Home-Brewed 1000HP VH Commodore Ticks All The Boxes

“I originally bought the car out of a bloke’s paddock for $300,” begins Pete Faulkner of the unassuming start to the build of his ballistic VH Commodore. “We built the car in ten weeks - painted, trimmed and a 355ci Holden V8 engine. We ended up making 588rwhp out of the Holden motor, it was pretty healthy!” he smiles.

He downplays the 355ci, which was in fact a Perkins Engineering-built engine which was filled to the brim with custom touches and tricks that made the engine perfectly suited to Pete’s relentless right foot!

The car terrorised just about every car show on the calendar in this guise, from Summernats to Powercruise and everything in between - anywhere Pete could let the little 355ci sing and get a set of tyres off.

Pete still loves to punish the VH, however his gaze has shifted towards racing the VH, hence its most recent rebuild. “We raced it right before we ripped the 355ci out and went 10.30@136mph,” he says approvingly, but an experiment with a buddy’s LS engine confirmed that the old Iron Lion wasn’t returning to the VH’s engine bay.

“A mate loaned me a really basic, alloy LS combo’. We put an S480 turbo on it and I thought we’d see similar power to the Holden motor. On 18-pound it ended up making 900hp!” he chuckles.

Pete was officially an LS convert, and started building his own 5.3L cast iron motor in his Air-Con and Auto Electrix workshop. “It’s got a K1 Technologies crank and rods, Wiseco pistons and a Brian Tooley camshaft. It’s the same engine that’s been in there for five years - it’s pretty mild, but the whole combo’ is just really efficient,” he explains of the VH’s mechanicals, which are heavily influenced by the boosted 5.3L LS scene in the States.

On the dyno, the combo rewarded Pete and the team with 1080hp at the hubs on only 24psi, but the team commonly pumps 32psi in when they’re racing these days. On his first licensing pass the VH walked straight into the 8s, and only a few passes later laid down an 8.30@168mph, but more impressive than the speed is the reliability of the combo’.

“I can take this car to any event - whether it’s the drags, Powercruise or street driving - and all I do is put fuel in it and change the tyres,” laughs Pete, attributing the success of the combo to Justin from HPS who knows all the right numbers to make the Haltech engine management sing.

“We’ll turn this thing to 8,500rpm, and with the big converter we keep it revving so that we don’t load up the rods,” explains Pete of how the little home-built 5.3L LS copes with the boost from the S485 turbocharger.

Proudly, Pete races the car with his some Kaidan and the duo are working towards snagging a high-7sec pass in the car’s future.“My boy has been around this car his whole life - I’ve got photos of him helping me pull the 355 out when he was a kid, and now he’s old enough to drive the car! If we get a seven we’ll go home with big smiles, but until then, as long as we can drive the car on to the trailer again at the end of an event we’re having an awesome time.”