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MAY 2018: ALL THE NEWS THAT MATTERS
STORY SCOTT TAYLOR PHOTOS MICHELLE POROBIC & SM STAFFTOXIC SHOCK
WE HEAD TO CALDER PARK WITH A FORD TERRITORY AND GIVE IT THE ULTIMATE WEIGHT
REDUCTION PROGRAM
T
HERE should be no surprise that lighter
cars go faster than heavier cars; that’s
the reason people have been putting big
engines in little cars since the dawn of
the automobile. How much of a difference does
it make, though?
We set out to answer that question, and have
a little fun, at Calder Park recently with an AWD
Ford Territory for an episode of Carnage. It was an
eye-opening experience in more ways than one.
The car itself was a basic Barra-powered SX
Territory with seven seats and the $4000 AWD
option. It had 309,000km on the clock and stank
like someone had used it to carry wet dogs for
a year. We paid way too much for it at auction,
and with its eye-watering stench and puke-green
paint, we quickly nicknamed the tired SUV ‘The
Toxic Avenger’.
After repairing a dodgy ball-joint and wheel
bearing, we drove the Territory down to All
Race Fabrications, where the boys weldedin a simple four-point chrome-moly rollcage
for safety and fitted a Kirkey racing seat and
Simpson harness. We also had Zane at Maxx
Performance get into the ECU and disable
some of the electronic wizardry so nothing
would screw us up at the track.
With the help of Peter Pisalidis at Calder Park,
we organised some track time before a Friday-
night street meet to do the deed. The plan was to
unbolt or cut pieces off the car every pass until we
were left with basically a floorpan with a seat. But
first we had to see what it would run dead stock.
The first three passes of 16.89, 16.64 and
16.66 helped establish a baseline, and then we
started removing bits. At first it was just the loose
parts left inside when we fitted the ’cage, but then
it was the seats, then the doors and roof, followed
by the bonnet, guards and bumpers. Even the
windscreen got the chop, which might have
been a tactical error, as the wind-buffeting was
ferocious. With The Toxic Avenger still comingin at a hefty 1475.5kg (down from 2130kg), we
managed 14.98sec, proving that the old adage of
one-tenth for every 100lb is still valid.
Then we added nitrous! Initially we tried
75hp jets to see how that would go, and we
immediately dropped 0.81sec. Feeling optimistic,
we threw in a set of 125hp jets and headed back
to the startline. We suspected that the original
14-year-old fuel pump was a bit sad, and that
was confirmed when the nitrous leaned out and
backfired, spraying burning fuel over the engine
bay and prompting me to exit the vehicle at a
rapid rate.
Despite the heavily singed bay, the Toxic
Territory still runs, and we’ve got plans to go
even further. We didn’t take as much weight
off as we hoped, and we want to see how hard
we can push the AWD Territory driveline. But
that’s the future; in the meantime, jump online
and check out Carnage Episode 12 on the SM
website or YouTube. s