Tony McPhan’s Pro Street 1961 Chev Impala

When a pipe-sucking Merlin big-block’s draggin’ days were over, it found new life in a mega-tough streeter

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Photographers: Tony Rabbitte

First published in the February 2002 issue of Street Machine

The eight towering anodised injector stacks of a Crower big-block injection setup are designed for one thing and one thing only – brutal, flat-out, wide-open throttle action. They’re hard to go past if you want to hang tough and stand out from the crowd because they scream BIG STICK. And they scream it loud and clear – especially when they’re the real deal, ’cos that means there’s an eye-watering, methanol-sucking, big-horsepower, big-block Chev lurking under the bulging bonnet! A combo sure to give any hardcore horsepower junkie goose bumps.

Tony McPhan vehemently declares, “Pro Street is definitely not dead!” He proves it with his nasty-as ’61 Chev. Pop the quick-release Dzus fasteners that hold down the lift-off fibreglass front panels, fling them aside and gaze at that right-royal treat of a big-block.

Cubic inches are king, and propping up those towering injector stacks is one of Chevrolet’s finest: a 482-cube, big-block Merlin! Good friend and boss, Manuel Cambourakis from Wyong Performance screwed the race-winning mill together. Stretching the Merlin’s internal capacity to such portly proportions is a 4.25-inch bore and a whopping 4.25-inch Scat billet crank. Compressing the incoming methanol/air mix are jam tin-sized 14.1:1 Ross racing pistons, which are locked onto that big-arm crank via Scat 6.3-inch connecting rods.

When it comes to lighting the fire, Tony has two set-ups close at hand. A Vertex Magneto for street cruising and Mallory Super Mag IV/Don Zig coil combo for burning up the strip. Gaseous wastes are whisked away via 1-7/8 four-into-one extractors once the firestorm is over. All serious horsepower-producing gear to say the least.

What does it all add up to? Enough grunt to make the tyres constantly grapple for grip and enough torque to pull a Kenworth road train out of a bog. Not enough herbs? Then flick the switch for the 500hp OzNos direct port nitrous system. That, on top of the 800 horses the big block produces, should be enough to ensure the pizza doesn’t get cold on the way home.

Shove your head under the sills and you’ll see Tony’s vain effort to silence the rasping beast. Al Rawson, another Wyong Performance staffer, fabricated a twin three-inch system which feeds into a pair of eight-inch Hot Dog mufflers, before finally terminating through a pair of four-inch dump tips. Unlike a lot of those wannabe streeters that sport four-inch exhaust tips, this nasty cruiser really does need them!

Concerned that all this mechanical madness was going to turn the rest of the driveline into paper weights, Ross Burgess was commissioned to build a bullet-proof Powerglide capable of coping with 1000hp-plus blasts. Highlights of the two-speed include a Vasco input shaft, full manual valve body and a monster 4000rpm Agnew converter.

Keeping temperatures in check and things in one piece is a sizable trans cooler and thermo fan mounted above the diff. Speaking of diffs, the 31-spline, nodular iron-centred nine-inch receives its twist via a Gibson Engineering tailshaft. Stopping the two-piece prop shaft from falling out onto the deck is a pair of Hardy Spicer truck unis.

Bad 61’s aggressive rake and that menacing Pro Street attitude is not just stylistic statement, it’s all about getting from one end of a drag strip to the other in the shortest possible time. This calls for littlies up front for minimal rolling resistance and fats out the back to get the power down. Getting the job done at the track is a pair of big Mickey Thompson ET Drag slicks wrapped around 15×10 Cragar Superlites. For street duties, Tony swaps the gumball slicks for set of even wider Mickey Thompson Sportsmans wrapped around 15×10 Center Line Trigon billets. Up front it’s similar story; Firestone frontrunners for the track, M/T Sportmans frontrunners for the street.

Body-wise the car is immaculate, but things weren’t always like this. For quite a while the Chev served as a cool runaround that was dressed in straight matt black.

“It was quicker to give the car a quick coat of fast-drying GMH Chassis Black, than it was to wash, so it was just left that way,” Tony laughs.

Unfortunately rego time came around and while looking hell tough, the Chev’s less than gorgeous aesthetics were proving to be a registration hindrance – as well as attracting lots of the wrong type of attention. So it was rebuild time. The engine itself had enjoyed stretching its considerable legs in a purpose-built body in the NSW Championship Drag Racing series. With the series’ demise, the crew thought, “Why not drop the race engine into the street car?” and cast thoughtful glances at the Chev.

From there, like all good street machine projects, things got out of control. After all, it would be criminal not to build the rest of the car to the same high standard as the engine. First of all it was off to the sandblasters, a process which showed rabid tin worms had digested the lower portions of nearly every panel.

While the body was undergoing regeneration, Tony and Manuel got stuck into the chassis and fabrication work. Keeping company with the monster rear tubs is a fully-braced third member firmly located by the obligatory four-bar set-up. However, lateral location is courtesy of a Watts Linkage – a device not often used in drag cars.

There’s a host of hot rod cues largely due to the influence of Tony’s boss Manuel, who’s well known in rodding circles having once piloted a 10-second ’32 Ford roadster himself.

“If it wasn’t for Manuel’s influence and guidance the car would probably still be matt black,” says Tony, but he concedes that he’d probably be a whole lot richer, too.

Also built for comfort is the cabin furnishing. Brad Brown Auto Upholstery stitched the matching purple and contrasting grey cloth that covers the Cobra Kyalami buckets and door trims. A cluster of dash-mounted AutoMeter gauges keep the operator well informed, while Ryan Carter from Stylemaster Design Works concocted the Bad 61 motif that appears throughout the car. An eight-point roll cage, RPM harnesses and a B&M Pro Ratchet shifter round out the interior appointments.

Where to from here? Now that the rebuild is finished, plans include getting the 1700kg beast to cut some mean quarters, and getting plenty of seat time in the car – both at the track and on the street.
“With air cleaners, she’s pretty much 100 percent engineered and legal, so I plan to get in plenty of hot laps over summer,” Tony says.

When the Chev was matt black, Tony used to get pulled over by the cops all the time. Things haven’t changed much, except these days Tony says instead of pulling him over to hassle him, the cops now pull him over so they can admire his rolling work of art!

Staggering performance

In Can Am Racing’s hey day (1967-1974) legendary drivers from all over the world (including Australia’s Frank Gardner) competed on road circuits in Canada and America for the world’s largest prize purse. The Canadian American Challenge Cup – known as the Can Am Cup – permitted any innovation, so cars utilised super-lightweight monocoque chassis, ultra-wide wheels and seven and eight-litre engines – some of which were supercharged!

To keep pace with the high-horsepower competition, Crower developed the constant-flow (for wide-open-throttle operation) fuel-injection system for the big-block Chev. During development it was noted that the flow characteristics of each port were slightly different. To compensate for these differences the lengths of the trumpets were staggered. Hence the tall and short injector stacks in the Crower big-block Chevrolet injection setup.

Tony McPhan
1961 Chevrolet Belair

Colour:Peaches Purple (custom mix) Jaguar Purple Silk – chassis, engine, etc
MAKIN’ IT MOVE
Type:482ci big-block Chev (4.25-inch Merlin Block)
Crank:Scat 4.25-inch stroker
Heads:Early aluminium Bowtie ‘C’ Port
Induction:Eight-port Crower mechanical injection
Ignition:Vertex Magneto (street), Mallory Super Mag IV (race)
Exhaust:1-7/8-inch Primaries, 4-inch collectors
HIDING UNDERNEATH
Gearbox:Two-speed Powerglide
Converter:4000rpm-stall Agnew
Diff:Nine-inch with a 31-spline, nodular iron centre
Axels:Billet Moser
Brakes:Overworked ones
IN THE PLEASURE DOME
Seats:Cobra Kyalami
Wheel:Disco
Gauges:Auto Meter
Tunes:Couldn’t hear it even if there was one!
ROLLING STOCK RACE
Rims:15×3 & 15×10 Cragar Superlite
Rubber:Firestone Front runners, 29.5×11.5×15 M/T ET Drag
ROLLING STOCK STREET
Rims:15×6 & 15×10 Centerline Trigon billets
Rubber:M/T Front Runners, 29×15.5×15 M/T Sportsmans

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