Indholdsfortegnelse for June 1994 i Hot Rod

OPEN HOUSE DANCHUK'S NEW DIGS The Danchuk people, of '55-'57 Chevy repop fame, have recently moved to a bigger and better building and decided to throw an open house to celebrate their change in venue. Naturally, they invited a bunch of Chevy lovers to participate, which is okay if you have a lot of stove-bolt blood flowing through your veins and don't mind the slogan “Chevy is for plow, Ford is for gow.” For us Ford guys, it's a little hard to take except that some neat cars were there.—Gray Baskerville FLYING EYE TIE VON DUTCH LIVES What do you do when you need to spiff up your drab workaday business suit? Why not add an eyeball? The Flying Eyeball, originally penned by hot ' rod artist Von Dutch (and…

If you haven't figured it out by now, the key to building a low-buck car or truck is to do as much of the work your-self as possible. In addition to saving some coin, doing all the work on your car is cool. Not only will you know every inch of the car when it's finished, but if something goes wrong, you will probably know how to fix it. You'll also have something to brag about at car shows and cruises. But that's all true only if the do-it-yourself efforts result in professional-like results. An owner-built car that speaks for itself won't do you any favors nor will it save you any money if you have to do it a second time. The reality is that, with a few awe-inspiring…

If we had to pick a car that demonstrates how to build a street rod the right way, John Trussell's all-new '34 Ford would be it. The '34 covers all the bases. Take its stance: The car sits low at all four comers and is a little lower in front, without a drastic rake. It also has the proper ratio of front to rear rubber (plenty in the back; a little in front). The fenders come down over the tires, so there's no light visible between the top of the tire and the fender opening, in fact, the front tires are stuffed way up in the front fenders. The more, the better, as far as we're concerned, as long as they don't hit the fenders during bumps or corners, compromising…

The Chrysler faithful know the name Dave Koffel. He's one of the guys responsible for the awesome B-1 cylinder heads, he's head of Koffel's Place, and he was a '60s drag racer of great renown—piloting a series of race cars called the Flintstone Flyers to several records and NHRA championships. He's also the force behind this seriously hacked and slashed '48 Packard. The behemoth started off as a four-door, but the team of Francis Crider, Karl Lockard, Nate Lehman and Randy Tietze lengthened the front doors a third and converted the car to a two-door. Then they chopped and ribbed the roof, rounded the door corners and smoothed, frenched, altered, fabricated or removed pretty much everything else. The rear fender skirts were slotted to make the wheels visible, with neon…

Project Freeway Fats is a '39 Ford Tudor sedan. In this series of build-up stories, we're detailing the fabrication, restoration and assembly of the car using some of the top builders in the country as sources. Many of the build-up techniques involved are common to all street rods, and many more are common to all types of hot rod projects, regardless of year, make or model. Project Freeway Fats is designed to draw upon those techniques and illustrate how to build a reliable, durable, daily-driven street rod. The emphasis is less on flash than on function, and the greatest stress is being placed on the car's handling, performance and safety. Last month, we detailed the assembly of the Ford SVO 5.0L GT-40 long-block. While essentially the same as the stock…

Autorama is the car guy's ground hog. Forget the little furry animal; if this show is hot, it's going to be a good spring and summer. Autorama is the first show of the year, and the first opportunity for people to show off their winter's work—which usually extends to the first night of the show. But by the second day of the three-day event, most of the 531 car-show entries had settled in to display the results of their efforts. Also showing off their goods were numerous retail booths and club displays. Among the 42nd annual Dash Mobile Electronics Detroit Autorama Show's attractions were actual Quarter Midget racing, BMX/Rollerblade Freestyle demonstrations, a Jr. Drag Racing League exhibit and an IASCA Explosion on Wheels sound competition. Sponsorship of the prestigious Ridler…

When Harley-Davidson started mounting its thumpin' V-twin in rubber—as opposed to solidly bolting the engine to the frame—it went a long way toward making the bike more pleasant to ride. Solid-mounted mills shake, rattle and roll you down the road, and the rubber mounts help smooth out the ride considerably. But even with the rubber cushion, the Harley is still the classic Milwaukee Vibrator and can benefit from some aftermarket help. There is a way to smooth out some of the vibration, and it comes in the form of Balance Masters' engine and clutch dampeners. We followed along as Ron Lindquist of Line-Quest Performance installed the dampeners on a '93 Dyna Low Rider, and we were surprised at two things. One, the installation took less than half an hour, and…

Hot rodders are a strange lot. They'll spend thousands of dollars on performance parts to improve acceleration, handling or braking, but most won't spend one dime on testing to discover if all those parts really made a difference! Thankfully, some hot rodders are interested, and they would love a tool that is simple, accurate and inexpensive. If you're one of those more dialed-in hot rodders, take a look at the g-curve by Analytical Performance. The g-curve is a simple, curved-glass tube mounted in an aluminum plate. The tube encloses a small steel indicator ball suspended in a calibrated viscous fluid. The mounting plate is graduated in fractions of a g, which are directly read out by comparing the position of the ball to the scale. The plate uses suction cups…

Traditionally, we don't put Mopars on the cover of HOT ROD. Why? Because about 97 percent of our readers are Chevy-biased and get upset when we have a non-Chevy any-where in the magazine, let alone on the cover. But when we went looking for a car that fit our bang-for-your-buck cover theme, we kept coming back to Greg Aliano's '71 Duster. The car is very clean, very red, very fast and on this side of low-buck, so it made sense to have it as the first lone Mopar on the cover of HOT ROD since May 1988. Greg's Plymouth started out as a $500 beater with a 318. He got the small-block running well enough to drive, and then freshened the interior and paint. The '89 Corvette Red enamel was…

Ever notice that there's always one guy who's faster than everyone else? Without any obvious trick parts, he's a solid two-tenths quicker at the Saturday night bracket races than you, even though you appear to have an identical combination of parts. What's his secret? Why is he always a fender ahead through the lights? Unless he's a very adept cheater, the secret is probably all in the tune. Throwing parts and money at a car will not by itself make a car fast. Even if the parts are well-matched to each other and assembled correctly, the engine still won't make max power unless the details are optimized and the tune is spot-on. And there's only one way to tune a car: run after run after run followed by change after…

Ten years ago, Van Smith stuffed a blown Hemi into his 77 Plymouth Volare to satisfy the urge for almighty acceleration on Detroit's streets. After rebuilding the car two more times, he now runs the only Mopar that showed up for the '93 Fastest Street Car competition and still drives it around Detroit! Van wanted to go fast, and he felt the best way to do that was to gut the car completely, set it on a tube chassis, stuff in a B-l-cylinder-head-equipped engine, back it up with a four-speed Lenco planetary trans and 9-inch rearend, and go racing. Van and Steve Grebeck (the driver) built the chassis, Koffel's Place built the 51 lei engine, and the car has gone a best of 8.21 at 170 mph at Orlando last…

One of the most impressive modifications you can make to your street machine is to narrow the rearend and mount some 31x18.50 rubber in the rear. Big meats get you respect whether you're at the racetrack or hitting the cruise scene. But you're left asking: How do 1 get that look? How much does it cost? While there are many companies that sell rear frame sections, suspension kits, narrowed rearends and more, the act of installing this equipment can be daunting. To help eliminate the mystery behind installing a rear frame section, HOT ROD followed along as CMI Chassis Works in El Monte, California, a quality race- and street-car chassis shop, installed an Art Morrison Ladder Bar rear frame section in a '67 Chevy Camaro. Morrison sells a video that…

One of the premises behind HOT ROD's '68 Camaro Testification project was to see if the parts required for a restoration/modification project could be obtained through a “one-stop shop” approach. For this project, we selected NAPA as our parts source. As it turns out, the company not only has everything needed to build a solid performance engine, but it also handles all the components required for engine installation and suspension and brake rebuilding. What's most surprising is that NAPA's standard catalog includes such a wide array of performance parts. What we didn't find there, we located in the Performance & Specialty Equipment catalog, which includes name-brand parts from many well-known performance companies. Of course, no one supplier will have everything needed for every Testification. If any major components or body…

Back in the days when I was working for Motorcyclist magazine, we called bikes that were reduced to their bare bones “basics” and the dressed-up ones “bob jobs.” Bob Eatherton's simple, sanitary and smooth '89 Softail is the essence of the old bob job, which eschewed mass and relied on shortened fenders, small gas tanks, small head-lights, clip-on bars and lots of pressure to make the difference. Ditto Bob's (Eatherton) hot rod Harley. The Harley heads will note that Bob's job is equipped with modified H-D and Ness fenders and headlight, Ness flat-track bars, eight degrees of rake in the frame, shortened extensions and modified swing arms and shocks. Naturally, Bob's paint job—an aye-full mix of Dave Perenitz-applied House of Kolor Candy Red and Hanson-handled graphics—flows well with the bike's…

Danville, California's Deke Ballard likes his hot rod Harleys new and blue. Consider his '93 FXST, for instance. Deke's Ron Simms-massaged Softail is a dazzling array of paint and plate and no slouch in the haul-fast department either. The potent 80-inch V-twin that powers Deke's Black 'n' Blue employs Hannans heads, S&S slugs, a Sifton tappet tickler (pushrods, too) and an S&S fuel mixer and air scrubber. Dyna provides the spark and Bartels directs the sound. According to Deke, the '93 Evolution engine is good for 82 horses. Although the fully detailed frame remains H-D stock, as do the front forks, the rollers are not-so-stock. Simms' Bay Area Custom Cycle equipped the Softail with Performance hubs, Akron 21- and 16-inch rims, Metz meats and Performance brakes. The handlebars and grips…

CLEAN IT UP LIQUID ABSORBENT If creating your own personal version of the Exxon Valdez oil spill in your garage is a daily occurrence, then Advanced Commercial Products has just the ticket. FiberAction is a processed-wood-fiber absorbent material that quickly soaks up any type of liquid spill. The material absorbs spills quickly, and the manufacturer claims that it will even help traction when used on race tracks. It is dust-free and will not support combustion even when completely saturated. FiberAction is available in 10-pound bags. For more information, contact Pat Lynch at Pioneer, Inc., Dept. HR06, 100 Pioneer Rd., Meridian, MS 39301. LIQUID CRYSTAL POLISH PROTECTION Turtle Wax has developed a new advanced-formula polish called Liquid Crystal. Fluoro polymers, the key active ingredient in today's high-tech paints, are added to…

WHAT A GUY True hot rodders would never allow their wives to drive boring cars. Goober mini-vans with fake wood paneling or Volvo station wagons are just not acceptable. When Michigan's Linda Roberts needed a grocery-getter, her husband (she didn't tell us his name—marital strife is a terrible thing) built her a wagon that can haul some serious produce. A 79 Malibu wagon was the starting point. Out came the limp smog motor and in went a .040-over 350 with a Weiand/Holley induction combo, worked 441 heads and what Linda terms “a General Kinetics lumpity-lump cam kicked four degrees ahead.” A Fairbanks TH350 handles the trans duties, and 3,73 gears provide Linda a little extra stoplight advantage. Rally wheels set off the '94 Pontiac Bonneville Green paint and platinum-gray interior…

In these days of inflation, it's still possible to slide into your local speed shop and select go-better, look-better or work-better goodies for less than 50 scoots. Fifty bucks can buy you everything from a cam to a set of rocker covers. What we've done here is give the reader a selection of items offered by aftermarket parts manufacturers and suppliers that can be purchased from such outlets as Chet Herbert Race Parts, Jegs, Performance Automotive Wholesale, Racing Head Service and Summit for 50 or less. Naturally, prices do change, and we don't want to get into a price quoting war. Therefore, we specifically asked each parts participant to send us a cross section of its product line that a HOT ROD reader could purchase for under 10 fives. Consequently,…

“You wanna run 'em?” In a hundred different forms, that invitation is the bottom line in motor-sports. If you think you have a quicker/faster/better machine than the guy in the next pit, racing gives you the opportunity to prove it. Unfortunately, racing is also outrageously expensive. Ask any racer, from drag racing's elite to the local bracket bomber running his dad's Oldsmobile, and they'll all bemoan a lack of funds. No matter how much money you have, it's never enough. Despite the bleak chances of winning the next $10 billion state lottery, you still harbor that undeniable urge to go racing. We understand. Fortunately, there are a number of somewhat inexpensive and healthy releases to feed your competitive fire. We'll assume the only way you can go racing is with…

Riding on last month's How It Works topic (cams) is this month's topic—lifters. These cylindrically shaped components contact the lobes of the cam to convert the eccentric shape of the lobe into lifting action. That sounds pretty simple, but how these tubular chunks of metal manage this conversion can have an effect on engine power and reliability. In addition, the lifters transport lubrication from the engine block to the valvetrain via the pushrods. Lifters fall into one of two types: solid or hydraulic. Solid lifters require valve lash, which generates valvetrain noise that's noticeable at idle and low rpm. Solid lifters also necessitate periodic valve adjustments. Hydraulic lifters absorb the expansion and "shocks of the valvetrain with zero lash, providing quiet and relatively maintenance-free operation. But that's certainly not the…

There's something about welding that scares most hot rodders. Despite the fact that welding is inexpensive and easy to learn, many hot rodders think it's beyond their abilities. Actually, nothing could be further from the truth. If you can fog a mirror or drive a four-speed, you can learn how to weld. The entire scope of welding is much too broad to cover in three pages, so we've limited this story to MIG welders, which are probably the best overall welders for the automotive field. MIG welders (see definitions sidebar) are electrical wire-feed welders that create sufficient heat to fuse metal. Yet the process limits heat input to the specific welding area (unlike oxyacetylene) to prevent distortion. MIG welding is especially useful when it comes to joining sheetmetal for limiting…

Once a term bestowed upon fairgrounds cruisers, Pro Street now covers all sorts of hot rods, from the poseur crowd to the Fastest Street Car contenders. Anything goes in the Pro Street market, so here are some new and often-used items in the standard Pro Street ride. STREET FOUR-LINK Chris Alston's Chassisworks has introduced a four-link rear suspension specifically for hot rods and Pro Street cars and trucks. This all-new four-link combines the large-diameter (11/4 inches) link tubes and billet-steel rod ends of real racing suspensions with flexible urethane bushings. For the latest Chassisworks Catalog and Technical Manual (Vol. 4), send $5 to Chris Alston's Chassisworks, Inc., Dept. HR06, 2650 Mercantile Dr., Ste. C, Rancho Cordova, CA 95742, 916/635-6751. CUSTOM CAD-DESIGN REAR CLIPS Race car builders and Pro Street enthusiasts…

There is one inescapable fact about any high-performance machine: If it makes power, it also makes heat. We're talkin' BTU's to the max. The combustion process and high-stall-speed torque converters are the top two on the heat-generator hit parade. If that heat isn't managed properly, the oil in those components overheats and begins to break down. Oil quickly fails its primary missions of lubrication and cooling when it overheats. Oil temperatures of over 220 degrees Fahrenheit are considered excessive and will quickly break down petroleum-based lubricants. How do you protect your engine or transmission from a high-oil-temperature failure? Simple—bolt on an external cooler. THE AUTOMATIC ANSWER Automatic transmissions are the most susceptible to oil-cooling problems. While engines also heat the oil, the engine's radiator helps maintain oil temperature. All factory…

One of hot rodding's enduring/endearing pluses is color. We produce motordom's most colorful cars. Since the high-luster, deep-hue, fine-metallic, candy-apple heyday of the Barris Brothers, hot rodders have coated their steaming iron with eye-orbiting paint jobs. While it is true that monochromatic paint jobs grace the high-tech end of the street-rod/show-machine spectrum—an AMG influence attributed to John Buttera and Boyd Coddington—a significant subgroup still prefer sizzling hot colors. So with that in mind, we offer this color-copia of what the boss calls “flash cars.”…