When I discovered
Ovals I fell in love with them. I bought the first one I could. That was in 1991. And this
is it.When I discovered
Ovals I fell in love with them. I bought the first one I could. That was in 1991. And this
is it.
It cost me $350 and I bought it from the President of Club VeeDub Canberra. His name was Jason Bobruk (or something like that). He had two Ovals in his backyard. Apparently they were found in Tumut. By the look of things they had been sitting around since the 70s.
My Oval was cream coloured and coated in house paint. All it needed was some mags, a coat of paint, a big engine and a sports steering wheel, or so I thought.
10 years later I've realised it needed a little more than that.
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I spent years changing my mind about how I wanted the car to look. Finally I decided to paint the car Polar Silver. It's a factory colour that was used on European and American Ovals. I also had bullet indicators fitted to the front guards, just like the American Ovals. And sticking with the American theme I found some genuine EMPI Sprintstar wheels which I had powdercoated. I was also lucky enough to find a set of Motometer accessory gauges, which I fitted.
The body is stock. The floorpan is where all the modifications are. It's a 1968 semi-auto pan converted to manual. It has a single sideplate IRS gearbox that's held in with 2 extra mounts. Then box sections go from the frame horns up to the parcel shelf where they mount to a 10mm aluminium plate, which also mounts to the rollbar. A 3/8th-fuel line runs through the tunnel. Chassis stiffeners go from the bulkhead to the front beam. The front end has been modified to get extra negative camber on the wheels and has caster shims, a Whiteline swaybar, Koni shocks and a single Avis adjuster fitted. The rear end has matching a matching swaybar and Konis as well as heavy springs. The brakes are Superbug fronts and Type 3 rears. New parts were fitted throughout.
The engine is 1916cc. It is currently being rebuilt with new heads and cam. But it's specs will read something like this; counter weighted crank, lightened flywheel, 44IDF Webers on tall manifolds, Street Eliminator heads with 47/37.5 valves, 10.5 to 1 compression, inch and a half thunderbird merged header, two and a half inch turbo muffler, Stan Pobjoy 37/68 cam with 1.25:1 ratio rockers and a Stan Pobjoy sump extension in favour of the Berg one.
Inside the car it's bloody noisy. All there is two Saas seats, two 4 point harnesses, a 4 point rollbar, a fire extinguisher, an aftermarket steering wheel, a fire extinguisher, aluminium door panels and paint. You can see your reflection in the roof and in the floor.
I'm proud to say I've done the whole car myself with the exception of the gearbox and paintwork. Brookvale Body repairs did the paint and bodywork. Their work made the difference between a nice car and a show quality car. So far the car has won 4 trophies at 3 concourse events and it's currently racing in the CSCA Supersprint series and the NSW Hillclimb championship.
