HANDS up whose mum or nanna had one
of these Toyota Corollas when you were a
kid? Betcha it didn’t have a silly big turbo
with 26psi boost, an ANDRA-teched
safety ’cage and the gravy to run 10s over
the quarter-mile!
Complete with the patina of four decades
on Aussie roads, this little KE55-series
Corolla is owned by Brodie Villis. Fans of
Japanese performance know that Toyota
has some good ‘little big’ engines in its
range, but this one is packing a Nissan
CA18 four-cylinder under the bonnet. It
was already in the car when Brodie bought
it from a trailer at a car show. He’s been
having a stack of fun with it ever since
and put plenty of effort into it for its Drag
Challenge debut.
The CA18 was built by Jason Ghiller
(owner of the sleeper XD Falcon that
took home DC17’s Quickest Ford and
Quickest Six awards) at Tunnel Vision.
The short story is that it’s packed full of
forged goodies with a 9.5:1 compression
ratio and breathes through a Garrett 35/66
turbo and a beautifully crafted Custom
Plenum Creations intake.
The gearbox is a Paul Rogers
Performance-modded Powerglide with a
3800rpm converter, and the rear axle is
an ex-Aussie Skyline BorgWarner spooled
diff located on a set of coil-overs that hang
from the strengthened shell – there’s
B Custom-fabbed reinforcing from thefront strut towers to the rear of the car. The
rear tyres are a fat-for-a-Corolla 255-wide.
The car was running in Haltech Radial
Blown at Drag Challenge 2017. “I’m
just here to have fun and hopefully run
consistent 10.1s at each track,” Brodie
said on scrutineering day.
But things didn’t go according to plan.
“It all started as we drove out the gate at
Adelaide,” Brodie chuckles after the event.
“We had a broken wire somewhere in the
harness, so we had to fix that. We got
another 500m down the road and a MAP
sensor shat itself. So we fixed that; then
later that night our roof rack collapsed!”
There were problems on-track, too,
that took three days and three tracks to
diagnose. “We were constantly chasing
why it wouldn’t launch off the line properly,”
Brodie explains. “Throwing more nitrous at
it didn’t work. Eventually I found an actuator
line was loose. It was doing 14-second
passes, but at least by the end of Swan Hill
[Day Three] it was doing a 12, so we were
heading in the right direction!”
Brodie juices the Corolla on E85 and
he ran out during the long commute back
to Adelaide, necessitating a petrol tune
to be enabled in the Haltech. However,
thank heck, Brodie managed one almost-
clean pass back at Adelaide, netting a
10.81@127mph. Yay!
“To be honest,” he laughs, “I’m amazed
I made it!”QUICKEST FOUR-CYLINDER
1976 TOYOTA
KE55 COROLLA
Class: Haltech Radial BlownSPECS
Engine: Nissan CA18 four-cylinder
Turbo: Garrett 35/66
Transmission: Powerglide
Converter: TCE 3800rpm
Diff: 4.11:1
Power: Not dynoedPrevious PB: N/A
Best Drag Challenge Pass:
10.81@127mphBrodie reminds us of the old 1970s TV ads:
He kept ‘Corolling Along’ all week despite
wiring harness dramas, a pickled MAP
sensor, busted roof racks and wayward
turbo plumbing. Legend!HANDS up whose mum or nanna had one
of these Toyota Corollas when you were a
kid? Betcha it didn’t have a silly big turbo
with 26 psi boost, an ANDRA-teched
safety ’cage and the gravy to run 10s over
the quarter-mile!
Complete with the patina of four decades
on Aussie roads, this little KE55-series
Corolla is owned by Brodie Villis. Fans of
Japanese performance know that Toyota
has some good ‘little big’ engines in its
range, but this one is packing a Nissan
CA18 four-cylinder under the bonnet. It
was already in the car when Brodie bought
it from a trailer at a car show. He’s been
having a stack of fun with it ever since
and put plenty of effort into it for its Drag
Challenge debut.
The CA18 was built by Jason Ghiller
(owner of the sleeper XD Falcon that
took home DC17’s Quickest Ford and
Quickest Six awards) at Tunnel Vision.
The short story is that it’s packed full of
forgedgoodies with a 9.5:1 compression
ratio and breathes through a Garrett 35/66
turbo and a beautifully crafted Custom
Plenum Creations intake.
The gearbox is a Paul Rogers
Performance-modded Powerglide with a
3800rpm converter, and the rear axle is
an ex-Aussie Skyline BorgWarner spooled
diff located on a set of coil-overs that hang
from the strengthened shell – there’s
B Custom-fabbed reinforcing from thefront strut towers to the rear of the car. The
rear tyres are a fat-for-a-Corolla 255-wide.
The car was running in Haltech Radial
Blown at Drag Challenge 2017. “I’m
just here to have fun and hopefully run
consistent 10.1s at each track,” Brodie
said on scrutineering day.
But things didn’t go according to plan.
“It all started as we drove out the gate at
Adelaide,” Brodie chuckles after the event.
“We had a broken wire somewhere in the
harness, so we had to fix that. Wegot
another 500m down the road and a MAP
sensor shat itself. So we fixed that; then
later that night our roof rack collapsed!”
There were problems on-track, too,
that took three days and three tracks to
diagnose. “We were constantly chasing
why it wouldn’t launch off the line properly,”
Brodie explains. “Throwing more nitrous at
it didn’t work. Eventually I found an actuator
line was loose. It was doing 14-second
passes, but at least by the end of Swan Hill
[Day Three]] it was doing a 12, so we were
heading in the right direction!”
Brodie juices the Corolla on E85 and
he ran out during the long commute back
to Adelaide, necessitating a petrol tune
to be enabled in the Haltech. However,
thank heck, Brodie managed one almost-
clean pass back at Adelaide, netting a
10.81@127mph. Yay!
“To be honest,” he laughs, “I’m amazed
I made it!”QUICKEST FOUR-CYLINDER
1976 TOYOTA
KE55 COROLLA
Class: HaltechRadial BlownSPECS
Engine: Nissan CA18 four-cylinder
Turbo: Garrett 35/66
Transmission: Powerglide
Converter: TCE 3800rpm
Diff: 4 .11:1
Power: Not dynoedPreviousPB: N/A
Best Drag Challenge Pass:
10. 8 1@1 2 7mphBrodie reminds us of the old 1970s TV ads:
He kept ‘Corolling Along’ all week despite
wiring harness dramas, a pickled MAP
sensor, busted roof racks and wayward
turbo plumbing. Legend!