Indholdsfortegnelse for May 2018 i Hot Rod

I’m going to get blowback on this, but making horsepower has become too easy. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, because it makes the hobby more inclusive. Better access to easy speed parts, crate motors, and factory hot rods means more people on every part of the spectrum get to enjoy more performance. It would’ve seemed crazy a few years ago, but the 2018 Dodge Demon is faster than Ronnie Sox’s winning Pro Stock Hemi ’Cuda from the inaugural 1970 Pro Stock season. It runs 9s. On street-legal tires. With a warranty. What we’re seeing in the hobby is a microcosm of what we see all around us. In my college days, you went to the library to research a topic, then wrote a paper on a typewriter. It was…

How can someone stop talking about a man so highly regarded as a racing driver, innovator, engineer, and legend? Spraying champagne after his Le Mans victory set a trend, but it was just a footnote in the almanac of accomplishments Dan Gurney collected in his lifetime. Though his accolades in the arena of road racing are most notable, like so many from the era, Dan got his start in hot rodding. After his family moved to Riverside, California, from Long Island, New York, in 1948, Gurney got involved in street racing in the postwar performance boom of the 1950s. Street racing, drag racing, land-speed racing—he was there for it all. His passion for making his cars go faster, along with his skills behind the wheel, gained him a solid reputation…

In 1966, Cliff and Elaine Friel walked into Harrington Motors in Harrington, Delaware, to purchase their first new car. As a recently married couple in the booming 1960s, it’s what young couples did: they purchased a home in the suburbs, a new car, and started a family. At that point in time, society had a different relationship with the car and it was typically viewed as a measure of prosperity and social status. So much so that in 1966, Chevrolet spun the Caprice away from the Impala model to create its own distinct line, which came with a higher level of exterior trim and a more luxurious interior. That fact didn’t go unnoticed in the Friel household, and when it came time to make that new-car purchase, Cliff (being a…

If you read this column regularly, you know that I finally got my 1970 Dodge Challenger running again with a 505ci, stroked 440. The build process was drawn-out, slowed down by machining parts to fit, last-minute changes on cam specs (thanks, Comp, for the custom grind) and a pesky leak that showed up the day before we planned to put the engine in the car. Hey, better than showing up a day after, right? Throughout it all, fellow Staff Editor Brandan Gillogly was nearby, working on his own Pontiac in my garage and bringing over tacos to encourage me and Tom to keep wrenching. When I came to pick him up in the Challenger for its first freeway commute, he didn’t complain about the dangling wires in the dash or…

Seldom, if ever, has a racing engine debuted as dominantly as Chrysler’s second-generation Hemi did in the 1964 Daytona 500. Twenty-six-year-old Richard Petty’s first big win snapped FoMoCo’s two-season, 10-race unbeaten streak in races of 500 miles or more. Plymouths, which hadn’t visited victory lane for 14 years, finished 1-2-3. The winner led 460 miles—183 of the 200 laps. The first dozen of those were affected by a freak litter storm along the main straight. Petty’s second-lap pass of Paul Goldsmith’s pole-sitting Plymouth (174.910 mph) proved critical because all 45 cars trailing No. 43 inhaled debris into their grilles and radiators, overheating engines and forcing unscheduled pit stops until NASCAR halted the action to clean up. Among those affected was the favored Goldsmith, who fell two laps behind. Ray Brock’s…

Hidden in the hills of western Illinois is a trove of rusting Mopars, and if it wasn’t for Robby, a fellow auto archaeologist, nobody would know these existed. Robby became friends with the owner, who allowed us to wander through his horse pasture to the cars. Sitting along the creek was a group of Mopars, but the coolest were the 1970–1972 Plymouth Barracudas. One had a ridiculous set of stripes on it proclaiming it an “AAR,” but it wasn’t an original—still really cool!…

By any measure of credulity, these two cars shouldn’t exist together. We’ll start from the top: The G-body coupes were the last of traditional midsize American cars from GM, given a stay of execution while the sedans and wagons were killed off with front-wheel-drive replacements years earlier. Lloyd Ruess, the patriarch of the Grand National’s turbo affliction, was replaced by a man tied to those front-drive ambitions by GM Corporate, meaning that 1987 was the last time we’d see the monolithic street fighters from Buick. Thankfully, Ed Mertz, the new general manager of Buick in 1986, drove a prototype of the fabled GNX and the entire program saw its last round of green lights, but everything leading up to this story could’ve ended much sooner. “Growing up in the ’80s…

A tuned-length primary exhaust header pipe creates a rarefaction (negative low-pressure wave) that’s reflected back up the pipe. On a standard header, the negative wave occurs at the primary tube’s open or collector end due to sudden gas expansion into the larger collector and consequent velocity decrease. With the proper tuned-length for the combo, the wave arrives back at the exhaust valve during the valve-overlap period when both the intake and exhaust valves are open, in theory completely scavenging the cylinder of residual gases. Incrementally increasing primary tube diameter before the collector—aka a “stepped header” design—creates additional rarefactions. The steps’ location on the pipe and the amount of increase between each step can be used to tune the strength of the various reflected waves. The greater the step-up amount, the…

Fourth-Gen F-Body IRS Heidts // 800.841.8188 // Heidts.com Heidts has brought a first to the suspension market with its new PRO-G IRS suspension system for 1993–2002 Camaros and Firebirds. The kit has been designed to be easy to install and turn fourth-gen F-bodies into real performers on the track while maintaining street function. There are 500- and 800hp options in CV axles, which also come in two different track widths: 65 and 62 inches. The brakes are next; a GM C4 or Wilwood brake system is available with several rotor options. A 9-inch third member from Currie is available with rear gear ratios ranging from a 3.00:1 to 4.11:1. The kit is also able to accommodate three- or four-channel ABS hubs. Price: $5,395 Storage and Workspace Solution C Tech Manufacturing…

Imagine owning a junkyard in the Southwest for the past three decades, and think of all the rust-free cars, parts, and pieces that have come and gone. We’d be lusting to build something different every week, only to be reminded that you can’t keep it all, and paying the bills at home should probably outweigh (only barely) trying to horde every cool piece that came through the yard. Leon Ekery has had his share of interesting old tin come through his yard, Dyer Auto Salvage, in the far northeast corner of El Paso, Texas. But he also understands that his business is based on selling the cars and parts that land in his yard. There are exceptions, such as finding your dream car or perhaps something so unusual and against…

For the final episode of their third season of Vegas Rat Rods, the crew at Welder Up whipped up a special creation that’s unlike any of their previous builds. Welder Up owner Steve Darnell was rummaging around with his friend, Steve Peterson, at his Peterson Boys salvage yard when they came across an abandoned project. It was a 1968 Charger, one of the most iconic muscle cars of all time. Still, that hadn’t stopped the previous owner from hacking up the wheel openings and cutting away swaths of the roof to add T-tops. Nevertheless, something did stop the previous owner before those removable roof sections ever came to be. The dented and cut-up Charger spoke to Steve, “There was another Charger there that was a little more complete, but the…

Take any preconceived notion you have about diesel engines being slow, smelly tractor engines out of your mind. We’re in the golden era of diesel performance, leaving behind yesteryear’s “diseasel” clatter traps for howling torque factories that conversely provide excellent efficiency, despite their orbit-shifting potential. There has been a relatively recent carb-to-EFI movement in the light-truck market with the advent of electronically controlled common-rail injection, which has superseded traditional mechanical injection with tight tuning control. With these modern diesels becoming common third-hand buys from junkyards and online classifieds, they’re starting to be popular in swaps that beg for not only something different but an option that can step up as a powerhouse with just a few modifications. People aren’t just using them for their tow rigs and 4x4 projects; we’re…

THE COMBO When the 5.9L (360ci) Magnum EFI engine in Brian Ferguson’s 1997 Dodge Ram 1500 Sport 4x4 truck reached the end of its tether at 130,000 miles, it was completely rebuilt. The upper end was enhanced with Hughes Engine parts, including its EQ iron Ram HD Magnum heads with bronze guides, a hydraulic-roller RV cam (0.523/0.533-inch valve lift with 1.6:1 rockers, 208/214 degrees duration at 0.050, 114 lobe-separation angle), and a single-plane EFI intake manifold. “I wanted more power without sacrificing 100,000-mile reliability,” Ferguson says. “It’s a toy, used to play off-road and tow my dirt bikes.” THE PROBLEM “I had about 2,000 miles on the new engine,” Ferguson continues. “When I lost compression on cylinder No. 1, I took the heads over to Hughes for inspection. The valveguides…

It’s become C10-town around here. Staffer Phillip Thomas moved to Cali in a ’69 he still drives, Car Craft’s John McGann has been building a ’67 longbed forever, the HOT ROD Garage show just turned a ’67 longbed into a shortie (and accidentally bought a spare ’69 along the way), and HRG host Lucky Costa nabbed a ’67 shortbed of his own. We recently slammed a 630hp big-block into a ’67 longbed for the Roadkill Garage show, and then I absorbed the HOT ROD Garage truck into the Roadkill fleet with dreams of building a 200-mph pickup. That’s six, not counting the square-body Roadkill Muscle Truck (which made its debut in the pages of HOT ROD in 2008). Look at us as a microcosm of hot rodding right now: 1967–1972…