EXCLUSIVE! BRETT WAINE IS TAKING HIS HORSEPOWER HEROES TT V8 DRAG RACING!

We got a little nostalgic in a previous article about Eddy Tassone’s sweet new VK build, and took a trip down memory lane through the Horsepower Heroes archives. We rattled off a list of names that the event made too familiar for horsepower junkies like you and I, but we left one name off the list.

Brett Waine.

In 2004, Brett’s menacing twin turbo VC Commodore RAPID8 was Eddy Tassone’s greatest adversary in the cage, engaging in a punch-for-punch slug fest on the dyno at Summernats 17. Brett would ultimately dethrone the reigning champion with an astonishing 1,348.3hp average in competition. In an exhibition run at the very same event the car would go on to make 1,470.8hp - lauded at the time as the highest horsepower figure on pump gas (yep, Horsepower Heroes used to be ANDRA-sanctioned including controlled fuel), anywhere in the world!

The car never returned to the Summernats dyno cell, nor did it ever return to the public eye. Brett stripped the car and started prepping it for a career as a dedicated race car, installing an extensive rollcage and massive tubs in the hopes of being able to turn those massive horsepower figures into tiny E.Ts.

“After we came back from Summernats 17, we put it in the garage and the next step was to go racing. There was no class to suit a car like the VC at the time - no radial tyre or street-focussed classes. Pro Street was the closest thing so we started cutting the car up and doing a ¾ chassis for it,” explains Brett.

“However, before we completed it the Pro Street scene kind of faded away, and I was building a car with no home! It made me regret cutting the car up in the first place and I really lost interest with it,” he continues.

Eventually, Brett would sell the tubbed and caged VC as a roller to a buyer in Canberra. “He’s been in touch a few times and is slowly finishing it off. He’s thinking about putting a Holden V8 combo’ back in it, but I’m trying to talk him out of it!” laughs Brett.

While the Iron Lion put his name in lights, Brett did go on to tinker with various LS engine combinations for street cars that he’s owned. He’s a man that knows his way around a workshop and is pretty handy on the tools, and with the same hands-on attitude that he took to the wild TT V8 combo’ in the VC, he pieced himself together a pretty stout twin turbo LS-powered VE Commodore. “‘I’ve got my own recipes for simple mods that make good power - with the L98s you can do rods and pistons, a baby cam’ and two small turbos and have a 1,000hp street car!”

And while a boosted V8 daily driver might sound great in theory, in practice Brett sensed that the VE would soon drive a wedge between him and his driver’s license so it was sold, and the hole that it left got him thinking about the little piece of Summernats history that was still lurking in the corner of the garage.

“My mate Paul from ACME Engineering actually owned the VK and had plans to build it before he changed his mind. I was casually looking for a VL at the time to build a Walkinshaw replica out of because everyone had done blue VKs to death,” begins Brett, who ultimately couldn’t pass up the deal on the VK shell…which came with all the supplies needed to paint it blue!

We mentioned that Brett was pretty hands on with his builds, but the VK (and the build photos of the car over on his Facebook page) show just how much of the work Brett has done himself. “I didn’t machine the axles for the 5/8in studs or assemble the diff’, and I only tacked up the intercooler and let Plazmaman finish that off, but everything else was done by me,” he says proudly.

That doesn’t only extend to the chassis work, either! Brett also wired in the MoTeC M150 engine management, tunes the car himself and freshened up the engine ahead of installing and plumbing it.

The engine is indeed the Summernats-dominating Holden V8 from all those years ago. “It’s a 372 cube Holden V8 stroker running 9:1 comp’. If I was to build it again these days we’d go to a higher compression ratio, but this engine was built before the days of E85. We designed this engine for pump fuel, but I liked the challenge of a control fuel. Elsewhere, it’s a solid roller cam’ with Yella Terra -9 alloy heads and a custom intake manifold,” he says succinctly.

One of the few giant leaps into the modern era was ditching the old customised T88 turbos for more modern Borg Warner SXE372 turbos. Despite the fact that they’re smaller than the iconic T88s, the new Borg Warner war whistles are making the same power, without even really leaning on them. 

The stresses of radial drag racing are far different to those he and the little boosted Iron Lion faced in the dyno hall, and after a few shake down passes Brett is focusing on getting a handle on the Holden V8’s notoriously challenging oiling system. “We’ve adapted a Pro Stock billet Milodon oil pump on there which is massively oversized for this application, so we’ve had to increase the sump volume and increase oil flow restriction in the pushrods to keep the oil out of the heads,” he explains.

To date, Brett and the VK have laid down an incredibly lazy 8.7sec pass at only 155mph. “That’s with a 1.5sec 60ft, pedaling it and on only 18 pounds,” he clarifies, before rattling off a shortlist of other things he plans to change to help the VK hook on the radial tyres. 

“I want to make it the fastest Holden-powered ‘street car’ there is - from my research, the current fastest is around 7.80sec and I’ve got the power to beat that,” he says, a man that’s ever-focussed on a goal.

And as to whether the VK will ever back up to the Summernats dyno and carry on the legacy of the VC? “Probably not,” he admits. “With the way the competition has changed it’s just too tough for the little Holden motor to be competitive these days.”