ON THE STREET KILLERRides Rides DAVE ANDREWS 1974

When your garage houses three tough Torana’s, one of them has to be a genuine street car, right?

Those with a good memory will know of Dave Andrews. His latest acquisition, the COME Racing Torana graced the cover of Performance Street Car in April 2022, before we made the switch back to Killer Rides. But it’s not the only Torana with a history he has stashed away. He also holds the keys to the green, tubbed, smallblock powered HB Torana that was a regular runner at Calder Park back in the day, and more recently with Dave behind the wheel unleashing the nitrous small block on the track. But before these two occupied spots in the Andrews garage, there was this tough street LH sedan that Dave cruised in. Dave purchased the tidy Torana some 15-years ago and in that time, it was cruised, raced and generally given a hard time by Dave every spare moment he had. Eventually though, Dave decided it was time to give the LH a makeover and give it his own personal touch. The body was already in good shape, having been subjected to a paint job some four years before Dave took possession. You wouldn’t know it, but that means the Spies Hecker Sting Red paint has been on the Torana’s sheet metal for almost 20-years! With no need to spend time and money on the Torana’s exterior, Dave stripped out the driveline and the interior to get the makeover started.

Originally, the HK left the factory covered in Silver Mink with red trim – one of the most desirable colour combinations for this model. The first thing Pete did was to remove the panels (including the complete front end) and then sandblast the underside to clean it up and make sure there wasn’t any nasty surprises waiting for him. When the dust had settled, the bare floor proved to be great shape and it was at this stage that Pete added a 3.55-geared Detroit Locker diff as well as HQ drum brakes and all new lines and bushes. And with a big horsepower engine upgrade planned, Pete dropped the HK off to Brett at Wicked Industries to add some chassis connectors and minitubs – just the thing to through those 15x8-inch Auto Drag Centerlines under complete with the 28x10.5-inch Mickey Thompson Sportsman Pros. Completing the underside makeover are HQ disc brakes, 90/10 shocks and lowered Lovells springs on the front end with 15x5.5-inch rims and 64015 Excelsior tyres. The rear end now sits lower too, thanks to reset leaf springs and Koni adjustable shocks.

Knowing the future of the Torana included plenty of street use, Dave opted for a simple but functional grey and red interior combination that flows from the low-back seats to the door trims where the speaker enclosures are colour coded. The factory fitted centre console is now just a memory, with a B&M Pro-Stick shifter replacing the original gear selector. A MOMO steering wheel sits forward of the factory dash and gauges. The interior really is a case of less is more!

Lifting the scoopless bonnet reveals a smooth engine bay that houses the highly detailed 355-cube Holden stroker V8. Showing his patriotic side, Dave decided to keep the all-Aussie powerplant in place, instead of going with a more fancied old-school Chev or LS-based engine. The one-time five-litre features a stroker crank and rod combo to up the capacity, with a host of quality performance goodies inside to keep Dave happy when he feels the need to get that tacho needle moving in the right direction. Whilst the internal specs are important, Dave made sure that when people got to see what’s under the bonnet, they would be pleasantly surprised. The COME Racing intake manifold is not a common item but any stretch and when bolted up to the VN heads, helps the 355 produce more than 330-horsepower. Giving the engine power is a Haltech ECU. It certainly has that show car look too! Dave’s pretty fussy with his cars, and you can tell that by how he presents the engine and its surrounds.

Backing the injected engine is a Turbo 700 auto that has been fronted with a Dominator converter with a 2500rpm stall. The power then gets sent rearwards to the 3.9-geared 9-inch diff. Other underside upgrades include a braking system that uses P76 discs with HZ calipers up front, with Commodore discs and calipers on the rear. The brakes live inside ‘still cool’ Weld Alumastar rims measuring 15x4 and 15x8-inches.

With the two other Torana’s in the stable more based around all-out horsepower, Dave wants to keep the LH more street based than anything else. It doesn’t sit too low, there’s nothing hanging through the bonnet and the wheel/tyre combo is sensible. On top of that, it drinks pump fuel and doesn’t get hot, not matter how much traffic there is! It’s all about practicality over adrenalin-rushing performance. And of course, the LH is something the whole family can enjoy. And for someone like Dave who is very family orientated, it doesn’t get any better…