Indholdsfortegnelse for June 2010 i Hot Rod

STUFF WE MUST HAVE Being a car guy is not just about cars. In fact, most of us probably graduated into cars only as we approached legal driving age and consumed ourselves with other mechanized mayhem and typical guy stuff before then. I think the lust for wheels and speed starts the moment a kid gets his first Big Wheel or when the training wheels finally come off the bicycle. Some kids move up to go-karts and some to minibikes and/or dirt bikes; either one is acceptable. Go-karts teach you how to drive, and dirt bikes teach you how much it hurts to crash. Dirt bikes are actually something a car guy should never grow out of—we should each still have at least one. And minibikes are just hilarious fun,…

CUSTOM CARS You know how many covers of HOT ROD magazine have featured custom cars? Seventeen out of 751. That’s if we include a couple of trucks and if we get very liberal by counting the Chezoom ’57 Chevy and Merrodder ’49 Merc, both from 1993. Of course, we’re being fairly restrictive with the definition of custom, excluding show rods, custom rods, and definitely hot rods. Identifying a true custom is sort of a know-it-when-you-see-it proposition. If you’re having trouble, perhaps kustom narrows it down for you. HOT ROD included customs right from the start in 1948, but the staff always seemed to prefer cars that at least gave the illusion of performance. And in the heat of the trend in the ’50s, the bulk of the if-it-don’t-go-chrome-it coverage fell…

Trends in hot rodding can tend to lose the plot. Take Pro Street, for example: For some, that deal quickly evolved into Pro Fairgrounds showboats that couldn’t run 12s if you pushed them down a 1,320-foot elevator shaft. The Pro Touring movement has drifted the same way at times—into trailer queens and SEMA floor art. Bag all that, say Bill Howell and Brian Finch, the builders of these two hot rods. Sure, a trick, well-turned-out Pro Touring car is great for looking at. But they’re even better for driving—not just on the highway, but on a road course or autocross as well. Don’t even get Bill started on trailer queens. We’ll warn you right now: He’s that guy. He’ll climb up on his soapbox and tell you (repeatedly) that trailers…

Redline Motorsports might be more known for its HTR special edition Camaro line through DeNooyer Chevrolet, but its specialty is modifying street cars, specifically new Camaros and Corvettes. Redline transferred its Corvette LS3 packages to the Camaro, and the result is a fun-packed 446 rwhp and 421 rwtq. The modifications focus on letting more air in and out of the engine as well as recalibrating the ECU. The exhaust is opened up with American Racing full-length headers [17/8-inch), 3-inch cross-pipes, and a GMPP after-cat exhaust. For the induction, Redline installs a custom-ground camshaft [0.590/0.600 lift, 230/236 duration at 0.050, 114-degree lobe separation), 0.080-inch-wall chrome-moly pushrods, an ADM cold-air kit, and upgraded dual valvesprings with titanium retainers, locks, and keepers. The ECU is custom-calibrated by Redline’s Howard Tanner using EFILive software.…

Thanks to the anemic 4.6L displacement in the base Mustang GT, adding boost is a welcome addition to help these engines keep up with the larger displacement competitors such as Camaro, Challenger, and Corvette. The latest 4.6L three-valve engine in the GT boasts 300 hp, variable camshaft timing, and a healthy set of cylinder heads. To cram more air into them, Ford Racing teamed up with Whipple Superchargers to develop a bolt-on blower system for this engine. There are a number of part numbers for the kits depending on the model year and transmission used in the car; see the Ford Racing website. Installing the High Output kit out of the box will swell a Mustang’s output to 440 to 460 rwhp (automatic or manual transmission). The blower is a…

Much of today’s performance gains with new cars have come electronically, with computers controlling nearly every component on the car. When Ford added a second intake valve to its 4.6L modular motor a few years ago, the company also added some computer-aided trickery to the valvetrain for better performance, mileage, driveability, and emissions in the form of camshaft phasers and computer-controlled cam gears. The purpose of a cam phaser is to adjust the cam timing so the intake valve closes sooner at lower rpm and later as the rpm increase. When done correctly, it can help improve engine performance all across the curve. The stock Ford calibration retards the cam timing about 10 degrees (measured in crankshaft rotation) at full-throttle, but at part-throttle they can retard timing a whopping 60…

NEW ALUMINUM 409 CHEVY BLOCK World Products 631/981-1918 www.worldcastings.com Working with 409 hero Lamar Walden, World Products is now offering an aluminum 409 block that’s 140 pounds lighter than a stock iron block. As with all 409s, the block deck is machined at 64 degrees to the cylinder centerline, unlike the 90-degree convention of most engines, and the distinctive appearance of the 409 water pump is retained, as are most of the engine’s external surface areas. Inside, however, the new block embraces modern technology. The bores have been increased from 4.3125 to 4.5 inches. To accommodate longer strokes, the position of the camshaft is raised by 0.250 inch. GM’s original 409 engine featured a 3.5-inch stroke that could be extended to 4.0 inches, whereas this new block permits a stroke…

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. As another long day of land speed racing winds down, a palpable calm settles across the three courses. The timing tower is empty, the roar of the streamliners, roadsters, and coupes has subsided; the crowds have disappeared, and the course workers have quietly returned to the hotel. Only orange cones casting elongated shadows define the starting line. Cruising through the empty staging lanes at Bonneville with Jim Ireland at the wheel of his chopped…

In all truth, HOT ROD has shunned customs for a long few decades because we’re biased against stuff that isn’t built for performance. Yet, examining that prejudice, we find our position indefensible in a world where so many wicked-looking muscle cars and rods give only the illusion of speed and never boil a tire or carve a corner. In that light, custom cars become elevated to the higher level of purity, as they are completely honest about pleasing the eye and not the right foot. But then there’s that pleasing the eye part. Bluntly, most don’t. When a torch wielder deigns to reform factory body lines, the aesthetic leftover can be, well, a concoction of the wrong. There’s so much nuance to a car’s shapes and curves as viewed in…

For a while, back in the ’90s at least, it looked like the Internet was somehow avoidable. All those kids plugging laptops into their Acurondas and Mitsuchamacallits, they were into computers. In the hot rod world, it was still all carburetors, pushrods, and solid axles. Let them exchange computer programming tips and post idiotic rants on virtual message boards; we rodders were happy spelunking through junkyards and trading iron at swap meets. We had grease under our fingernails; they had neon lights under their floorpans. Go ahead, cry uncle. Now there’s so much hot rodding activity on the Internet that it has become an integral part of rodding culture. Of course there’s still no substitute for a wrench, a keyboard stroke will never replace a bead weld, and how to…

The Shelby GT500 Mustang is rated at 500 hp at the flywheel, which typically works out to around 425 hp at the rear wheels, according to Paul Svnicki of Paul’s High Performance, one of the top modular Ford specialists around. For many of you power zealots, that’s just not enough, so Paul offers a number of upgrades, including the PHP Stage III Performance Package, which he says is good for another 120-plus rear-wheel horsepower and a similar torque gain. The Stage III deal includes a flowed and ported factory blower topped off with an overdrive [undersized) pulley, an inlet housing, a throttle body, a fresh-air kit, a 160-degree thermostat, and Paul’s own flash calibration for the factory ECM. PHP furnishes the software in a handheld flash unit that also stores…

Exhaust headers, dual exhaust, and high-flowing mufflers were usually part of the first stage in hopping up traditional hot rods. But how does one of today’s all-electronic, high-tech, EFI mills respond to a freed-up exhaust? To find out, Duttweiler Performance compared a stock 6.0L LS-type engine equipped with the typical truck exhaust system against a performance modified exhaust system. Factory-rated at 347 hp and 380 lb-ft (SAE net), the ’02 to ’07, iron-block, 6.0L LQ9 had a respectable 10.08:1 advertised compression ratio and aluminum cylinder heads very similar to the vaunted Corvette LS6 castings. Duttweiler installed a new LQ9 on his Froude F24 dyno set up the way it would be in a production truck, less the factory airbox but with the stock engine-driven accessories, factory exhaust manifolds, catalytic converters,…

Perception and reality are often widely disparate things. That couldn’t be truer than with the legendary Boss 429 Mustang and the semi-hemi engine for which it was named. It is the darling of the Mustang collector world, and the mere mention of its name conjures images of asphalt-annihilating stoplight exhibitions. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case—far from it, actually. Like many engines of the muscle car era, the Boss 429 was originally developed as a racing engine, and detuned street versions were typically required for homologation with the racing sanctioning bodies. That meant compromises. Stuffing the physically massive Boss ’9 into the tight confines of the Mustang engine compartment required saddling it with a low-rise intake that effectively choked off airflow to cylinder heads that were way too large for a…

STREET CHALLENGE AUTOCROSS During the ’10 Power Tour®, RideTech will host the RideTech Street Challenge Autocross competition at Regions Park Stadium in Birmingham, Alabama, on Thursday, June 10, starting at noon. In 2007, RideTech initiated the Street Challenge Autocross competition at the Evansville, Indiana, Power Tour® stop. This year that tradition continues during the Birmingham stop. The RideTech Street Challenge is shaping up to be so popular that they might have to limit the participation to the first 200 cars that are registered for the autocross. Registration information can be found at HOTROD.com. Another component of the RideTech Street Challenge is the triathlon-style party that includes a trip to the dragstrip and a session on the chassis dyno. At the ’09 SEMA show, HOT ROD magazine editors David Freiburger and…

NHRA MUSEUM HONORS AMERICA’S SPEED KING Half a century after Mickey Thompson s 406.60-mph Bonneville blast captivated the nation—and nearly 22 years after his murder shocked the world—more than 300 friends, family members, and rival racers turned the media-and-VIP preview for a new NHRA Motorsports Museum exhibit into an emotional tribute to America’s Speed King. This unprecedented display of M/T race cars, engines, and personal items coincides with the 50th anniversary of the run that made a Los Angeles hot rodder the world’s fastest man on September 9, 1960. Ironically, his best-known accomplishment was also the source of Mickey’s greatest frustration: Driveshaft failure on the return run prevented Challenger I from claiming the world land speed record. Eight years later, another attempt in the Autolite Special was foiled by wet…

It’s beyond cliché to refer to a car buildup as having a snowball effect, but in the case of Josiah Coy’s ’65 GTO, it’s more than appropriate, as the car went from a nice driver with a few simple bolt-ons to a full-on Pro Touring–style build that consumed three years and an untold amount of money and sweat. And it got him invited to this year’s HOT ROD Power Tour(r) Challenge. The storm started when Josiah went Craigslist looking for 65 Malibu SS He wanted a nice driver that didn’t need much work, but instead of a Malibu, he stumbled on this GTO late one night and sealed the deal the next morning. The car had a 455 and a TKO five-speed, Global West upper control arms, a 12-bolt that…

Even sitting still, the most interesting vehicles participating in the NHRAs 50th annual Winternationals might’ve been the 80 or so parked just outside of Pomona Raceway’s jam-packed pit area. Although nothing on display in this Golden 50 Corral ever rivaled a modern, 8,000hp Top Fuel car for sheer shock and awesomeness, the cookie-cutter conformity of today’s 1,000-foot spec racers becomes sadly apparent whenever they share space with the diverse creations that pounded pavement in the ’60s, ’70s, and even the ’80s. First, though, you had to go find them—beyond the motorcoach-protected private compounds of Pro racers’ hospitality areas, out past the last Sportsman trailer, and almost to the finish line in what was previously an overflow parking lot for NHRA officials and their guests. That long walk was worth it…

Live it up, as today’s new performance cars are the best they’ve ever been, and modifying them to make big power is easier (though usually more expensive) than ever. To find out which modern performance parts and packages really work on new cars, we traveled around to performance shops across the country to see what they were doing. What follows are dyno tests of the most popular parts and combinations these pro builders showed us.…

Lingenfelter Performance Engineering has been a key player in the LS engine performance movement from the start. So, not surprisingly, when the fifth-gen Camaro arrived, LPE was ready to go with proven parts and combinations. The company calls this setup the 650 Supercharger Package. At nearly 20 grand, the price is not cheap, but in this business you tend to get what you pay for. LPE starts by removing and inspecting the engine and installing Manley I-beam rods, Mahle pistons with tool steel pins, hand-fitted Total Seal rings, and LPE’s own CNC-ported LS3 cylinder heads. The camshaft is a factory ZR1 piece, while the blower is a MagnaCharger MP2300 unit featuring TVS impeller technology. The 20-large fee includes all parts and labor, including before-and-after dyno testing and LPE’s three-year, 36,000-mile…

One impressive feat we see fairly often at the dragstrip is a 10-second pass in an ’05-to-present Mustang GT with a virtually stock 4.6L long-block and a supercharger. We queried Justin Burcham at JPC Racing as to what makes those cars work. He says a Paxton, ProCharger, or Vortech high-output centrifugal blower combo is up to the task, but the intercooler is vital to keeping the pressurized air cool for more power. He turns up the boost to around 13 to 15 psi—a safe limit for an intercooled blower setup on pump gas. The blower is not the only ingredient to this 10-second story. JPC also adds full-length headers with a 3-inch cross-pipe and after-axle exhaust. Those parts are usually sourced from Bassani Manufacturing or Kooks Custom Headers. Burcham always…

Trying to improve on the best factory small-block cylinder heads ever built is no small endeavor. And yes, GM’s 12-degree LS7 castings are the best small-block heads of all time—regardless of engine make—trumping even the legendary Ford Cleveland heads. With a full CNC rubdown, monster 2.20/1.61-inch valves, and raised 270cc intake ports to go along with a flat 12-degree valve angle, factory LS7 heads flow 360 cfm out of the box. That’s big-block territory, and at a hair less than $3,000 for a set of fully assembled LS7 heads from your friendly GMPP distributor, they’re an exceptional value as well. So naturally, we were quite intrigued when Mast Motorsports announced it had just developed its own LS7 castings that outflow the factory design. Mast’s LS7 heads are a clean-sheet aftermarket…

When we first had the idea of building a Junkyard Jewel out of Ford’s much beleaguered but widely produced 2 V 4.6L (Apr. ’08), we knew our biggest stumbling block was going to be the heads. Even with 46mm oversized valves in ’99-and-later Power Improvement (PI) heads and the most extensive porting magic Ford Performance Solutions could work, we were still barely cracking 200 cfm of airflow. While that was a significant improvement over stock, it was nowhere near the breathing room we wanted for our small displacement, SOHC engine. Wehn we first built our 4.6 there were no aftermarket heads available. That has changed, thanks to Trick Flow Specialties (TFS). First a recap of the original project. Our 4.6 started out as a 117,000-mile ’97 Crown Victoria engine that…

If you thought this month’s story about vintage race cars on display was neat, wait for next month when we show them in action, belching nitro and spraying Goodyear freckles. Nostalgia Funny Cars are the hottest thing going in the retro drag scene, and unbelievably, the ’10 March Meet at Auto Club Famoso Raceway in Bakersfield, California, had a massive field of Funny Cars vying for spots on a 32-car ladder. Many of them looked like the ’70s all over again, such as the Fighting Irish and Code Red Camaros seen here. In an amazing final on a rain-delayed Monday, Leah Pruit took down seasoned veteran Gary Densham. HOT ROD will be back next month with quick details and photos of every one of the glorious 32 Funny Cars of…