Indholdsfortegnelse for June 1966 i Hot Rod

When spark plugs allow combustion gases to escape, there is a loss of compression with a corresponding loss of power and economy. Leakage can also cause overheating and engine-damaging pre-ignition. AC Spark Plugs guard against leakage and protect your engine’s power with a pressure-tight internal construction. ACs provide a positive sealing that can withstand the pressures of today’s high-performance engines. AC Spark Plug’s positive sealing helps assure you of continuing peak power and performance longer, whether you drive on the road or at the rally, on street or strip. Ask for AC Fire-Ring Spark Plugs at tune-up time. AC SPARK PLUG DIVISION…

There’s one thing about it, when Ford decides to go racing, they go all the way. As many people expected, Bronco wound up as Top Eliminator the first time out in competition in the recently-held second running of the 4-wheel-drive Gran Prix in Riverside, California. Driving a Bronco 6 prepared by Holman/Moody and Stroppe of Long Beach, California, Ray Harvick of Hemet bested a field of 41 entries in 9 classes to win a new Jeep V6; Top Eliminator prize for the meet. Ray got the Bronco around the river bottom course in a time of 11 minutes, 54.40 seconds for a three-lap total. Best time for three laps went to Carl Jackson of Hemet, California, in a 4-cylinder ’57 Jeep in a time of 11 minutes, 39.50 seconds. The…

Stock car racing. You know what that is. It’s what you used to go watch on Friday or Saturday night or Sunday afternoon. It’s the auto sport that swept out in a giant wave from the backwash of midgets when they died after WW II. And down South, you don’t look away, you look at the Fords, Plymouths and Dodge Chargers dueling it out at places like the Atlanta 500 for glory and big bundles of the long green. The appetite Southeasterners have for oval tracking and the high bank handlers that dwell there is almost legendary. But its intensity is brought home with impact when a businessman sits down next to you on the plane bound for Atlanta and relates how Richard Petty is on the inside pole for…

A tribute to the versatility of pioneer customizer George Barris is reflected not only in the craftsmanship of Mercury’s latest design exercise, Comet Escapade, but more so in their confidence in an outside source to accurately put to metal the ideas of factory stylists. Sketches from the Dearborn drawing boards, uninhibited by the hard-sell demands of the market place, called for a wrap-around windshield terminating in streamlined fairings supporting a full-length head rest, concealed touch plate door latches, elaborately punctuated rocker panels, and refreshingly clean body sections with a minimum of gingerbread. Conceived as a styling probe and conversation piece to be shown across the network of Mercury dealers and custom car shows, the Comet Escapade evolved from a standard ’66 Comet convertible, under the guidance of Ford Corporate Projects…

LESS LOBBY, MORE LOGIC Dear Sir: Congratulations on an excellent publication. The technical articles in HRM are unsurpassed for clarity and detail. Your motorcycle tests are far better than those offered in motorcycle magazines. Seventeen years ago, when I started reading HRM, I was really interested in cars. I still am today, but I think I read HRM these days for the motorcycle coverage. I’m an old desert racer and I detect your interest in this type of activity, so I probably like what you write on bikes even more because of it. At any rate, the real reason for this letter is to enlist your support in a matter of great importance to things automotive. In your editorial in the April 1966 issue, you pointed out the fact that…

Sleek, tough, ready to tackle anything. The brand-new Honda 160 Scrambler, a winning combination of the great Honda OHC 160cc four-stroke engine and Honda’s special extra-rugged tube frame. Traditional Honda styling features, too, with cross over pipes, skid plate, higher bars and heavy-duty telescopic front forks. And for safety’s sake, its perfectly matched brakes are the biggest, surest in the business. The CL-160. An all-new 160cc Scrambler that isn’t a “version” of anything. About $580*. Free booklet! “The Safety and Fun of Two-Wheel Motoring.” Write Dept. KT, American Honda Motor Co., inc., Box 50, Gardena, California 90247. Plus dealer’s transportation and set-up charges. ©1966 AHM…

Get a horse! was the cry that rang through our cobblestoned communities as the unpredictable, oil-and smoke-belchin’ status symbols of the early nineteen-hundreds began their encroachment on an industrializing young America. The conflict developed, and to a measurable extent the horse won the minor battles. Collectively, however, he lost the war. As viewed from the plow harness where he was destined to decline, the animal surveyed his replacement, one with wheels and a steel skin who burned various elements of petroleum and changed the figurative face of this land as no horse could ever have done. Cars improved, fuels developed and the automobile began to fill the nooks and crannies of a shaping society. Even more changes evolved, up to and including the newest and, perhaps, most challenging role of…

Whap!………Whap, whap, whap, whap. A 392 Chrysler on 90-percent nitro sounds that way when it starts. The car comes whistling down the fire-up road, and you can see the butterflies in the “bug-catcher” wink open for an instant, bleeding all the air out of the fuel lines. The pilot lamp is lighted when the mag is switched on and the engine comes to pounding life. It was just a shade before 9 o’clock, and the sun was launched about 40 degrees into the eastern heavens when the first dragster came out of the pits like this for a qualifying shot. We had just gotten out of the Camino, and the cold went through us like a knife, although the fantastic blown fueler’s sound drove all thought of the chill morning…

For those of you faced with the task of bringing late model (1966) Ford engines up to “spec” but unable to locate the list of particulars by which these engines may be so blueprinted, here is that list. Minimum deck clearances are specified as a measurement below the block surface, and all volumes are listed in cubic centimeters. (Remember, 1cc = 0.061023 cubic inches if you need such information for compression ratio calculation.) The boring and stroking story of last month (HRM, May ’66) should fill in the blanks in this department if you have forgotten the methods for calculating “squeeze” ratios. In the interest of accuracy, use isopropyl alcohol (with a little coloring added so that you can tell where the juice is and/or isn’t) or a fluid of…

’66 DISCOUNT CATALOG Just out is Northshore Speed and Auto’s new discount catalog for ’66. It’s full of automotive and marine equipment for all makes and models. Hundreds of speed and performance items. Price is 500. Order from Norlhshore Speed and Auto., Inc., Dept. HR, 3749 W. Fullerton Ave., Chicago, Illinois 60647. ONE-PIECE STUDS 3/8” top and 7/16” bottom screw-in studs feature one-piece integral jam nut. Double heat treated, they have rolled threads and class three tolerances for maximum precision. Automatically maintain pre-determined stud height, manufacturer says. Write: Develco, Dept. HR, 10207 Avon Ave., Cleveland, Ohio 44105. RAM-JECTOR Ram-Jector primary manifold provides a ram effect and injects a pre-vaporized alcohol/ether compound to the carburetor. Maker states power increases up to 30% are possible. The unit fits atop 4-barrel carbs and…

To the motorcyclist, attending the American Motorcycle Association’s annual Daytona National Championship road races is akin to dying and going to heaven; the week-long day-and-night track-and-town merry-go-round of racing and social activities opens on a Monday in mid-March and only slightly slows down during the wee hours for weaker enthusiasts to get off, catch a few winks and be back at Bill France’s high banks in time to cheer on the 200-mile finale the following Sunday. Compacted in this seven-day marathon of dicing, dining and bench racing are daily programs of qualifying heats and national class championship road races embracing production machines of seven to 45 cubic inches, two nights of short track racing, a hundred-mile cross-country endurance run, a nightly motorcycle trade show, Bill Tuthill’s famed Museum of Speed,…

Stand behind the pit wall with us for a moment. Seventy-two laps of the race are gone, and by now your hearing has dulled to the point that you feel rather than hear the pulse of the blurs on the track as they whisk past. Two dark-haired crew-cuts huddle, make chalk-marks on a pit board, and confront one of the “blurs” with it as you feel another one pass. Then it begins. Fuel cans are perched on the wall, the air-wrench gets a couple of test bursts, the jack is rolled to the wall, the water cup gets wet, strings in shirt collars are strung with lug nuts, and the blur is back. This time it stops at the pit wall. You glance at your watch. More blurs, the pungent…

The next time the “thunderboats” roar, June 12 in Tampa, Florida, Unlimited Hydroplane fans will see a new Miss Bardahi make her debut, a Miss Bardahi so new and different that she may revolutionize the sport. Old Bardahl’s latest challenger in the big league of powerboat racing boasts the first major changes in design since the old Slo-mo-shun IV of the early 1950’s. Designed by Ron Jones of Sunnyvale, California, the new Green Dragon is a rear-engined, low-profile craft with her driver’s cockpit ahead of the engine, near the bow. Except for the basic shape of her hull and the Rolls Royce-Merlin engine which powers her, Miss Bardahi bears little resemblance to any of her competitors. Jones’s design for the new boat follows his theory for getting greater straightaway speeds,…

REAR-SUMP PANS FOR LARGE FOMOCO’s Tie rods and other miscellaneous front end suspension members frequently cause a lot of unnecessary head-scratchin’ when the large breeds of Ford (352, 390, 406, 427) start finding their way into other than stock engine compartments. One quick fix on this is the rear sump pan offered by Ford. Didn’t know about such, huh? The pan part number is C6TZ-6675-B and the attending tube and screen assembly that you’ll need is numbered K6TZ-6622-A. Both items will take less than a twenty-buck slice out of your bankroll. Incidentally, the Ford F-100, 4-wheel-drive oil filter adapter will allow you to tilt that sidewinding filter body to the front. Now you can get back to worrying how to route that exhaust tubing. QUICK-RELEASE VALVE SPRING TOOL How many…