Street Outlaws Aussie Injection

Three Aussies venture into the 405 to show the Street Outlaws crew a little something about Australian EFI hardware and the art of going fast.

Street Outlaws is the hit TV show that has taken a small collection of racers from the backwoods of Oklahoma and put them and their wild rides on show to a global audience of millions. With a mix of nitrous and turbocharged engines in small and big block guises, the stars of the show race each other for spots on the top ten list, making side bets and starting fights as they go.

TV show aside, these guys are racers first and foremost and are constantly looking for that extra handful of horsepower or improvement in setup to give them the edge over their competition. Cue Dale from Castle Hill Performance & Exhaust, a suitcase full of Aussie-made Haltech engine management gear and a fornight-long adventure inside the world of America's fastest street race cars.

"It started as a joke," begins Dale of his involvement in converting one of the fastest cars in the 405 to Haltech engine management. "I mentioned to Joe [Joe Woods/Dominator, owner/driver of the 630ci BBC 1967 Dodge Dart] that if he ever wanted to convert his car from carburettor to EFI to shoot me a message. So he shot me a message!"

"I told him all about the new Haltech Elite 2500 ECU and what it was capable of and even though I think he was a bit scared of making the change he still had the guts to go for it. He really liked that he could have one box that could control timing, fuel and nitrous, instead of having three seperate systems trying to do the same job but not talking to each other."

Fast forward a week or so and Dale, his buddy Andrew and Haltech technician Mitch were on a plane to Oklahoma, ready to undertake the not insignificant task of treating an already fast carburetted big block Chev to the full suite of Haltech products. There they met up with Eric, Jay, Andrew and Elic from Haltech USA to help get the job done.

"Joe approached a few of the other racers on the top ten list and spoke to them about the Haltech gear and they all wanted it on their cars as well. By the time I left Australia we had enough gear with us to fit out all four cars - Elite ECUs, IQ3 logger dashes, ignitions, CAN hubs, the works. There wasn't much room left for clothes!"

With limited time to get the job done, Joe, Dale and their team of technicians set to work, milling, drilling, wiring, plumbing and plugging, until the conversion of Joe's Dart was complete. It wasn't just Haltech gear though with Dale introducing Joe to quality Australian hose and fittings from Motorsport Connections Australia.

"Mark from MSCN heard about what I was going to be doing in the States and he put together all the Speedflow gear we needed for the new fuel system on the Dart. We take it for granted in Australia but Joe was blown away by how good it was compared to the stuff he'd been using."

With the conversion finished and a base map loaded in the Haltech Elite 2500 ECU, the big block fired into life and the crew were ready for its first pull on the dyno. Initial results were very promising with the engine producing 90hp more than it had done previously. The next step was to turn on the first of four nitrous kits and see how it went.

"All four of the nitrous kits are dry, meaning that the extra fuel for each kit is introduced by the fuel injectors. The Elite activates the first kit at the hit of the throttle and the rest come in on timers as the car accelerates. Each time the computer tells another nitrous kit to activate it also changes how much fuel the injectors are spraying. It means we don't have to run fuel solenoids and extra plumbing which means less things to go wrong and it also makes plumbing the nozzles a lot simpler."

Watch the videos to see how the vehicle sounds naturally aspirated and then with the first of four kits activated, and keep your eyes on the Discovery Channel as Joe and three yet to be named Street Outlaws racers take Aussie ingenuity to the streets of the 405.