.56:1 ratio LSD

 - Supercharged 500hp Commodore

 - LJ Torana GTR

Specs: 179 Holden Red motor, twin SU carbies with Holley float bowls, Garrett T04 turbo

 Tech Features

- Modifying EFI basics, and by ‘basic’ we mean basic! Such tech wisdom included points like, modifications to the engine will require changes to the EFI. ‘EFI’ was discussed as if it was a single thing rather than a complex system with various parts each of which can be upgraded for different reasons.

 - DIY boost controller on a VL Turbo using a brass needle valve, it made 132rwkW!

 - ‘Chipping’ the Ford XR6 (XG ute) and Mondeo. The ‘chips’ didn’t work that well!

 Events & Lifestyle

- Buying used –Nissan GTS

- Targa Tasmania in the Zoom BMW M3R. Somehow the early editors of Zoom managed to wrangle a sponsorship deal with a Targa Tasmania team in a E36 239kW M3R