Chris Rann’s WHYPSI VK Commodore

Looks great. Goes hard. What more could you want from your first attempt at a streeter?

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Photographers: Tony Rabbitte

First published in the September 2004 issue of Street Machine

Have you heard the story about a bloke who finds a POS at the roadside, buys it, and turns it from wreck to heck?

“We bought the car, stuffed, at the beginning of 1998,” begins Canberra’s Chris Rann. “It’s an ex-chaser. It was sitting on a bloke’s front lawn for about 10 years and had a lot of vandal damage. We bought it just for the motor — a Black 4.9.”

Then plans changed. “We looked at it, we figured we could give it a panel-beat and straighten it out,” says Chris, getting ready to rattle off a list of what was required. “The paint was eaten through on the roof and vandals had taken to it pretty badly. It needed the A-pillars stretched out, new front and rear left guards, new door skins, new roof … ”

The Holden Bermuda blue paint was applied by Prestige in Hume, ACT, after Chris added some HDT body bits. Chris didn’t go all-out on the interior, instead having the standard Commodore stuff trimmed in grey velour by Cooma’s Classic Car Upholsterers. The dash was sprayed too, to get it away from its original puke green. The car was assembled in the carport at home.

“It’s been a summer-only project,” Chris reveals. “My fingers told me it was too cold to work on it in Canberra’s winter!”

That all happened in 1999, but the car had been undergoing continuous evolution ever since.

“The first engine was an offset-ground stroker 5.4 with a carby that went straight in while we were painting it. Then it got a carby 5.8, then an EFI Walky top-end on the 5.8, then this one. So this is the fifth motor, really. I’m stupid!”

Chris’s engine builder, Russell Stenhouse, had a Harrop stroker-crank lying around. As you do. “As soon as we found out he had one of those, we decided to get a new motor built up,” says Chris. It’s funny how those things happen …”

The Harrop crank is an early unit without counterweights, relying on internal heavy metal for its balance. It’s good for 7500rpm.

No use having revs like that without plenty of air, so the Walkinshaw manifold (from the previous engine) was bolted on top. Chris had been running a modified Delco computer, but an Autronic now manages it.

“The Delco is a great computer but we’d planned to tune it ourselves after a while,” explains Chris. “We wanted to be able to do things on the fly, so that’s why we changed; it’s geeky IT curiosity (Chris works in IT) more than anything. You can log stuff at the drags and see what your mixtures are like and things like that. We wired it by ourselves and Dave at Silverwater Automotive Services gave it a tune.”

“It also has a gear drive in it because when you rev them to this altitude, they tend to stretch timing chains,” Chris says.

“It’s got the whole suite up top so it can rev all day. We like to do a bit of time out at Wakefield Park and on the strip so that’s why we had things done that way. I like engines that make power naturally.”
This attitude also explains Chris’s cheeky WHY PSI plates.

Transferring power, he killed three Supra ’boxes and got sick of that so a Super T10 four-speed is fitted now. Surprisingly, the diff is an old-school Holden 10-bolt.

“We tightened the centre up on the old diff and it’s survived eight runs at the drags and a day at Wakefield,” says Chris happily. “A lot of it is to do with how you drive. It’s important to take up the lash by holding it against the handbrake, for instance, so the internals don’t get hammered.”

With just 1300kg to shift and plenty of poke, the VK’s performance is strong. “On its second outing to Eastern Creek, it ran a smoky 12.5@119mph. The terminal on that means it should drop into the 11s on slicks.”

The front brakes were converted to the bigger VT units. Chris says: “I had a 330mm VN Group A set on the front before this but it’s funny; for one stop, the VTs will pull it up quicker. But they won’t do it for as long. I recommend the VTs thoroughly.”

The rears are discs, too. They all live under a set of 19-inch ROH Fury rims and 30-series Falkens that, with the Pedders and King suspension, give the car a stunning stance.

“I wouldn’t mind a set of, say, 350mm rotors under those rims,” dreams Chris, “but I’m not going to shell out four grand!”

Chris has mucked around with a string of Commodores from VB to VT but this is his first full-on project. He explains: “I half-built the VC but it got written off. This is the first one I’ve really put the effort in. It’s been going for ages, but I’m at that point now where I think I’ll wait a few years until I do something similar.”

Ah, it seems the boring sensibilities of home ownership, career chasing and saving money are kicking in …

For about three seconds. Then he says: “I want to modify the bonnet. I’d like to lop the centre out of an XR8 bonnet and graft it on. This chopped Hornet deforms in the heat. I also want some alloy heads and a slide-throttle manifold. Maybe a Tremec five-speeder, and a one-piece tail shaft and …”

THE WHEEL DEAL

How many cars do you see with a 19-inch spare wheel? Many cars don’t carry spares at all. But Chris wanted the full complement of wheels and tyres for his Commodore — and not just a crappy steel space-saver. The boot floor required quite a bit of massaging to make his fifth 19-inch wheel and tyre fit down far enough to get the lid to close.

“A mate and I spent 12 hours doing it,” says Chris, in his best porn-star voice. “It’s not the width that was the problem, it’s the height. There was some creative panel beating to get it to drop into the well far enough for the boot to close. It turned out really good.”

Chris Rann
1985 VK Commodore

Colour:Holden Bermuda Blue
ENGINE
Type:Holden V8
Built by:Russell Stenhouse
Heads:VN
Crank:Harrop stroker
Capacity:355ci
Intake manifold:VL Group A twin-throttle
Injectors:Rochester 50s
Management system:Autronic SM2
Pistons:Forged
Rods:Chev LT1
Cam:A big Crane one
Lifters:Crane rollers
Springs:Crower duals
Radiator:Three-core
Fans:VT thermos
Extractors:1¾-inch primary Pacies
Exhaust:Twin three-inch system with 3½-inch tail
Other stuff:Bosch and Carter fuel pumps, VT distributor and leads, baffled sump
TRANSMISSION
Type:Super T10 four-speed manual
Clutch:AP competition pressure plate, 9.8-inch button clutch
Bellhousing:Dellow
Rear axle:10-bolt Salisbury,
Ratio:3.55:1
Diff centre:Shimmed LSD
BRAKES
Front:VT Commodore twin-piston conversion
Rear:VL Commodore discs
SUSPENSION
Dampers/springs:Pedders Sports/King Super Low
Bushes:Nolathane
Wheels:ROH Fury 19×8
Tyres:265/30/19 Falken
Other stuff:K-Mac adjustable strut tops, adjustable Panhard rod
INTERIOR
Seats:Repadded and retrimmed standard
Steering wheel:MOMO Monte Carlo
Door trims:Late-build VK (VL spec)
Shifter:Hurst
Instruments:Standard
Sound:Blaupunkt Heidelberg
Trimmed in:Grey hound’s-tooth cloth by Classic Car Upholstery
OTHER STUFFVK Group A front bar and grille; VK Group Three rear spoiler

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