the article

MPW BOOSTED 419CI CLUBBY
LIKE MPW PERFORMANCE,
WHEN YOU OWN A BUSINESS CAR BOOSTED OUT OF
YOU NEED A FORE-RUNNING HIGH
AG
ITS BRAINS TO FLY THE FL
H-PHOTOGRAPHY.NET
D WWW.SMIT
li Pics by Eric Tang AN
Story by Blake Emira
E
M
I
T
he two go hand-in-hand
like clowns and crying babies. It’s pretty
simple really. If you own a
workshop specialising in
shovelling gobsmacking
amounts of forced air into any particular
engine, your own example certainly has
to be a worthy devotee of the cause,
capable of sucking the shirt clean off
one’s back on that one occasion you lean
a little too far into the engine bay. That
much is certain. And while, sure… you
could easily create calloused backs and
ruin some of Lowes’ semi-finest Saturday
torso wear with just a hint of boosted
power, Adam from MPW isn’t having a
bar of it. He wants nothing more than
the thongs you were standing in left at
the front of the car when he cracks the
throttle of this VT Clubsport.
T
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MPW BOOSTED 419CI CLUBBY
Down the track, Adam is keen to hit
the strip with happy hopes for a high
9-second pass in full street trim
“My missus can hop in and drive it down
to the shops to get milk – as soon
as it comes onto boost, well... it’s a
different world then isn’t it?”
“This thing is not moving out of my
shop until it makes 1,000hp at the tyres,”
affirms Adam of the Radiant Ebony
beast, which at the time of writing, has
just been freshly rebuilt with an even
ballsier engine. And to think, it was once
nothing more than not one, but two
meek Commodores.
You see, Adam has always been fond
of the styling and shape of the early
third-generation Commodores. When he
stumbled upon a VT Clubsport and a VT
SS that had been a repairable write off,
he “kind of made something good out of
the two,” as he puts it. Mind you, only
a couple of panels from the SS made it
onto the Clubby, along with ultimately,
full VX bodywork to bring it ever so
slightly into the next era.
“Within the first week of having that
done, we ended up going with a 383ci
motor on nitrous, with a built trans’ and
everything in it,” Adam chuckles, and
he’s clearly not one to mess around, in
case you were wondering. “Then next
came the body, and all of the paint and
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everything was done. We had some
headaches at first, but Troy at Eye Candy
took things over and he ended up organizing all of the paintwork stuff for us,”
Adam continues of that rather modern
take on Cherry Black wearing the VT like
a sumptuous brassiere.
“I’ve always wanted a Cherry Black
Clubsport ever since I was a kid, but you
know, you get older and you see things
a bit differently… I started dabbling with
other versions of it that I thought looked
better, because the original just didn’t
cut it anymore. The best I could find is
the one on the car, it’s actually a factory
Mazda 6 colour, and I guess you just
don’t see it on too many other cars.”
As soon as it was back from the panel
shop, Adam switched giggle gassings for
turbocharged shenanigans and slapped
a GTK1000 huffer onto the existing 383ci
engine. “The turbo just shits all over it,”
he laughs. “I mean the gas is good, but
the turbo is basically like being on the
gas all the time, and the nitrous is just
not a streetable thing,” he also offers.
The boot is loaded wit
h enough Kicker gea
r
to ensure your kidney
s won’t ever functio
n
the way they were inte
nded, ever again
‘We’re going to need a
bigger engine bay’. The
88mm Turbonetics is a
big momma!
MPW BOOSTED 419CI CLUBBY
“I mean the
gas is good,
but the
turbo is
basically
like being on
the gas all
the time”
Streetability was the least of his worries
however, as the primary cause of concern
for Adam soon became his long-winded,
war-wounded list of casualty gearboxes
that met their untimely end behind the
furious boosted V8’s he housed under the
bonnet. No matter what the boys did, they
couldn’t hold transmissions, and Adam
has a vivid recollection of six (yes 6!) 4L60E
transmissions that were demolished along
the car’s path to perfection.
“We went through two in one day at
Cruise for Charity Victoria! We smashed
one on the way to the workshop, though
I had a spare there so we put that in; and
coming home from the cruise as soon as
the car came on boost we did the second one. It just used to punch third and
fourth gear straight out of them.”
Prevention more than anything has
now seen Adam settle on a bulletproof
Powerglide, which works very well and is
guaranteed to make light work of all the
grunt considering the car’s weakest link
now is its tyres – and subsequent lack of
traction. “When the Powerglide went in,
that’s when we decided to build a proper
engine for the thing,” Adam says cheekily.
Hence the current 419ci LQ9 V8, which
put out 830rwhp before the rebuild, with
some in
ncredible torque figures to boot.
incredible
This 419ci LQ9 has since been
rebuilt again, and Adam is hoping
for more than 1,000rwhp from the
tweaked combination
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MPW BOOSTED 419CI CLUBBY
The wheels aren’t painted,
plasti-dipped or finished
in any other liquidised pizzazz. They’re actually vinyl
wrapped! Damien at Bling
Designs printed a few
copper layers of vinyl over
a chrome finish. “It’s the
most striking feature of
the car I think. Everybody
comments on the wheels,
whether good or bad,”
says Adam
NITTY-GRITTY
OWNER:
Adam Rogash
MODEL:
BODYWORK:
Standard HSV
COLOUR:
Pedders springs and Pedders 90/10
shocks (front), airbags (rear)
2000 VT HSV Clubsport
VX bodywork, deleted fog lights and body
lines, Alfa bonnet
Radiant Ebony
419ci LQ9 V8
INTERIOR:
POWER:
620rwkW (830rwhp), 2,200Nm (tractive effort)
EXHAUST:
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WHEELS/TYRES:
BLOCK:
Block prepared, Lunati Signature Series
crank and rods, JE pistons, steel rings,
8.4:1 compression, VCM 16 cam’,
chrome moly pushrods, Morel Tie-Bar
lifters, Jesel rockers, stainless steel
valves, PAC springs, Edelbrock rocker
covers, GM cast CNC-ported cathedral
port heads, Mellings oil pump, twin 044
fuel pumps, VCM 95lb injectors, 88mm
Turbonetics turbo @ 20psi, Edelbrock
high rise intake manifold, MPW intercooler, VZ radiator, B&M oil cooler, eBoost2
boost control, factory ECU/HP Tuner
tuned by MPW, E85 fuel diet
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SUSPENSION:
Zenetti Throwback, 20x8in all-round, copper vinyl wrap
ENGINE MODS:
Nitrous and a turbocharger bigger than your
head? No wonder people openly admit to being scared to get into anything that Adam has
built for fear of how terrifyingly fast they are
BRAKES:
ENGINE:
LG9
Custom by MPW
“When the Powerglide went in,
that’s when we decided to build
a proper engine for the thing”
DIFF:
M80 LSD, 3.07:1 ratio, custom one-piece
tailshaft with Strange yokes
GEARBOX:
Powerglide by MPW, billet input shaft, 10
clutch packs in top gear, 180 gear set,
Dominator 3,800rpm converter
Custom Honda Integra seats, leather and
suede trim, leather dash, B&M shifter,
Autometer gauges, full length centre
console, harnesses
STEREO:
Clarion head units, Kicker amps, Kicker
front speakers, Kicker rear speakers,
Kicker L7 subs
BUILD PERIOD:
12 months
COST:
Not sure… I don’t want to know
CONTACTS/THANKS:
Thanks to Precision, Ben at Scene Motor
Trimming, Troy at Eye Candy Motorsports
Dandenong, Damien at Bling Designs Dandenong, the guys at MPW Dandenong, the guys
at Haden Performance Wrecking, Top Torque
Engines, my wife Kelly for her patience
“I wanted something
different, and I’d
never seen anything
like this before,”
Adam explains of the
Integra seats. “We
fabricate here, too, so
we made all the
rails, runners and rea
r frames, and Benny
at Scene Motor Trim
ming made everything
else work. We wante
d the European theme
with the full centre con
sole and high back
look – without Coulso
ns!”
“I’ll admit, even that was asking a lot
from cathedral port heads,” Adam says.
“We’ve now gone to square port LSA
heads, a new 246/252, 114°LSA camshaft,
bigger Bosch 2,000cc injectors and a Holley
High Rise manifold. Lots of small changes,
with a big thanks to Precision who supplied
a lot of the parts. Torque figures will probably be the same, but power is hopefully
going to be up there, considering this thing
is actually driven on the street!”
Most impressively, and most notably,
as Adam exhibits, the streetability of a car
that can boast upwards of 800 and possibly
1,000rwhp at the tyres surely has to be seen
to be believed. And believe you me, locals
that know the car well have certainly seen it,
and still find it hard to come to terms with.
“My missus for example, is not a fan
of cars in any way, or anything. And she
can hop in and drive it down to the shops
to get milk – she even drives it down on
some mornings to get it washed,” Adam
says, before slipping in, “As soon as it
comes onto boost, well… it’s a different
world then isn’t it?”
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