Indholdsfortegnelse for January 2003 i Hot Rod

Ro and I had the most unreal day today. Wally Parks did, too. There we were, the three of us in the HOT ROD archives going over images and memories that hadn’t crossed Wally’s synapses in at least 40 years. Wally Parks was a dust-bowl immigrant who’d ridden to California on dirt roads in an ’07 T Touring as kid (“It was the sounds and the smell of that car that I think really got me loving automobiles”). He became a dry lakes racer by 1932, a GM tank testdriver, a WWII vet who dropped a V-8 60 into a jeep while he was in the Philippines, the post-WWII president or the SCTA, the first editor of HOT ROD magazine, and the founder of the National Hot Rod Association. The…

The DOHC Caddy Is Revamped for Rear-Wheel-Drive Duty From its inception, the quad-cam 4.6L Cadillac Northstar engine has assumed an eastwest stance in the engine bay to facilitate the use of front-wheel drive. Since Cadillac will be returning shortly to that time-honored, all-American disposition known as rearwheel drive, the engine has received a slew of improvements, and the ’04 XLR roadster and SRX sport utility are the first vehicles to implement this novel arrangement. Soon afterwards, the revamped Seville will be burning its rear tires with the same configuration. The LH2 Northstar acquires significant changes important to the hot rod hobbyist: extra webbing added to the rear of the block and in the valley; variable valve timing for both sets of valves; a forged steel crankshaft in place of the…

Bondurant Chooses a New Flavor GM just signed a four-year contract with the Bondurant School of High Performance Driving making them the school’s official supplier of vehicles. Starting January 2003, the Bondurant students will be skidding around the school’s 1.6-mile road course in 28 brand-new Cadillac CTSs, 16 Corvette Coupes, and 4 Corvette ZO6s. The cars will be customized with racing wheels, roltbars, racing seatbelts, spruced-up suspensions, dual exhaust, and lots of decals. The Corvette seemed like the natural choice with its powerful V-8 and sports car blood, but the Cadillac CTS luxury sedan surprised a few of us. Cadillac’s General Manager Mark LaNeve says, “The CTS was originally validated on one of the most demanding racetracks in the world–the hallowed Nurburgring in Germany. It’s appropriate, therefore, that it now…

With this issue, HOT ROD celebrates its 55th anniversary. Since we chronicled the themes and philosophy of the magazine in the 50th anniversary blowout (Jan. ’98), we thought some insight by the prime insider would bring it all back home in a very special way. Other than Robert E. Petersen, no one was more instrumental or influential in cultivating the roots of hot rodding than enthusiast Wally Parks. Though most of you would recognize him as the key exponent and founder of the National Hot Rod Association, we consider him the father of the movement. Although Wally is the first to say that he has received credit for things he did not do alone, he originated and championed many of them. As the glue or the catalyst, Wally credits many…

For the last 10 years I’ve had a little sideline business selling vintage car magazines on the Southern California swapmeet circuit. Any time a guy buys multiple copies of the same issue, I always find out why. After all, SoCal is the birthplace of hot rodding and, more often than not, binge buyers have a great story to share. In the case of Ron Martinez, a television producer on shows like Knight Rider; Miami Vice; Murder, She Wrote; and Sabrina the Teenage Witch, his purchase of a thick stack of the July ’67 HOT ROD sounded the alarm. Why so many copies? “I own the Invader—it’s the car on the cover,” he said, pointing to the futuristic machine on each issue. Ka-boom. “Does it run?” “Sure does. I’ve just restored…

Among car nuts, lines are drawn along the acceptance of technology; are you a carb guy or an EFI guy? This story is the type of fodder that continues to fuel the argument. Dredge up a recollection of the Nov. ’02 issue wherein we tested Holley’s Wild Street combo of heads, cam, and intake atop our Anvil 359ci Chevy short-block. Last month we added an NOS Logger nitrous unit and made 675 hp with the same parts, but never mind that for now. This time were gonna compare Holleys Stealth Ram fuelinjection setup with a Commander 950 controller to that original carbureted dyno test. Sources Holley Bowling Green, KY; 270/782-2900; www.holley.com MSD Ignition El Paso, TX; 915/857-5200; www.msdignition.com Here’s what carb guys will say: This thing costs $2,400, it’s a…

The first time I ever saw his big silver whale was on the way to the Mt. Clemens, Michigan, Power Tour climax one steamy June afternoon. The 1-94 was in shambles (when isn’t it?), with too many construction stops and gasping, overheated motors all over the joint. When the dam broke, I saw the driver of the silver sled, apparently torqued off by a 911, yank the car into a free lane. Meanwhile the rest of us got rolling right along, and here’s this big Caddoo ziggin’ and zaggin’ in and out of traffic and stuck to the tailfeathers of this Porsche like stink on poop. Next thing you know, the Porsche dives off a ramp and out of harms way. I mentioned the duel in an editorial but didn’t…

John Schneider, the guy who played Bo Duke on the hit TV series Dukes of Hazzard, has decided to take his General Lee back to its rebel-yelling, Dixie-blastin’ passion—breaking through Boss Hogg’s speed traps out on the open highway for Nevada’s 90-mile road race, the Silver State Classic Challenge coming up this May. John wanted to keep his 4.10:1 gears to get his Hemi-powered General off the line, but he also needed to cruise above 70 without buzzing his brains out. The answer was Gear Vendors. This isn’t your average wimpy-weak overdrive tranny substitute. No, no. This is like a supercharger for your transmission. It is a supplemental, planetary-gear transmission that replaces the extension housing of your existing automatic or manual tranny (i.e., it’s a bolt-on goodie). This allows you…

Vin Diesel or Diesel VIN? Hey, Vin baby, your movie career is really heating up. Who can forget The Fast and the Furious? We’re still trying. Now you’ve got xXx. But if you get burned out living life a quarter-mile at a time, try reinventing yourself like Prince did a few years back. Here are some suggestions from the GM service manual. Missed a few trips to the gym? Just go with D (l.8L pass.-car diesel). Coughing up smoke? Then try L or M (3.9L light-truck diesel). Feeling like you could be replaced at any moment? Choose N (5.7L pass.-car diesel). Agents stopped calling? Then C, J, or P (6.2L light-truck diesel) should do the trick. On the mend? Go for Y or V (6.5L light-truck diesel). And finally, for…

“In the beginning, I figured three years tops. After all, I wasn’t planning anything elaborate, and although my budget was small, 1 thought a little ingenuity and hard work would get it done. Twelve years is a long time to invest building a hot rod,” so wrote Larry Erickson in a letter to us describing his passion and skewed timeline, born of the pages of HOT ROD magazine. Though Erickson is the Chief Designer, Mustang and Thunderbird at Ford Motor Co. and his latest creation is the 04 Mustang, his brilliance came through to us years ago with four extraordinary, unforgettable, polarizing works—cover images all: CadZZilla, the Alumacoupe, Merodder, and the QuadraDeuce. He says that Gray Baskerville’s article on CadZZilla put him on the map and that the contacts he…

Lots of readers contact HOT ROD with info on their engine combos, asking us to estimate how much power they’re making. After all, not everyone has access to an engine dyno. Unfortunately, HOT ROD’s editors aren’t clairvoyants. Nonetheless, bench racing has a long and honorable tradition, and over the years all sorts of pet estimation methods have arisen. Some ate about as accurate as playing darts blindfolded; others may or may not be realistic depending on circumstance; but there are a few that usually prove surprisingly accurate. In these pages we’ll take a look at various engine horsepower estimation methods, rating them on a 0 to 5 scale—with “5” equaling an accurate engine dyno, and “0” being no better than Miss Cleo and her Tarot cards. 1. Sounds Good, Looks…

The popular opinion of the collective gearhead is that a Ford FE engine is best utilized at the end of a chain at the bottom of a lake. FEs are just fun to ridicule—they’re the automotive Rodney Dangerfield. Of course, that’s a hobby practiced by guys who have never laid tracks with a 428SCJ or watched a few rounds of FE-powered Super Stockers hang the hoops. The 390 version of the FE uses a bore and stroke of 4.050x3.78, not unlike the specs for a Chevy 383 (4.030x3.75), but it has much longer rods (6.488 for the 390 compared to 5.7 to 6.125 for the Chevy). With a monster 10.170 deck height, the FE is certainly bigger, heavier, and funkier, but no less capable of making power. Torque, especially. Baskerville…

Part 1: Since the Day the HOT ROD Magazine Spl. Ran at Daytona Beach, HRM Has Been Involved on the Sand, Salt, Streets, Strips, and Over the Sea The strength of HOT ROD Magazine has always been its staff, a random collection of individuals who shared one common interest—a lasting love affair with a thing called a “hot rod.” Also called everything from “mother’s worry” to “souped up gow (“gow,” an ancient term for acceleration) jobs.” hot rods are nothing more than cars that have been personalized by their owners for better appearance and/or performance And to inform hot rodders how to personalize their cars for improved looks and better performance in an accurate and entertaining manner has been HOT ROD’S goal these past 37 years. It began in January…

In this graph, the dotted lines represent our 359ci small-block with the Holley Wild Street carbureted package including a Lunati 235/240 at 0.050 cam, Holley 185cc heads, and a Street Dominator dual-plane intake with a 770-cfm Street Avenger carb. The solid lines are the same exact engine with the Stealth Ram multipoint EFI. As you can see, the carb made thicker power below 4,500, where the Stealth Ram took over and made more peak. The carb’d combo hit 461 hp at 6,300 and 445 lb-ft at 4,500. The EFI barely made more peak horsepower with 465 at 6,300, but check out how it was stronger by almost 20 numbers at 5,500 rpm. The EFI also edged the carb on torque, with 458 lb-ft at 4,700, and maintained that edge through…

Alan Johnson carries on his Northstar crusade as he leads his life: quietly but with dedication. A mechanical engineer and master welder by vocation and a hot rodder by nature, AJ and his wife Diane double-handedly run Cadillac Hot Rod Fabricators, the world’s only source of DOHC Northstar Cadillac aftermarket performance equipment. AJ’s engineering background dictates a complete exploration of whatever the item happens to be. In the case of his single-plane intake manifold, Alan designed the unit, had it put into production form by Buddy Bar Castings, flogged it extensively on the dynamometer, and finally applied it to his personal car for months of the real-world acid test before releasing it to the growing Northstar populace. Alan employs no other physical help but has recently given his knowledge and…

SEE THESE STORIES NOW AT HOTROD.COM By buying this magazine, you’ve got access now to stories and questionnaires that will appear on the HOT ROD Web site, plus some sneak peaks at the stuff in next month’s issue of the magazine. Just check out the descriptions below, then hit www.hotrod.com/web to see the articles on hotrod.com before you can buy them on the newsstand. There’s also an archive of past HOT ROD magazine and hotrod.com articles you might have missed. The Anvil Goes to 530 hp It’s the never-ending saga of the Anvil small-block, and this time we’re loading it up with World Products Motown 220 iron heads and a massive cam of death. Watch it make 530 hp—then guess what happens on nitrous. ONLINE POLL More Archives or Not?…

Congrats to Our Pals in Bowling Green It all started in 1903 when the Holley brothers, George and Earl, began producing a car called the Holley Motorette. Henry Ford realized that the Holley Brothers represented some stiff competition with their car, so he asked them to design a carburetor for his Model T (thinking it’d be better to work with them, instead of against them). Sensing the oncoming trend toward industrialized specialization, the Holley brothers quit making cars and decided to coocentrate on designing and building carburetors and ignition-system components for automobile-makers like Pierce-Arrow, Winston, Buick, and Ford (which they eventually had a partnership with). They incorporated their business under the name Holley Brothers Company, and have been making your cars faster and better for an entire century.…

A little Tuck-’n’-Roll for the Sole Hot-rod-inspired apparel just got way, way cooler. Celebrity shoe designer George Esquivel has created a very unique collection of car-inspired footwear that is available exclusively through The Petersen Automotive Museum. In order to acquire a pair of these customized car shoes, you have to schedule an appointment for a private Esquivel fitting at the museum, which can take up to an hour and includes a detailed interview with Esquivel to determine style and design, color schemes, materials, and stitching selections. Each pair is tailored to the owner’s particular design ideas and desires. “We want to give owners a direct link, to mirror the strength and beauty inherent in their vehicle, whether it’s a classic Bugatti, a custom hot rod, an exotic sports car, or…

Just as we went to press in early October, we got verification of the rumors we’d heard for over two years: GM Performance Parts will soon offer two versions of a 572ci big-block Chevy crate engine. Part numbers and prices are not yet set, and the photo may be prototypical and not a direct representation of what will end up at dealers, but here’s what we do know. One version of the 572 will be called the ZZ572/620 and will have 9.6:1 compression, 620 hp at 5,500 rpm, and 650 lb-ft at 6,000 rpm. The second is the ZZ572/720R with 12.0:1 compression, 720 hp at 6,250, and 685 lb-ft at 4,500. Both the 572s are based on an all-new tail-deck Bow Tie Gen VI block, featuring a deck height of…

It started life as a rot-free Seafrost Green 327/three-on-the-tree, 3.08:1-open-rear California cruiser—the sort of pure, original, untampered-with machine that most Rust-Belters would exchange limbs for. Now its a Hugger Orange ZL1 automatic clone that has run a best of 11.48 at 121 and change … and it looks as stock as the day it would have rolled off the showroom floor, had it been born that way. Mufflers, exhaust manifolds, steel wheels, radio and heater delete, column shift, and Goodyear Polyglas G7O-l4s. A 3,400-pound race weight and mid-1 Is down the quartermile. How? It should be said up front that the car’s owner, Terry Pennington of Mishawaka, Indiana, isn’t entirely pleased about being outed in public like this. The first time we got the paperwork back, it had lots of…

In the Feb. ’94 issue we showed you how we rescued a sano ’67 Camaro out of the jaws of the evil crusher laws, wherein oil companies destroy old cars in exchange for smog credit that allows them to legally pump more pollution into the world. We immediately smog-checked the sucker, proving it was clean, thereby putting knuckles right to the chin of the whole crush-for-credit concept. The Crusher Camaro was born, and by the Dec. ’94 issue, began a total revamp. You haven’t seen the car in HOT ROD in something like six years. Until now. Pick up the Feb. 03 issue and join in as the Crusher is reborn with a 632ci, all-aluminum bigblock. It’s Pro Street meets Pro Touring, and the result is lots of BFGoodrich smoke.…

Holley’s been selling tons of Stealth Ram manifolds to owners of Tuned Port Injection Camaros, Firebirds, and Corvettes who want their 350s to run with the later LT1 cars. In Holley’s testing on a ’91 Camera with a 350 and 70,000 miles on it, a simple A-B swap of the Stealth Ram manifold and 58mm throttle body, without changing the injectors or electronics, took the car from 14.42 at 95.95 mph to 14.02 at 97.40-an improvement of 4 tenths and nearly 1.5 mph. With the addition of a Hypertech chip and thermostat, the car went 13.96 at 98.26 mph.…

We’ve all seen it before. A high-powered ‘64-’88 GM intermediate with the stock coil-sprung rear suspension pulls to the starting line, the driver stages, and with the flash of the last amber, the slicks wrinkle and the body keels over clockwise like the Andrea Doria. The left headlamp aims for the sky while the right rear bumper corner practically scrapes the pavement. It’s called body roll, and while it may be fun to watch this workboot ballet, such extreme suspension and chassis twist equates to wasted motion that can have a significant detrimental impact on 60-foot times. Notice we use the word “can.” That’s because some members of the GM coil-spring camp swear their cars work best all twisted up. Others—especially coil-spring guru Dick miller—say a drunken chassis is inefficient…

Tony Harlin NANUET, NY ’68 DODGE DART GTS CONVERTIBLE OWNER’S OCCUPATION: Gas turbine rebuilder ENGINE: Blown 500ci Hemi ENGINE MODS: “More than I can name here.” DYNO-PROVEN POWER: At 4.000-plus pounds with an 8.61-second timeslip. it’s got plenty TRANSMISSION: ’68 Hemi race 727 with low First gear, reverse manual valvebody, 3,500-stall converter REAREND: Narrowed Dana 60 with 4.10:1 street gears or 4.88:1 drag gears WHEEL TYPE AND SIZE: Weld Racing 15x3 front, Center Line 15x14 on the back TIRE TYPE AND SIZE: MT Sportsman 33x21.50 back, Sportsman 28x7.50 front PAINT: House of Kolor Brandywine BODY MODS: 12-point rollcage, it’s tubbed, fiberglass GTS hood APPROXIMATE TOTAL INVESTMENT: $21,000 (seems cheap, huh?) WHAT’S THE BEST MODIFICATION YOU’VE MADE?: Total resto WHAT’S THE BIGGEST PROBLEM YOU’VE HAD?: “Keeping the tires from roasting!” HOW…

What It’s Like Behind the Doors With seven pages of archival flashback in this 55th anniversary issue, I thought I’d take another approach for this month’s Archives page. It’s not a vintage shot, it’s an inside view of the actual HOT ROD library room as it stands today: somewhat disheveled, loaded with scribbled reminders of Baskerville’s tinkering in his holy realm, and rife with the history of the very colorful segment of Americana called hot rodding. We plan to share many pages of it with you in the coming year.…