It’s always a joy to see fresh new faces and builds in the pits at Street Machine Drag Challenge, and Steven Serone’s crusty but loveable EJ Holden Special certainly piqued our interest at DC 2022-’23 earlier this year.

First published in the June 2023 issue of Street Machine

The EJ first came to Steven’s family through his uncle, who got it as a roller around 10 years ago. “It had an HR front end tacked into it, but other than that, it was just a rust-free car,” Steven says.

Steven and his dad, Dave, ended up with the car around 2014 and turned it into a cheap tyre-fryer. “We first built it as a Powercruise and Summernats car with just a basic cammed L98 in it,” Steven says. “But then I decided I wanted to do Drag Challenge, so we cleaned the car up a bit and got the iron block built for it.”

That mill is an LQ9 built by Dewar’s Performance Engines. Cubes sit at 408 thanks to a Lunati crank and rods, while the pistons are CP forged units, sealed in by a pair of ported LS3 heads.

The package makes 510hp au naturel, or 610hp with a shot of giggle gas

Topping the engine is the good stuff: a CID high-rise intake manifold and a Dominator 1050 carby, using MSD gear for the spark. “I went with the carby because I like the old-school tuning and being able to do stuff yourself,” Steven says.

Sipping E85 and humming to 8000rpm, the package makes 510hp au naturel, or 610hp with a shot of giggle gas. Rounding out the driveline is a Turbo 400 ’box and a nine-inch diff.

Coming into Drag Challenge, the EJ had already run a nice PB of 9.8@138mph at Sydney Dragway. “That was just about the only drag racing we did with it before the event, and it had shorter gears in the diff compared to when we ran it at Drag Challenge,” Steven says.

Steven shared the driving with his father at DC, running in the Haltech Radial Blown class due to the shot of nitrous and a pair of 255 radials. At the end of Day One, they’d run a best of 10.42@130mph. Steven’s uncle was also crewing with the EJ for the event, and the trio made the 400km trek down to Portland for Day Two’s racing without a problem. “We had the bonnet popped a fraction to help with temps, but other than that we were golden,” says Steven.

The EJ ran a 6.42@107mph at the eighth-mile Portland track and then a 6.82@103mph at Mildura’s Sunset Strip over the same distance, completing another mammoth road leg in between without a hitch. “We changed the carby from an E85 one for the track to a 98 one for the road, but other than that, we didn’t put a spanner on the car all week, which really surprised me!” says Steven.

Over the final two days back at Heathcote, the EJ recorded a best of 10.20@130mph, which the Serone family was pretty happy with. “It was a bit slower than the PB because of those diff gears, but we had a ball at the event, and to do it without any problems was awesome,” Steven enthuses.

As for future appearances, Steven says both he and the EJ will definitely be back. “I don’t think we’ll change much on the EJ, but I’m building a twin-turbo HJ I’d love to bring when it’s done,” he says.

“So then we’d probably do Dad in the EJ and myself in the HJ, which’d be super cool. But even if the other car isn’t done, we’re definitely keen to bring the EJ back if we can.”

STEVEN SERONE
1963 EJ HOLDEN SPECIAL

Class: Haltech Radial Blown

THANKS
My wife; my dad; Dewar’s Performance Engines; Raceworks