DRAG CHALLENGE
STORY KIAN HEAGNEY PHOTOS ELLEN DEWAR & CHRIS THOROGOOD
THE SILK ROAD
MICHAEL SILK’S LITTLE DATSUN GOES BIG AT DRAG CHALLENGE
WEEKEND
T
HIS year we decided to shake up our
Drag Challenge events by adding a
bunch of new classes, one of those
being Tuff Mounts 235 Blown. The
small-tyre power-adder class proved to be a big
hit when we rolled it out for the first time at Drag
Challenge Weekend in May this year, attracting
a huge variety of small-bodied rockets with
plenty of pace. One of those that caught our
eye even before the event started was Michael
Silk’s bright orange Datsun 1200 wagon.
According to Michael, the car is actually
the first-ever four-cylinder in Australia to run
eights on a radial, but the story isn’t quite as
simple as that. “I went out and ran the eight
and I was stoked, and then Kyle Hopf tookthe record back off me 20 minutes later at the
same meeting!” Michael laughs. “But I was still
the first to do it!”
The little Datto’s driveline is impressive. The
mill is an SR20 stroked out to 2.2 litres, with a
pair of solid-roller cams and oversized valves,
mandatory head studs and a whole bunch of
other fruit. Feeding the mill is a Garrett GTX45
hairdryer, and prior to DCW the boys ran the
car up on the hub dyno, cranking out 650hp
by cramming around 40psi of boost into the
little mill. The rest of the driveline consists of a
transbraked, two-speed Powerglide housing an
SDE 6100rpm stall converter to help the little
Datto really get up and boogie. The arse-end
has been pillaged from a HiLux, still utilising the