When Dan Hendy worked out he was a bit too big for riding superbikes, he turned to the next most insane motorsport he could think of.
Words: NZV8 Photos: Rixsta Sammons / Lance Farrow
In the three years since Dan Hendy stepped away from riding superbikes, he’s managed to embed himself deep within the NZ burnout scene. Although he puts a lot of his fast action down to his self-confessed impulsive behaviour, the truth is there’s a little bit more logic to it than that. Riding superbikes is not for the faint-hearted, so when he had a child on the way, it helped him make the decision to move away from the sport. Adding to this was the conflict between him needing to be light for the bikes, but bulking up because of his other hobby of bodybuilding, so something had to give.
Having owned various Holdens over the years, he started hunting for an HQ, and it wasn’t long before he’d found just the thing. The car was typical of many deep South Island machines, wearing a set of Triden wheels, a stock paint job and with a small block Chev under the hood. That impulsive behaviour kicked in and it wasn’t long before he’d done a deal over the phone. But rather than throw it on a transporter, he thought he’d make it into a father-son trip with his young son Ryker and drive all the way back to Auckland. The bonding time went well, with the pair taking the scenic route back and enjoying the journey. Little did he realise that would end up being the only big road trip the car would do, as it rapidly became less and less street-friendly under his ownership.
Despite the engine in the car reportedly coming out of a sprint boat, Dan soon worked out it really didn’t have enough power for him and his new-found love of blowing the tyres off the car. A chat with fellow burnout enthusiasts led him to Glen at Engine Specialties who helped to assemble a new engine combo. Dan’s the first to admit he moved the goalposts for Glen along the way as he learned more and more about the scene and what he wanted. The key piece that stays with the car today from that build is the 8-71 supercharger. In this initial guise, it was set up to run a carburetted pump gas combo that made about 600hp at the wheels.
While that figure is enough for most people, Dan wanted more, and we know that meant he would stop at nothing to make it happen. He decided switching to injection was the way to do it. So he looked to the Aussie scene for inspiration, and ended up ordering a similar injection system to many of their burnout cars.
When it arrived and was fitted, things just weren’t working as they should. It became clear the under scoop injection system had major problems. Thankfully through a mutual friend, Dan was introduced to the team at Llama Engineering. Marc, Frank and Darren at Llama are those guys who can make anything work, but rather than continuing to fight the system, all agreed ditching it was the best option. That move would be to a very clever, very custom EFI set-up that gave perfect fuel distribution and tunability. This also allowed for the switch from pump gas to E85. Of course, this new fuelling situation would allow for even greater performance, if only the engine packed a higher compression ratio. Marc and the team at Llama are more than capable of building engines, so soon not only was the injection set-up being built but also the engine was being rebuilt. As the HQ had a well-specced and built engine, Llama chose to put a more severe duty Callies rotating group in to the already tough engine and a large roller mechanical blower cam and associated upgrades through the valve train.
The work on the interior isn’t quite so subtle. With the rear seat being the only part that remains untouched. The fronts have been replaced with a set of custom-embroidered Racetech items that help hold Dan and lucky passengers in place during the violent tip-ins he’s been perfecting. During those high-rpm bursts, a Haltech IC-7 dash along with a handful of AutoMeter gauges keep an eye on the engine.
The starting point is a heavily modified intake manifold that incorporates EFI injectors. Above is the Teflon-edged supercharger from the first build along with a Big and Ugly scoop. A closer look reveals another eight injectors in the scoop doing their best to keep the hungry combo fueled. With E85 burning at a much higher rate than petroleum-based fuels (because of the stoichiometric ratio, if you’re technically inclined), a serious plumbing system was needed. Rather than surge tanks and boot-mounted refineries, Dan and Marc made the system look far simpler than it should. That means the bulk of the work takes place inside what looks at a glance to be a simple fuel cell. No less than three 600hp-capable fuel pumps are, however, hiding inside, which to date at least, have been more than enough.
With the car’s rapid ascent from Southland cruiser to Queen Street bruiser, a few different transmission combos have found their way in, and out of, the car too. At first a TH400 was built, but the more Dan learned, the more he discovered a Powerglide would be a longer-lasting solution. His good friend and very experienced tyre destroyer Ryan Gracie led Dan to Wayne at Precision Performance Transmissions, the local supplier of BTE transmissions. Wayne’s recommendation was a BTE Top Sportsman Powerglide complete with trans brake, 1.80:1 straight-cut gears and a billet valve body. These same transmissions are used by not only the top cars locally but also many international competitors. Likewise, BTE bolt-together 10-inch converters are used, and that’s exactly what ended up in AGROHQ.
With all the work on the car to date, the diff of all things now lets it down. The stock axle tubes have been welded to a 9-inch head with a 3.25:1 ratio and 32-spline axles. As you’d expect, a serious driveshaft complete with Strange yokes on each end now joins the diff and trans. It was because of the HQ axle tubes and drum brakes that Dan decided to go all out on the front brakes, which meant 320mm rotors clamped by Wilwood 6-piston calipers. A Wilwood master cylinder also found its way into the mix along with a bit of trickery to make the massive fronts work with the drum rears. Moving to calipers of this size forced a change of wheels too, not that the Tridens were ever going to last long, but for clearance reasons, 18x8s were chosen for the front, while on the rear a set of 20×12-inch rollers were selected.
HQ lovers will be vocal in saying 12-inch-wide wheels won’t fit under the stock guards of an HQ, and they’re right. Take a closer look and you’ll see the team from Real Rides on Auckland’s North Shore have cleverly pulled and stretched the guards far wider than Mr Holden first made them.
The work on the interior isn’t quite so subtle. With the rear seat being the only part that remains untouched. The fronts have been replaced with a set of custom-embroidered Racetech items that help hold Dan and lucky passengers in place during the violent tip-ins he’s been perfecting. During those high-rpm bursts, a Haltech IC-7 dash along with a handful of AutoMeter gauges keep an eye on the engine.
Because of how restrictive the twin 3-inch exhaust system is, the team at Llama have limited the MaxxECU to produce 850hp at the wheels. At the time of writing, the car is back at Llama though to have a set of exhaust cutouts added just after the headers, which will help to reduce back pressure and engine temperatures — meaning horsepower figures are very likely to grow into four figures. That leaves the last big task being to tub the car, which will mean Dan’s not spending every weekend scraping the rubber off the rear quarters and not sending it back to Real Rides for yet another touch-up. Having set fire to the rear end once, resulting in melted wiring and tail lights, he’s eager for that not to happen again.
Dan’s pretty keen to make a name for himself in the burnout scene here, and he’s going the right way about it by building a car with the potential to foot it with the best NZ has to offer. He’s detailing his exploits along the way on his AGROHQ Burnout Car Facebook page, so if you want to see what his next bout of impulsive behaviour brings, we suggest you check it out. The car has come a very long way in such a short time, and Dan admits he’s still learning the ropes, so it sounds as if the best is yet to come.
This article originally appeared in NZV8 issue No. 209