Heathcote Park Test & Tune 01-09-2002

A typical perfect and sunny Heathcote day with quite a few quick cars out testing, some preparing for the upcoming Jamboree event being held in Queensland. For once there were nearly more rotaries than piston-powered cars, with Rotorworx bringing a few customer cars down as well the Rotormaster seven-second RX-7.

The orange Hercules V-8 Torana was also down from Sydney and ran a best time of 8.6 @ 157mph. It also launched hard and ran consistent mid-high 8's all day, even with passengers.

There were a few turbo cars out as well, including a neat 6-cylinder turbo EL Falcon (10.8 @ 124mph) from P.E.T Modifications, and Paul Stanek's JPC prepared FJ20-powered Datsun 1200 coupe (9.25 @ 125mph).

Now to the rotors, Rotormaster had switched to a twin-turbo setup and ran a best time of 8.1 @ 169mph, without nitrous so the car still has some potential yet to break it's current 7.88sec record.

Rotorworx brought a neat blue RX-4 coupe out and Vlad had it launching hard all day, lifting the front wheel easy and running in the tens to a best time of 10.4 @ 133mph. Also from Rotorworx was an LPG-fuelled white RX-4 coupe which ran into a bit of bad luck, breaking shifters and losing fan belts, but still managed a best of 12.2 @ 115mph, with the external wastegate attracting a bit of attention :) Their yellow RX-3 was also  driven to a best of 11.6 @ 118mph (with the car only running a high-flow turbo and stock 13B Turbo motor).

Paul Pfeiffer's (Dalton Automotive) RX-3 was also present, and managed to sort a few of it's gremlins out and run a best of 9.08 @ 147mph later in the day. The car was entertaining to watch as it slid all the way down the track. You can check it out on the Videos page.

Another interesting car was the green R33 Skyline which looked different with it's black bonnet and white wheels. The Rigoli-prepared silver two-door WRX broke a rear driveshaft on it's first run, a big disappointment considering the guys had come down from NSW.

Later in the day, a head-turning trio of rotors also rocked up to spectate, they included the impressive 'JETRE' RX-3 sedan and two very neat white Series 5 RX-7s.

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