Indholdsfortegnelse for March 2010 i Hot Rod

THE MARCH OF TECHNOLOGY In this month’s Roddin’ at Random, you can read in detail how Larry Larson, our two-time Drag Week(tm) champion, ran a 6.93 pass in his 3,400-pound street car. Wow! A 6.93 at 211 mph in a car I’ve ridden in (and did donuts in, too!) and personally witnessed drive more than 1,000 miles on public roads. Just un-frigging-believable. It got me thinking about the old days when HOT ROD started the Fastest Street Car thing with the original Memphis FSC shootout in the early ’90s. The fastest Pro Street cars of the day were running low 8s, and we were totally shocked when the Super Street cars (then on real 10.5-inchwide tires) cracked the 9-second barrier. The big news of the day was when Monte Berney…

SEMA Look on page 52 and you’ll see that for the first time in many years, HOT ROD has coverage of the insider-only SEMA trade show as we share 26 of the top show cars from the event at the Las Vegas Convention Center. To give you some reflection on how the hot rodding world has changed over the past 39 years, we dug up this selection of photos of manufacturer booths from the ’71 SEMA show as photographed for the now-defunct Hot Rod Industry News trade publication. See how many brands you recognize. TRAN ZAM This issue’s cover story reveals a long-standing enterprise that is not dead: the improving of a factory muscle car into a specialized edition of same. Our feature this month is a Camaro turned into…

Turning Camaros into Pontiacs is not today’s only trick. In Moparland, Heide Performance Products (HPP) has re-created another muscle legend. HPP is a relatively new player on the OE performance scene but is led by two Motor City veterans: Gordon Heidacker, who spent several decades in Chrysler’s racing and performance programs, including Viper and Prowler; and Jack Pennington, ex-Saleen and ASC lead designer. Though built on the ponycar-flavored Challenger platform, the HPP Daytona is styled to evoke the wild aerodynamic look of the winged Charger Daytona and Plymouth Superbird B-Bodies that terrorized NASCAR four decades ago. The premise might not be as far-fetched as it seems. The Challenger’s wheelbase is 116 inches—the same as the ’70 Superbird. The transformation, if you will, from contemporary ponycar to NASCAR retro racer is…

The original premise of the Jeep was function over flash, so when Tavis High-lander of Highlander Concept Rendering (www.tavishighlander.com) decided to build a ’53 Willys wagon as a useful hot rod, the plan was to make it better all around but without losing the Willys sensibility These things just aren’t supposed to be too nice. Beginning with a neglected specimen that cost next to nothing, Tavis offset the price of new parts by performing all the work himself and with the aid of his dad. “It was a rusty POS,” Tavis explains. “We replaced the cowl sides, firewall, front floor, rockers, rocker braces, rear quarters, inner rear fenders, and lower tailgate hinge area and sectioned the grille 1.5 inches.” And that doesn’t even get into the subtle custom work. Chassiswise,…

Presented by ridetech: Air Ride Technologies The idea hit us with that last splash of margarita. The staff of HOT ROD was drinking its dinner one night at the start of the ’09 SEMA show in Las Vegas and doing plenty of griping about how guys with top-end show cars are, now as ever, afraid to actually drive the things. We were bemoaning the fact that the really killer cars don’t show up on HOT ROD’s Power Tour* anymore. So we came up with a plan to flex our powers of influence and amplify our self-righteous notion that cars should be built to be driven while also sharing with you some photos of the greatest cars of SEMA. Since the crew at Ridetech also appreciates thrashing pristine cars, they stepped…

In a typical nitrous oxide system, as the nitrous releases, the bottle pressure drops, which reduces the amount of nitrous delivered to the engine. That also changes the nitrous-to-fuel ratio, changing the tune-up and power output as the car goes down the track. There are fixes, such as bottle heaters (the higher the temperature, the higher the bottle pressure) and what’s known as a push system that raises bottle pressure by injecting nitrogen into it. But a heater is only marginally effective, and push systems come with their own sets of problems. They are uncontrollable because they use regulator valves that are set to a singular release rate, have a small orifice, and are not rated for constant flow. All these factors lead to lean/rich spikes that can be deadly…

1 FRICTION MATERIAL Bonded together by various resins, the friction compound on this Raybestos pad is most commonly a semimetallic or NAO ceramic formula tailored for the specific application and temperature range. The best high-perf street friction materials generate about 0.040 to 0.045 µ at operating temperature. 2 SLOTS Slots offer an escape route to prevent dust from accumulating between the pad and rotor face, reduce stress crack formation by allowing thermal expansion of the friction pack at elevated temperatures, and increase µ by providing redundant leading edges across the pad face. 3 CHAMFERS Standard and compound chamfer angles help the pad tune out certain noise frequencies. You may also see chamfers in some high-perf pads: By reducing the initial surface area, they increase the temp rise during initial brake…

100% PURE RETRO Warning: this column is a glaring sales pitch for a magazine called HOT ROD Deluxe. I can justify this gratuitous promotion of my own product because it’s extra neato, not because of me, but because of the work of many before me who created the documentation of hot rodding’s history that we publish in every issue of Deluxe. HRD is the magazine about nothing but retro-related topics from the ’40s and ’50s with a smidge of early ’60s. It’s not rat rods, tattoos, weirdo art, or rockabilly. It’s all cars and legacy. Best of all, there are loads of vintage photos in every issue, which is what prompted me to write this column. If you’ve read closely over the past couple of issues of HRM, you know…

HOTRODS Welcome to the Hot Rods section of the mag, where all the car features live. Know of a great ride that should be here? Got killer photos of cars in action along with details about them? Tip us off: email HOTROD@hotrod.com or mail to HOT ROD Hot Rods, 831 S. Douglas St. El Segundo, CA 90245. When news of the Camaro’s rebirth got teeth back in 2006, the HOT ROD staff was frothing at the mouth, and it wasn’t long before one of us asked the question, “I wonder if they’ll do a Firebird version of it?” Of course, Pontiac still existed at the time, so it seemed logical. We then saw designer Kevin Morgan’s concept drawing of a new Trans Am (below), using the Camaro as the base.…

Jim Mayberry purchased this ’31 Ford roadster from a friend who’d picked it up on eBay. It was rough, and Jim knew it, but he could see the potential so he hauled it to rod builder Johnny Morris and told him, “I like the way it looks now, but I want it nice.” Easier said than done. Johnny lifted the body off, looked over the terminally hacked chassis, and immediately rolled it over to the scrap heap. A new frame was crafted from 11/2x3-inch tube with new suspension front and rear, then he called Pro Street legend Scott Sullivan to tackle the body. Scott realized right away there was much less car than met the eye. The roadster began as a four-door sedan that someone shortened into a two-door with…

For three years, Mike Holleman attended the HOT ROD Top Speed Challenge(tm) at the Maxton Mile (in North Carolina) as a spectator and took lots of abuse from ECTA Race Director Keith Turk for never bringing anything to run. In retaliation, he decided to turn his ’65 El Camino into a top-speed and road course machine. The Elky was done in only eight months. Mike turned to Schwartz Extreme Performance for one of its G-Machine chassis for suspension geometry that’s not dependent on stock pickup points. Also, after the chassis was completed and the rollbar was installed, the Elky boasted an impressive 50.50/49.50 front to rear weight bias. Following an uneventful three-hour drive to Maxton for the ’09 HOT ROD Top Speed Challenge(tm), Mike got a big thumbs up from…

It is safe to say the original, as-cast Twisted Wedge street head from Trick Flow Specialties (TFS)—now called Twisted Wedge Track Heat 170 Cylinder Head Fast As-Cast—all but revolutionized the Ford 5.0L industry, providing an affordable aluminum performance head to the Mustang market when no such animal existed. The as-cast port dimensions (170cc intake and 66cc exhaust) generated peak intake flow near 250 cfm and peak exhaust flow of 193 cfm (at a 4.150 bore, larger than our 347’s 4.030), and the rotated valve locations not only improved the flow and power potential but also the all-important piston-to-valve clearance issues associated with running wilder cams with the factory pistons. According to TFS, it is possible to run cams with as much as 0.540 lift and 224 degrees of duration using…

SEND STUFF IN: EMAIL: HOTROD@HOTROD.com• MAIL: HOT ROD, 831 S. Douglas St., El Segundo, CA 90245 PHOTO REQUIREMENTS: Minimum size 1,600 x 1,200 pixels MESSAGE BOARD: HOTROD.com STREET CAR RECORDS SET November was a wild month for the entire street car drag racing scene as records were set in jaw-dropping performances. At the top of the list is HOT ROD Drag Week(tm) hero and two-time winner Larry Larson and his ’66 Nova [which we incorrectly identified as a ’67 in the Jan. ’09 issue). The smack talk about being the first Drag Week(tm) car to run in the 6s was hot and heavy before the ’09 Drag Week, with the front runners being Larson and Jeff Lutz. Larson ran as quick as 7.25 during Drag Week(tm), while Lutz broke. But…

Lingenfelter Performance Engineering also has a new Camaro reworked as a Firebird tribute. It’s called the LTA, which you can take as licensing-sensitive shorthand for Lingenfelter Trans Am. Given the company’s proven expertise at wringing big power from GM’s LS engine family, the LTA arrives on the scene with serious street performance cred. Under its hood is an RHS (Racing Head Service) aluminum block punched out to a nostalgic 455 ci and kitted out with the full complement of Lingenfelter muscle mods. LPE confidently rates the combination at 655 hp and 610 lb-ft. The functional Shaker hood, front fender vents, and other design features are all carefully intended to mirror the look of the ’71 Trans Am. The second-gen Firebird flavor also carries into the interior, where you’ll find period-correct,…

We’ve all been there. Often, a car build starts with a clear objective in mind, but by the time the project nears completion, the plan has headed off in a new direction. That’s just what happened here. Ken Lingenfelter commissioned Kustom Creations of Sterling Heights, Michigan, to build this ’68 Camaro as his personal killer road machine. But just as the finish line was coming into view, a new set of priorities took hold. In August 2008, Ken bought Lingenfelter Performance Engineering (LPE), the company founded by legendary engine guy John Lingenfelter. Tragically, the automotive world lost John on Christmas Day in 2003, the result of injuries suffered in a racing crash the year before. While Ken and John share the same last name, “I consider myself a friend, a…

After seeing what Carroll Shelby had done to the diminutive AC Ace (you know, sticking a small-block Ford in it and calling it the Cobra), the powers that be at Rootes American Motors looked at the English Sunbeam Alpine they were selling and thought, Why not? So they commissioned Shelby to build a prototype with a 260ci Ford V-8, called it the Sunbeam Tiger, and then had Jensen (in England) build the limited-production cars. There was room under the hood to wedge in a 427 big-block, a la Cobra, but Shelby got embroiled in the legendary Ford versus Ferrari battle and didn’t have time to do that, so all 7,085 Tigers had small-blocks. That’s where Dr. Mike Frielander stepped in to take care of the final evolution. He had his…

The 427ci LS7 V-8 from the ’06-up Z06 Corvette is an amazing engine, but packaging one into a traditional hot rod can be difficult with its external oil tank and hoses. And there seems to be a lot of chatter as to whether the factory dry-sump oiling system is even needed on a traditional hot rod. Wouldn’t it be great if you could use an LS7 without the external oil tank? We thought so, too, so we found someone who knows how to convert the LS7 to a traditional wet-sump design and tested to see if there was a power difference. Luckily, we found out Scoggin-Dickey Parts Center (SDPC) in Lubbock, Texas, has a really easy conversion kit available, and Livernois Motorsports in Dearborn Heights, Michigan, was in the process…

Disc brake pads are to brakes what a camshaft is to an engine. Where a cam is critical for defining an engines power potential, brake pads are vital for successfully and repeatedly decelerating a vehicle. Experienced hot rodders know there are a ton of variables when it comes to cam selection, with no one grind being the best for every situation. Likewise, brake engineers must juggle system wear characteristics, operating temperature range, harshness, dust, noise, environmental factors, material and manufacturing costs, and even individual driver preferences. For the serious racer, brake pad choice is a continually evolving process, changing on a nearly monthly basis. A WORK OF FRICTION The higher a brake pad’s coefficient of friction (expressed by the Greek letter p, pronounced mu), the more aggressive the pad and…

TERRACUDA Thanks to his former television show Overhaulin’, Chip Foose has gone from being known as a street rod builder to a master designer and craftsman of everything automotive, including muscle cars. The Apr. ’10 issue will feature quite possibly his best street machine yet, a radical ’Cuda you don’t want to miss. It’s oven painted in the hottest color going today: brown. That’s right, brown. The next issue also has a big section on howto make money in hot rodding. Don’t miss it. SEE THIS AND MUCH MORE IN THE APR. ’10 HOT ROD MAGAZINE On Sale February 16, 2010 Meanwhile, Get Your Car Fix at HOTROD.com…