NZPC 256 20180305 preview

A B O U T

R U N N I N G

F L E X

F U E L

SUPER-DUPER S2000

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MUSCLE GARAGE

S U N D A Y S

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416803 800821

1UZ-FE–STUFFED MX-5 // REUNION NATIONALS BLOW OUT // WELLY HARDPARK

APR. 2018

INCL. GST

$10.99

A TX3 FOR THE STREET AND ONE FOR THE TRACK

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CONTENTS

“I FELT LIKE I COULD PUSH. IT DOESN’T HAVE ANYWHERE NEAR THE POWER THAT JR HAS, BUT THAT DOESN’T MATTER. IT’S LIGHT, AND THE STEERING INPUT’S PERFECT”

20 DOUBLING THE DOSE

CARL ROBERTSON’S TX3 DUO — ONE FOR THE STREET AND STRIP, AND ONE FOR THE TRACK

BEETLEJUICE BACKYARD-BUILT DRAG BEETLE

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HIGHWAY RUNNER

BAGGED, BOOSTED, AND BODIED HONDA S2000

HYPERSTYLISH

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1UZ-FE MX-5 GO-KART

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FLEXI FUEL PUTTING THE FLEXI TO THE TEST

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CONTENTS

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006 EDITORIAL 008 ED TEAM 013 NEWS 014 GIG GUIDE 016 SPECIAL BUILD 018 POWER PLANT 054 SUBSCRIBE AND RECEIVE 080 WEEKEND WARRIOR 082 CONCEPT WE FORGOT 092 NEW PRODUCTS 094 UNDER CONSTRUCTION 096 CRUISE MODE 098 DAILY DRIVEN 100 DRAG TIMES 102 LOCAL SPECIALISTS 104 WHAT’S COMING NEXT MONTH

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030 THE GAME-CHANGER 2K18 056 WET WET WET 074 PARKED UP V 4&ROTARY NATIONALS 2018

REUNION 2018

THE WELLY HARDPARK, BUT BETTER THAN EVER

86 COMING

OUT SWINGING

MIZUNO WORKS S30 DRAGGER

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1990 FORD LASER (TX3) // 1989 FORD LASER GTX

Doubling his Dose CARL ROBERTSON’S ‘JRCOZY’ IS NO STRANGER TO THESE PAGES. HOWEVER, FOLLOWING A CRASH IN 2017, IT’S BEEN REBORN, AND NOW IT’S GOT A 4WD BUDDY TO DO ALL THE HEAVY LIFTING WORDS: MARCUS GIBSON PHOTOS: ADAM CROY

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AN EXCLUSIVE LOOK FROM INSIDE THE HALLS AND OUT ON TRACK AT THE ANNUAL V 4&ROTARY NATIONALS

WORDS: JADEN MARTIN PHOTOS: ADAM CROY

rom humble beginnings, the V 4&Rotary Nationals has now spanned two decades, with this year’s event taking a different path. One thing remains constant, though: the annual V 4&Rotary Nationals is still the biggest date on the calendar.

As is the tradition, the unofficial day one of the three-day bender kicked off on Friday for those placing their creations on display.

For anyone interested in the scene, this is one experience you can’t miss — we strongly suggest hopping in the passenger seat of a mate’s car to take in all the glory of rolling through those doors and being greeted by

the sensory overload caused by the exhaust fumes and noise of 300-plus cars piling into one massive echo zone — not to mention getting that first glimpse of all the pure awesomeness up close; it’s truly second to none.

Hands down, the best part of Nationals for a wide-eyed punter is busting through those doors the second they open on Saturday and rushing into the main halls to see what automotive porno is on offer, then spending the subsequent hours drooling over the mammoth number of cars there for your enjoyment. This year’s selection saw the likes of Rocket Bunny–clad pieces of art, every generation of Evo your heart

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could desire, massive representation from the Euro scene, one of the biggest rotary presences in the country as part of a collaboration with the REunion team, Kanjo Hondas, mini trucks, drift cars, drag weapons, low-riders, record-breakers, and even a genuine All Japan Grand Touring Car Championship (JGTC) RX-7 in full race trim. You name it, it was there.

Unlike the past two decades, the show was not followed by an almost religious journey to the Meremere Dragway — this time, we ended up on the sunny banks of Pukekohe Park Raceway for a Chrome-style track day. The new format went off without a hitch, and those who had filled the halls the day before were able to call out and line up whoever they pleased down the back straight. There’s not a lot better than a few cheeky pulls on the front straight when you’re five-up and watching the crowd in the stands cheering you on. This was the addition that some had been calling for, and the event was all the better for it.

Now that we’ve finally been able to wash the smell of wax and E85 out of our clothes, and kick the high caffeine consumption required for poring over that many cars, it’s insane to sit back and think that another V 4&Rotary Nationals has come and gone already.

Thank you to all those who swung by the NZ Performance Car stand for a yarn, as there really is nothing more satisfying than meeting the people who eagerly buy the magazine each month. We hope to see you all out in April for the drag strip throwdown, too.

In the meantime, here’s a few of our standout cars from the weekend that was.

JGTC RX-7

This RE Amemiya FD RX-7 GT300 competed in the 2000 season of the JGTC — now referred to as ‘Super GT’. Built by Mazdaspeed, in conjunction with RE Amemiya, it attained various podiums throughout the season, claiming a win at the first fly-away event in Sepang. It utilizes a 20B peripheral-port (PP) triple-rotor built by Mazdaspeed, and even retains the original JGTC air restrictor from its glory days. The Mazdaspeed chassis includes a roll cage built by the special division, while the body panels — most of which are constructed from carbon fibre — are a mix of RE Amemiya and Bomex units. The car was found living out its days in Australia and has been brought here to run at various events — just the way it should.

There’s something to be said for a Volvo brick that lays frame on air, paired with a style-correct set of wheels — which is why this particular example claimed the Best Stance award

Kaido GX71

Perhaps the most eye-catching of the lot was Matt Jordan’s kaido racer GX71. Matt is a world-renowned artisan tattooist by trade, so it came as no surprise that when he turned his interest to building a slammedout, shark-nosed Mark II, it would look every bit as though it had just landed from the motherland. To achieve that look, Matt tasked GT Refinishers with creating a custom shark-nose bonnet–and–guard combo that elongates the front end to gnarly proportions. It sits over a set of SSR MK-III wheels, and uses custom coilovers and strut towers by Quest Fabrication, making for a ‘conservative’ one-inch static ride height. And, what would a kaido GX be without the quintessential rasp of a straight-piped 1G?!

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FRAME VW BEETLE

HONDA REALLY MISSED THE CHANCE TO PRODUCE THE BEST SPECIAL EDITION OF ALL TIME, SO MATTHEW HOLT HAS GONE AND BUILT IT FOR THEM

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2000 HONDA S2000

HIGHWAY RUNNER WORDS: JADEN MARTIN PHOTOS: ADAM CROY

henever you meet someone new, there’s always that awkward period of small talk that ensues, when you both attempt to figure out what each other is all about in the shortest amount of time possible.

So, when one car person meets another, almost instantly the same question arises: “What do you drive?” In turn, responding with “A Honda” ccan evoke different thoughts depending on the person asking the question, but what they’re best known for is being rapidly fast and endlessly revving front-wheel drives, and, of course, pioneers of that variable valve timing alltime favourite — VTEC. But what most tend to forget is even a member of the Honda family is a perfectly over-engineered,

rear-wheel-drive, front-engined oddity that seemed to come out of left field back in 1999.

We’re of course referring to the S2000. It’s perhaps one of the most underrated platforms Honda has to offer, and it seems that the masses have only just clocked on to how well they perform out of the box. However, the owner of the example you see before you, Matthew Holt, was one of those early adopters who recognized the benefits inherent in a long and wide-wheelbase car with a low centre of gravity and an engine that, for a long time, held the record for producing the highest specific power output of any mass-produced naturally aspirated piston engine.

2017 TUBE-FRAME VW BEETLE

FIVE YEARS OF HARD WORK TOOK THIS ONCE-RUSTED BEETLE TO SHOW-STOPPING DRAGSTER HELL-BENT ON THE NEW ZEALAND IMPORT H-PATTERN RECORD

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hile we tend to blow our own trumpets here in New Zealand about how crafty we are, a proud nation of do-it-yourselfers, brought up on a diet of numbereight wire and just making do, the truth is that we are not the only nation on this planet that breeds such crafty buggers. We share this DIY ingenuity with South Africa, so it should come as no surprise that the Beetle before you was built almost entirely in the small Bay of Plenty garage of South African–expat David Du Toit and his family. Unlike the case with a lot of DIY work, though, there is very little on this drag car to indicate that its birthplace was the backyard.

You might even have been fooled into thinking it was built by pros, as rumours of it being imported have been floating around.

A keen racer back in South Africa, where he pedalled and built a vast array of 10-second streeters, David made a shift down under to start a new life with his young family — a move that put a stop to WORDS: MARCUS GIBSON PHOTOS: MARIA PANOVA

PERFORMANCE POWER: 536kW (720hp) BOOST: 21psi FUEL: Methanol TUNER: Brent at Dyno Power

his racing while the family settled in and made New Zealand home.

Once accustomed to the ways of life here, he decided that it was time for him to get a taste of the local drag racing scene. Having raced rotaries back in his homeland, David’s first choice was an RX-3 — although the price of these is, well, astronomical.

“I started searching Trade Me for an RX-3 coupe, but found they were out of my price range. I had owned a Beetle back home, and they were in my price range, so I decided to build one,” David explains.

What David was about to embark on was a race car project well above anything he had built before — a build that would span nearly six years. He decided to go full tube chassis, with a front engine–rear drive combination, but the quotes for a chassis had him choking on his morning cereal. Acquiring a dilapidated VW shell, one very determined David purchased the tools required to bend and notch some tubing, and set about learning the art of chassis building — which is no mean feat, we might add.

David recounts his experience: “No one is keen to give away

The only steel panels left on the body are the roof and rear quarters. Every other panel has been produced in fibreglass by David during a painstaking three-year process in search of perfection

With the H-pattern record in mind, a dog-geared Tremec TKO 600 has the job of swapping gears and sending power to the ladderbarred Moser nine-inch

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