Indholdsfortegnelse for August 2014 i Hot Rod

I’d like to thank all of our fathers. Without guys like them, kids like us wouldn’t love cars, wrenching, and racing. We wouldn’t have learned the lessons of independence and perfection that engines wrapped in steel and riding on four wheels can teach. Without fathers like them, there would be no shoulders to stand on, no memory lanes to drive down, and no HOT ROD magazine to celebrate the journey with. All of us reading these words are eternally grateful for the lessons our fathers have shared with us. And to you we say, “Thanks, Dad.” For teaching us the value of tools and giving us our, first set of sockets, wrenches, and screw-drivers. We cherish your old toolbox and plan to pass down the ½-inch wrench you used on…

By the late ’70s, professional drag racing had already moved out of the price range of the average Joe, but there were numerous attempts to start up classes that required less capital. Several companies produced scaled-down Funny Car bodies in hopes of encouraging a class of motorcycle-engined mini floppers. The bite-sized brawlers never caught on, but they made for wonderful exhibition cars—none more so than Larry Nagel’s “Pocket Rocket.” The Pocket Rocket started out as a7 ⁄8-scale Vega made by Umbro Machine and Tool. In the early ’80s, Nagel, a former Super Gas driver, would button himself into the tiny Vega and rocket (quite literally, the car was powered by a hydrogen peroxide rocket) down the quarter-mile, achieving speeds of almost 250 mph and e.t.’s in the mid-6-second range. He…

We’re very lucky here at HOT ROD head-quarters because we’re only minutes away from the Petersen Automotive Museum (Petersen.org), which regularly has exhibits displaying cars as art. Its current showcase is the celebrity-curated Sport Coupes show, featuring such marvels as the GT40 Mk III and the American car in an Italian suit, Iso Grifo. But what if you aren’t in Los Angeles? What if you’re in, say, Atlanta? Never fear, the High Museum of Art (High.org) has you covered! The High Museum’s big summer show features concept and prototype cars from the ’30s through today, and while there’s no Iso, there are plenty of Italian bodies and American power. Take, for example, the Lancia Stratos HF Zero, whose 33-inch height makes the GT40 look like a towering giant. The GT40,…

The late ’70s were not a good time for V8 ponycars. By ’77, Javelin, Barracuda, and Challenger were dead, Camaro lost its big-block, Trans Am engine bays were being invaded by Olds V8s, and you could buy a four-door Cougar wagon or a Mustang II that shared a platform with the Pinto (and was aimed at compact imports) from Ford Motor Company. You could say that enthusiasts were ready for the Fox-body Mustang when it debuted for ’79. Sales jumped by 150,000 units compared to the ’78 model, and as the years went on, the Fox-body Mustang grew more competent as the 5.0L gained both EFI and a reputation as a dragstrip terror. Yet as capable as the Fox-body platform is, it seems to have been overshadowed by…

Nobody would ever attempt to build a car like this without a sense of humor—and thick skin. That’s a good description of owner Dennis Varni from Pleasant Hill, California. Besides, over the years he’s accumulated an esoteric assortment of cars and trucks to satisfy whatever mood he’s in—from deadly serious in his blown 800hp ’33 roadster, to going 345 mph in his Bonneville stream-liner, to benevolent when he takes his family and friends for a jaunt in his hot rodded ’36 White Yosemite tour bus. He’s participated in the revived Carrera Panamerica race in Mexico, ran a ’61 Falcon in a 5,000-mile car rally in Africa, and driven his America’s Most Beautiful Roadster–winning highboy roadster across the country so many times he can’t remember. From an enthusiast…

We’re pretty proud of HOT ROD’s history. If you look through back issues, the amount of historically important cars, engines, and awesome people that HOT ROD was first to spotlight is pretty astounding. Tat said, we may have one or two mistakes in our past. Take, for example, this Letters to the Editor page from the April ’57 issue. “Dear Sirs: Enclosed is a picture of my Chrysler-powered dragster which consistently runs below 10.5 seconds in the quarter and always above 135 mph. Enjoy your magazine very much, but there’s nothing about Florida in it. It seems to me you could have a field man in Florida who could send information to you on special drags and cars which we have here. Such as our Florida State Championship…

Bird watchers identify their feathered friends by scanning the trees for flashes of bright colors or distinctively shaped wings and bills. Car watchers look for inset grilles and one-year-only chrome trim. Pinning down the year/make/model of the original ponycars was easy, as the Big Three redesigned exteriors every year. Modern car identification takes a bit more practice, since a model can go four or five years with only subtle changes to its outer shell. Being an expert late-model spotter requires more than just the ability to notice a round side-marker light. As its production is wrapping up, we assembled a timeline of some of the big changes to the S197 platform since its introduction for ’05. We mostly ignored V6 cars because talking about six-cylinders makes us fall aslzzzzzzzzz……

Next Month: 4L60E Transplant Contacts ABC PERFORMANCE; Imlay City, MI; 810.614.3730; ABC VIKING PERFORMANCE; Lakeville, MN 800.236.6001; VI-King.com…

The previous owners of our cars made all sorts of strange choices. Fender flares and shag carpet? Sure, it was the fashion. Toggle switches bypassing faulty factory wiring? I get that one, too. Engineers, they always like to redesign rather than repair. I can forgive terrible paintjobs and ugly seat covers. I’ll begrudgingly overlook the sin of cutting out factory dashes and door panels for cheap ’80s radios and speakers—although if you do that, can you at least make sure that the speaker is far enough away from the window crank so as not to make ground beef of one’s knuckles? My Duster had cheese graters covering the speakers, I swear. There’s one thing, though, that can be given no dispensation. If you are removing panels or bezels or lenses,…

Q: I have a ’77 Chevy C10 with what I’m told is a Gen II small-block Chevy (SBC) and a 700-R4 trans out of an ’87 Suburban. The distributor is rear-mount and is an HEI. The valve covers have the center-bolt design. The intake center bolts are spread out and not close together like on some other engines. It is reverse-cooled with the serpentine-belt system on the front. A: Will a regular SBC intake fit, or do I need to buy a different intake? I had my eye on an Edelbrock Air-Gap dual-plane high-rise (PN 7501), along with a PN 7102 cam kit. Is there anything I should expect to see different for the Gen I compared to the Gen II? The ’92–’96 Gen II small-block Chevy factory installed in…

Nostalgia is different things to different people. When this photo of Ed Iskenderian and then–DragWorldÕs A.B. Shuman was taken in October 1967, Isky’s nostalgia was that June ’48 HOT ROD article featuring his roadster—the roadster he’s sitting in almost 20 years later for this image. A.B. was still working his way up the automotive publishing rungs and still four years away from taking over the top spot at HOT ROD. Today Isky is still as feisty as ever and still has everything he’s ever touched, including that roadster. Tat June ’48 issue is now more than 66 years old, this photo taken almost 46 years ago, and Isky is knocking on 93 years young. Unfortunately, A.B. left us last year. Do you think this image is recent history to Isky?…

On the turns of a road course, the ’14 Chevy Camaro Z/28’s Pirellis grab like Artie Ziff, but what if you’re not a road racer? How do you impress your buddies with a car that’s got killer grip, 15.5-inch (front) and 15.1-inch (rear) carbon-ceramic brakes, and 505 hp? Simple, use the super-car test made famous by the 427-powered Shelby Cobra: 0–100–0 mph. When we asked Chevrolet what the Z/28 would do in a test like that, the company confessed it didn’t know. So when a pre-production car was sent to the West Coast, we teamed up with our brothers at Motor Trend to see firsthand what Chevy’s supercar killer could do. Motor Trend’s Carlos Lago and Scott Mortara took turns launching the car from the big end of California Speedway’s…

HOW A CAR BECOMES LOST Unfortunately, tragedy plays a big role in authentic barn finds. In order for a car to become forgotten, someone’s lifelong plan has likely been derailed. A death in the family, physical accident, career change, or even an abandoned project all tends to move a loved car into obscurity. PROFILE OF THE PREVIOUS OWNER You’re most likely looking for a person, well, just like you—except older. You’re looking for someone who would have had enough disposable income to buy a significant car when it was new, or nearly new, and then either got too busy or money got too tight to use the car as intended. Rather than allow the car to be damaged or stolen while it wasn’t in use, the owners of future…

On a recent barn-find expedition in Indiana, my friends and I came across an original ’70 Chevrolet Chevelle SS 396. The owner welcomed us into his garage and showed us around, but we didn’t see the Chevelle anywhere. As the layers in his garage peeled away, it appeared, covered in rust. The car hadn’t always been locked away in this cocoon. The owner said the SS was his family’s car for the longest time, and they had taken it everywhere. One time they went down to a “large amusement park in Florida” and parked way out in the boonies next to a median to at least partially protect the car. Unfortunately, someone came along and kicked a big dent in the driver-side door. Ofter that, the Chevelle was rarely used…

In November 2013, the Specialty Equipment Market Association (SEMA) celebrated its 50th anniversary at its annual trade show in Las Vegas. Today’s SEMA represents a multi-billion-dollar industry, but it all began as a small group of hot rodders and racers who built speed parts (SEMA originally stood for the Speed Equipment Manufacturers Association) for their own cars and the relatively new world of hot rodding. One of SEMA’s creators—and its first president—was Ed Iskenderian, a man better known as Isky to most everybody. Iskenderian was one of the early dry-lakes racers and hot rodders, and along with his Model T that today sits in the Wally Parks NHRA Museum in Pomona, California, was the cover model for HOT ROD’s sixth issue in June ’48. His company, Isky Racing…

Technically, the Dick Landy Dodge D700 car hauler isn’t really a HOT ROD project car, since it belongs to my boyfriend Tom, but because it’s in my backyard and several of us staffers have spent time working on it, we’re going to claim it. Who can resist a ramp truck? Tom and I started searching for a ramp truck around 2010, when National Dragster’s Phil Burgess posted a series of stories on car haulers, and Don Prudhomme’s restoration of the Snake and Mongoose haulers began appearing online. None of our searches panned out until Tom took out a “wanted” ad. We only got one call, and it wasn’t someone with a truck, but rather, someone who knew of one. “Hemi” Fred Ristagno said that he remembered seeing Dick Landy’s D700…

Like hitchhikers thumbin’ their way a short distance to the next town, the cars and trucks featured in Roadkill on the YouTube.com/Motor Trend channel appear and then bolt from our lives like lightning. It’s not because they are particularly fast—the ’67 Barracuda and ’74 Jaguar proved to be dragstrip slugs in Episodes 2, 13, and 14—it’s the breakneck pace of filming 12 episodes a year that sends us onto the next adventure, leaving a line of cars bound for the junkyard, auction block, or coworkers’ garages. Although the bulk of the fleet has had a brief tenure, many a Roadkill ride have followed us home like stray dogs, which gives us a chance to get to know them beyond the episodic schedule of filming the show. We still have the…

You’d think it would be easy to find a Pontiac 400 engine. After all, Pontiac used them in all sorts of vehicles beginning in ’67 and pumped them out for more than a decade until GM corporate engines took over for Pontiac mills in the late ’70s. Still, I wasn’t having much luck finding a suitable engine to rebuild for my ’64 LeMans. After searching Craigslist for months, Mike Martin, who owned the four-door ’65 LeMans we invited to our first HOT ROD Flog (Mar. ’13), asked me if I was in the market for an engine. Months of searching and my engine found me, and it was just a few miles from HOT ROD’s headquarters. Based on the date code, block stamping, and cylinder-head casting numbers, I was able…

01] JIM INGLESE JimInglese.com; 203.623.0659; $5,200 (w/carbs); PN SBC 48IDA Few things look cooler than four sidedraft Webers sticking out from a V8. Designed after the prototype induction systems that Chevrolet built for Trans-Am—but never manufactured—this sidedraft Weber intake and carb kit is only sold as a complete ready-to-install unit from Jim Inglese. “When a customer opens the box, I don’t want him or her to have to go to the parts store, the hardware store, or anywhere,” Jim said. When you order, Inglese asks about the application and then personally tunes every carb before it’s shipped. 02] SPEEDWAY MOTORS SpeedwayMotors.com; 800.979.0122; $1,199.99 (w/carbs); PN 92519905 From Speedway Motors comes intimidation in a box: the Shotgun Bill Tunnel Ram kit. Complete with an Edelbrock intake, two Edelbrock 500-cfm carbs,…

You guys take some good photos, and we want to help make them even better, so we’re trying something new with Scene by Readers. It’s our Scene by Readers featured artist, where we’ll highlight a photographer whose work we like, and ask him or her for car and car-shooting tips. We’ll also tell you where you can see more of the person’s work online. Our first featured artist is Austin Swanger. Austin is a freelance photographer and artist who supplements his income by buying and selling vintage cars and parts. His photography focuses on American iron of the ’50s and ’60s, often in rural settings. “I live a vintage life of sorts,” Austin told us. “I dress in a late-’50s/early-’60s style and for the most part try and appear as…

Lewis Tommaso //Cookeville, Tennessee Lewis brought his ’66 rambler marlin to the ’13 Power tour™ in bone-stock trim. Now he has to figure out how to fit a 400ci V8 under the hood. Carl and Carrie //Bay City, Michigan Carl found this ’67 camaro ss without a drivetrain. the camaro, whose first owner bought the car while in Vietnam, now has a 396 big-block. Frank Giardina //Belle Chasse, Louisiana Frank’s ’48 Ford Tudor sedan has a mustang II front suspension and 351ci V8. he says he drives it as much as possible and gets 26 mpg. Joe Darinsig //York, Pennsylvania This ’66 Yenko stinger corvair was restored in 2013, and Joe tells us it’s 1 of 186 built.…

We all love those stories about the ’63 split-window Corvette or ’66 Hemi Charger found resting in a barn for the last 40 years, and keep hoping for the day we too get so lucky. But in metro areas, there are no barns—only double garages, warehouses, and shipping containers for accommodating your undiscovered car fetishes. To that end, we present what has to be one of the largest stashes of ’33–’42 Willys cars and parts on the planet, stuffed in a gang of some 40 shipping containers. Both the ’33–’36 and ’37–’42 Willys became the go-to cars in the gasser ranks starting in the late ’50s. Prized for their size, light weight, availability, and meager price, they became many a gasser fan’s ultimate dream. There was also a mystique to…

Time capsules are collections of artifacts sealed away from present day, meant to educate the future about the capabilities and culture of the past. To preserve their integrity, they typically take the form of a sacrificial vessel that’s buried in a building or stashed out of sight to protect the contents from the influences of present day. Rarely do these capsules take the form of a ’55 Pontiac Chieftain hot rod—but when they do, we take notice. As with all time capsules, everything we believe about this car comes from what its contents (421ci Pontiac Super Duty engine, Hilborn mechanical fuel injection, Hewitt Industries pyrometer, Jones Motrola tachometer, and the tri-Y headers) tell us. The car’s current owner believes it was built by Vic Hubbard, a West Coast…

“Good morning,” Tommy Ivo said as he opened the door. “Good morning,” we replied, although it was 3:30 in the afternoon. Ivo sleeps all day and works all night. “Vampire hours,” he calls them, but his wide, white grin shows no fangs. Dang, we were really trying to write about Ivo without mentioning that famous smile, but it kickstarted his acting career in 1943 and made plenty of appearances throughout his drag-racing exploits. It’s just impossible to ignore. He even includes it in emails, ending every few sentences with a bracketed “<Ivo type grin>.” It’s pretty contagious in real life, and we found ourselves grinning back before we even stepped foot into the Burbank, California, back house where he lives. We were visiting Ivo to get a look…

Mr. Gasket wanted to make a big splash at the SEMA Show in 2013, so the company commissioned the Roadster Shop (RoadsterShop.com) to use one of its signature chassis to create a surf wagon of epic proportions. Starting with a complete ’66 Suburban, the big wagon was given big-block power, a hardwood interior, and vivid PPG paint in time for its big debut. Here’s how the truck came together.…

I maintain a wicked love/hate relationship with pawn shops. Most of the time, their showrooms are filled with overpriced construction tools, guitars, hunting gear, and the occasional Harley-Davidson Sportster with tassels dangling from the grips. You know, stuff I couldn’t care less about. However, every now and then I’ll stumble on gold in the form of a Mitutoyo dial caliper, and my faith in the temporary pawn shop/pawn customer relationship is restored. Well, that gold no longer shines for me like a polished Kirkham roadster body. Why? Because this time it’s my goods that are lining the walls of a pawn shop in the seedier part of Phoenix. Some lowlife ripped off my tools. Worse yet, those tools were housed in my grandfather’s 50-year-old toolbox. The tools, though expensive, are…

It is a well-known fact that nothing, I say, nothing can stop a Chrysler Slant Six engine. Thus it should come as no surprise to hear the sixer that housed this connecting rod was happily chugging away when driver Ken Davis pulled into the pits at Saugus Speedway in Saugus, California. Now, there hasn’t been any racing at Saugus since 1995, but on a lovely summer day back in the ’70s, the third-mile track was buzzing with the sounds of the all-six-cylinder class. “Man, it was fun,” Ken recalls. “It was called Limited Stock Division I think, all sixes. Sounded like bees. I was running a ’62 Plymouth with a couple of friends. We were number 50. I remember that. I looked in the mirror and saw smoke, so I…

THE COMBO When Davisburg, Michigan’s Jason Hatmaker purchased his LS7-powered, ’06 Corvette Z06 back in March 2007, the totally stock car had less than 1,000 miles on it. Jason didn’t wait long before hopping it up. His first step was getting a twin-turbo-charger system and intercooler fabricated. “There weren’t many turbo C6 Corvettes at the time,” recalls Jason. “It took a while because pretty much everything about the install was a custom job, and it had to be integrated into the drivetrain computer.” It was 2009 before the turbos were up and running. At that point, Jason decided to, as he puts it, “bulletproof the 7.0L LS7 motor. I had it built from the crank up to ensure safety and longevity with the turbos.” When it finally came…

I’m not a people person, so for me to blow this column writing about a guy who’s not dead yet is a pretty big deal. It’s because I’ve been rapt watching a lifelong dream come true for my friend Brian Lohnes. I met Brian almost exactly 10 years ago at the very first HOT ROD Drag Week™, where he was a fledgling drag-race writer contributing to Competition-Plus.com. He showed his chops that week, and even saved the day once when a part-time track crew turned into chimps in the face of a Compulink timing system, and Brian knew how to tune it up. Brian ended up doing some freelance writing for the magazine, and years later, when I left HOT ROD to pursue an online venture called CarJunkieTV, I called…