Victorian racer Anthony Burns is not afraid to stir the pot with his LS conversions, having successfully campaigned his aspirated wagon at a bunch of our Drag Challenge events.
The owner of Harcourt Auto Wreckers recently sold the dependable wagon as a roller, and now its motor has found its way into his 1987 Nissan Skyline R31 Silhouette – this time with a six-speed manual and GT42 hairdryer bolted to it.
Avid followers of Drag Challenge will know that this car was at our three-day DC Weekend event in Victoria in March 2022, but it nearly made its DC debut long before that.
Anthony is a panel beater by trade, so he gave the R31 a blow-over in the original burgundy and silver Silhouette colours to fix the clearcoat peel
“I got it as a grandpa car from Melbourne, with clearcoat peel but all original and [with a] factory manual,” says Anthony. “Not long before DC 2019, we found a turbo kit in Canberra for the RB30 for bugger-all, so we spent all weekend before the event bolting that on and had it ready the Sunday before sign-in day for that DC.”
Unfortunately, the R31 never made it to Calder Park that year. “We took it for a drive around the block and it melted a piston in the RB, so I jumped in the XD wagon the next day and did the event in that instead,” Anthony says.
Fast-forward to mid-2021 and Anthony decided to resurrect the Silhouette, this time with LS grunt. “I knew it’d annoy the Skyline purists, and it’s such an easy way to make good power,” he says. He had an LS1 and T56 spare from a crashed VY Commodore, so he decided to use those in lieu of the original RB30 and undertook what he says was a fairly easy swap.
“I had to massage the headers, but other than that, it fit pretty easily to be honest,” he says. The original BorgWarner diff these things come with from birth was shortened to fit the 15×8 VMS Racing wheels with 235 radials.
The Skyline’s engine bay didn’t need any major work to fit the LS and turbo gear, and Anthony even painted the Chevrolet LS rocker covers in the same silver-with-red logo that RB30s have
The car stayed aspirated with the LS1 and successfully completed Drag Challenge Weekend 2022 with no issues, running a best of 12.06 on PULP using standard LS engine management. “It had a bit of an issue with the tune where it’d bog a bit off the line, so the 60-foot wasn’t very good and I couldn’t get it any faster,” says Anthony.
Here’s the R31 at Drag Challenge Weekend back in March, when it was rocking an aspirated LS1. We can’t wait to see what the turbo 6.0L combo can do at the postponed DC ’22 in January!
The last-minute Drag Challenge bug bit again not long before what was meant to be DC 2022 in late October, as Anthony decided to throw the 6.0-litre L98 from his XD in the R31, this time with a turbo. “I’d always planned to turbo that 6.0-litre, and the LS1 that was in the R31 had a small crack and was leaking,” he says of the move to the L98. Anthony’s mate Daniel Barbary did the bulk of the work converting the L98 to turbo, using flipped cast 6.0-litre LS exhaust manifolds, custom piping, a relocation of the alternator and MegaSquirt MS3 wiring and ECU.
Anthony reckons every time he posts a photo of the R31 on the socials, he gets inundated with questions about the wheels. They’re VMS Racing items, measuring 15×5 up front and 15×8 in the rear. The stock wheels still fit if Anthony wants to go full sleeper mode
The boys got the conversion done and working just in time for DC ’22 in October, but unfortunately we had to postpone it to January ’23 due to gnarly weather. That’s given Anthony the time he needs to dial in the new combo, and so far he’s bloody loving it. “It’s what I always wanted when I was younger – a stupidly fast manual R31, which is why I kept it manual with the turbo conversion,” he says.
At the time of writing, Anthony hasn’t fully wound the car up on the dyno, but he isn’t really worried about horsepower numbers anyway. “On E85 it should be good for around 800hp, but all I really care about is how fast it is at the track,” he says. “Power figures are all well and good, but that’s pointless if you can’t put it down.”
The interior of Anthony’s R31 is as stock as you’d get, even down to the original five-speed gearknob. The only giveaway is the Powertune digital das
Without a rollcage, Anthony’s ET limit is set in the mid-10s, which is where he’s aiming to put the R31 in Haltech Radial Blown at Drag Challenge in just a few day’s time.
- ANTHONY BURNS
- 1987 NISSAN SKYLINE R31 SILHOUETTE
- Class: Haltech Radial Blown
- ENGINE
- Brand: 6.0L LS
- ECU: MegaSquirt MS3
- Turbo: GT42 style
- Inlet: FAST EFI manifold
- Heads: Standard rectangle-port
- Camshaft: GM Motorsport
- Internals: Standard
- Ignition: MSD
- Fuel system: Walbro 250 lift pump, Walbro 450 main pump
- Cooling: Alloy radiator
- TRANSMISSION
- Gearbox: T56
- Clutch: Twin-plate organic
- Diff: Shortened BorgWarner, 28-spline axles, 3.73:1 gears
- SUSPENSION & BRAKES
- Suspension: King Springs, Monroe shocks (f & r)
- Brakes: Standard R31
- WHEELS & TYRES
- Wheels: VMS Racing; 15×5 (f), 15×8 (r)
- Tyres: Mickey Thompson 26×6.00R15 (f), M&H Racemaster 235/60R15 (r)
- DRAG CHALLENGE PB: 12.06@117mph
Keyword: Turbo L98-powered R31 Nissan Skyline Silhouette