Young At Heart
The LJ Torana ruled the streets and Bathurst in the early 70s, which makes Kirsten Bee's 1973 LJ Torana hardly a young'n, but the transplant of a 3.8 litre fuel injected V6 out of a 95 VR Commodore, makes this little car literally 'young at heart'. Firstly Kirsten, she is a girl originally from Townsville who has recently moved to Mackay.....For love I believe.......She comes from a family of petrolheads, mostly Dad, Doug, who had a 55 Chev race car.
Kirsten uses the LJ as a daily, so performance mods are not on the cards just yet, but that doesn't mean it hasn't had work done under the bonnet. The extractors and intake manifold have been coated in custom Jet Hot coating and the VR extractors needed some customisation to fit into an LJ. She has a K&N pod filter with custom stainless steel intake piping. The electronic injection is also out of a VR Commodore, as is the electric fuel pump. Although it is not going to break any speed records, it has had some very nice custom mods under the hood, and on it's one trip to the racetrack, it did manage 15.5 @ 89mph, so it does demand a certain amount of respect for a virtually stock 6 cylinder.
The gearbox in the Torrie came out of a VR Commodore as well - T700 4 speed auto, and the diff is a 3.08:1 limited slip Banjo. The brakes have had some boosting with the installation of 11" HQ ventilated blank rotors drilled to early Holden pattern, with HQ PBR calipers with Rod Tech Adaptors. On the rear, the stock drums have been replaced with 10" HG drums. The suspension is all standard and the car rolls on a set of 15 x 7 Spitfire Centreline Billet rims and Toyo 195/50/15s on the front and 205/50/15s on the rear. Doug also made the custom 65 litre stainless steel dro tank.
The inside has had quite a lot of work too, with Kirsten's father Doug, making the fully customised centre console from scratch. The door cards have been replaced with black velour and pink vinyl by Canpower Upholstery. The front seats are from a 300ZX, recovered in grey. The steering wheel is a recovered SS wheel, and the shifter is out of a VY HSV. There is a GTR dash with all VDO gauges to suit the V6 electronics. The music comes from a Pioneer MP3 player, through a 600 watt Pioneer amp and a Sony amp, into Clarion splits in the front, Sony 6x9s in the rear and a boxed, 12" Pioneer subwoofer.
Kirsten had a convertable Morris Minor before the Torana, and with a dad like Doug, she was always going to have an attraction to modified cars. Her boyfriend David likes to drive the car, even though he is a Ford man, and even though it is very very pink, but who can blame him? I am not the only person who has noticed the quality of this car. She got Runner-Up in Top Engine Bay at the Townsville All Holden Day and Runner-Up in the Top Interior at the Burdekin Autofest.
Kirsten has a few things she is wanting to do in the future to the LJ, like getting the seats redone in black, air conditioning and a full boot customisation, but for now she is happy to have a nice tidy little daily driver that definately turns more than a few heads, and although is an older model car, still has the heart of a youngster in the V6.
