Street Machine Australia — January 2018

SCOTT KELLY

VALIANT ‘VH PACER

R/T’ HARDTOP

Paint: Vitamin C

DONK

Type: 340 Chrysler bored to 416ci

Inlet: Edelbrock six-pack

Carbs: Holley two-barrel

Heads: Edelbrock RPM

Valves: 2.02in (in), 1.60in (ex)

Cam: Howards hydraulic-roller

Pistons: Mahle 4.070in

Crank: Scat forged 4.00in stroker

Conrods: Scat forged H-beam

Exhaust: Pacemaker extractors, twin

3in system

Ignition: MSD

SHIFT

’Box: 904 Torqueflite

Converter: 2800rpm stall

Diff: Shortened BorgWarner,

Truetrac, 3.5 gears

BENEATH

Front end: Torsion-bar

US-spec 1.00in

Shocks: KYB

Steering: Standard

Brakes: Cross-drilled and

slotted discs and VJ calipers (f),

EL Falcon (r)

ROLLING STOCK

Rims: American Racing Ansen Sprint;

15x7 (f), 15x8 (r)

Rubber: BFG T/A; 235/60/15 (f),

275/60/15 (r)

THANKS

Melissa, Matt and Rory Kelly for their

inspiration and support; Leigh Marriner

for his advice and rust repairs; Glen

Marriner for the awesome panel and

paint; Ierace Automotive for the build

and dyno of the 340 six-pack; Carlo,

Ando and Colin for the rare parts (and

shit from Colin!)

FRONT

A VH Regal 770 donated the

front sheet metal and grille

with its sports driving lights.

It took a lot of masking tape to

convert it into a red-and-black

R/T look

EXTERIOR

Just looking at the car, you have to

wonder why they didn’t build them like

this. Okay, maybe they wouldn’t have

had 15x7 and 15x8 rims with 235/60

and 275/60 rubber, but that would have

been a popular ‘day two’ addition

EARN YOUR STRIPES
IF YOU’RE doing a hot muscle car, it’s gotta have
stripes, but there’s nothing off the shelf for a
hardtop Valiant, so what do you do?
In Scott’s case, you get a Charger stripe kit,
then throw it in the bin: “I started taping it into
place to see what it looked like, but with the
Charger being two feet shorter, where it turns
and goes up over the boot it was going across
where the boot join was just behind the back
window,” he explains. “ Where the stripe goes
across the ducktail on the Charger it’s really
quite skinny and when we laid it out across the
boot of my car where it sits now, it looked stupid.
“So what we ended up doing, we took the
width of the stripe that goes down the front
guard and applied that to the bit that goes
across the boot lid. I took the car and stripe kit
down to Ascot Signs and explained everything
to them and when I went to pick it up they told
me they ended up throwing all of it in the bin and
starting again from scratch!”