HOT ROD Drag Week 2018 is just around the corner and there’s so many Aussies heading to the US that we wonder if anyone will be left Down Under. Street Machine’s Mark Arblaster is back for another crack with his POR440 Valiant and he’s aiming for eights this year.

Powered by a stock-bottom-end 5.3-litre cast iron LS engine with a billet wheel Borg Warner turbo and a Haltech ECU, the VG Valiant Hardtop ran a strong of mid-to-high nine-second passes last year to finish the week. Arby even drove a couple hundred miles south after the event to compete at the Roadkill Zip Tie Drags the day after, extending his Drag Week to six days.

“Last year the goal was to finish, we’ve done that. This year we want to turn it up,” Arby says.

To help things along Mark has ditched the old truck heads and fitted a pair of very nice Trickflow heads to the little 5.3 and upgraded the turbo to a Borg Warner S485. They’ve also ditched the old log manifolds for a set of custom tube headers to maximise the flow. Underneath Arby has gone with a Gear Vendors overdrive, which has also allowed him to fit 3.9 gears to the nine-inch rear and ditch the very noisy 3.0 gears he used last year. A full exhaust has also been installed to try and control temps under the car; especially around the fuel pump area. The final change has been to upsize the rear rubber from 235 to 255 for a bit more traction, which is probably a good thing because they’re hoping to make 1000rwhp when the car headed to Haltech USA for some tuning in the next couple days.

Stay tuned; we’ll keep you up to date with Arby’s adventures, as well as all the Aussies at Drag Week 2018.