Dyno Day - 6/05/2006
To look at the weather on the Friday was to see rain hail and high winds, not what you would like to take your race car out in, even on race day, let alone in preparation for a social event. That’s how it was last week, the day before the Holden Sporting Car Club inaugural dyno day. Saturday saw the weather smile on all of us with sun shine, no rain at all and only mild winds, sounds perfect doesn’t it but it was still bloody chilly (it’s still Melbourne after all). After arriving at CARBY BETTER’S Moorabbin’s factory at 8.000ish, Peter Stewart was the first “competitor” that was there unloading his lovely VD commodore (VD you may ask. As Peter’s explained, apparently the car was a little know secret development model put together for brocks trips to the local supermarket at Bathurst - hmmm) Darren, Anne and Daniel from CARBY BETTER had started setting up the factory from Friday so the HSCCV lads and lasses could have the run of the place for the morning. Whilst Darren went about hiding the various customers’ cars, Anne set out some coffee, tea and lovely cakes and croissants for all of us too munch on through the morning.

As the rest of the field started to arrive, the theme of the day was being set by the types of cars starting to fill the car park, Glen’s immaculate A9X hatchback, Wayne’s VK, (looks like its doing 100km/h whilst parked). Greg had the V8 SHOP VK gleaming in the early morning sun. All the cars were going to sound so sweet running at speed on the dyno (“that’s not noise – that’s music” was to be the cry for the day) Troy rolled up in his newly built HD, this one running a 186, 5speed and a hydraulic handbrake (sound like a recipe for mischief doesn’t it). Troy also bought along his much loved and travelled HD X2 which also put up a good fight for the 6cyl fraternity eventually only just pipping rays HQ ute by a mere 8hp.

A total of 12 cars were to hit the rollers today with quite a few of the myths in the club about to blown apart! Kim rolled out the infamous Dulux Datto to raise the standard of the 4cyl contingent of the club (actually he was the only one to show, where were all the others??) he thrilled the crowd with an awesome display of raw horses (no excuses now Kim) only barely followed by Chris’s awesome VY Monaro (when you think about it, standing only a couple of metre’s from Chris’s car as it screamed to a speed of just over 200km/h – shouldn’t miss the next day, should you!!)

Dave Davies bought along his red VK, well run in after a long stint from Winton the previous weekend (I think he had run over 40 laps on the day – who said you don’t get many laps on a sprint day?). Martin rolled up in his smooth as silk white VK to round out a full field of 6 VK’s. Martin actually ran his car twice as an experiment to see how it ran with out an air filter and we were all taken back when it actually lost about 7hp – good reason to keep it covered huh!.

As the day rolled on it started to look more like a maternity ward than a dyno shop looking around at all the concerned parents as their cars were put through there paces by Darren. You could see proud faces as cars bought cheers from the crowd, whilst at one stage Kylie couldn’t look as the nerves got the better of her when her “ONE OF MMOTOR VK” was put to the test (you must read up on this car in the up coming article soon to hit the magazine)

It was a good lead up to the sprint at Phillip Island on the 13/5/6. I have no doubt there was a couple of motors that have been saved by finding out that they were running a little to lean. I have also heard since the dyno day that after a work performed by Darren and the team at CARBY BETTER, a couple of the cars have found performance gains of up to 50hp just from carby work and a little fine tuning in the timing area. A good testament to Darren, Anne and Daniel and Well worth the investment I think

Thanks must go to Darren, Anne and Daniel from CARBY BETTER for putting on the day for us. Also to our own club members, Peter Stewart for his help in putting on the barby, Martin for the bread and to Ray for bringing down the urn. Last but not least thanks to all the other members for showing up and helping us all have an enjoyable day