WHEN it comes to turbo six-cylinder engine swaps, the Ford Barra motor is all the rage at the moment, but it’s almost sacrilege to stick one in a Holden classic like the LC Torana. Dan Bushnell chose instead to swap in a tough turbo six from the Land of the Rising Sun – a Toyota 1JZ, the slightly smaller older brother to the famous (and now quite hard to come by) 2JZ.

The car basically had a complete Toyota Supra driveline with a tricked-up stock-bottom-end 1JZ and five-speed manual ’box. Dan then went to a Powerglide auto, as the manual was getting nasty to drive on the street and track, and the car immediately dipped into the nine-second zone down the quarter-mile. After fine-tuning, it went 9.0@157mph.

Dan has just recently had the motor built with Spool rods and CP pistons, which has allowed him to up the boost even further. On the dyno the Garrett GTX42-boosted 2.5-litre made 1010rwhp on pump E85, a 100 shot of giggle gas and around 38psi of boost. The rest of the driveline consists of the same Powerglide ’box and 35-spline nine-inch rear end as before.

Jamboree at Willowbank Raceway was Dan’s first outing with the new engine combo, and his first pass was a PB of 8.9 seconds. By the end of the weekend he dropped that down to an 8.60@163mph. Not bad for a full street-trim car that gets a fair bit of road use.