Words and Photos: Richard Opie
Heroes. In recent history, it’s a term whose definition has morphed somewhat, thanks to the ever-changing landscape afforded by technology.
In the past — particularly in the automotive space — the folks who’ve attained hero status have been moulded by big budgets, big exposure and especially big personalities, whether scripted or not (we’re looking at you, American Chopper).
With the rise of the automotive YouTuber though, the script’s been flipped. Instead of carefully curated, spit-shined productions, we’ve got real people, building real projects, their way and with their own tastes. A new generation of spanner-jockeys, slaving away behind roller doors sharing their creations from mild to, as you’ll soon discover, very wild and extremely left-field!
Unless you’ve been reliant on good old-fashioned 56k internet for the past wee while (“muummm, get off the phone”), there’s a solid chance the moniker ‘Low Standards’ has passed through your browser history, either directly or by proxy. Well, if you’re into cars, that is. If crochet tutorials are more your jam, then you’re probably not familiar with Jay Duca, the smiling face behind the channel, and a bonafide, genuine car guy for the people.
Automotive YouTubers generally spear off in one of two directions. The first, big-budget, high-rolling builds, done and dusted over a handful of episodes thanks to generous sponsor bucks and large teams of dedicated, on-the-payroll staff. The second? Well they’re just like us, lying flat on the garage floor, getting a face full of grinding sparks, drenched in diff oil or tearing their hair out trying to figure out why injector number three just ain’t firing.
Jay — and his Low Standards channel — subscribe to this ethos wholeheartedly. More often than not, the projects are deep dives into unburdened creativity but pieced together with garage ingenuity and a whole heap of love and support from a bunch of great mates. It’s why we all do it; it projects an air of humbleness and quite likely reflects the beginnings of Jay’s automotive journey.
Growing up without too many dollars to rub together makes cars a bit of a tricky proposition, but for a young Mr. Duca, getting a set of wheels underneath him was a mission from the very beginning.
“As a young kid, all I wanted was a car,” he explains, “my mum didn’t have one, but I’d eventually find this old motorbike at the dump and mucked around with it trying to get it running in the back yard.” It’d be the genesis of skinned knuckles and plenty of grease under the fingernails for Jay, one that took this appetite from simply wanting a car, to wanting to tinker with them.
The four-wheeled dreams would actually kick off with a lawnmower. Less so because that had four wheels (and was probably a rotary mower), but more so that after fixing that one up, Jay swapped the grass-muncher for a Datsun 200B.
“The Datsun needed work, so I guess I just started work on it,” laughs Jay, “and I didn’t have anyone to show me what to do, or look up to for inspiration, all my circle were into sports really, not cars! I wanted to drive, so I had to fix the car!”
And so it began. Ten bucks here and there spent on paint and bog from KMart, and endless nights of trial and error. For the 16-year-old Jay this was the dream, and heading across to the local boat ramp with a freshly painted, lowered on chopped springs 200B to do a few burnouts must’ve felt like Hillary conquering Everest.
Inevitably, the disease would set in. Like so many of us, Jay would buy low, fix ’em up and sell to fund the next project, casting the foundations for the sorts of projects that would soon enough make him a bit of a known personality amongst the ’strayan modded car scene. One constant was a distinct lack of ride height: Datsuns, Commodores, and even an RX3 acquired cheaply in the ‘good old days’ soon received the treatment, a process Jay describes as “whatever felt like having the most fun at the time”, and a precursor to the YouTube channel name.
Cheap-and-cheerful hacks would make way for slightly more involved builds. In his early twenties, Jay would build the first rotary-swapped MX-5. With 13B turbo power beneath the bonnet of his first-gen MX-5, Jay would make his magazine debut in Fast Fours and Rotaries. A follow-up, a big-power Toyota Aristo would also make the pages of print bibles, but as he admits, “there were so many builds pre-YouTube, but I’d barely even take a picture, I’d just be out there living it instead! I actually didn’t really like the idea of showing off what you had,” says Jay, “I was anti it really; I thought everyone should just go out and drive it, enjoy it and have fun instead.”
Kicking off a channel dedicated to just that, might seem a bit of a contradiction, but as it turns out, it wasn’t actually Jay’s idea to begin with — but one that would eventually mesh with his notions of community and inclusiveness among car folks.
“So what do you want to call it?” was the question Jay’s mate (who incidentally worked for Street Machine) asked him prior to sowing the YouTube seed. “So he goes, ‘OK mate, I’m gonna come down and I’m gonna film ya, we’re gonna make videos,’ he basically talked me into it.”
It turned out that Jay kinda liked the result. “He came down and just started videoing, and I thought, this is actually pretty cool, this is really good.”
It’d start with simply chronicling some of Jay’s everyday car adventures. A road trip picking up an old Corolla and an even older Datsun. Jay would film the footage somewhat ad-hoc, and it’d be edited together by his mate to form a video fit for consumption. The big breakthrough? The rotary swap into a VN Commodore: nothing more than a “haha, this is funny sort of build, which ended up blowing up online!”
But Jay wanted the channel to better reflect who he was, as a person and car builder, and hopefully to inspire other folks to get in the shed and do their thing. “I started doing all the filming, and the missus learned how to edit,” and away we went. “I started really learning what this was all about, and I started enjoying it; it’s a great space to be a part of.”
The Low Standards-style resurrection of a desert-find RX3 sedan would kick off a bit of a theme — the quick-fire two-week build debuted at Summernats. The idea of starting an ambitious car build with a two- or three-week deadline might seem absurd to most, but to Jay it’s as good as it gets. “It’s a huge part of my year; it’s one of the only opportunities we get as mates to spend two weeks together. We’ve all got busy lives so this is our way to make some memories and have a good time doing it,” he explains.
“It’s a massive occasion really,” he explains, “mates pick up parts, spin spanners, work on the grinder and just drop in and out; the reward is achieving these builds in two or three weeks.”
The latest, then, is the retina-searing yellow VL Commodore, packing a PPRE-built quad-rotor, small wheels and a big helping of low.
The project actually started with the purchase of the PPRE block. “Ever since I saw Mad Mike at WTAC, like, 12 years ago, I wanted a four-rotor,” says Jay. “The noise, the flames, the skids; there was just something about it.” He wanted it badly enough to get the quote, place the order, and end up with an engine on the shop floor with no home.
He’d put the call out for a suitable home for the engine. The next day, without a cent changing hands, a slightly derelict Holden shell arrived at the shop. For the GM purists, a 1986 VL Berlina, to be exact — as it turned out, a factory V8 car, perhaps enhancing the blasphemous nature of what was about to happen.
“To start with, I just wanted to stick the engine in, lower it and go driving,” says Jay, “but everyone convinced me, let’s paint it, let’s do it properly, let’s make it nice, and it all got a bit out of hand!”
Of course, the first task was wedging those four rotors into the Commodore’s engine bay, but additionally, Jay’s thought process placed almost equal priority on a slammed ride height and a set of small wheels in lieu of the usual 26” behemoths favoured by your average Aussie VL enthusiast.
“If it’s on small wheels, it needs camber, and sills on the ground,” he laughs, “all that stuff that Summernats is NOT about.”
To achieve the absolutely boned stance, the VL’s rocking a cut-and-shut Silvia subframe in the rear, allowing the use of off-the-shelf S13 arms to achieve the perfect geometry to squeeze those jewel-like Panasport G7 C8R 15-inch wheels under stock-looking arches, Of course, it’s raised, tubbed and turreted underneath and on the inside, but the result is worth the hours of grinding and welding.
Up front, it’s a hybrid of Commodore, R31 Skyline and Silvia bits doing the honours, the common denominator between both ends being the custom Shockworks coilovers. These are units that Jay speaks especially highly of, from the design process right through to setup and of course, function.
Fitting the block in the engine bay probably wasn’t as straightforward as you might think. Despite the Commy having a relatively big bay, things like steering columns and sheet metal in the wrong places meant a bit of lateral thinking was required. That monster set of forward-facing headers? That’s a compromise — albeit a damn sexy one — ensuring the right exhaust primary lengths while maintaining enough clearance for stuff like steering.
Backing up the 452kW output of the quad-rotor is a Holinger RD6 sequential, providing six ratios of quick-fire, buttery-smooth shifts. It also provides valuable space, as Jay mentions the compact packaging if the ‘box made fitting everything in so much easier, as well as tucking it all up out of the danger that comes with a tarmac-terrorising ride height.
It’s the work that goes into running this low that is largely unseen. Despite the creamy dreamy interior now featuring a comprehensive roll-cage, when the VL made its debut at Summernats the car featured a full interior with a goal to take as many willing passengers for cruise laps as possible. Without carefully considered undercarriage work, it’s just not possible to do this.
“If people are going to get upset about a car, then I thought we might as well paint it BT1 yellow,” laughs Jay, “and the BT1 guys, they get really passionate about doing things just the right way, like, you can’t go away from the factory spec!”
The Summernats reception though? Absolutely outrageous. The test drive of the car was literally at Summernats, with bits and pieces still being fitted on the trailer, but as it hit the cruise loop, people clapped and cheered, exclaimed their surprise at just how good the VL looked — perhaps expecting something a bit rougher around the edges.
Nonetheless, Jay’s YouTube notoriety precedes him, and (as we’ve seen at his Kiwi appearances with the car) he goes to massive lengths to engage with fans. “Not everyone has the time or resources to build a car, or knows someone with a cool car, so I like to share it with as many people as possible. When I was a kid, I would’ve loved someone to give me a sticker, or have someone to inspire me and I hope I can be that guy, although I don’t think I’ll ever get properly used to being ‘YouTube famous’, it’s mainly about the car,” he admits.
A slightly reluctant, humble hero is the hero we all need. Jay’s ethos is showing the world you can build a car however the hell you want, breaking the mould or even conforming to one. If this attitude’s responsible for pumping out more and more creative builds, we’re totally here for it!
SPEC LIST
1986 Holden Commodore Berlina (VL)
Heart
ENGINE: PPRE 26B, 2600cc four-rotor
BLOCK: Factory
INTAKE: EFI Hardware intake, custom runners, K&N air filters
EXHAUST: Custom 4-1 manifold into 3.5-inch stainless steel pipe, custom PPRE straight-through muffler
FUEL: Custom fuel tank, Raceworks hanger, twin Walbro 255lph fuel pumps, Raceworks fittings and lines throughout
IGNITION: Haltech IGN-1A, MSD leads
ECU: Haltech R5
COOLING: Custom sprint car radiator, V8 SC oil cooler, twin Maradyne 14” fans
EXTRA: Battery relocated to boot
Drive
GEARBOX: Holinger Engineering RD6 six-speed sequential
CLUTCH: OS Giken twin plate
FLYWHEEL: OS Giken
DIFF: Nissan R200 4.1 locked
Support
STRUTS: Shockworks custom valved adjustable coilovers (F) 12KG springs (R) 6KG springs
BRAKES: (F) Nissan Stagea callipers, rotors and pads (R) Nissan Silvia S13 Wilwood callipers, rotors and pads, Chase Bays hydraulic handbrake
ARMS/KNUCKLES: Mix of custom S13, R31 and Commodore arms, cut and shut knuckles
Shoes
WHEELS: (F) 15×9-inch (-19) (R) 15×9.5-inch (-22) Panasport G7 C8R
TYRES: (F) 195/50R15 Yokohama Advan AD07 (R) 205/60R15 Sailun Atrezzo Elite
Exterior:
PAINT: Factory Police BT1 Canary Yellow
ENHANCEMENTS: HSV VL SV88 front lip
Interior
SEATS: Bride bucket seats
STEERING WHEEL: Nardi Deep Corn steering wheel, Low Standards horn button
INSTRUMENTATION: Haltech iC-7 digital dash
EXTRA: Chromoloy cage
Performance:
POWER: 341kW at 8000rpm
TORQUE: 380Nm at 8000rpm
FUEL TYPE: 98 Octane with Motul Premix
TUNER: Clint from Faustune
Driver Profile:
DRIVER/OWNER: Jay Duca
AGE: 42
LOCATION: Adelaide, Australia
OCCUPATION: Car builder
BUILD TIME: Three weeks
LENGTH OF OWNERSHIP: One year
THANKS: My wife, Seanne — not only does she look after me and the kids, but she’s also the one chasing parts, doing deliveries, planning, sorting, feeding, and handling all the behind-the-scenes work.
Dan King from Towking for giving me the shell, Nick Baker for the paintwork, Evan for all the best fab bits, PPRE for the engine and ongoing support, Brent and Jordan Haldene, Chris Cox, Joe Wight, Theo, Shockworks, Haltech, Raceworks, and ZD Concepts.
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This article originally appeared in New Zealand Performance Car issue 313
