Preview: NZ Performance Car Issue No. 250

C E L E B R A T I N G

I S S U E S

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collectors edition

9 OCT. 2017

$10.99

INCL. GST

CHROME EXPRESSION SESSION • BUILDING AN RB34 STROKER • THE WORLD’S FASTEST WRX

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26B PP CARBY-FED FD SIX-SPEED RX-8 RB28 R33 GT-R

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ISSUE #250 CONTENTS

“THE SCREEN FLASHED UP A BEST RESULT OF 439KW AND 508NM AT THE FLYWHEEL — ALL WITH THE ADDED BONUS OF ZERO LAG. FRITZ WAS UNDERSTANDABLY AMPING TO GET THE ENGINE FITTED TO THE FD AND TAKE IT FOR A WILD TEST DRIVE”

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ONE BAD MOTHERF#*KER

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TIME’S UP 660KW R33 GT-R

THE SNOWBALL EFFECT RB25-POWERED C35 STREETER

ROLLING WITH THE HOMIES

MEMORY LANE

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AARON’S GREATEST MOMENTS IN JAPAN

2017 PROWEAR CHROME EXPRESSION SESSION

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ISSUE #250 CONTENTS

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012 EDITORIAL 014 ED. TEAM CHATTER 016 NEWS 034 GAME CHANGER NO. 1 044 GAME CHANGER NO. 2 052 SUBSCRIBE AND RECEIVE 054 GAME CHANGER NO. 3 064 GAME CHANGER NO. 4 072 GAME CHANGER NO. 5 098 MCA SUSPENSION TECH 106 INDUSTRY INSIDER — ZEROFLEX 108 CRUISE MODE 110 INDUSTRY INSIDER — NZ MOTORSPORT IMPORTS 112 P-CAR BABE 116 WEEKEND WARRIOR 118 NEW PRODUCTS DEA 122 UNDER NZPCFLY HALLCONSTRUCTION 180, D OWS ECEMB 128 GIG GUIDE ER 2011 130 DRAG TIMES 132 DAILY DRIVEN 134 LOCAL SPECIALISTS 136 FLWHAT’S COMING NEXT MONTH ICKING

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GINA BULLIAN’S NEW SIX-SECOND RX-8

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13B DATSUN 1200 AUSSIE EXPORT

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BIG RED NG’S CIVIC

BUILDING A 3400CC RB

THE ED. LOOKS BACK AT HIS 40 FAVOURITE FEATURE CARS

ENGINEERING THE STI TYPE RA NBR SPECIAL

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1992 MAZDA RX-7 (FD3-S)

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LOCK YOUR GIRL’S DMS, BECAUSE FRITZ LEANING IS BRINGING THE HEAT TO A STREET NEAR YOUR HOUSE WITH HIS 400KW CARBY-FED QUAD-ROTOR WORDS: MARCUS GIBSON PHOTOS: ADAM CROY

roject cars — most of us have a love-hate relationship with what are essentially our grandest dreams embodied in metal shapes either sitting in the shed or rotting on the driveway. While it’s all fun and games to undertake any project and get your teeth stuck in, the reality is that it’s going to take three times longer than you expect, and you’re generally going to be missing out on a ton of fun that your mates are having during that time. You’re forced to ride scrub in their cars, dreaming of the day that you, too, can join in, knowing all too well the mammoth task that awaits you at home.

Fritz Leaning is no stranger to building cars; he’s had his fair share over the years, all with a healthy dose of style and a hint of death machine thrown in. His most ambitious was a Mk3 Supra he was building from the ground up, which wasn’t going to be finished any time soon. The fast approach of summer 2015 led to the creation of one badass FD. “I had always wanted an FD, and the Supra was so far from being finished that I decided to just bite the bullet and get one to have some fun while I built the Supra,” he explains.

Picking up a standard black S6 from a local dealer, Fritz got straight into ‘ruining’ a perfectly fine stock example in the only way

snowball 1995 NISSAN LAUREL (C35)

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A CAR BUILD NEVER TAKES A LINEAR PATH, AND, AS DAN WALSH FOUND OUT WITH HIS ONCE DAILY-DRIVEN C35, IT CAN GET OUT OF HAND REAL DAMN QUICK — BUT IT’S ALMOST ALWAYS BETTER OFF FOR IT WORDS: JADEN MARTIN PHOTOS: ADAM CROY

or a fresh-faced teenager with a strong passion for all things automotive, the idea of spinning spanners and gripping a welding gun for a living probably sounds like the perfect way to fill your pockets with a few bucks — and, depending on who you ask, it is. But it usually comes with a catch or two that’ll have unforeseen side effects on your own build, and anyone in the industry will tell you that you’ll either wash the crud off your permanently stained hands and head home at the end of the day, only to avoid the garage at all costs because you can’t possibly face the idea of looking at the half-finished project you aren’t getting paid to work on, or you’ll drop the roller door at work bang on

4.31pm after the boss has buggered off for the day, and pedal the crap out of your bike all the way to your front door before burning the candle well into the early hours of the morning.

While some of us may know scenario A better than scenario B, it was years of pouring labour into other people’s cars that led Dan Walsh to undertaking, and seeing through, his own build.

“I guess from working on other people’s cars for a living — like being in the background of building Darren [Kelly]’s R35 and working for DKM [Fabrication] for a number of years — you get so used to working with these high-quality parts, doing cages for customers, etc., and you sort of think to yourself, oh man, that would be a really cool part for my car, or I want to do that, too.”

1997 NISSAN SKYLINE GT-R (R33)

ALTHOUGH YOUR FIRST GLANCE MAY LEAD YOU TO BELIEVE THAT THIS BCNR33 IS NOTHING MORE THAN A STOCK EXAMPLE, ONCE YOU’VE BEEN LINED UP NEXT TO IT, YOU’LL KNOW THAT YOUR TIME’S UP WORDS: JADEN MARTIN PHOTOS: ADAM CROY

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Speed Queen 2010 MAZDA RX-8 DRAG CAR

FACTORY EXTREME HAS ANOTHER KIWI ENTERING THE RANKS WITH AN RX-8 CAPABLE OF KICKING THE BOYS WHERE IT HURTS WORDS: MARCUS GIBSON PHOTOS: MATTHEW EVERINGHAM

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C E L E B R A T I N G

licking over massive milestones like 250 issues of NZ Performance Car always makes for a good chance to flick back through the archives, relive some of the old feature cars that really stood out, and celebrate our rich heritage. Some of those cars are still around today, while others disappeared into the back of sheds or, sadly, down a ditch. Some were cover

10 POWER LIFTER NZPC 138 JUNE 2008

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cars, and others were tucked away in the back pages, but each still shone bright in my eyes. Long before I was in the hot seat, I was reading the magazine from cover to cover to keep up with the scene in New Zealand. Some of these cars I’ve never seen in the flesh, while others I photographed, wrote about, and rode in, but each and every one of them made an impact, some of them in a very big way.

What’s not to love about a wheelstanding street car? And that’s something Robbie Ward’s Datsun did with ease. The RB30DET put out 800kW at the time, and it became the world’s fastest RB30.

Of course, Robbie has since gone a ton quicker in new builds, but his PB of 7.86 seconds at 285kph would see this car sitting second on New Zealand’s Quickest Street Cars list nine years on.

RADBUL

NZPC 222, JUNE 2015

‘MAD MIKE’ WHIDDETT’S 26B TWIN-TURBO

SHARK ATTACK NZPC 223, JULY 2015

Pulling off Japanese style with perfection is not an easy feat, but Michael MacNaughton hit a home run with his Fukoka-styled Mark II. It’s one of those cars that might look like nothing more than a wild livery and wild amounts of low, but the cabin’s period details were amazing, right down to the choice of speaker. But by far the best bit about the car was the noise it emitted from its Mizuno Works headers (Michael was the first person outside Japan to buy a set) — it sounded more flat 12 than straight six as it banged off the limiter. It’s sad to see that the car is no longer in this form.

RETRO RUNNER

NZPC 223, JULY 2015

Like a lot of New Zealand, I have had a long lasting love affair with the humble KE70 Corolla. Dan Yeoman’s Beams-powered example may have looked basic, but the amount of work that went into getting it performing that low was phenomenal, especially when you consider what went into the suspension and custom bodywork. The fact that it has five sets of wheels, all in the perfect size and colour, makes it even better.

Dan uses it as intended and now drives to the track, races one-hour enduros, and then drives home — how cool is that?

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LAY LOW, IT’S THE FIVE-O NZPC 209, MAY 2014

While it might be a race car now, in the early days, Mark Strawbridge’s 616 was just looking for trouble.

The Liberty Walk Kenmeri-inspired police livery, police lights, and huge bosozoku exhaust were basically his way of not taking the build too seriously, although they masked the car’s serious underpinnings, crafted via thousands of hours of work. These days, the 616 bangs doors out on track on a regular basis.