OUR 1JZ-swapped Volvo 240, dubbed ‘Trolvo’, has been a problem child since we first threw the spanners at it over 18 months ago, and in recent times the big bugbear has been the transmission.

The car came with the original Toyota A340 four-speed auto that was mated to the 1JZ, but we soon found second gear was burnt out. After many budget attempts to fix the issue with home-job transmission rebuilds and second-hand gearboxes, Scotty was starting to run out of options.

Then our knight in shining armour, Simon ‘Gonzo’ Travaglini from Allfast Torque Converters in Western Australia, got in touch with a killer solution. He offered to build us a Turbo 400 ’box capable of taking up to 1200hp of tyre-frying punishment.

We’ve used Simon’s transmissions before for Carnage, our ‘Lightning McBarra’ MX-5 utilising an Allfast Powerglide and converter behind the 600rwhp twin-turbo LS1 and turbocharged Barra with no dramas.

Simon also did us a solid by supplying a converter and a sneaky transbrake with the Turbo 400, meaning we should have no problems launching this thing head first into breaking the rear end at Summernats Slam on January 8-10 next year.

Street Machine resident scribbler and all-round fine dresser Boris Viskovic took care of boxing up the transmission for Simon, leaving us with some words of encouragement and a reminder that Simon still wants to race his 12-second Camry against our Turbo Taxi someday.

The next job is to fit the ’box and sort a new tailshaft for it, and while we’re there we should probably get rid of the cut springs that are currently causing the tailshaft to hit the floor. Then we can send the boost to the moon, which you’ll see soon in future episodes of Carnage.