Street Machine Australia — January 2018

SLEEPERS

STORY CARLY DALE PHOTOS SM

W

HEN a meek-looking, beige HX wags rocks up at Street

Machine Drag Challenge, then proceeds to aggressively lift

its left front paw on consistent 10-second passes – well,

you know then and there we have a true sleeper, folks!

“It was an impulse purchase off one of my employees,” Will Baker

says of the factory six-banger wagon, which at the time sported a

rooted 308 but was otherwise in mint condition. “I haven’t touched

the paint; I just kept it the way it is for the sleeper look.”

Will owns and runs Huskisson Automotive, and therefore built

his own rig.

“I binned the 308 and built a D1SC ProCharged 383ci LS1,” he

explains. “It runs CNCed Higgins Race Heads with 11:1 comp,

VCM Performance cam with 232- and 234-degrees duration,

forged JE Pistons, Lunati Voodoo rods and crank.”

Will’s stuck with the stock ECU and tuned it to suit. Injectors

are 1000cc Xspurt items, which feed the E85 in from the pair of

Bosch 044s. The whole shootin’ match is good for an impressive

620rwhp.

Cooling is thanks to an Aussie Desert Cooler radiator and a

Maradyne 16-inch thermo. Gasses exit via Di Filippo headers

through to a custom three-inch exhaust.

To get all that power down, Will had Protrans Performance

Automatics whip up a trusty TH400 coupled with a Dominator

3000rpm stall. The third member is a nine-inch stuffed with 3.5s,

a Truetrac and 31-spline axles.

Braking and suspension have been kept simple, retaining many

of the stock parts. It’s dropped a tidy two inches all ’round and has

drag-worthy Pedders 90/10 shocks up front. The wagon rolls on

sleeper-spec hubcapped HX steelies with widened rears.

“It’s completely engineered with the LS1 and ProCharger,” Will

WILL BAKER

PROCHARGED LS1-POWERED HX WAGON

HUSKISSON, NSW