THE WORLD S CRAZIEST COMMODORE

I'm Jay Duker and this is my shop, this is my fab shop, my work, my everything really, my childhood dream. My shop's in South Australia, I'm just really close to the airport, I'm really close to our well-known, I guess, beach, which is Glenelg, so yeah, my shop is pretty central and closed away in the back of a complex, no signs and whatnot. My YouTube channel's called Low Standards just because we're trying to figure out a name. I hate talking myself up, saying how good my stuff is, so a better way to do it is Low Standards and I love low cars, so it kind of works. For me it was, just grew up, like single mum, three brothers, two brothers, we were a stepbrother, just single mum and like no money and then I kind of got shipped off to my dad interstate who lives in Melbourne because I was, you know, a bit of a troublemaker, so that's when I got to meet my dad and that's kind of where cars became a bit of a thing, so my dad was into cars and then, by the time I was 17, I was homeless for a year, a whole year of my life, so I literally lived in a bush in Melbourne, which is crazy, but it's, once again for me, I just got this strong mindset, I never really cared, I just, I could just see past all of that and I loved cars and I never thought it was something that was achievable, just learnt that you could get a cheap car, you could get a $50 car and tinker with it, so I kind of started the love of cars quite young, really young, we had, my dad's friends had paddocks in Ballarat in Victoria and they had an RX4 coupe rally car, so we used to drive the rally car on the paddock and we used to hear the thing beep on the beeper and I didn't know it was a rotary, so it was, I guess from that moment it was cars and it was rotaries before I knew it, I would have been maybe 13 then, we had a rotary amphibious 6 wheel buggy as well and you're talking when I was 12 or 13 and I've just bought one 3 months ago, the exact same thing and then it just kind of happened from there and I ended up getting a lawnmower and swapping a lawnmower for a Datsun 200B. The lawnmower I found in hard rubbish, so I got the lawnmower, brought it home, got it running and then some, it was, I can't remember if the lady put an ad up or something looking for a lawnmower and then we've gone to her house and seen a rusty 200B and we just straight swapped it, so living the dream. We just got it running in the driveway, I'm going home, I learnt to drive that day. Just no money you know, I couldn't afford any other way to get a car, so then it was just trips to Kmart at the time and getting tins of bog and getting a can of paint when I had it $10 or just learning how to tinker in the front yard kind of thing and yeah, so I would have been 16 or 17 by then and then really my next car from there was an R100, just by pure arse luck, no, it wasn't strategic, it was just a car that come up cheap and I'm like, I love the lights, I love the look, rotary. So that's when I started working out that my childhood rally car was a rotary, obviously this R100 was a rotary, I love rotaries so yeah, it just happened and back then you're talking the R100 was maybe $1100, so it was a very cheap car, it was still on that cheap achievable stuff for somebody with not much money, so yeah. So let's say the last 10-15 years you know, it was always, I gradually got enough money to have a pretty cool car, I had a 2J Cressy, which was like Australia's number 2 or something, 2J Cressy back in the day, it's still top 10 today, we're talking 15 years ago, but then for me to build the next car, I'd have to sell that car, I'd have to strip it out you know, so it was never like multiple cars and so I just grew up, I was a trolley pusher for years at the local shopping centre, the reason why I was a trolley pusher was because you could do massive hours, you know, you could work Monday to Sunday, you could do late night shopping, you work all Saturday, all Sunday, so I'm the guy that's 18 bringing $800 home, where all my mates are getting $300-$400 you know, so I was in a job whatever brought enough money so I could do car things you know, so it was yeah, I just, I worked whatever I could to get enough money to do mods on my car, so yeah, I've just gotten through life I guess with buying and selling cars and wheeling and dealing and yeah, we've opened up a shop, we had a lot of employees for a while doing a lot of government work, stainless work and yeah, so yeah, over the years it's built up a shop, built up a bit of a crew, surrounded by good mates and all my cars aren't really built by, they're not built by shops, they're not built by even employees, they're just built by mates, we just sit here and we build these cars, it's, there's not one part of this car that just wasn't done by a friend, so yeah, which you know, when you're doing a car build as you know, it's a lot of money, everything's a lot of money, I just work with whatever I have, I still do it today, so when I see youngsters or anybody you know, maybe people don't have money and oh like, it's alright for you, you've got this or whatever, I still bust ass in the car park, I still thrive on getting this thing running or I love getting a good deal or I love working hard to make sure I can achieve what I want, I don't just sit there and go, I might as well build a VL and I don't just sign off and have the money, you know what I mean, I just work really hard and I kind of get it done. I got into drifting just because I guess I was a rat bag, you know, from doing burnouts down the local boat ramp, then I used to enter burnout comps, then I was into drag racing but then our drag strip got closed down, Adelaide International Raceway and I was just looking for something to do, so for me then I'm like, I'll go out drifting, you know, so then I learnt drift and met a lot of mates out drifting and so drift just kind of happened and these days I love drifting, I love the drifting, I love the driving side of it but it's like, it's the ultimate sport to have no rules to what you do with your car, there's no restriction, you know, I'm not in some elite level, you know, so there's nothing, I don't have to, I can cut my firewall, I can run that engine, I can do that, I love the idea of just the freedom of the sport, you know, I guess circuit racing and world time attack and everything's got its categories and its restrictions and for me drift is like just expressing myself and my builds, I can sometimes go out to a drift day and just be happy just to be there, you know, and then I drive, I love driving, I still shake and I still get nervous and all those things, I don't sleep the night before, I'm still that like ADD, just like, just love it so much. I've always loved low, I don't know, you know, I just, I was at Summer Nats when I was 12 and seeing those actual slammed cars, you know what I mean, the pro street, when pro street was just low and just sick, there's something about low and when I was a youngster, to me I had a Gemini and I was like, so you can achieve that look by just cutting the springs, so it was so cost effective, it was just the cheapest mod you could do and the car can look like that, so I guess low once again come from a budget thing of you get so much for so little, it's, yeah, so and then the small wheels I guess really come from doing containers from Japan and the whole A86 scene is, in Japan was always small wheels and the Japanese 14, 13, 15 inch wheels are just so cool and they're so unique and these days sadly they're so collectible and expensive but I just, I love the wheels, you know, so it's always important for me to have the cool wheel and make the car fit around the cool wheel, you know, once again I've got grinders and welders so we just make it work, there's no like, oh I will never get these wheels under here, it's like, we will, we'll cut it, they'll go. I was living the exact same life that you see on YouTube now, 10 years prior, you know, I would have, I would have 100 cars under my belt because I used to build them, I wouldn't even take a photo, I'd just go live with them, you know, it's, yeah, so it kind of, it led into YouTube, not by me but my friend Gus who works at Street Machine, he would come down here, he's like, do something on YouTube Jay, I'm like, it's not my thing, it's not my thing, you know, and forever telling him I don't care for that stuff and he actually started my YouTube channel for me, he's like, started a channel, what's its name, and that's what, Low Standards, I named it, then he came down and filmed my rotary VN Commodore, PS1000, I had in there, so yeah, it kind of, it led into that, then after Paul, Gus, started to do a few videos, I kind of took it over and I got it, I understood that it was my, my job to motivate or give people ideas or show them how I do things, so I'm inspired by so many, so many people, so the idea that I might inspire somebody, if it be chop their springs or do something a bit, a bit naughty, I just love the idea of showing the next person how my interpretation of a build, you know, so I think a YouTube channel was the biggest blessing for me, you know, it's, yeah, it really motivates me and it really, I just make sure that no matter what I do, if I say it, I'm going to do it, so it's important for me, like if it be sponsors or that young kid, if I say, hey, I'm going to be at Summernats in this, come jump in for a lap, I'm like, I owe that kid now, so it's really important for me to say as I do, do as I say, whichever way you flip that. This VL was just one of those cars that wasn't meant to be, but it just happened, it kind of grew into something much larger than it should have been, so yeah, long story short, I had my 4-roader, I've got my dream engine, inspired by Mad Mike, seeing him at World Time Attack, I don't know if it was 2010 or something like that, with a PPRE 4-roader, it was a life dream for me to get a 4-roader, so the 4-roader is two 13Bs stuck together, and sadly, when you start talking about a rotary, you've got a $1,000 plate and a $1,000 housing and a $1,000 rotor, so that takes care of one, so you've got to times four that, then you've got the crank, so the crank, eccentric shaft, which is just built by Precision in New Zealand, I'm pretty sure they're the only people who build them, is a very expensive item, so just the expense is the hard part, like PPRE just pumped these things out now, James Dean, obviously Mad Mike, anyone who's got a really successful, especially NA 4-roader, they generally come from PPRE, so yeah, it's just the expensive things, then you've got intake and exhaust and everything, it's, I explain to people, it's two engines in an engine bay, and a rotary is already a hot running engine, so picture stacking two together, your exhaust now doubles, everything doubles up, so obviously the expense, you need quite the ECU to run it and everything's just a, yeah it's eight coils now instead of four, and there's yeah, eight injectors and everything's just escalates. Over the years, many emails back and forth and quotes and quotes and the price kept going up because that's how life is, and as I'd get close to having the money, the price would go up again, I still wouldn't have the money and I finally got my 4-roader, I was putting in a RX3 Coupe, which I've got back there, it was just taking too long and I was just dying to hear the motor run, so I just set out to get anything cheap to get the motor running, so my mate who runs a tow truck business here, it was, I'm like hey, any VL's or anything around the place, and the very next day he dropped off a VL shell for free, so I got the car for free, I'm like perfect, let's just chuck it in there, let's wire it up and let's hear this motor run you know, and it was like primer, sat for 20 years, like bit of rust around the back window and stuff, and yeah it was pretty rough condition as you'd expect, like all the interior was stripped out and a lot of the good stuff was stripped off, so it wasn't a nice car as such, but it was fine, it's you know, when the car's free it's mint, it was mint condition for the money, so mid-year everyone's like oh you should build it, you should paint it, I'm like not interested, not interested and it snowballed to this, I love the car now, absolutely love the car, it's done so much and it's been so many places, and I owe a lot to this vehicle here, which started off I guess like my childhood as an actual free shell. I know this motor doesn't make sense, I know this motor makes no torque, I get it, but it's like I got the sounds, I don't want to hear a 30 in this thing, you know, I want to hear rotary, so I want to drive down the road and hear rotary noises, and I want to sit here and string it to 10.5, it could have been turned back to stock if that's your thing, you could have put an RB30 turbo on it if that's your thing, it was a just a decent stock shell I guess, but for me it's, I'm never motivated to annoy, it's not my thing, I don't want to be like oh I'm going to build this and it's going to do this on the internet or it's going to annoy these people, it's never my goal, it just so happens my taste annoys people, so you know I'm just, I'm into JDM cars and I've been to Japan probably 20 times in my life and used to do containers and I'm just inspired heavily by JDM but also grew up as a young kid in Australia, so these were the cars that we've seen and I'm a road ahead, so this is me just doing what I love, which others may not. As much as this VL is iconic VL yellow BT1 spec and it's cool, it's got a very unique motor being a four rotor that makes 600 horsepower naturally aspirated, there's so much to this car, I see a lot of guys saying oh I could put small wheels on my VL and get it low, it's like you can't, it's not simple, we had to chop 30mm out of the chassis rails to get this low, we had to essentially chop all the spare wheel well, I can't run a fuel tank in the back and we had to chop the front the cross member and raise it in the rails and there was so much just to get the car this physically low and it's driven this low, it's not bagged out or it's not lowered for this photo shoot, if you were to go back to any footage World Time Attack a month ago, you'll see it ran this low, so yeah a lot's been done to get it like this and it's basically an S13 so it runs a shortened S13 rear end so full subframe which has been grafted into the back, it runs a mixture of Commodore and S13 front end as well, mostly S13 so four stud wheels, I wanted four stud, the reason why I wanted four stud is I'm a big wheel collector so it was important for me to make this car fit my wheel collection. So you'll see it on these Panasports, you'll see it on WorkMasters, you'll see it on 14s and you know whatever and the idea of having a VL Commodore with camber throws people off a bit you know, it's I guess a VL doesn't have camber, live axle factory car so yeah so it kind of it led into that, then as you do if you want anything real good suspension wise, got full shock works, they built them custom for this car, they're just right, they're perfect, car drives lovely, it's got Matty Hearn like custom S13 cut and shut knuckles and this is a drift car above anything else. I drive it on the roads, I take it to car shows, I take it roll racing, I take it to burnout comps, I've taken it to New Zealand but it's my drift car so it's always wanted to make this thing work as a drift car so as it does. It's hard getting a car to have big lock and be low so all I do is hit my guards, yeah I just, I lose tires to guards all the time so I'll do an event and need to replace a front tire because I've popped it on the guard but that's why there's all rubbish there and there's always rubber flicked up on my mirrors and that's kind of, when I see rubber flames down the car from the front, I know the car's where it needs to be height wise so yeah basically being S13 front and rear it's just it's just a well-known drift setup, it just works you know with the cut and shut knuckles and and the car's all steel so I can rub the guards pretty hard before you know I've got no fiberglass flicking off, it's all original VL parts this car. Engine, PPRE four rotor, it's the I feel it's a recipe, I based it off what Mike's cars are, what Mike's motors are, I used Mike's engine builder, I'm so glad I did too for so many reasons but so yeah it's a PPRE four rotor so peripheral port, makes 600 horsepower at the wheels which is impressive at 10.5 or 10.500 rpm Yeah EFI hardware intake, all custom exhaust, custom intake, we wrapped the headers around the front of the motor, first reason was they wouldn't fit beside the steering in such a low car, it's a bit of a bad move because now all the heat from the exhaust just goes back over the engine, it melts the bonnet vents and whatever, deal with it. So yeah then behind that I've got a Honda RD6 sequential, another one of those things I just wanted this package that I know is going to work so I bought that gearbox and here we are two years later, I've not had this, I had my first issue at World Time Attack, I've got a slippy clutch, you know that's wear and tear, the car's done 30 track days, I do fourth gear dumpies on the road, I mean at the track, never the road. Obviously ECU, I run a Haltech, it's the easiest and best choice I've ever made in life almost, this is one of my first big builds that I run, I've had Haltechs in the past, they've either come second hand in the cars or whatever you know, we haven't had a hand in tuning them or wiring them or setting them up but just having this Haltech in this car, it's just been faultless. I had one issue, I was in New Zealand, I was at the LZ World Tour and the car wouldn't start by the button so I was getting people to push start me all weekend, anyway I got one of the guys from Haltech to come down, like my keypad just won't start the car, it was like the plug wasn't plugged in. So that's, we were push starting it, everyone's like can you guys help me push start the car so I can go do my run and it's the only problem I've had which is pretty great considering that was me. So yeah it runs Haltech R5, runs IC7 dash, this is pre-UC10 coming out so obviously I'd love to upgrade to UC10 eventually but it also works so well. I've got no issues with this thing so yeah especially R5 doing all the body loom, doing all the motor stuff, runs four wide bands, four EGTs, obviously four throttles, yeah like ECU side of it, support, the quality, the reliability, everything that it's come with is everything they told me it would be so yeah I'm super happy about that. Now I've got this motor that I just, I know how good they are and it's proving itself and I've got this gearbox, I've got this V8 supercar gearbox that's, I just knew, it wasn't even a question mark you know, so and now I've got this ECU running this thing, this package in this car, it is, there's nothing I would change. I've done two World Time Attacks which is one of my favourite events in Australia, it's where I got chatting to Haltech actually, it's where our relationship started so yeah very good event. Obviously I sent it to New Zealand, got to do Mad Mike Summer Bash, RE, another Mad Mike event, I've done so many events here, so much roll racing and I've done burnout comps in the thing you know, just got it hotter than hot and I just don't know what to do with this car now, I feel like it's just, I'd be an idiot to change it, it just, turn key and I'm driving, it's, I could right now go drive it down the road to the shop you know or I could go this, someone's got this event on this week and come take it out so I'd love to go drag race it, I'd love to put a time down, I'd love for people to see the mile per hour to prove the power that it's got because a lot of people that question the power but yeah it's honestly the only thing I can see in its future is 671 out the bonnet, I just want to block my vision, I want to drive like this. So I did think about Cavena as a left-hand drive but yeah so I don't know what's next for the car, there's a few events that we've got lined up, Adelaide Motorsport Festival and I'd love to take it to Summer Nats in the US and but they're all up in the at the minute, at the minute this car is just good to go. This car here is, was probably the first car that I really understood how open-minded the car scene is now because once again I come from Summer Nats when it wasn't like it is, I was there when the rotaries were getting teased and Borderline kicked out of Summer Nats and you know what I mean, then I turn up in this Holden which is one of Australia's babies, a VL Commodore especially and in Australia they're all built very similar, they're sick, they're awesome. I love engineering, I appreciate hard work, you know what I mean, even if it's not my style but to go to Australia's event in Australia's car with a rotary and camber, you know, you almost expect some problems but zero. We've got, we've still got, we've got guys in HK Monaro's or we've got guys with other VLs with, you know, 20-inch Simmons and parking next to you and getting photos or buying our merch off us, yeah it's pretty humbling, it's pretty awesome, it really, our car scene is, is awesome, you know, it seems like the circle you're in is, obviously you get the people online, you know, the people will say whatever online, true, true or not it's, you know, but for me it never affects me, I hardly read anything anyway but yeah, in real life you get nothing. The rest of the world probably thinks it's a weird vehicle but they just focus on the engine and the sounds. Aussies like it because of the VL, apparently there's a massive BT1 community in Melbourne who would be totally against this vehicle because you don't modify them, so I'm yet to meet them, yet to be invited to one of their cruises, let me in, what do you need? It's yellow. I build a lot of cars in a year, sometimes three or four cars which seems crazy, every year I do, I guess a major build and then I do, you know, three or four other builds which might just be engine swaps or pretty basic, so I class this as a major build when you're talking paint, interior, you know, full chassis swapping and engine conversions and all those things, so it's a bit of a major build. So right now, that time of year again, it's literally the same time of the year that when I started this for Summonats two years ago, so our typical thing is probably about six to eight weeks from Summonats we start our Summonats build, seems crazy but I don't know, it brings me and my mates together, all of a sudden me and my friends that don't see each other all the time are here till two in the morning eating pizza in the car park and just catching up and talking crap and so I feel like it's just become a thing that we just do last minute builds, so here we are right now six to eight weeks out from Summonats and I've got a bare metal Torana behind me, literally with the quarters off it and not a single thing, not a single nut or bolt in it, so yeah I'm building a LX Torana hatch for Summonats this year which is going to be the same vane as this essentially, which I'm doing a 180SX, floor pan, four stud Japanese wheels, camber because when have you seen a Torana with wheels like this, tilty wheels, Haltech which is no question, just yeah the normal as far as that goes, engine I'm 5050, I'm thinking about a 20B turbo, sounds cool, I shouldn't say it's boring but I'm like yeah, but then I've got another engine beside me so I've got a Mercedes diesel OM606, so what that is is a three litre turbo diesel, they're basically 50 kilo heavier than a 2J, they're physically nearly the exact same size but you've got a diesel that revs to six and a half thousand rpm, so if you've ever seen any footage of a diesel drifting, it'd be an OM606, it'd be in some European drift car or something, you see black smoke pouring out and you'll see it hear a screaming diesel, that's what that motor is, so my motor makes 580 horsepower, 950 newton meters of torque, pure mechanical, and then you go why would you run a Haltech, I want to run a Haltech for many reasons, obviously dash, obviously my electronics, I want to run it for e-throttle and boost and I just need a Haltech in there, body loom, headlights, you know all those good things, so that is my other plan for a motor which is a diesel OM606 and a BMW 8HP70 which is an 8-speed electronic manual-ish gearbox, so yeah that is my plan for summer Nats and that build starts tomorrow, so yeah we've got a busy six weeks ahead of us and same deal, it just brings me, my mates, all the people I work with together, all the companies I get to work with and yeah it's that time of year, paint, interior, it's all happening. And I get a lot of people message me, young people, they'll be either like oh I wish I had the skill or I wish I had this, I'm like the day of YouTube, you know, it's the same as Haltech, like I don't know anything about wiring or tuning or anything but it takes me two seconds to go there, I'm like how do you do this on your dash, you know, it's all out there, it's kind of once again, a grinder's cheap, go buy a grinder, go get a welder off marketplace and you know, my cars were built in my mum's front driveway, on the road, we never shared, we didn't have anything, it's you know, it's half the time, it's jack stands and a scissor jack and you really don't need money if it's your passion, if it's your passion, I feel like it'll shine through the other side, so for me this is my passion, I live this, hence I come here, I'm just like I could wake up at 12 o'clock if I wanted to but I still get here five, six o'clock in the morning, just excited like I was 25 years ago, you know, when I'd earn 800 bucks and get to spend it all on the car parts and not afford to eat but yeah. So if I had advice for anybody, it's like you really got to build what you love, I'm lucky that I build what I love and others love it too, fantastic but I tell you what, nothing I build is driven by likes or anything like that, it's like it's driven by like what am I gonna love sitting in my shed, what am I gonna love driving down the road or look, it won't cross over everybody, it's the same as the whole YouTube thing, you know, it's I hate seeing people get discouraged because they might not get traction but that's majority, you know, I would say easily the massive majority of people that go on YouTube don't get traction, it's a bit of luck, it's a bit of this, it's maybe it's a bit of a weird build but maybe your idea is a weird build so yeah, imagine building something for YouTube and getting likes that you get disappointed with and have a car that you just built for YouTube, so at least at the end of it, if your YouTube path doesn't work, you've got something cool and yeah, so just build what you love, don't, don't, there's no, there's no right or wrong. I'm going to just become a spring chopping centre, yeah, I'm going to do like a drive-in, drive-out thing, rock up here and there's just four people with four grinders, just like a V8 supercar team, your car just drive down the road.