I bought the LJ as a very unfinished project, it was in very poor condition and restored to what you see here. The paint was sprayed by my cousin Steven Rainbird in his home shed to an excellent finish. The engine was prepared by  P&P Performance. It was a 186ci Holden 6 cylinder with a Celica 5sp box. Engine had YellaTerra head, 4 barrel Holley 450 Mech sec carb. Used to run it on AvGas. 13x7 & 13x8 Dragway Pro wheels with Eager SF330 tyres - 215/50/13 & 235/50/13. Had a powder coated 1/2 roll cage. Red & Black velour interior and XU1 long range fuel tank and GTR guards. The engine was very tough and used to fly! I did race the LJ in some motorkhanas and raced it at Canberra drags once. Cant recall the ET but would have run 13 sec 1/4 mile times. 

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My Galant was bought off Matt Robinson of Yanco area. This was an awesome little car & a giant killer. Such a compact little car of only 800kg, its got a 1.6ltr engine with twin carbs. The suspension was that solid that you could barely push the car down. Yet the idle was so rough the whole car would shake with the cam. I won the Wagga & District Car Clubs Motorkhana Championship with this car in 1998. Ive also raced the car at Canberra Dragway where it was beating XY GTs etc even though the Galant would rev so much that the fuel pump could not keep up. Again cant recall Ets but the Galant would probably run 13 sec 1/4 miles. Had some rare 13x7 US racing mags and ran SF330 Eagers 215/50/13 & 235/50/13. This is the most versatile car I have ever driven. The engine was prepared & rebuilt a number of times by P&P Performance. It also had traction bars.

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One bad bit of gear. The main intention of this car was absolute kill! Overkill even. The car became the quickest and fastest standard stroke Holden 308 "real street" car in the world! I could have done so much more with a stroker crank but chose to keep it standard and push the limits. And limits we pushed! The engine saw 9000+RPM and was set up to cross the finish of a 1/4 mile drag strip around 8000 RPM. Made approx 520 HP @ 7900 RPM. And ran a best ET of 10.717 sec @ 200.54 Km/h. Thats on only 400m of road or 1/4 mile. This also equates to an 1/8th mile ET (200m) of only 6.808 sec @ 164 Km/h. And zero to 100Km/h in approx 3 seconds. Engine prepared by P&P Performance. Had VN injected heads, Harrop Manifold, BG Silver claw carb, ICE Ignition, Raceglide 2sp Powerglide & Sydney Comp Warehouse 9" diff with 4.55gears. Rims Weld Pro stars 15x5 & 15x7 with Michillen ZXZ 155/70/15 & Hoosier street drag tyres 235/60/15. The car won a ANDRA championship event in 1999.  

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I decided to step up to Top Doorslammer class around 1999. Here at Rainbird Motorsports we constructed a full chrome moly tube chassis to Top Doorslammer specs. Without the advice of Shane and Mick from Thunder Road Race Cars in QLD this would not have been possible and also Des Pimm. The project was built in house here at RMS but was unfortunately abandoned due to lack of funding and sponsorship. The car has recently been sold. The engine was a 510ci Chev with a 14/71 Littlefield supercharger, aluminium rods, Enderle Buzzard hat alcohol mechanical injection. Around 2500 HP variable. Diff was sheet metal full floating diff by Thunder Road. Wheels 15x3.5 welds & 16x16 Convo Pro, with Hoosier front runners and Goodyear Eagle slicks 17.5/36/16 (Top Fuel tyres). The car would have run in the 6 second zone @ 322 Km/h+. Maybe again one day. 

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Steel Horse