IF this Ford Capri looks familiar, it’s because we featured it in Street Machine a number of years ago – only back then it was owned by Stuart Henry and definitely wasn’t powered by a Toyota 1JZ motor.

In 2010 it was a seven-second street car powered by a twin-turbo 420ci small-block Ford. However Stu got the itch for more horsepower and completely rebuilt it as a dedicated racer with a custom chassis and nitrous big-block. It only ever raced once, but went 6.90 at over 200mph before Stu sold it as a roller.

Kristian Goleby is the Australian guru for fast Toyota 1JZ motors, and he wanted to build a race car to drop one of his mills into. He was looking at building a Corolla from scratch, but when Stu’s Capri came up for grabs he thought that was a better option so he bought it.

Shortly after, a Goleby’s Parts standard-stroke 2.5-litre 1JZ motor was pieced together with Spool I-beam rods and CP pistons. The donk is fitted with ARP main and head studs, a ported 2JZ oil pump, Ross balancer, Camtech cams and a factory unported cylinder head. An 88mm Garrett GTX5018 turbo sits on a 6boost exhaust manifold, and a Plazmaman intake houses a set of methanol injectors. The whole deal is controlled through a Haltech Elite 2500T ECU, with boost control via Turbosmart gear.

The 1JZ is backed by a two-speed Powerglide that runs into a 9.5-inch diff equipped with 315 radial tyres. On the hub dyno the car made 950hp at 43psi boost – and Kristian reckons he can go up to 55psi without any dramas.

Kristian recently took the car out to Willowbank Raceway for its first shakedown passes, and the signs are already promising. His first full-track run saw an 8.20@166mph on 39psi boost or roughly 800hp, which makes it Australia’s quickest 1JZ-powered car. The current world record sits at 7.86@174mph, and we have a sneaking suspicion Kristian wants to beat it.

“There’s plenty more left in it,” Kristian says. “We’ll turn it up a bit more at the Jamboree and hopefully we’ll see a seven.”

Kristian isn’t stopping there, either; he’s already ordered a 2.7-litre stroker crank from Spool, but he’s keen to see what the current combo is capable of before upgrading – this one is only a ‘street’ combination after all.