T
HERE’S no doubt the VL is one of the more fondly remembered
early Commodores. The V8 reached ‘peak bodykit’ under Tom
Walkinshaw, while Holden’s smooth Powertech 6Ei, aka the
Nissan RB30, more than ably powered the regular variants.
But without proper set-up, they’d do single-peggers for miles
just trying to boot it out of your mum’s driveway on a rainy day,
while at the racetrack they were viciously marauded by Nissan’s mighty
Godzilla – the R32 Skyline GT-R.
Huss Ghamrawi grew up amongst all this; he knows the score. So when,
as a professional panel beater, he officially diagnosed a rusty R33 Skyline
GT-R as bin material, he also saw opportunity. “The job was too far gone;
the guy wanted to track it, but he was going to die in it!” Huss laughs.
Being a northern Japanese car, the sills, quarters and pillars were all air.
“My brother Hamza was going to scrap the shell, but I remembered my
old VL Turbo that had half a Walky kit and an RB25 in it. Then I just got
thinking,” Huss explains, tapping his temple. “I rang around for a cheap
VL Commodore and scored this one for $150. It cost me more to tow
it home!”
Huss took both vehicles to his mate’s workshop and cut the body off
each until he had a bare R33 GT-R chassis and a gutted VL Commodore
body. “I put the VL body on a hoist and lowered it over the Skyline chassis;
I would measure, cut, weld. Then I would do it all over again,” he says
nonchalantly. “The process took 20 or 30 goes before it all cut right. No
jigs – just a plasma cutter, a grinder, a welder, a tape measure and a piece
of angle to bend stuff with.
“I’d never done anything like this before,” he admits, “but I had this gut
feeling that it was going to work.”
I admire his confidence, but what would he have done if it all went south?
“What’s the worst that could happen? I’d just chuck it all in the garbage!”
Fortunately no chucking was necessary, but although many areas lined
up pretty close, the conversion was far from straightforward. Aside from
some tricky filler panels, the biggest change was the wheelbase, which
is about 50mm longer than that of a stock VL Commodore, but not where
you’d think.
“I had to move the front wheelarch forward to bring it in line with the
Skyline running gear,” Huss says. “I had to lengthen the side garnish and
trim the front bar and spoiler to suit.” You wouldn’t know it, but Huss
certainly remembered that when his bespoke Walkinshaw-style front lipdownforced its way off at Cootamundra Drag Battle at over 200km/h; it
went under his wheels and got spat out the back!
Amazingly, the bulk of the complex stuff in this build took only four
weeks, with the car going in for a bodywork freshen-up after that. “Being
a VL it had rust in the usual places – around the screen, plenum, that
sort of stuff.” Huss also fixed up the Skyline shock towers, the only badly
affected piece of Nissan he had to use. “It took me three weeks to get the
rust out and the body as straight as possible,” he says.
It’s at this point I ask Huss if he was working on the VL full-time. “Nope;
just after work, all weekend. Over the Christmas break, too.” He shakes
his head. “You know when you’re just excited about something? I would
have done the whole thing in five months if I didn’t have to wait for an
engine and some other stuff!”
Although it took some time, Huss’s brother Hamza knows how to screw
together a stout RB motor. He took an RB26 block and built it up with
reciprocating bits by Nitto, a Hypertune intake manifold, GTX42 turbo and
a bunch of Turbo-1 gear handling the waste.
Some say there’s no replacement for displacement, but this Nissan six
will blow that old adage out of the water; with the RB now run in, Huss
will rev this beast to 9700rpm all day, smashing through 40lb of boost.
Strapping it down to an all-paw dyno, VLR747 has recorded 869hp at all
four wheels; it should do more, but the turbo is maxed out!
Listening to Huss’s RB26-powered VL Commodore start for the first
time, you know something’s amiss. Following the whir of the twin BoschI WOULD MEASURE, CUT, WELD. THEN I WOULD DO IT ALL OVER
AGAIN. THE PROCESS TOOK 20 OR 30 GOES BEFORE IT ALL CUT RIGHT,
BUT I HAD THIS GUT FEELING THAT IT WAS GOING TO WORK
INTERIOR
When you’re running a Skyline floor, trick Skyline
seats bolt straight in! These are from an R32, while
the rear bench is a mixture of Holden and Nissan
gear, all re-trimmed by old mate Tommy. The
analogue VL gauges weren’t going to play nice with
the Nissan running gear, so Huss binned it all in
favour of an integrated Haltech read-out installed in a
hydro-dipped binnacleMARK’S XW GT