Indholdsfortegnelse for February 1974 i Hot Rod

From the incredible South Jersey area comes a story that is stranger than truth. On Thanksgiving Day, Harry Simmermon relinquished time with his family to open his service station, the same as he had done for the other 364 days of the year. He did it to help woeful and gasless drivers who might have spent the day walking for the elusive extra gallon to get them home. Harry restructured his gas prices to include only those customers who needed it most. How? It was simple: Regular grade was jacked to 82r. while high test boiled at a slick 86c per gallon. After five hours of this, a town official happened by, immediately became appalled, and stopped the proceedings. Some day this may all come true. During the first weekend…

As this is being written, the President is calling for 50-mph national speed limits and the Sunday closing of gas stations. If the politicians are to be believed, gas rationing might be upon us by the time you read this. Obviously, the time for action is now. With the energy crisis putting the squeeze on everyone, those of us who are into cars can put our knowledge and enthusiasm to work to do our share to conserve gasoline and make things less difficult for ourselves at the same time. We can do this by setting up our cars and driving them in a manner to produce the best possible gas mileage. There are many things that we can do to accomplish this goal, but before we get into specifics, let’s…

Toyota states that the purpose of the Ultimate Yamahauler is “to create a unique vehicle with a broad range of appeal.” They have created a great-looking truck for many purposes. Pulling into Indian Dunes, in Valencia, California, the Yamahauler drew admiring looks from the local motocross hot-shoes. But what if you’re not a motorcycle freak? How’d you like to pull into your local drag strip in this showpiece? Specifications start with a standard 2-liter 18R-C engine. But on that engine is a turbocharger by Ak Miller, providing a maximum of 7-pounds boost for an estimated one-third power increase. The rear is a bolt-in chrome-plated differential from a Jaguar XKE. Jag XKE disc brakes are used in the rear, modified Toyota Crown discs in front. Toyota contacted Don Mc Caln of…

The Wood brothers embody all the euphemisms and “down-homeness” with which southern NASCAR racers become stigmatized. It’s true. They speak just the same dialect you knew they would; they eat good, high-carbohydrate food for lunch, which is dinner to them; they own acres of pine-studded hill country and have lived in the same quaint hill town for most of their lives. What makes them different from their peers is a Grand National Mercury which is driven by David Pearson. And with this Mercury, the Woods have won over a million dollars. Their operation is a small one compared to some others in NASCAR racing, in both physical size and production. Although their budget would certainly allow a complete engine and construction shop, they judiciously prefer to farm a good deal…

Editor’s note: The modern alternator is a very sophisticated piece of equipment which has virtually replaced the generator because of its lighter weight, higher efficiency, longer life and lower production costs. In attempting to write a “basics” article that would fully explain its principle of operation, we had some difficulty. But thanks to technical literature and illustrations provided by both Chrysler Corporation and the Delco-Remy Division of GM, we are able to present the information in a much more comprehensive and easy-to-understand manner than would otherwise be possible. While it still may seem a little complicated, it’s about as simple as we could make it. The alternator is a lightweight, high-performance machine that supplies electrical power for charging the battery and operating accessories in gasoline and diesel engine electrical systems.…

The reports of NORRA’s death, to paraphrase Mark Twain, have been greatly exaggerated. If you’ve followed off-road racing at all, you know that the Godfather of the sport, the National Off Road Racing Association, has lately fallen on hard times. Rumor has it that NORRA is defunct, that SCORE and the Baja Sports Committee and the energy crunch have nailed down the lid on the body that brought off-road racing to the masses. When the Mexican government threw them out of Baja California, NORRA bosses Don Francisco and Ed Pearlman were completely surprised—in fact, they didn’t hear about the move until they read it in the papers; no one in Baja thought to tell them about it. The loss of their two biggest races must have been a blindside shot…

JOHN’S JAG John Wilsheer, one of our English readers, sent this photo of his customized Mark II Jaguar. It’s painted red and black, and features functional hood scoops, custom fender flares and American mags. The engine was warmed over with a milled and polished head, 9:1 pistons and balancing. Also featured are Koni shocks, stiffened springs, Cobeau high-back seats, Smith’s gauges and stereo. JUST RAMBLIN’ This cherry ’69 AMX is owned and driven by Larry Mulder of Beaumont, Texas. It features Ford Ginger-Gio metallic paint, a Penske Trans-Am spoiler and factory chrome wheels. Power comes from a 390 engine with an Edelbrock manifold, Carter carb, Sig Erson cam, Accel ignition and Doug Thorley headers. Although it’s not raced often, the car is capable of running 13s in the 14-mile. SNOW…

If racing sells model cars, Revell ought to sell a bundle of them in the next few months. Sush Matsubara, a recent addition to the Revell plasticar fleet, overcame the Mongoose, the cold and a track that looked like it had been the site of the Oil Spill Nationals to slide his Vega into top spot at the Orange County International Raceway Manufacturers’ Funny Car Championships. If you’re reading this in Goose Down, Minnesota, you probably don’t think 45 degrees (above zero) is cold. But in Southern California in November, 45 is about as cold as it ever gets. The Levi’s-and-T-shirt-clad crowd wasn’t set up for anything less than maybe 65 degrees, and when their breaths started to steam before the first round was over, you could tell it was…

Suppose you were in a desert motorcycle club that holds the biggest hare and hound race of the year. Now suppose that last year 3000 riders started and 1700 of those riders finished. And suppose that after that race people complained that the race was too easy, too many “squids” (derogatory term for pit-racers, once-a-year racers, et al) finished, anybody that wanted to could enter and finish the most famous race of them all. What would you do when mapping out the course for the race this year? If you were a member of the San Gabriel Valley Motorcycle Club laying out the 1973 Barstow-to-Vegas Hare & Hound, you would make it the toughest race you could. You would start it near Barstow, California, and end it on the outskirts…

As this is being written, things are looking pretty grim for the sport we all follow. For the first time since World War II, racing is staring into the abyss. Powerful forces—as they say in the paranoia school of science fiction—are at work to kill auto racing. The reason? Car racing is an unnecessary drain on our fuel supply. Well, if our backs are to the wall on this energy thing, that’s probably right. And if this is indeed the situation, then we ought to cut back on all unnecessary use of fuel: no more pleasure boats, private planes, vacation driving, snowmobiling—let’s do it right. The problem is that this isn’t going to happen. Racing is being singled out as a symbolic villain. The thinking among the movers and shakers…

Ice, snow, who needs them? Short of cooling down your drinks, ice doesn’t have a lot of really commendable uses in this or any other country. But for about four months of the year, from December until March, Canadians get their share in massive overdoses. Every year the buffs park their race cars or street machines away from the snow, ice and road salt until the arrival of the warm weather. Now, however, Canadians are coming to grips with winter, and more and more are discovering they don’t have to give up completely their motorized toys. When they put one away, they take another one out. Snowmobiles are far and away the big thing, with drag and oval races scheduled for nearly every part of the country where the snow…

It seems that we are receiving an ever-increasing number of calls and letters regarding the disappointing performance and economy of many late-model cars. We are told by Detroit and government that these are inconveniences we must bear to improve air quality, and in the same breath we are also told that we must conserve gasoline. Although this seems like an impossible dilemma, the engineers at Edelbrock have come up with a new manifold that makes significant progress toward all of the desired goals: street performance, improved gas mileage and reduced exhaust emissions (see chart). The manifold, called the Streetmaster (they ran out of spiders), is the third member of the Edelbrock single-plane manifold family. But don’t be misled: the characteristics of this new design are totally different from those of…

During a recent visit to Racing Beat (Mazda performance products) in Anaheim, California, we spotted this beautiful supercharged Mazda-powered VW sedan. Jim Mederer and Ryusuke Oku, owners of Racing Beat, had just completed building it for Francis Cabang of Laguna Beach. Francis wanted a potent little street VW with lots of power but without the usual fast-idle heavy-lope syndrome of a highly modified VW engine. He got what he wanted. The blown Mazda RX-2 engine cranks out an easy 170 horsepower at 7000 rpm with only four pounds of boost. To mount the little rotary, Racing Beat used an engine adapter kit from Kennedy Engineered Products (KEP) in Pacoima, California. Hobert Kennedy, owner of KEP, has been making quality engine adapters for the VW transaxle for many years and has…

Shorter hair in summer. Longer hair in winter. Think about it for a minute. You change clothes with the seasons. Why don’t you change your hair style too? SUMMER HAIR Face it: long hair looks terrible in the summer. The sun dries it out. The sand sticks in it. The surf pollutes it. Then you shampoo it almost daily. And you wonder why your hair looks like straw. Shorter hair makes more sense for summer. But don’t worry, we’re not suggesting crew-cuts. Today, shorter hair is something else. Get your hair cut about 1-1/2” long—all over your head. This means it covers the tops of your ears and the collar of your shirt. You comb it forward, or part it on the side, in the middle—even toss it around with…

Special tools like transmission jacks are usually beyond the budgets of most enthusiasts. It simply isn’t practical to spend $80 or more for a tool that is used so infrequently. Yet when changing a heavy transmission, such as an automatic, a transmission jack is almost a necessity. So most of us wind up spending $6 or $7 a day for use of one from some tool rental business. But there is an alternative. If you’ve got a floor jack with a minimum lifting capability of 15 inches, an adapter can be made in a couple of hours, using only an electric drill motor, four drill bits (7/16-, ⅜-, 5/16- and ¼-inch), a ½-13 n.c. tap and a couple of wrenches. To build the unit shown here, we bought the steel…

What do you build when you’ve had a gaggle of early Ford street rods and a Harley chopper, and your new vehicle must be big enough to haul the wife and family in comfort? Larry Woods, a Mattel toy designer, found the answer after he searched Hemmings Motor News for months. It took the wrecker a day to pull this ’32 Nash close-coupled four-door sedan out of a muddy field in Dallas, and two years later, she was alive and rollin’ as you see it here. What you may not notice at first is the 1970 AMC 390-inch V8 with air conditioning, power brakes and power steering. Transmission is a ’70 Borg-Warner AMC automatic and the rear is a late Buick item. Special features, such as turn indicators in the…

How many times have you wanted to fabricate something (like a transmission tunnel cover or inner fender panel) out of sheetmetal but didn’t have the proper tools to do the job? Well, don’t feel like the Lone Ranger—we’ve had the same problem ourselves. Professional metal men usually have at their disposal an array of sheetmetal tools whose cost could easily amount to a small fortune. But take heart, because there are several hand tools priced within the financial range of the do-it-yourself home craftsman. Pictured on these pages are sheetmetal tools that cut, shape, fasten, clamp, saw, punch, nibble and bend. Only one (the miniature bending brake) costs more than $20, and most are less than $10. We’ve tried to list the source of these tools wherever possible, but some…

Every once in a while, we run across a “tuning tip” that can help your car’s drag strip performance without costing an arm and a leg. Such is the case with “Switched-On” ignition. The idea is to modify your distributor so you can change its total advance while the car is accelerating. It seems that most automobile engines can use more total advance than what’s generally accepted as their maximum, but only during the first portion of the quarter-mile. That’s when the mechanical advantage of the lower gears and low wind resistance allow it to accelerate more rapidly. By the time the car reaches third or fourth gear, however, the increased engine load caused by the car’s slower rate of acceleration and the heat that’s been built up in the…

Remember that Viceroy ad that offered one used race car for $75,000 and the end flap from a carton of Viceroy cigarettes? They’ve had more than 7000 inquiries about the offer. One guy offered to pay $10 down and $10 a week until the car was paid for, which at that rate would be 2598 A.D. J.C. Agajanian swears he heard this with his own ears: There is a politician in California who has tried once or twice to have racing outlawed in the state. In his latest attack, he cited the fuel consumption at the Supernationals and Ontario 500 as reasons for killing auto racing. When informed that neither the drag Top Fuel or Funny Cars nor Indy cars run on gas and so don’t contribute to the shortage…

A job where you’ll help others while you help yourself. Within a few months, you could be on a 44-foot Iifeboat racing to save a stranded boater off the Oregon coast. You could bean Electronics Technician in Miami troubleshooting sophisticated communications equipment. Or you could be part of a po-llution control task force, helping clean up an oil spill in Chesapeake Bay. Whatever your job, you’ll know it’s important. You’ll be part of a team that last year saved almost 3,000 lives aixl $1.7 billion worth of property. And whatever your job, you’ll know it’s helping you. You’ll get a starting paycheck of over $326 a month, with your first raise after only 10 weeks. And since we give you free food, free housing, free clothing, free medical and dental…

“You are here,” as it says in the photo at the right. And King City, California (the Salinas County Fairgrounds to be exact) was where Nor-Cal Vans held the First Annual West Coast Van Nationals. Everyone attending took pride in showing off his van. There were many events, and awards were given for the best (and worst) in each class. But there were only so many awards. Nor-Cal handled the happening extremely well, especially if you consider they have only been in existence since last January. The people who attended had a great time. And that’s the object of the game. A lady asked, “Why would a bunch of people who have nothing in common other than the fad that they own vans get together? It seems silly to me.”…

Last month in HRM we told you of a significant meeting at last year’s NSRA Street Rod Nationals in Tulsa between automotive artisans Andy Brizio of Andy’s Instant T in South San Francisco and Li’l John Buttera of Cerritos, California. Each guy began needling the other about how his particular area of the state was “better” when it came to building street rods of first-drawer status, and before long, the gauntlet was thrown down and the war was on. Each man was committed to build a modern street rod that would outdo the other, to see which area of the Golden State was indeed “better” at the art of car construction. Naturally, HRM got in the middle of the argument, and we’re going to bring you continuous progress reports on…

Mexico has changed. When I went down there for my first Baja 1000 three years ago, it was practically like being a character in a Hemingway novel. You’d get up shortly before noon and stroll through the sun-warmed streets of Ensenada, listening to the banter of the shopkeepers and the taco-cart operators, occasionally stopping to haggle over something you might want to buy. I bought a brown suede—well, split cowhide—jacket, that first year, for $12. The asking price was $25, and I’ve enjoyed both the jacket and the memory of the 15 minutes of bargaining it took to get the cost down. When I gave the man my 12 bucks, he bought me a beer. Both of us were satisfied with the transaction. Wearing my new jacket, I walked to…

Nestled beneath the air cleaner on your car is a device that mixes gas and air. It’s called a carburetor, and its job is a complex one. The job is complex because the necessary mixtures of air and fuel vary widely for different operating conditions. At the extremes, lean cruise conditions require about 15 parts of air per part of fuel, while cold start conditions require about 8-to-l. To further complicate the situation, the density of liquid fuel (gasoline) remains comparatively constant, even though the density of the air may vary quite a bit. As a result, modern carburetors contain as many as five different metering systems; in use, they overlap to provide a mixture the engine can digest under all operating conditions. The complexity of these circuits and the…

In the West, winter came early this year; you could tell by the purple noses on your acquaintances who never touch the sauce. Riding solo was bad enough; a dedicated biker could just sit there and chip his porcelain and leave fingerprints on the handlebars and tell himself he was enjoying this winter madness. But getting the wife out for a frigid frolic was just plain out of the question. She knew you were nuts, and it was only a matter of time before you had to find out. “Go ahead and enjoy yourself. I’ll be all right.” You knew she didn’t mean it, and that somehow, in her own inimitable feminine way, she’d make you pay through the month of November on. The thaw wouldn’t come ’til ’long about…