If you’ve been following the Castlemaine Rod Shop’s YouTube channel or are just a fan of wacky engine swaps, then you should be aware of the truly unique V12 Ferrari conversion they’ve been doing on the Real Deal LC Torana.

We did a full story on the swap when it was in progress back in June 2021. Heath Waddington from Rod Shop owns the LC, and he wanted to put something different in the Torana after pulling out the blown, injected big-block Chev the LC had when it was a burnout machine.

“We had enough burnout cars, so I wanted to turn the LC into a street car I can take to the shops and back,” says Heath. “So we sold the engine out of the LC, and then the Ferrari engine popped up.”

The Fezza V12 is a 5.7-litre from a 612 Scaglietti, a front-engine V12-powered four-seater. It was also only available in manual, regardless of whether it was a H-pattern or paddle-shifted. That meant the boys from the Rod Shop had their work cut out adapting the Torana’s Powerglide to the V12, which they’ve documented in previous episodes on their YouTube channel.

In this episode, the boys catch up with the car at Cavill’s Performance in Shepparton, Victoria. After the Rod Shop lads did the hard yards getting the driveline auto converted and plumbed, and sorting the complex exhaust, Matt and his crew from Cavill’s were tasked with wiring the Haltech Nexus R5 to the Ferrari engine.

Matt explains to Heath in the video below just how complex wiring up the Ferrari engine was, and it sounds like a humdinger of a job.

Before leaving Cavill’s, the LC got a run-up on the dyno to the tune of 418rwhp and 326ft/lbs. Ferrari quote the V12 as making 532hp at the engine, so considering the drivetrain loss through a converter, ‘Glide and those big rear meats, it sounds about bang-on.

With the Torana back home in Castlemaine, Heath couldn’t resist a cheeky burnout at the Rod Shop HQ and a lap through town. The car was then loaded up and sent on the road from Castlemaine in Central Victoria to Willowbank Raceway for the Queensland Powercruise that took place last weekend, with both Heath and Barry Hall taking the LC for a blat on-track.

No doubt the LC will be at future events with the Rod Shop like Street Machine Summernats, where we’ll be keen to check it out in person! In the meantime, suss the episode below from Rod Shop: