So once again displaying my lack of knowledge the handbrake in the ute is pretty damn avg. It has been doing a few motorkhanas and has never worked properly. It does hold the ute (just) when parked on a slope but I want to get it to lock the rears when needing to do a handbrake turn. At the moment it does bugger all. I have adjusted the handbrake cable countless times and it it still rubbish. I know a hydraulic HB would be gold but seems like overkill for a 700kg ute! :)

Is there a process of elimination I can use to try and get the thing to lock the rears nicely?

The cable will just stretch and stretch- better off with hydro clutch

a trick I used on a mini years ago, was to mod the handbrake lever to accept 2 cables, and run a seperate cable to each rear. Seemed to eliminate the stretching issue (which, for me, always seemed to happen between the lever and the splitter)
A mate of mine went one further and fitted twin handles so he could lock each rear independantly.