Joe McNicol hates people complimenting him on all the chrome work under his bonnet.

He also has a passionate dislike for VL Commodores and laughs at the number of restored Commodores with engine or sound packages worth more than the actual car.

But let’s not be too hard on Joe! He’s a top bloke as it happens and is totally obsessed (with a capital ‘O’) about his ‘99 model VT GTS.

So you’d think Joe would love all the praise for that chrome in the engine bay - except that not one component under the bonnet has been chromed. Take a good look at the photo below - yep, it’s all highly buffed alloy!

Says Joe; "Let me tell anyone who is thinking about the polished alloy look, that it is 100 times harder than you think and will take 1000 times longer to achieve than if you just went out, bought the parts and had them chromed!"

The detailing didn’t start and finish under the bonnet with Joe’s GTS however, as a few key undercarriage components have been given the full treatment as well.

But let’s go back to where it all began.

A long-term love of the GTS
"I think I’ve always been a fan of the GTS moniker ever since the first GTS Monaro," stated Joe.

"The VT Series 1 is obviously the pinnacle of Holden’s GTS lineage and I simply had to have one."

It has to be said that Joe isn’t a big fan of the present Series II GTS and all because of that Chevy engine.

"If you were to give me a free Chevy motor I wouldn’t put it in my car.... I wouldn’t want to have to wear my baseball cap backwards to drive a car and you can surmise from that what you want!"

As you can gather from the opening paragraphs, Joe has a point in that a majority of modified Commodores start out as wrecks, or as base models with nothing very exciting. True, many of them turn into works of art, but how about starting with something perfect or exclusive in the first place?

Surely a car like this, once modified, would be something very special indeed…

Right from the outset therefore, Joe wanted to use a ‘standard’ GTS to create a very special car. Still, don’t go thinking that his GTS is simply a cosmetic wonderment.

That engine may be detailed to the max’ (and we’ll look at that aspect a little later on), yet it’s certainly not the motor that the car left HSV with.

While Joe did buy the car brand new and added a mere 9,800 kilometres to the original engine, a brand new out of the crate 5.7-litre GM block was the starting point for the motor that now lives under the bonnet.

That’s right folks, Joe rejected the barely run in original block for his project!

No tolerance, no corner-cutting
To build his engine, Joe brought Perth’s renowned Southside Engine Centre in on the act, with a bloke named Craig performing all manner of preparation work on that brand new lump of metal.

"I think a more apt name for Craig is ‘0% tolerance’," quipped Joe. "If it’s not 101% perfect then Craig isn’t happy."

Operations performed on the block included the usual cleaning, crack testing and decking, but line boring was probably the most important task.

The bore is now 20 thou’ oversize too, producing a capacity closer to 370ci.

Then there are the splayed and shot peened 4-bolt main caps with ARP bolts, making for one very serious bottom end indeed.

When it came to the long thing with big lumpy bits, a balanced, knife edged, shot peened and nitrided Crankshaft Rebuilders crank was chosen - considered by most to be the best money can buy.

Between the crank and those JE slugs live eight 6" Lunati rods and it goes without saying that the entire bottom end has been fully balanced.

The top end begins with Dave Bennet Dash 9 heads, ported for 612Hp no less.

"Wayne, the Cylinder head guru at Southside, has had a lot of experience with these heads in race boats, sprint cars and the drag racing scene," explained Joe.

Internally, the heads carry a smorgasbord of quality valve gear, which is detailed in the Nuts`n’Bolts at the end of this story. Nonetheless, one valve train component alone is critical to the performance of this engine.

"Selecting a camshaft was the toughest job of the lot," conceded Joe.

"Obviously, I wanted to be able to drive the car on the street, but still have shit loads of power in the higher rev range - above normal driving conditions."

Crossing the border
Chris, from Crane in South Australia, was soon involved in the project together with Southside’s proprietor Graham Ellis.

Together, they chose a Crane timing stick offering a maximum lift of 598 thou’ with maximum duration of 252 degrees. Those are certainly impressive figures and it’s perhaps not surprising that the cam works to its optimum between 3,600rpm and the rev limit of 7,400rpm.

Getting off the line is not a problem though, as the cam still has very strong torque characteristics at low revs.

On the induction front meanwhile, Joe opted for a product that we don’t see a lot of, but which has a solid reputation.

"I’d read heaps about the Starr Performance manifolds on e-mail newsgroups and that, so eventually I called Peter Starr and told him what I was up to," said Joe.

Peter did the right thing and sent Joe a bucket load of info, including flow figures as well as before and after dyno examples.

Needless to say, one of Peter Starr’s manifolds was soon winging its way west and when bolted onto the GTS’s original motor produced a 36Hp increase at the rear wheels all by itself - impressive.

Fuel is introduced to the equation by eight high volume Bosch squirters and the whole deal controlled by the car’s original computer.

But yes, you’re right, the car’s electronics have been re-programmed.

Over to you again, Joe.

" Lachlan at Chiptorque was given all the engine specs and although he said he hadn’t made a program for such a big cam before, he was able to come up with a custom program to get the car run in.

"We’re now onto Lachlan’s fourth chip actually, so he’s following the progress of the car very closely and will in fact be coming to Perth soon for some intensive hands on development."

Prints on the polishing
One other individual who was very hands on with this project was Peter Thompson - "One of the best HSV mechanics here in Perth and a true friend."

Peter spent many hours on the engine towards the end of the project, although he did make one terrible mistake.

"He’s the only mechanic in the world who can put finger prints on the polished bits under the bonnet while changing the back wheel..." quips Joe.

On the exhaust front meanwhile, Genie 1 ¾" primaries lead into a custom 4-into-2-into-1 system each side that was hand crafted in stainless steel by Tony at Genie in Myaree.

There’s a single high flow cat’ on each side too, before a single 3" system takes the waste gases right out back to a highly polished Genie muffler and resonator.

The full exhaust system is marvellous to behold, yet there’s plenty of other features under the floor of this GTS that attack the eyeballs when the car’s up on a hoist.

Big things, little things…
The car carries a brand new auto transmission built up by Rod at Carousel Autos, with an adjustable shift kit and a few other trick bits. The transmission sump has been polished and the bits in-between the cooling fins painted red by a lifelong friend.

"Ken and I went to primary school together back in Victoria, so we’ve been mates for a very long time," explained Joe. "It took him a full week to do that tranny sump!"

Oh, and in case you’re wondering, Ken powder coated the entire bottom surface of the tranny sump, then buffed across it to remove the paint from the tops of the raised fins.

Even more spectacular is that diff’ housing from WH Diffs, and no, it hasn’t been chromed!

And of course, all of these highly cosmetic pieces carry plenty of trick internal parts.

Auto Flight Engineering - the people behind Dominator stall converters - took care of the stall converter (surprise, surprise!), while the stall speed has been raised to 2,700rpm.

"Dominator are the most widely used converters in Australia and renowned to be the best drag racing converters available, it’s that simple." stated Joe.

"In any case, no-one in Perth could make a stall converter for the 4L60E automatic gearbox in my GTS."

The point here, folks, is that letter E at the end of the 4L60 E tag.

Explained Joe; "The ‘E’ means it’s an Electronic box, but it was too new and no one had made a suitable stall converter that also had electronic lock up in 4^th gear."

When we asked Joe why he decided not to convert to a manual gearbox, he replied that getting a manual gearbox and clutch to handle the sort of power he was chasing in a VT was something no one could advise him on.

"Besides, I don’t think a manual could shift as fast as this auto anyway," says Joe.

"And in any case, I’d prefer to keep my left hand free for more adventurous tasks that may be occupying the passenger seat!"

From the tranny, the car’s original tailshaft leads into one of the most amazing diffs’ you’re ever likely to see.

"I discovered WH Diffs in Street Commodores magazine, would you believe, then asked around and eventually spoke to Wally himself at WH," said Joe.

End result is a manganese alloy housing that bolted straight up to the GTS with no, repeat no, modifications to the car whatsoever. If you think that’s good, then consider that the package retains the GTS ABS braking system and IRS rear end.

Unlike the Hydratrack diff’ fitted to the vehicle ex-factory, the WH diff’ is configured for dual wheel lockup and so won’t "leave one wheel behind."

Oh, and before we forget, the gears are Ford 9"and the axles are custom made 31 spline pieces allowing for superior strength and an almost endless range of ratios, although for now it’s 3.5: 1

It’s worth noting too that the diff’ doesn’t have to be removed from the car to change the internal gearing. With the driveshaft disconnected, the front of the diff’ can be unbolted and the gears changed over.

Staying with the undercarriage for a moment, Joe has opted for the HSV premium brake package. "They’re just totally awesome, I can’t rave enough about them."

Suspension duties are taken care of by stock GTS componentts, except for the addition of an anti camber kit at the rear end courtesy of Gmac Autos in Myaree.

Now that we’ve proven the worth of Joe’s mechanical refinements to his GTS, let’s get back to the cosmetics and dive under that bonnet once more.

But wait, there’s more – polishing, that is!
For those who still don’t believe that all those shiny bits are hand polished, here’s a full list; Starter motor shield, water pump, alternator housing, , alternator bracket, timing cover, throttle body, inlet manifold, Air conditioning pipes, head faces , spark plug covers , ABS Unit , transmission sump and diff’,

Some other little trick bits you will see under the bonnet are the hand machined alloy pulleys, strut tower covers and dip stick grip, stainless steel oil filler cap, and full race harmonic balancer.

And if you still think hand polishing like this would be a relatively easy task, consider that it took Joe five weeks to do the water pump and an amazing three months to reach a point of satisfaction with that Starr inlet manifold!

The process began with wet and dry sandpaper, 300 grade to begin with before working through 600 and 1200 grade. Then it was out with the Autosol and cotton wool buds.

As you might expect with a vehicle like this, there are numerous other small touches that required intensive labour.

For one thing, Joe has lost count of all the stainless steel bolts, nuts and washers he’s added - as indeed he has lost count of the hours spent cutting the bolts to the required and exact lengths.

It’s hard to know how to sum up a car like this, so perhaps we’ll leave that to the owner.

"This car wasn’t built to a budget, but to specifications with the aim of not cutting any corners…"

OWNER: Joe McNicol

MODEL: 1999 Holden Special Vehicles VT GTS

ENGINE: V8 Holden 6.2 litre ‘370Ci’
Fully prepped Iron block with splayed 4 Bolt mains using ARP main bolts & 20 thou’ hone, Crankshaft Rebuilders steel crank knife edged, shot peened & nitrided, JE Custom Aluminium race pistons wrapped in file fit gapless rings, 6" Lunati rods, Dave Bennet Dash 9 Alloy heads fully ported and held down by Caterpillar heavy duty bolts, Manley 1-piece stainless valves, Iski double valve springs, Iski retainers, Yella Terra 1.65 ratio platinum race roller rockers, Crane mechanical roller lifters, Crane pushrods, Crane solid roller cam (0.579 in / 0.598 ex, duration 244 / 252), Rollmaster double row timing chain, Starr Performance 90mm throttle body match ported, Bosch high flow #36 injectors, Chiptorque programming, Mellings high volume oil pump, Starr Performance deep pan sump, Ross full race harmonic balancer, MSD Ignition , Felpro copper head gasket set

EXHAUST: Genie 4-into-2-into-1 primaries (jet hot coated) each side then twin 3" with twin high-flow cats and into single 3" stainless polished system dumped over diff’ with Genie muffler and resonator

GEARBOX: 4L60E automatic heavily modified with Dominator 2700Rpm electronic Lock up Stall converter

DRIVELINE: Original tailshaft into manganese alloy diff’ by WH Diffs. Retains GTS ABS brakes & IRS rear end but with 3.5 ratio Ford 9" gears, 31 spline custom axles

SUSPENSION: GTS stock, with anti camber kit at rear

BRAKES: HSV 4 Spot Premium brake package all round with cross drilled rotors

WHEELS: 18" X 8" HSV all round

TYRES: Bridgestone SO2 235/40/18 all round

INTERIOR: Stock HSV GTS

BUILD PERIOD: 11 Months

COST: Don’t want to let the wife know!

THANKS TO: Southside Engine Centre - main mechanic Peter Thompson, Darren Boogle, Craig & Wayne - Genie Exhausts - Diane Davenport & Tony Argentino from Genie - Enzed Kwinana - Rod from Carousel Auto - Lachlan at Chiptorque - Wayne from Embleton engineering - Best mates Ken , Graham, Kricky  - Shell Oils for photo shoot in Fremantle distribution centre - And, of course, wife Sonya !