4th Annual Dyno Day

With the word out, our 4th Dyno Day (and 3rd at GoodGuys Performance) filled up real quick! The day started with at least five cars on the standby list for a chance on the rollers if we were ahead of schedule. Eric & Wendy had the place looking fantastic as always and my VK (UNEASY) which I had left there the night before was parked in a corner of the workshop on display. The day was not looking as good, with a bit of drizzle taking the edge off more than one freshly washed car.

The first car on the rollers was a front wheel drive. It always makes me laugh to see a car round that way, but the Mitsubishi FTO didn’t disappoint and pushed out a healthy 94.3 kw. After this it was all rear wheel drive cars with no two cars being the same for the rest of the day, talk about all makes & models!! Paul’s stock 6cyl XE sedan was the first of the rear wheel drives to hit the rollers. With an expectation of around the 30-40kw mark he was shocked to see it scream its way to a mighty 50.7kw. By this stage Ado & Liz were well under way with setting up the BBQ trailer and getting breakfast on the go. Those bacon, egg and cheese sandwiches were a godsend. As the day moved on more people turned up and more people put their name on the standby list. One car that ran early in the day that attracted a lot of attention was Tony’s golden HZ 1 tonner. Looking absolutely fantastic and detailed in every way it made a healthy 150kw, with more than one person being disappointed that the nitrous bottle was at home empty. From there we had a Silvia then Brett’s 253-powered LX hatch. A couple of boys with cubes followed them up, with Daniels 454ci daily driven Panelvan making 196.3kw, followed by Leigh’s super clean 400ci Monaro making 202.1kw and having to be manhandled off the dyno due to starter motor issues.

The trend then went off shore for the next four cars with Daniels 12A turbo RX 7, Cath’s 12A Mazda 1300, Max’s 13B turbo RX 7 and Keith’s recently acquired Skyline showing that cubes are not the be all and end all making 229, 64.8, 115.1 and 160.4kw respectively. Brett’s other Torana LXCHEV hit the rollers shortly after that with people 10 deep around the dyno - he was a little disappointed with the 216.9kw as this was down slightly on his last figure. Kelly’s BA Super Pursuit Ute hit the dyno next showing what you get when you buy from the top of the catalogue. Her Ute made an easy 233.1kw and I made a mental note never to run her at our drag day or the like! By this stage there were sausages aplenty and we took a break for lunch. Ado had the BBQ cranking and Liz & Tam were expertly catering to everyone’s food and drink requests. I think there were even people coming from the local businesses for sausages.

With the lunch break over it was straight back into it, in fact lunch was cut short by accident due to the next car being fired up and strapped on the dyno. Before we knew it we were at full tilt again. As we worked through more of the pre-booked cars we were getting plenty of the standby cars through. All of a sudden I was getting called on to get my car ready, a fair way ahead of time. As Kath’s Ute had been on the dyno earlier in the day and I had only just purchased my wagon (not knowing what power it made) plenty of people were there to see the results. Now I’m not sure if it was the dyno result or how much trouble I was in if my car made more power that people were hanging around for, but the VT made 209.4kw to Kath’s 185kw - the crowd kind of made a whole lotta noise and Kath stormed off saying something about not talking to me!

Daryl’s 400ci Chev HK Monaro drew a fair crowd shortly after as it worked its way to 304kw naturally aspirated and sounded clean the whole way! The crew all stayed where they were for the Supercharged Ford Lightning truck, which followed it up. The forced 5.4lt engine wound out what sounded like a very easy 248.4kw. Now during the day we had also been having a guess the snakes and guess the horsepower competition. The correct guess of how many snakes were in the jar went to Dee & Cath who guessed the exact amount. The guess the horsepower competition was based on HELBUS, Pete & Fleur’s Liberty powered Kombi Van. With all bets on and taken the van was run and made 76kw. The winner was…… oh crap a three-way tie! So the next car onto the rollers was Paul’s turbo 13B RX2. It was decided that this would be the decider, three people with one guess each, and the figures could not be the same. The RX2 made 188.2kw and Daniel won with a guess not too far off that.

Shortly after that the cars most people seemed to have been waiting for! A handful of tough Fords hit the dyno and gave it a mighty work out. Three tough aspirated cars, a XW Ute, XY Fairmont and XD Falcon making between mid 200’s to low 300’s each. And two blown Falcons, an XT with a supercharged 460ci big block, which made 308.2kw and a XW supercharged 370ci making a huge 333kw. By this stage Eric and the lads were starting to tire and there were not many cars to go. The little blue Mazda 1300 coupe was neat as and made good power to back up the tail end of the day with 204.8kw. And last car on the dyno was a second run for Chris. Due to technical issues with the car earlier in the day the cars power was substantially down, this had been corrected but the car still came in under expectation for the owner at a fairly reasonable 176.2kw.

The day had been huge, the crowds had been the biggest of the last three years, the food had all sold out, every one was buggered and a new record had been set. In one day we had run 53 cars on the dyno with and average of 3 full power passes each. That equates to approximately 160 full power passes in one day. Taking the highest figure from each car, the Eastside Cruisers Dyno Day made 7,979.4 kW.

Thanks heaps to Brett for all his work booking and planning the day, Ado, Liz and Tam for running the BBQ and providing us with breakfast & lunch, Dave, Paul, Gords for your assistance setting up each car on the dyno. Thanks also to Kath, Ben, Gary and Kev chasing cars in and out, setting tyre pressures and generally helping out. A huge thank you must go to Eric and Wendy for their professional and tireless efforts on the day. Thanks also to all of you for coming along and helping make the day a success and a whole lot of fun!

For anyone wishing to have Eric and Wendy do servicing and / or tuning on their cars, they can be contacted on 03 9761 7261.

- Simon

Dyno Day Awards 2006

For a bit of fun, some novelty awards were given to the following entrants:

• Dyno King 2006 (highest power): Phil G – XW Falcon – 333 kW
• Encouragement Award (lowest power): Paul W – XE Ford - 50.7 kW
• Hard-Luck Award: Leigh B - Monaro Coupe

Also, the Rare Spares Real Street Awards (Winners Each Received a $50 RARE SPARES Voucher)

• Committee’s Choice: Tony - HZ 1 Tonner
• Eric & Wendy’s Choice: Daryl - HK Monaro

DYNO DAY 2006 FACTS & FIGURES

Dyno Day Results 2006, In order of appearance: