H
OW many people can lay claim to both of their parents
having had cars featured in magazines? I can think of maybe
two or three candidates tops, and Brisbane’s Reece Pagel
is definitely one of them.
“I had no choice but to be into cars,” Reece says. “I was
around them from the start, especially HK, HT and HG
Holdens. My dad, Wayne, built the GAS69 HT Monaro back in the
80s [SM, Jun ’86] and my mum Sandy still owns her QIK68 HK
Premier [SM, Jul/Aug ’92].”
With genes like that, it was virtually a given that Reece would
follow suit, and it wasn’t long before an HK/T/G project started
brewing. “I had an HK sedan as a daily driver that I was trying to do
up but keep on the road at the same time. It made the whole build
a slow process, and as a landscaper, a sedan is a less-than-ideal
work vehicle.”
So Reece found a ute for daily bashing instead and the HK was
parked up and readied for a full rebuild. “It was at that time that an
HT shell came up for sale on Facebook at a tempting price,” he
explains. “A family friend owned it and it’d already been repaired
and prepped. It seemed like a better starting point and looked to
be a good, clean, straight shell.”
A sandblast was still on the cards – more for peace of mind and
the certainty that there would be no long-term hidden surprises –
and thankfully it only revealed a few gremlins. Any body repairs and
mods were a joint effort by Josh Cardeno of Swains Motor Body
Repairs and Craig Walpole from Extreme Custom Engineering.
Josh then donned the paint suit and laid down the custom-mix
Driftwood beige.
“The factory colours were white with a teal interior, and although
the subtle influence was high on the agenda, white was just too
plain,” Reece says. “The beige keeps it in the sleeper zone but
stamps an identity for the car too.”
But the chances of the ’T packing a 161 and Stromberg are pretty
much blown once you spy the engine hardware poking through the
bonnet. That Holden stroker donk is actually the second engine to
fill the pin-neat ’bay in as many years.“I’ll keep it short and sweet, as it’s a disheartening tale,” Reece
sighs. “I paid a fair bit for a running 355-cuber that lasted about
30km. We busted our arses to get the car finished for Summernats
29, and on the last day in Canberra I gave it a bit of stick, showing
off to Dad. It snapped the crank, so that was it. It took me about four
hours of sustained silence to calm down!”
Down but not out, Reece soon developed a plan B: Wes from
Wes Race Engines built a fresh donk, filling it with some of COME
Racing’s proven Aussie plastic-fantastic goodies including a cast
383-cube stroker crank and H-beam rods, with Probe pistons and
Total Seal rings rounding out the short combo. A Crane solid-roller
camshaft and lifter kit operate Comp springs and Ferrea valves
housed in COME 590 alloy heads.
That delicious tunnel-ram is the handiwork of Andrew and Megan
from Bliss Custom Machining, and is topped with twin 750cfm Pro
System carbs that just peek through the HT’s bonnet.
Extreme Custom Engineering sorted the pipes, which consist
of custom 1^7 /^8 -inch primary headers mated to a twin three-inch
stainless V-band exhaust system with dual MagnaFlow mufflers.
Extreme was also responsible for the alloy radiator that helps the
HT remain calm during a Queensland summer, ably assisted by a
16-inch SPAL fan.
An MSD 6AL-2 ignition and 8.5mm leads work in conjunction with
a Crane distributor, while a MagnaFuel 300 pump keeps ample
98-octane at the ready.
An output of 633hp@6850rpm is more than sufficient to obliterate
the treads and a happy starting point for Reece, with more to come
once the combination is further refined.
To get that power to the treads, an Al’s Race Glides Turbo 400
transmission was chosen running a full-manual, reverse-pattern
valvebody and fronted by a TCE 5200rpm converter. The original
banjo diff is still in hiding, so a nine-inch was chosen to round out
the drivetrain and is filled with a Truetrac centre, 3.89:1 gears and
31-spline Tom’s axles.
HQ disc and drum brakes are activated by a Wilwood master
cylinder, and the standard HT steering and suspension remain,Like Auto Drags to Adelaide, hubcaps with
whitewalls have been a Brisbane calling card for
20-odd years, helping to disguise toughies in a
state with a regime of archaic modification rules
hammered home with strict enforcement. There
was even an unofficial ‘quickest whitewall’ list
knuckled out on the streets and at Willowbank
test ’n’ tunes back in the day
C-
ONCE
ALED^ WEA
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