Indholdsfortegnelse for September 1992 i Hot Rod

When Bill Jenkins won the first NHRA Pro Stock race at the Winternationals in 1970, he wheeled his ”69 Camaro to a winning 9.98 e.t at 138 mph. In this issue, we present the fastest street cars in America in which all the cars are low-9-second to as quick as mid-8-second street cars! If you’ve never experienced a ride quicker than 14 seconds in the quarter-mile, you can’t imagine the rush of an 8-second ballistic shot down the quarter, reaching trap speeds in excess of 150 mph! But we’re not talking about full-on NHRA Pro Stocker or Competition Eliminator cars here. We’re talking street cars! Admittedly, some of these cars may stretch the limit of credibility when it comes to the definition of a street car, but their performances are…

First we had tot rods—you know, the red, raked and big-weenied wagons that dad pulled. Now, Bob Throndsen (The Wagon Works, Inc., Dept. HRO9, 425-148th St. N.E., Arlington, WA 98223, 206/652-0745) offers a line of dragon wagons that pull dad! Bob’s radio flyers feature square tube frames; both pussy-foot and buggy-sprung suspensions; are powered by a 5-horse Briggs engine; possess 30 to 35 mph capabilities; and carry $1500 to $2500 price tags. For those who would rather roll than stroll, Bob’s radio flyers can drag one’s duff all day at a rod run or machine meet for less than the price of a gallon of gas…

In 1959, the Smokers Car Club staged the most momentous drag race in the history of the sport when they paid Don Garlits to make the 3000-mile journey from Tampa to Bakersfield and compete against the West Coast hotties. Garlits’ heavily nitrated, carbureted Chrysler couldn’t run with the blown Hemi that powered Art Chrisman’s Hustler, but the East versus West confrontation, mixed with the reemergence of nitro and the touring professionals, were the first steps that eventually produced modern drag racing. Now 33 years later, there is going to be a recreation of that historic “March Meet.” The National Hot Rod Association (NHRA) is presenting “The First California Hot Rod Reunion,” scheduled to be held on the weekend of November 14-15, 1992, at the Fomoso dragstrip. The two-day event, featuring…

Vision problems that led to persistent black spots and flashes, which were caused by the effects from a sudden deceleration experience while testing his new fueler, have put Don “Big Daddy” Garlits on the trailer for good. According to Garlits, “An eye specialist in Gainesville, Florida, recommended that I never drive again.” To satisfy the match race commitments that Garlits made previous to his injury, veteran Funny Car racer Bruce Larson has agreed to assume Garlits’ driving chores. However, the old man will stay on as crew chief and will travel with his crew and new driver.…

Susan, like many of us, drove an old car that she purchased used. Her used car had become a collector’s item, but to her it was still just transportation. When it was rusty and rough, she was stopped by strangers who wanted to buy it and fix it up. She held on to it and just kept it running, because to her it was still just transportation. Then a friend, who wanted to open a custom body shop, offered to completely fix the car for her at a great price so people would see his work. Susan had the work done. Her transportation was an original red ’67 Camaro with white bumblebee stripes. It was a beauty—flawless in body and paint. There were 23 separate layers of paint on that…

Yikes! We had a lot of motors up against the rev limiter in hot rod land 10 “fastest” street cars in America. (Yeah, —we know drag cars are properly referred to as quickest, but “the fastest street cars” sounded better.) It seems everybody we talked to had the baddest, the most brutal street car ever conceived by a rodder. And, of course, we heard rumors and tales that a friend of a friend had the quickest car in the world, but he only raced for money and didn’t want anyone to know how fast it really is. So it goes. Hey, maybe those rumors are true, but we“re not interested in ghost stories, we“re interested in the fastest street cars in America. And as far as we can tell, we…

Have you heard stories about corporate employees who clown around with a stupid idea just to ee how far it’ll go before upper management vetoes it? Then they laugh the loudest when the idea actually makes it to production. This can be the only explanation for the AMC Pacer, front-wheel drive, and the early Nova suspension. The unique Chevy II suspension and brakes are strictly for six-cylinder cruising, and finding modern technology to make hot rod improvements for them can be tough. While the fishbowl car and wrong-wheel drive can’t be helped, we’ll uncover some tips and parts sources for bringing the ’62-’67 Chevy II chassis into the ’90’s world of superior braking and handling. STAGE 1: PATCH IT UP Inherent design limitations make Nova steering reminiscent of Rice Krispies.…

Hey, Little Cobra” is one of the highest ranked hot rod songs of all time, and it all happened by accident, in 1963. Singer/songwriter Carol Connors banged up her boyfriend’s AC Bristol, and he wanted it returned to its former unaltered shape. I went out to [Shelby’s] offices in Venice, California, and we talked. When he found out that I sang To Know Him Is To Love Him,’ he said to me, in a very Southern accent, ’Honey, if you write a song about my car and it goes to No. 1, we’ll work something out.’ Next thing I knew, I was drivin’ a Cobra.” Well, maybe not quite that fast. There were a couple of details to work out. First, she had to write the song with the help…

Ted Walker has always lived for customs. He has owned several of them, but it wasn’t until he completed this ’64 Ford Galaxie 500XL that his dream car was realized. Customizer John Kouw chopped 3 inches from the top, nosed and louvered the hood, removed the door handles, frenchecl in twin antennas, molded the mirrors, and added a third taillight above the rear window to create an out-of-this-world look. Then Ted prepped the steel expanses before adding PPG Candy Plum acrylic enamel to the body and trim pieces. The chassis was reworked to Pro Street standards by narrowing the frame 8 inches in back and joining a Ford 9-inch rearend fitted with LTD disc brakes, ladder bars, and coil-over shocks. The front suspension was updated with a ’77 Ford independent…

We know what you’re thinking: “Should it have two doors, or should it have four?” Actually, Tom Gross’ wagon is a factory dual-port 64 Falcon. But the fact that you had to ask illustrates a good point in the lesson of how to get started in hot rodding”——pick an unusual body style. It’s even better if you can swing this with a vehicle that’s affordable and easy to get parts for. Tom and his dad Jerry picked up this unique cruiser for a paltry $600 and attacked it as a Gross family project. The stock six-shooter quickly hit the garage floor and was replaced by a mild 289 with a budget chrome-in-a-spray-canresto’ engine bay. The buildup progressed with a C4 tranny, an 8inch differential, and a disc-brake front end swapped…

GREEN PLEASED Don’t be too hard on Daren Schrat (“Green Peeved,” Reaction Time June ‘92). We need people like him! Where else would all of us “untalented” rodder sunload all of the unnecessary factory crud that clutters up the lines of our rods? I financed an entire “Hee Haw” paint job by selling my chrome bird, emblems, scripts, sunvisor, and continental kit to resto-wackos. Hey, Daren, wanna buy a pair of door handles? I‘ve just been dying for an electric door kit! R.F. MaxsonCedar Springs, Michigan This is in response to Daren Schrat’s letter “Green Peeved” in Reaction Time (June 92). A’55 Chevy looked perfect from the start? Bull honkey! A stock ’55 looks like a Checker cab. I’m an automobile artist so I like to see automotive art, and…

Since Oscar Mayer’s new, high-flying fleet of Weinermobiles is scheduled to be chauffeured by non-professional drivers and will haul buns to and from public outings, they were built so they wouldn’t tube out due to inferior stability. Although considerations such as center of gravity, weight bias, and track width played an important part in the weenie wagons’ configuration, the bulbous shape of the cylindrical steak also dogged designer Harry Bradley’s plans. The last thing Bradley needed to do was to play catch-up with a shot dog. So he and his crew created a fully painted, 4-foot-long model, skinned it with fiberglass, placed it in Cal Tech’s (Pasadena, California) GALCIT wind tunnel and then had Cal Tech’s Jerry Landry and “Doc” Ichiro generate 120-mph airflow over their 1/7-scale weenie wagon. According…

When I became a part of the Petersen Publishing Company organization 24 years ago, I thought we would soon be on the move. The original office was a small apartment located on Melrose Avenue and La Brea Avenue (in Los Angeles) and that was followed by somewhat upgraded quarters on San Vicente Boulevard in 1949, 1015 La Cienega Boulevard in 1950, and 5959 Hollywood Boulevard from 1952 to 1968. Instead, home became a 24-year stint (1968 to 1992) on the southeast corner of Sunset and La Cienega. That’s all changed. Robert E. Petersen, founder and Chairman of the Board of PPC, has upgraded our act once more…like 20 stories worth of upgrade. Our new editorial offices—housing 15 monthly magazines, including HOT ROD, Rod & Custom, Car Craft, Motor Trend, 4-Wheel…

It’s often hard to determine what makes one vehicle stand out from the crowd. Sometimes there is no single part of the car that just screams, “Look at me!” Instead, it just looks good. That’s the case with Dave Sevy’s 68 Camaro—there’s nothing sticking through the hood, no radical graphics, and no Pro Stock wing. It’s just simple and extremely clean. He made use of the RS Camaro’s attractive lines and enhanced them with an excellent street stance, cool color, and plenty of wheel and tire out back. Dave also used factory components wherever possible, and he did all the work himself to make the project as affordable as possible. When Dave found his Camaro it was sitting in a field, slowly dying of rust cancer. Once it was rescued…

In 1919, Frank Nesladek opened a shop that specialized in making carriage tops and buggy whips. Over 73 years later, John Mayer, the manager of that same shop—Ogden Top & Trim in Berwyn, Illinois—felt predisposed to combine the past with the present. So he did what came naturally: he combined horse-drawn canvas with high-tech components. John even committed his ideas to paper before he selected the fat-fender form of a 37 Tudor sedan and converted it into this award-winning convertible. While the frame was retained, the rest of the ’37 received a few updates: a Heidt-type front end with 2-inch dropped Mustang II spindles, rack-and-pinion steering, disc brakes, and an LTD 8-inch rearend. To this Frank added both 16x7 and 16x8 American Racing Equipment wheels fitted with Riken 205/50R16s and…

Eddie York is fast. He’s so fast that the Vo-Tech instructor has averaged nearly one rod per year and has done so since 1980. His ninth rod—a ’33 three-window coupe—took him just eight months to complete. “It’s easy,” says the 50-year-old dynamo, “when you live in Davie, Florida. You can work on cars after school and on the weekends because it’s warm all year long.” Another factor behind “Fast” Eddie’s incredible productivity is that his hammered coupe is essentially a “repro”: rod. You can hustle hiney when you don’t have to chop tops, remove rust, or trash Kmart rash. Outlaw Performance does all that for you when you buy one of its fiberglass bodies and then have Dave Bauer coat its silky smooth skin with white and lavender Sikken urethane.…

In 1967, first-generation Camaros were long awaited by Chevrolet fans. Two and a half years prior to that, Ford introduced the Mustang while the Chevy II Nova just didn’t cut the mustard. But the wait was well worth it because when Chevrolet finally unveiled its ponycar, it came complete with great suspension and a long list of serious performance engines, transmissions, and rearends, as well as performance packages which would soon become legendary. The best-known package is the Z/28. In 1967, Vince Piggins’ group combined a 327 cylinder block with a 283 crankshaft to yield a 302-cid engine rated at a conservative 290 horsepower to legally compete with the Mustangs in SCCA’s new Trans Am series. The package cost an additional $437.10, and it included power disc brakes (front only),…

If you can’t beat ’em, go faster; it’s the prime directive of hot rodding. It applies to competition on the street, at the track, and in legislation. That’s right: smog laws. But when it comes to smog statutes, there’s a lot of us who’ve wimped out. So for everyone who’s had a smog pump "fall off"; for everyone who thinks you can’t go fast legally; and for everyone who avoids understanding emissions, we present 12 seconds of daily-driven, emissions-legal power: the HOT ROD Magazine Clean Team! Smog control laws are approaching their silver anniversary (not that anyone’s going to be celebrating), and HOT ROD has been there since the birth of this legislation. Our editorial opinion has ranged from scathing to supportive, and along the way we’ve learned that it’s…

BIRD BREATHING Q I want to improve the exhaust system on my dad’s ‘83 T-Bird. The car came stock with an EFI 302, and I would like to install a dual exhaust system on it. However, the dealer says it would be illegal. How can I find out if it is legal or not If it is illegal, how can I improve the exhaust system? Also, it came with two catalytic converters. Joshua HenryFloyd, Virginia A At this time, the Environmental rotection Agency (EPA) allows modifications to be made after, or downstream of the catalytic converters, so converting your T-Bird to a dual exhaust system, as long as you leave the catalytic converters in the stock location, is legal. According to factory replacement exhaust catalogs, the head pipes that contain…

HOT NEW ’93 CAMARO Chevy is waiting to introduce the new ’93 Camaro until the end of this year, but being the impatient enthusiasts that we are, we couldn’t wait. This is what the new ’93 Camaro will look like. Powered by the soon-to-be-legendary LT1 350 revised small-block, the new F-car is reported to be roughly the same weight as the current Camaro/Firebird platform. Drivetrain options will consist of a choice between the new Borg-Warner 6-speed manual trans or the current Hydramatic700-R4 automatic. The front suspension is also completely new, reverting back to the respected unequallength A-arm-style suspension similar to the ones used on second-generation Camaros. The solid axle rear suspension is a carry-over of the torque-arm design used on the third-generation F-cars. With the radically raked windshield angle and…

NOSTALGIA NEWS Nestled in the hills between San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge and the famed wine country of Sonoma County is Sears Point Raceway, the sight of the Goodguys 4th Annual Jim Davis Memorial Nostalgia Hot Rod Drags. On May 2-3, this premier facility played host to thousands of spectators who came to enjoy over 300 race cars and 200 streetbased show-offs. You could feel the competitive intensity right from the start as the air began to fill with tire smoke and nitro fumes. All of the various pro classes were well contested, some a little too well, as several broken motors kept previous records in tact. As this for transpired, the “run what you brung” racers put their street rods and street machines to the test. Sunday morning brought…

While this issue marks our first announcement of HOT ROD’s Fastest Street Car Shootout, Rick Dyer shattered our clandestine intentions by showing up at the ’92 Street Machine Nationals with this conspicuous lettering on his car! Rick’s quick ’69 Camaro was also seen sporting a new deck wing in a brazen attempt to broadcast his 8-second intentions. Well, Rick, if you can’t keep a secret, why should we? Should we tell the world about how you and your cronies in the C.A.R.S.-sponsored racing team are tooling up for the event? Need we mention the 600-inch Shafiroff motors that are on the way to you and Danny Scott? Or what about your hot new speed Secret you told me Detroit? You know the one. Maybe we’ll even disclose the workings of…

In the weeks to come, gearheads will be able to gear up with Richmond Gear’s new overdrive 6-speed transmission. Based on the aftermarket Richmond 5-speed originally produced as the Nash 5-speed, this heavy-duty gearbox will be a natural bolt-in for any performance street machine or rod with both a deep first gear and approximately 30-percent overdrive. Details are still pending, and Richmond says the trans will probably debut sometime later this year. This heavy-duty manual transmission retains its external appearance, while gear changes are handled by a bang-proof Leonard Long-designed short throw, narrow-gate shifter. Further improvements come in the form of specially designed brass synchros for daily wham-slam abuse. Richmond will also offer an almost endless variety of gear ratios suited to every application of street, road racing, and drag…

Looking for a way to vent your competitive urges? Do you think you’re as good as Mario or Little Al and just haven’t had the chance to prove yourself? Then we have just the venue for you: Solo racing. Specifically, the Sports Car Club of America’s (SCCA) Pro Solo circuit, which winds its way across the U.S. every summer in search of parking lot hero drivers. The plan is simple: The club lays out two mirror-image courses with orange pylons and runs the cars against each other with a dragstrip-style Christmas Tree standing start. The first one to the finish line wins. There are over a dozen classes, so if you have a good-handling street machine, you probably can find a class that fits your car. We decided to take…

It comes scorching out of the early summer sun, dead straight and accurate with a high-performance purpose. A slow roll to the right and it locks on target, dropping to the deck for a street-strafing run. The rumble, the smoke, and the passion for cars exploded as the 14th annual Hot Rod Supernationals went ballistic in the Canfield (Ohio) Fairgrounds during the weekend of May 29-31, 1992. The event, presented by the Penn-Ohio Ford dealers, Worldwide Auto Parts, and the BFGoodrich T/A Tires Performance Series, is the flame front of a long hot rod summer that’s sure to be one of the most powerful in history. Power is always in style, and the power was on a parade lap of America at the Hot Rod Supernationals. The Hot Rod Supernationals…

bound to offend someone. That’s why the new Race Rock Motor City Diner, in the suburbs of Detroit, Michigan, is somewhat of a paradox. The Race Rock opened in April of 1992 under the supervision of owner Bobby Moore, and it’s just what you’d expect from a Motown car nut who’s a 20-year restaurateur and a retired circus elephant trainer. The place is a full-blown carnival of racing and good-time cruising that redefines the term “fast food.” With a combination of high-dollar automotive accoutrements and affordably delicious vittles, hot rodders are welcome guests. The standard four-star scale wouldn’t serve the gearhead atmosphere of the Race Rock, so we’ve bestowed the diner with an endorsement of HOT ROD caliber: the sterling four Snap-On wrench rating! The Race Rock began as a…

Chopped, channeled, sectioned, frenched, decked, nosed, filled, molded, and tunneled aren’t terms generally associated with Camaros, Chevelles, Caprices, or ’Cudas. This is the jargon of the ’50s, the terms customizers used to describe the various body changes they employed to “metalmorphose” stockers into sleds. Yet one of the most interesting trends of the ’90s is the rediscovery of the visual delights possessed by tail draggers of days gone by. So we thought it would be fun to dig into HOT ROD’s archives and use some of the more notable examples of yesterdays’ customs to help illustrate the fact that on the street, customs can be cool, too! Customs invariably have sunken license plates, smoothed decklids, and repositioned taillights for a clean rear look, as illustrated by this fully customized ’36…

As automobile man ufacturers spend millions of dollars in search of the leading edge, street rodders continue to sharpen it with their expressive creations. While they may not exhibit sleek aerodynamics, street rods do reign supreme in terms of their innovative designs and high levels of detail and craftsmanship. In last month’s story, "Rod Builder’s Basics," we gave you an expansive overview of the components that have made rodding very accessible to the majority of enthusiasts. For most, these basic, well-proven designs are all that are needed to achieve the ride of their life. Then again, some enthusiasts want to extend the limits of creation a bit further, and, fortunately, there’s a gleaming array of specialized components that can make it easier. Limited only by creativity, these components blend nostalgic…

There’s nothing more frustrating than fighting a balky O.E.M. shifter. But you can improve your gear changes with a hi-po aftermarket shifter like B&M’s new Street Shifter. These high-quality units utilize the basic mechanism found on B&M’s Pro Stick, without the reverse lockout lever for more convenient street driving. This particular installation was accomplished on a ’69 El Camino, but there are dedicated models available for a wide range of applications, including ’77-’82 Corvettes, ’70-’91 Camaros and Firebirds, ’79-’9O Mustangs, and many more. The B&M Street Shifter kit comes complete with all the necessary hardware, including numerous mounting brackets, a shifter cable and housing, and the shifter itself. The car used in this story was originally equipped with a columnmounted shifter, which was removed. While you won’t need to remove…