News
Summernats - Record Run
1/30/08
The talk of the competition this year was Gus Nichols� awesome Holden WB ute. The white monster pumped out a mind blowing 1940 HP before the drive train cried enough mid run� setting a new Australian record. While there is no official world record, event sponsor and dynamometer supplier, Dyno Dynamics, is unaware of any similar power graph achieved by a street car.
The heart of Nichols� beast is a 572 cubic inch twin turbo V8 pushing the power through a TCE torque converter, Turbo400 auto transmission and 4.11 diff. Feeding the monster Holset Turbos is a single 4 barrel Dominator carburettor, heavily modified by the man responsible for the engine spec, tuning and much of the fabrication work, Jake Edwards, the man behind Jake�s Performance in Canberra.
Jake provided the specs for the engine configuration while Ohio Crankshaft in the USA completed the engine build. Amazingly, the car was put together in just 2 weeks and the engine fired up for the first time just a couple of weeks before the record breaking run at the Horsepower Heroes competition.
According to Jake, �Gus isn�t made of money and we�re good mates, so this wasn�t an open cheque book excersize. We saved money wherever possible (having the engine built in the States was cheaper than sourcing the parts alone here) and we didn�t have the luxury of just dropping everything for the build - we had to fit it in around our other work.
If we�d had more development time I�m absolutely positive we would have cracked the 2000 HP mark and then some. The night before the final we were still tinkering at the shop on my Dyno Dynamics dyno and discovering lots of issues (like the intercooler pipe blowing off at 1200 HP at only 9 lbs of boost!). We were making 1940 HP when (as far as we can surmise) a u-bolt sheared and the diff turned, causing the drive train to break up - and we were only at 6,700 RPM. The engine is good for 7,500 RPM (and maybe 40 lbs boost) so we still had a long way to go. Gus and I are both stoked with the results � especially in light of the minimal time we�ve had to get the car set up properly�.