Street Machine Australia — June 2017

“The idea was to make it a tough car, but make it look like a nice

driver with all the stripes. Then the burnout scene started to get

big and we thought we’d get The Rod Shop involved. We looked

at a couple of cars – some half-finished projects – but they weren’t

what we wanted. But we had this little Torana sitting there...”

So just three months before Summernats 30, Heath more or less

relinquished ownership of the Torana, donating it to the cause of

building a promotional vehicle for The Rod Shop. The car neatly

showcases the business’s chassis components, though the lads

bought in the engine and some of the brainpower to set it up.

“Obviously being new to burnouts, we were a bit unsure about

which direction to go,” Heath explains. “We wanted a serious

engine that was going to be reliable, and we had the philosophy

that we wanted to pay for things just once. BNR Engines kept

popping up, so we got the blower and the hat from the US – we

get containers of stuff every four-to-six weeks – and contacted

Brett [Niddrie of BNR Engines]. He did the whole lot; no dramas.”

BNR had more than a dozen donks in the burnout comps at

Summernats this year – including the Masters winner, KILLA-B

• so you could say that Heath, brother Marc and the rest of the
  Rod Shop crew were sensible in choosing someone who knows
  his shit.
  Brett’s formula is simple: “Use good-quality parts and do it

properly!” he says with a casual laugh. “No shortcuts. I specify

that the car comes to me so I can set things up – fuel systems and

the like. That is all essential for the life and reliability of the motor.

You can’t just shrink-wrap a motor and send it out; you need to do

things a certain way or not at all.”

The motor in the Castlemaine Rod Shop Torana had seen

previous service on the quarter-mile, and as Brett explains, there

are a lot of similarities – and yet a lot of differences – between a

drag and a burnout engine.

“I sourced this one second-hand,” he says. “It was originally built

in America; I don’t know who built it but it was full of the good stuff.

I re-specced it – such as changing the camshaft – and rebuilt it

to suit burnouts.”

The blower is a 14/71 high-helix Littlefield pump. “It’s maybe

overkill, but it’s not being stressed,” Brett says. The 568ci Dart-

blocked mill runs on methanol and chugs around 60-70 litres of it

per skid – so, just shy of a litre per second!

Heath laughs as he describes the big block-based result: “Huge

cubes, 14/71 blower, and a couple of thousand horsepower; we

wanted to build something noticeable!”

And based on the hype the car has generated at events and

online since being completed, if there’s one thing The Rod Shop’s

Torana can be called, it’s ‘noticeable’! s

HEATH WADDINGTON
1969 HOLDEN LC TORANA
Paint: Clearcoat

ENGINE
Brand: 568ci big-block Chev
Induction: 14/71 Littlefield blower,
Enderle Big & Ugly hat
Heads: Brodix
Camshaft: 290° duration, .780in lift
Conrods: Oliver

Pistons: JE

Crank: Crower

Oil pump: Stock Car Products

dry-sump pump

Fuel system: Enderle 110

Cooling: Race Radiators

Exhaust: Castlemaine Rod Shop

Ignition: MSD Pro Mag 20A

TRANSMISSION

Gearbox: MDT Powerglide

Converter: 3200rpm

Diff: Castlemaine Rod Shop 9in

SUSPENSION & BRAKES

Front end: Castlemaine Rod Shop IFS,

Ridetech airbags

Rear end: Custom four-link,

Ridetech airbags

Brakes: Wilwood discs

and calipers (f & r)

Master cylinder: Wilwood

WHEELS & TYRES

Rims: Weld Racing RTS;

18x5 (f), 18x12 (r)

Rubber: Nitto; 195/35/18 (f),

295/35/18 (r)

THANKS

Brett at BNR Engines; the whole team

at Castlemaine Rod Shop for all their

hard work