{"id":184682,"date":"2024-03-26T01:30:00","date_gmt":"2024-03-25T14:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.streetmachine.com.au\/?p=184682"},"modified":"2024-03-26T16:17:56","modified_gmt":"2024-03-26T05:17:56","slug":"michael-moore-holden-vs-commodore","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.streetmachine.com.au\/features\/michael-moore-holden-vs-commodore","title":{"rendered":"Eight-second 1800hp VS Commodore"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

We’ve seen some killer cars roll out of Brisbane\u2019s Spot On Performance & Fabrications over the years, but this VS Commodore, built from the ground up for Michael Moore, is next-level.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Beyond the stunning paint and interior, incredible engineering and a single-turbo LS capable of 1800hp, the car is geared up to handle everything from a local coffee run to running a seven-second pass on radials!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

First published in the March 2024 issue of <\/em>Street Machine<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cI remember the moment the build started,\u201d Michael says. \u201cI was at Jamboree watching the drags, and I saw a VN Commodore the boys at Spot On built; it was a low-eight-second streeter making laps. I knew that\u2019s what I wanted, so I headed over to them in the pits and told Andy [Coles, of Spot On Performance & Fabrications] I wanted them to build me one.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Michael found a good starting point online: a rolling shell with 400,000km. \u201cIt was up in Townsville; I didn\u2019t even go and have a look at it,\u201d he laughs. \u201cI just got it delivered!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Chatting with Andy, Michael stressed he didn\u2019t want an out-and-out drag racer \u2013 it had to be a streeter, it had to be clean enough to be show-worthy, and it still had to be capable of driving to the track, running eights and driving back home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere\u2019s eights, and then there\u2019s eights,\u201d Andy says, putting emphasis on the latter. \u201cI knew that if we were going to do a full build on this car, then an 8.90 wasn\u2019t going to cut it by the time we got it finished. Michael hadn\u2019t really owned an older car like this \u2013 he was used to late-models \u2013 so everything was going to be different.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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With that in mind, Andy set the project in the direction of seven-second ETs, without sacrificing the street-driven angle. \u201cWe didn\u2019t sell Michael on the numbers,\u201d he says. \u201cWe kept that door open, because technology is constantly evolving, and we need to move with it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jase Cowie at CPE is Andy\u2019s go-to guy for huge-output stuff, and he was briefed on an LS package capable of somewhere between 1600 and 1700hp.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The engine weighs in at 403 cubes, and for an LS, it\u2019s about as premium as you can build without going asylum-crazy. The block is a Dart piece, holding a Callies Magnum crank with Oliver Speedway rods and Diamond pistons for a static compression ratio of 10:1.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Brodix BR3 heads are sealed with Athena head gaskets and ARP 2000 studs. Jase treated the heads to a full port job, Inconel valves and 1.7:1 Jesel rockers, driving Trend pushrods to Johnson short-travel lifters. The specs of the cam are a bit secret-squirrel, but it\u2019s a custom hydraulic-roller.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Other bolt-ons include an ATI balancer and billet intake manifold from Velocity Engineering, with two sets of 2400cc Siemens Deka injectors in case Michael switches to methanol at a later stage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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All the fab work was done in-house, including the 17\/8-inch headers that run into a twin three-inch merge collector. That\u2019s bolted to a 94mm G57 Garrett turbo hidden behind the front bar, which is matched to a five-inch dump pipe, 60mm Turbosmart ProGate, and huge 120mm-thick PWR front-mount intercooler.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe have always been fans of a twin-turbo set-up over a big single,\u201d Andy explains. \u201cIt\u2019s easier to get the converter right, and they spool faster, which makes them better for roll racing or no-prep. However, Michael was adamant that he wanted a big single, so the turbo choice was critical.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Engine control is all Holley stuff, with smart coils and just about every sensor under the sun. That includes \u2013 but isn\u2019t limited to \u2013 exhaust gas temperature, front and rear wheel speed, driveshaft rpm, converter charge pressure, and coolant pressure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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A custom 108-litre fuel tank is mounted behind the rear seat, with a massive 10-gallon Aeromotive brushless pump feeding Speedflow 200 Series Teflon fuel lines to the Aeromotive regulator.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The list of top-shelf parts seems endless, and the build quality is outstanding throughout. The Reid-case Powerglide transmission is a serious piece of gear; it was built by Elite Automatics with 1.80 straight-cut gears, a 10-clutch top gear, and internal and external dump valves. It\u2019s matched to a 9.5-inch PTC spragless bolt-together converter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe chopped the back out from the rear seat, and hand-made new chassis rails from chrome-moly tube and tied it in the front of the car,\u201d Andy says. \u201cWe then converted the suspension from IRS to a four-link with geometry similar to a VL\u2019s, with a shorter top arm to speed up separation under acceleration.\u201d Like all of Spot On\u2019s rear-end designs, the concept was put through a computer simulation before it was fabricated. A triangulated Y-bar locator was also added, which slides in and out as the diff housing rotates.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The new diff is a 35-spline floater housing, with 3.5-inch axle tubes built by Spot On and Race Products. Brakes are a massive 11-inch Wilwoods, with handbrake assemblies inside the beadlocks to keep everything as ADR-compliant as possible. Gazzard Brothers supplied the seven-inch Afco rear shocks and anti-roll bar kit, while the centre section is a Strange nodular housing with 3.5:1 street gears and a full spool.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It terms of weight, the VS has a 58 per cent front bias with the fuel cell filled. When it comes time to race, Andy will add weight bars to the rear.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The interior is just as impressive as the driveline, featuring a stunning trim job over a six-point \u2019moly cage with added dash bars, chassis connectors and a rear window splitter to strengthen the body. Carbonfibre seats are also on the agenda but are yet to be fitted. \u201cWe can usually turn these full builds around in 12 months, but a few paint and trim hold-ups stretched this one to around 14 months,\u201d Andy explains.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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While there\u2019s no official dollar figure for the build (and none of us ever really want to add these things up), everything about the VS has been elevated to a brilliant level. \u201cThe way things are going with the cost of parts today, it\u2019s unfortunately making builds of this standard out of the realm of normal people,\u201d Andy points out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Once Michael has shown the VS off a bit, Andy will remove the timber that supports the flat floor trim and get it track-ready. \u201cWe\u2019re excited to see Michael putting so many miles on the car,\u201d he says. \u201cIt came in for a service recently, and the front was covered in bugs!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Andy has no doubt the VS will run deep into seven-second territory. \u201cIt made 1350rwhp on the dyno easily, and we will make a rear housing change on the turbo when we want to take the power to the next level,\u201d he says. \u201cFor now, it\u2019s about Michael getting used to the car, getting a licence and working with the power level we have.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Michael is equally pleased with the result. \u201cI\u2019m unbelievably happy, seeing it all come together at the end with the paint and trim,\u201d he grins. \u201cMy kids just love the car; I start it and give it a rev and my son is smiling and shaking with happiness!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019m hitting up the roll racing every month and I drive it everywhere. It really is the ultimate car for me: something to drive, show and race.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Street manners, a show-quality finish and seven-second potential make for a spot-on VS!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":184687,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[540,9771,10551,10552,539],"coauthors":[157],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.streetmachine.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/michael-moore-vs-commodore-bonnet-up-scaled.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.streetmachine.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184682"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.streetmachine.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.streetmachine.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.streetmachine.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.streetmachine.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=184682"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.streetmachine.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184682\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":187327,"href":"https:\/\/www.streetmachine.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184682\/revisions\/187327"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.streetmachine.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/184687"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.streetmachine.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=184682"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.streetmachine.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=184682"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.streetmachine.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=184682"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.streetmachine.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=184682"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}