Another Hoon Story, - Truely Terrifying

[TVR-190]

Come on patrol with the hoon squad | The Daily Telegraph

JASON Nguyen drives a 1983 Celica which just might have been the ticking time bomb sitting beside you in traffic.
He was out in the car last Saturday night in a convoy with friends when they heard there was a movie being filmed in Olympic Dr, near Sydney's ANZ Stadium.

As the convoy of cars and their cannon exhausts turned into the street to check out what was happening - the usual Saturday night plan for those in love with their cars - four officers from Strike Force Taipan walked on to the road and waved them over.

They heard them long before they saw them. And they weren't filming a movie. The Channel 7 news cameras were there, along with The Daily Telegraph, to see just what dangers lurk on our roads ahead of this week's launch of the I Promise campaign.

Nguyen, 21, climbed out of his Celica as two cars pulled in behind him and the police began going over their vehicles.

The two behind the Celica were fitted with illegal pod filters. Tonight was far from the first time doctored air filters had been found on a car. Their danger is obvious and overlooked: street racers remove the casing around the filters to create greater air flow. They believe it improves performance, which Sergeant Robert Ware said was not just negligible but, given the dangers, wholly unnecessary.

"After a while they become saturated with fuel - and that can catch fire," he says pointing to one of the pod filters.

But it seems every street car is running with a pod filter. And, of course, everyone just bought their car, so it's not their fault.

One young woman claimed to have owned her car two days. It had pink number plates.

Another man bought his car the day before. Another a fortnight earlier.

He had a replacement on order.

One driver hit with a defect notice claimed the mechanic fitted his Lancer with illegal blue lights at his last service.

"I was going to change that one this week," he tells Senior Constable Mark L'Estrange.

He is not talking about his lights but the bald tyre L'Estrange has found.

"What about this one?" the officer asks when he finds a second bald tyre.

The kid shrugs. Almost all are P-platers.

L'Estrange shakes his head.

Nguyen's car has the cannon exhaust. The front seats are rickety and need to be bolted into place. Whoever put in the sound system installed fuses above fuel lines. One spark . . .

Then police catch the scent of petrol.

The officers from Strike Force Taipan know their jobs so well, they go over cars with the kind of scrutiny that would do justice to an RTA inspector. But they don't even need that to uncover what they find next.

Digging through Nguyen's boot, they push aside a safety vest and there, bolted into the floor of the boot, is a fuel pump. Four tubes run from the pump and through holes drilled into the floor. They haven't been safety reinforced. It's a fireball waiting to happen. Ware asks Nguyen: "You smell that petrol?"

"Yeah."

"You smoke in your car?"

Nguyen laughs. "Yeah."

That car, a harmless little copper-brown Celica, could be the one sitting next to you in traffic. The one with the kid smoking.

It's not just Nguyen. Over the night, dozens of cars are pulled over because any one of them could be a potential bomb . . . "literally", Ware says. Indeed, after pulling out of the depot, an illegal car was spotted on just the second corner they came to. All the usual stuff. Car too low, exhaust too big, sloppy wiring, illegal air filter . . . and on it goes, throughout the night.

And through the week. On Wednesday, two men had their cars confiscated after police caught them street racing in Roselands.

One was a P-plater. Both lost their licences. Every day it is happening.

Back at Homebush, the cops have seen enough. Nguyen's car is towed away, declared too dangerous to travel another metre, as are several others. One young woman is fined for driving with an extra passenger at night. She is deeply upset and sits inside her car, crying.

Whatever sympathy the cops might feel is tempered by the knowledge they might have saved a life. "She knows the rules," Ware says.

This is the kind of scenario Strike Force Taipan faces every weekend. Hundreds of illegal cars. As Nguyen watches his car towed away, the light catches a picture on his dash.

It's a print of Jesus and Mary . . . and it might have been the only thing that saved him.

Thank god these maniacs are off our roads. I will now feel safe to drive to homebush with my dodgy fuel breather lines



http://www.facebook.com/pages/Being-...07912912567667

[Torquative]

you have to admit tho TVR it sounds like those cars were just screaming for attention so I dont feel bad for them at all.

[VN_Luke]

you have to admit tho TVR it sounds like those cars were just screaming for attention so I dont feel bad for them at all.

No, especially because they were all fitted with them exploding air filters!!

I'm truly shocked and horrified that places like autobarn and superhoon are even allowed to sell these time bombs!

.. *yawn*

[TVR-190]

i lost a close friend in a tragic pod filter accident, i can still remember the screams as he was sucked into it.

[VN_Luke]

On a further note - perhaps if the cost of getting vehicles engineered wasn't so ridiculous, more of these people would be getting their cars engineered, proven safe, and go on enjoying their hobby, and better their skills.

It's a pity that there are people around that fall for this propaganda

[coolvxss]

Haha whe i read this in the paper i started cracking up laughing. the best the hoon squad could get them for was pod filters haha. well done.

[cracker]

pfft pod filters.. coppers poped the bonnet on mine, shine torch on 700hp garrett turbo, with an external gate sitting ontop of it...and they ask, is that a pod FILTER! yes it is a horrid illegal terrible pod filter

[VN_Luke]

lol cracker

well your "pod filter" was the same as this guys "pod filter", then that might explain his boot mounted fuel system

If only task force Taipan could stop this kid from smoking... then they really might save his life

[Grennan]

Oh no, not a pod filter!

Ok yes his fuel system sounds a bit dodgy, but geez, I know Pods are rubbish and should belong under my foot, but to go to the extent to say they are dangerous and can explode or catch on fire is pretty laughable.

On a further note - perhaps if the cost of getting vehicles engineered wasn't so ridiculous, more of these people would be getting their cars engineered, proven safe, and go on enjoying their hobby, and better their skills.

It's a pity that there are people around that fall for this propaganda

In some states, an engineers certificate isn't worth wiping your arse on.

[ryno_vrx]

question how the hell could a pod filter become saturated with fuel ?
the biggest problem is their attitude by the sounds of it

[Julie]

lol I saw this shit on the news the other night and nearly pmsl at the copper going on about dangerous lowered cars, saying how lethal they are because the drivers go hooning over speed humps and getting airbourne. I mean come on lowered cars speeding over speed humps? Never seen this in my life its the bloody opposite they all slow down to crawling speed over speedhumps

[VXdarkmagic]

so funny...It's even more hilarious that the general uneducated populace will believe every word :-P

[soop]

Its not funny.
Its Nausiating. To think we live in a world filled with such gullible, stupid people...

[azkwazere]

This should be moved to the jokes/humour section.. i seriously just shit myself laughing.

They should make a movie "Fireball Pod Filters"... michael bay could direct it.

I can seriously just imagine TT doing a story about how pod filters are causing our kids cancer and polluting out water tables.

**** me.

aZk.

[Grennan]

question how the hell could a pod filter become saturated with fuel ?
the biggest problem is their attitude by the sounds of it

I really dont blame them to be honest. If a cop was telling me the same rubbish they were telling these guys and the news crew I would've been on the ground in hysterics.

[strgas]

And we have to share the road with these cars and their owners thinking there safe and roadworthy ??? cant stop stupid from being stupid .....

[sik_dose]

Its the general uneducated public that drive these shit boxes. The educate ones and real hoons have a car so squared away and clean that when a cop opens the bonnet all they see is a clean engine with a hiden or legal air filter and highly organised hiden modifications. best way to produce power is to have a clean well maintained car whihc is legal in the most part and what is illegal is hiden.

[Tim Smtih]

the biggest problem is their attitude by the sounds of it

Stupid people should be neutered to preserve the integrity of the human race. Is that too harsh?

Um, hot engine bay....and if fuel was splashing about in there i wouldn't see the pod filter as being the freaking source of ignition. I can't believe any intelligent person could believe that pod filters magically absorb fuel from somewhere, i don't know where and explode, killing all in a mushroom cloud ball of fire.

[strgas]

question how the hell could a pod filter become saturated with fuel ?
the biggest problem is their attitude by the sounds of it

A poorly set up pod filter on a fumy engine or a block PCV can increase crank case emission back thru the fresh air intake pipe into the pod filter soaking it with oil and lots of hydro carbons ( unburnt fuel ) a good back fire thru the intake and the pod can catch fire , K&N pods on VL's or other cars that run a hot wire airflow meter are prone to fire aswell due to oil build up on the hot wire element and when the airflow meter goes into self clean mode it burns the crap off it and can set fire to the pod again , On gas converted commodore air boxes go up well when fitted with a K&N panel filter soaked in oil and a good back fire thru the intake tends to set the panel filter on fire ?????

[minux]

We actually pay people with Tax dollars to do this shit?

Surely this money would be better spent on catching rapists, druggies, thieves and pedo's?

[soop]

For a start, that same theory could be applied to ANY filter regardless of design.
I have never seen nor heared of a car burning to the ground due to this. ever.

Its just BS spin design to scare sheeple. It doesn't need any credibility, because the simpletons its aimed at know no better.

Edit:
No surely not Minux, your FAR more likely to be killed/raped/robbed generally effed over by "Hoons"...

[nathanVY]

*sigh*

we should do protests in melbourne like the iranians were.. but with fully sick illegal cars.
-___-

[jakbob]

We actually pay people with Tax dollars to do this shit?

Surely this money would be better spent on catching rapists, druggies, thieves and pedo's?

In the wise words of Homer Simpson 'You'd think so, but no'.

[jujibelly]

I honestly thought the article was made up for some funnies until I clicked the link and went to a umm respectable site. The way it has been worded haha the general public is going believe this bullshit. What a shame to be honest.

[cracker]

lol cracker

well your "pod filter" was the same as this guys "pod filter", then that might explain his boot mounted fuel system

if only task force taipan could stop this kid from smoking... Then they really might save his life

think of the children!