Indholdsfortegnelse for October 2012 i Hot Rod

When you walk out in the morning, it’s there. The ride. If you don’t take a moment to love it—to absorb the stance, the color, the vibe—that’s a clue you’ve got the wrong car. If you can unlock the doors with a key fob, that’s another tip-off. You’ve gotta savor the key just a moment: teeth up for the Mopar, down for the GM, and on both sides for ’70s Fords. With the rattling slam of a heavy door, you’re inside. Newcar smell is fleeting, old-car smell is forever. Whether it’s fresh Legendary vinyl or old mohair, you mix it up with a few unburned hydrocarbons and it makes you feel perfect. Dashes with no padding, seats with the lateral support of a Slip’N Slide, a complete lack of cupholders—unless…

SEND YOUR PHOTOS To be included in Scene by Readers, send low-rez photos and some information about them to HOTROD@HotRod.com. If we SEND YOUR PHOTOS elect to use your photo, we will email back with instructions on how to send us a high-rez photo for publication.…

A SoCal Legend Reborn for the Right Reason: Draggin’! “Vulcans still meet once a year at Famoso, as Burniston puts it, “To tell lies to each other. You always want to tell your story last because the first liar doesn’t stand a chance.” The staff of HOT ROD spent an awful lot of time in the vintage drag car building at the ’12 Grand National Roadster Show. One-of-a-kind, original racers with drag racing pedigrees shared the room with a few select restorations. Even among bright orange Willys gassers, historic Pontiacs, and an Opel Kadette that looked surprisingly like a miniature Chevelle, this gleaming ’32 Ford Vicky stood out immediately. There was something familiar about that odd, updraft induction system, and as evidenced by the plaque in front of the car,…

Scott Shanks never says no. Can he drive his ’70 Dodge Challenger on all 1,500 miles of Power Tour® and can we tag along? “Sure!” Is it OK if he stands around for an hour in the middle of a street waiting for the rain to pass so we can take a photo of his car—on gravel? “Not a problem.” Could he make another autocross pass, and then drag race a Viper, and finish up by turning his expensive 295/40R18 Falken RT615K tires into pavement puddles? “Absolutely.” Of course, when you have a car that will take all that abuse, get 23 mpg, and look this good doing it, you might be inclined to drive it as often as possible, too. Scott and his copilot for the week, son-in-law James…

The synthetic-lubricants company hosted the Royal Purple Performance Driving Experience throughout the event, including an autocross in Muskegon, Michigan; drag racing in Madison, Illinois; and a burnout contest in Arlington, Texas. There’s a special place in our hearts for Power Tour® drivers who enter the track events at each stop and push their cars through the Long HaulR. These folks weren’t the fastest overall, but they made it all the way to the end, despite a few cone marks on the fenders. See Many More Power Tour Autocross Photos at HOTROD.com/2012/PowerTour WATCH THE VIDEO To see an episode of HOT ROD Unlimited of the Royal Purple Performance Driving Experience, scan the code or go to videos.hotrod.com/video/1970-Dodge-Challenger-Unleashed.…

WATCH THE VIDEO To see Comp Cams at Power Tour®, scan the code or go to Videos.HOTROD.com/Video/Comp-Performance-Group-2. TIPS FROM THE COMP PERFORMANCE GROUP Comp Cams and its sister companies have been with us on Power Tour® since 1997. While the companies generally attend high-performance events, this one really lets the engineers focus on reliability and longevity. We asked what driveability problems are seen most during Power Tour®, and here’s what we heard: Comp Cams: “Rocker-arm adjustment problems with solid flat-tappet or solid-roller valvetrains tend to be common on Power Tour®. We spend a lot of time adjusting valves and sorting out improper rocker geometry issues, especially on cars that are not accustomed to being driven that many miles.” There’s a tech help page at CompCams.com, or call CamHelp at…

Every year during Power Tour®, Chevrolet Performance sends out the Motor Medic crew to help repair participants’ cars—at no charge—during each cruise night. This year, 160 vehicles were worked on by Michael Costello, Larry Hebert, Jim Krampe, Gary Mulder, John “Bud” Pennington, and Tim Saunders. The majority of cars needing help were from the ’60s; the oldest was a ’30 Ford Model A and the newest a ’10 Camaro with what was described as “a customer-inflicted problem.” JOE GIBBS’ DRIVEN RACING OIL ON THE ROAD In the early days of Power Tour®, the Chevrolet Motor Medics cruised the roads, helping guys who had broken down. It was soon proven that the Medics could aid more cars by sticking in one spot at each cruise night rather than following the driving…

The HOT ROD staff heard rumors of a low-buck Impala that was rescued from the crusher and resurrected for the ’12 Power Tour®, and we ran into it on Day 3. From a distance, the car’s great stance is the first thing you’ll notice. Get closer and you’ll see the checked paint and streaks of rust. Get even closer and you’ll see that the car is almost completely dent-free. Why would someone crush such a cool car? High scrap-metal prices means heavy, fullsize cars can be worth several hundred dollars in steel, which is exactly why this ’66 Impala was destined to be shredded, melted, and turned into rebar. Thankfully, Lance Sharp stepped in and offered $900. Lance and his buddies, Jeffery Mink, Anthony Mahan, and Michael Matthews, have less…

“My local McDonald’s drive-thru has gotten used to seeing me roll through.”— Murray Pfaff Perhaps the most high-end car making the entire trip (except for one day in the trailer for fear of impending rain) was Murray Pfaff’s Imperial Speedster, featured in the July ’11 issue of HRM. The car is a totally reworked and shrunken ’58 Imperial turned into a roadster, and is irreplaceable. We asked Murray to give us some notes on what it’s like to drive a show car on the road. “Since its completion roughly a year and a half ago, the Imperial Speedster has racked up just over 3,000 miles. The car has been showed at the Detroit Autorama, SEMA, the Playboy Mansion, and has been seen from Toronto to Tulsa. While the accolades and…

THE ROUTE: POWER TOUR 2013! DATE CITY June 1 Arlington, Texas June 2 Texarkana, Arkansas June 3 Little Rock, Arkansas June 4 Memphis, Tennessee DATE CITY June 5 Birmingham, Alabama June 6 Chattanooga, Tennessee June 7 Charlotte, North Carolina June 8–9 Charlotte, North Carolina (event TBA) For Details on 2013 Registration and More, Stay Tuned To HOTROD.com For Thousands More Photos, Visit HOTROD.com/2012/PowerTour For 110-Plus Videos, see Videos. HOTROD.com/Playlist/Power-Tour…

CUTTING FOR NEWBIES Bandsaw blades are categorized by metallurgy, thickness, and tooth count per inch (TPI). Gauging by the thickness of metal you’re working with, choose a tooth count that allows two or three teeth to cut into the metal at the same time, but no more. As the first tooth begins cutting, it forms a chip. If the space between the teeth is too small, the chip has nowhere to go, and the blade loads up and breaks off the first tooth, which gets stuck in the second tooth, and so on. Cut at a low speed to avoid overheating the blade. For soft metals like aluminum, wax the blade so it doesn’t gum up. Next Month: Rephase a Beltdrive Distributor Contacts HARBOR FREIGHT; HarborFreight.com HEIMANN TRANSFER SCREWS, AVAILABLE…

Cars like to be driven. Nothing speeds up decay faster than months of sitting in a garage or driveway. OK, being under the ocean or in the path of an active volcano might be worse, but leaving a vehicle idle (but not idling) for long periods of time leads to desiccated rubber, stuck valves, congealed lubricants, and plugged lines. That’s why I say the best thing you can do for a project car is drive it. Daily. Yeah, you heard me. Somehow, as fuel costs have risen and parts availability has dropped, the prospect of driving an older car every day has become akin to suggesting someone cartwheel to work. Not possible. It’s not for everyone, and an encyclopedic knowledge of all gas-station stops along your daily commute will prove…

The physics involved with cars is just crazy impossible. We’re often stupefied by everything that goes on within even an average engine. Consider a V8 spinning 6,000 rpm. That number of revolutions per minute is 100 revolutions per second. In a four-stroke engine, it takes two complete revolutions (720 crankshaft degrees) to fire all the cylinders. So, on a V8 at 6,000 rpm, all eight cylinders fire 3,000 times per minute, or 50 times per second—5 times every tenth of a second. That means all eight cylinders fire every 0.02 seconds (that’s 2/100ths). Can you wrap your head around that? Imagine how fast the pistons have to move to get that done. Let’s say we have a big-block engine with a typical crankshaft stroke of 4.25 inches. The piston has…

Q: I have a ’66 Chevy II with a 355 with Vortec heads, a Comp 292 cam, a Performer RPM intake, a 650-cfm Proform carb, and an HEI distributor. The timing is set at about 19 degrees initial, with 32 degrees total at 2,500 rpm. It has an automatic trans with a 2,200-rpm stall-speed converter. Output was 321 hp and 400 lb-ft of torque at the rear wheels. I want to put a nitrous kit on but know nothing about it. I’m looking for a 125–150hp gain. Do I have to retard the timing? What is the best way to go? What other things do I need to watch out for? A: Broadly speaking, when contemplating the installation of a nitrous-oxide system, there are four main things you need to…

AGM (Absorbed Glass Mat) dry-cell batteries haven’t always gotten the best rap. The problem is that once they’re drained, it’s hard to bring them back to life with a conventional battery charger. “What we found was 30 to 70 percent [of Optima batteries] returned are only discharged,” says Daryl Brockman, senior sales application engineer at Optima Batteries. To combat the problem of Optima batteries being returned while they are still good, the company designed a charger that will recharge discharged AGM and wet-cell batteries. The Optima Charger is very simple to use. Just plug it in, select the battery type by pressing the picture on the menu, and it will analyze what is needed to get a complete charge in the shortest time possible. It constantly alters how much amperage…

NHRA Top Fuel Funny Car world champion Del Worsham came up with a brilliant idea to build the fastest margarita maker on the planet. His father, Chuck, was all-in, so the duo set about assembling a nitro-powered blender at his shop. It puts those weenie, gas-powered blenders with cheapie handlebars to shame. At first, the guys hooked a Sparkletts 5-gallon water jug to the custom-built ice churner, which is spun by a 500ci Keith Black Hemi built from used race parts and running on 95 percent nitro. But the Worshams’ friends are a thirsty bunch, so the setup was redesigned for portability (using a trailer) and three 5-gallon buckets replaced the single reservoir. The single-mag ignition was also replaced with a pair of 44-amp MSD mags because they produced better…

The new rover, Curiosity (aka the Mars Science Laboratory), was launched in November 2011 and is set to land on Mars in August, 2012. You might already know that. What you might not be aware of is that some bona fide gearheads built the thing. “There’s definitely a presence of people who turn wrenches,” says Daniel Fuller, an electrical engineer for the rover. Daniel owns a ’91 Camaro RS and an ’00 Corvette, so already we feel like the rover is in capable hands. The shop where the rover was built has wall-to-wall rollaway tool chests—every tool you can think of, cranes, hoists, and qualified techs: “The first time I walked in, I wished I could get my Camaro in there and wondered how I could get the government to…

These days, the Bonneville Salt Flats get all the glory; we’ve often seen them called the birthplace of hot rodding. Wrong. While Bonneville is immensely spectacular and significant, and has been raced upon for a 100 years, hot rodders as we know them didn’t set tread on the salt until the first Bonneville Nationals in 1949. Before then—back to at least the early ’30s—hot rodding and top-speed racing happened on Southern California’s dry lakebeds such as Harper, Rosamond and Muroc (now within Edwards Air Force Base), and El Mirage. While the first race organized by the Southern California Timing Association was held in 1938 at Muroc, the SCTA has most often used El Mirage, and has done so continuously from 1938 until now, excluding during WWII. The SCTA currently hosts…

It was 1982 when Dennis Anderson’s original Grave Digger—a ’52 Ford pickup—made its debut in Morgans Corner, North Carolina. What started off with that mud-bog racer has grown into a monster-truck racing empire. On the occasion of the brand’s 30th anniversary, we got the skinny on what it’s like to drive a monster truck from driver Carl Van Horn. Carl began as a mechanic at the Grave Digger shop and worked his way up to crew chief, later kick-starting his driving career in the Spiderman monster truck. And while he’s an experienced driver now—including two years behind the wheel of Grave Digger—you can imagine there was a bit of a learning curve for something a wee bit larger than a daily driver. The rear-steer setup and 1,500hp engine top the…

Tom Burniston happened upon some odd updraft carbs in a military surplus yard in the ’50s and scooped them up, then the Vulcans had a 180-degree manifold fabricated to mount to the 30-percent-overdriven supercharger. The carbs were never disassembled—they were simply tuned with a lever on the body of each carb. Burniston was drafted in 1959 and served for two years. When he returned to the Vulcans, the carbs were gone. He visited Ed Iskenderian’s shop in 2003 and mentioned the original Vulcans car. Ed said, “I remember that car, it had updraft carbs. I have those carbs up in my attic, do you want them back?” His best guess is that Iskenderian took the carbs in trade for the Hilborn injection that was used on the Vicky in 1961.…

“The Power Tour® is everything that makes the car hobby great.”— Chris Douglas, Comp Cams Our goal here is to take our most grandiose premise for a road trip and help you apply its lessons to your life. The premise: Gather the most massive possible agglomeration of performance cars for a backroads romp through seven cities in seven days. The lesson: If 1,693 hot rods can survive 1,567 miles in a week, then there’s little excuse for you not to drive your hobby car every single day. Or at least close to that. General Motors is down with the idea; think back to the ’50s and ’60s, with “See the USA in Your Chevrolet,” then to 2012, when longtime Power Tour® presenting sponsor Chevrolet Performance signed up for another three…

Chevrolet Performance went all-out in Milford, displaying a number of project and development cars, 14 restored engines from the Heritage Center, cutaways of all the current V8s, a demo of the Connect and Cruise easy wiring and ECU kits for crate engines and transmissions, and a display showing how the new Camaros were designed. To demonstrate that the best way to drive big performance every day is to get huge power and handling in a new car with a warranty, GM offered ride-alongs to about 80 randomly selected visitors who jumped in new, 580hp ZL1 Camaros and 638hp ZR1 Corvettes driven by GM engineers on the banked circle track at speeds up to 160 mph. The real eye opener wasn’t so much the speed but the eye-bulging deceleration from the…

TIPS FROM PAINLESS PERFORMANCE The wiring-made-easy company has been the kickoff sponsor of Power Tour® for many years and has seen it all as far as electrical troubleshooting goes. With electrical items being the number one on-road failure during the event, we thought we’d ask Painless’s Dennis Overholser to give us a few tips on preventing the most common problems. Dennis says the most common problem by a long shot was cooling related—in particular, electric fans. The Painless guys don’t carry stock on Power Tour®, so they ended up robbing the relays out of all their displays to help out drivers who were having fan issues. The biggest problem is that installers direct-wire the fans with no relay or an undersize relay. After fan issues, Dennis said he heard, “My…

“The car is great, and I did the whole Power Tour® with no problem.”— Timmy Rinaldi…

PAINLESS PERFORMANCE PICK Randy Eales // New Paris, Ohio This is a ’64 Chevy Chevelle 300 two-door wagon. Randy bought it from a man who had it 90 percent finished as a father/son project when, tragically, his son died. It was loaded with an LS1 and a 4L60 trans, the hood had been customized with the lumps from a ’69 SS hood, and it was painted top to bottom when Randy got it. He finished it up and has been driving the super-clean car everywhere. COKER TIRE PICK Richard Spencer Bay City, Michigan Company owner Corky Coker is a fan of unique vintage vehicles and was impressed with the fabrication on this ’42 Dodge crew cab. Richard used two truck cabs to make the four-door, which uses two sets of…

“This has been our most favorite trip, even though it’s been the most disastrous.”— Mike Anderson Mike Anderson from Houston had a big adventure in his ’58 Chevy Yeoman wagon. He drove it from Texas to Detroit for the kickoff, getting 6 mpg from a grossly rich two-barrel carb. With help from the local NAPA, he swapped to a four-barrel intake and Edelbrock carb in a parking lot in Muskegon. A few miles later, the engine threw a rod. Some participants towed the car to Lane Automotive, where he called AAA to get him to the Champaign stop. From there, Pilot Transport took the car to St. Louis, where participant Jim Coons from Iowa had sent a spare engine to participant Rod Euchner’s house, where the guys did an engine…

“If it could drive cross country when it was new in ’53, why not now?”—Adam Karder…

THE A-B-Cs OF AS, BS, AND CS All Ford four-bangers are L-head configuration in stock form—which means the valves are in the block. That’s why the overhead conversions are conversions. Riley heads contain the intake valves while retaining the stock exhaust valve location in the block (surrounded by water jackets). Miller heads contain both intake and exhaust valves for a true overhead valve or F-head configuration. Model A engines are rated at 40 hp stock. They use a smaller crank than their B and C counterparts, and use a gravity-feed or “splash-n-drip” oil system—not a pressurized oil system. Model B engines feature a larger crank with no counterweights and a fourbolt water pump. They feature a pressurized oil system with direct lubrication to the mains. The oil galleys can be…

This was a wheel. It was not so carefully removed from the ’86 IMSA Levi Garrett Camaro that met its doom at a late-’90s historic sports-car race in Daytona. “That was one of the hardest races I ever had to race because I had a little bit of a concussion,” says Jack Baldwin—who wrecked the Camaro—referring to a race he competed in later that day. According to Baldwin, a car checked up in front of him at roughly 150 mph. His car met the rear tire of the front car, propelling him into the fence, barrel rolling. The car burst into flames, broke into three pieces, and the engine came to rest 100 yards away. “Every time I think about it, I get sick,” Baldwin says. “Not because of the…

Here’s a shot we stumbled onto in our archives, and though we sent it around to all the usual graybeards who know stuff, none could come up with info on this Eliminator Test Car from 1963. What fascinates us is that old centrifugal supercharger on the Chevy W-motor—presumably a 409. The blower is drawing through two carburetors (that appear to be the stock ones for the engine) on a custom intake box. We’re not sure about the brand of the blower, but we are fairly certain of this: It has no internal step-up gearing. Part of that sleuthing is based on the pulley being centered on the blower (no offset for the gear drive), and also because of the tiny blower pulley and the enormous crank pulley. Centrifugal blowers need…

QUICK TEST: PURPLE ICE Royal Purple // 888.382.6300 // RoyalPurpleConsumer.com // Price: $15.99 The one good thing about HRM’s project cars is that if we need to test a product that claims to fix a particular problem, chances are one of those cars has that problem. For example, Royal Purple’s Purple Ice radiator additive is supposed to bring engine temperatures down, and Freiburger’s ’67 Impala with a 383 small-block gets hot in traffic. Some in the office were skeptical of cooling additives, no matter the brand. Our testing was conducted on two consecutive days with 68-degree weather, running the car with and without the additive. We let the Impala idle for 7 minutes, drove it for 7 minutes, and then left it idling, facing a garage door (to block wind…

What diversity! The Southern California Timing Association points-winning club for 1949: the Road Runners—including push trucks and trophies. Some became hot rod household names, others drifted into obscurity. We’ve identified the ones we can with thanks to Greg Sharp. As most were running Mercurys, how appropriate to be photographed in front of the old Lincoln-Mercury assembly plant on Washington Blvd. in Pico Rivera, California. When they talk about the “shoulders of giants,” this is a snapshot of those giants. FRONT ROW (LEFT TO RIGHT): Lyle Knudsen Ford six track roadster—usually driven by Ed Kassold. Fred Renoe (also ran in Arabs Club, Russetta Timing Association). Howard Johansen (Howards Cams) V8 Merc in right hull—147.54 at Bonneville. Ray Brown V8-60—134.73 mph at an SCTA meet. Former Bell Special “C” roadster, Kenny Parks…

John Vanniman // Mocksville, North Carolina John bought this ’70 Chevelle after a frame-off restoration. It still has its original 396ci big-block and four-speed. Jack Woodmansee // North Kingstown, Rhode Island We asked on Facebook a couple months ago, “What would you build with a $5,000 budget?” Jack simply responded, “This.” Jimmy Bullard // Walnut Cove, North Carolina Jimmy just finished building this ’47 Ford truck rat rod. It runs a mean 454 bbc, but it’s hard to break loose those M/T 31x15s. Joann Dura // Wayne, New Jersey This was shot next to an abandoned train in Rhinebeck, New York. It’s Joann and her husband Glenn’s ’33 Ford. Steve Ford // Milton, Ontario, Canada Steve’s’68 Mercury Marquis still has its original Q-code (designates high compression) 428. Phil Veldheer //…

Ryan Brutt is the proprietor of CarsInBarns.BlogSpot.com and spends an inordinate amount of time seeking barn finds and hidden treasures. If you know of a secret stash of great cars that have been lost to neglect, contact Ryan at TheAutoArcheologist@yahoo.com.— Ed. Recently, a friend was house hunting when he came across a field of mostly ’40s Fords in the hills of North Carolina. Not having the time to follow up on the cars, he noted where they were and gave me the info. I arrived in town on a Friday evening, and by Saturday morning we were on our way. Driving there, we discovered even more vintage tin rotting away—everything from a Dodge Dart to a first-gen Camaro SS. We found the yard, and the owner immediately walked out and…

From the day we’re born, we crave speed, working with our hands, and competition—at least we gearheads do. Pinewood Derby was created for those gearhead kids who are too young to race Soap Box Derby. The scaled-down, probably-won’t-get-hurt alternative involves small cars carved from (yes) pine and raced side-by-side on a small downhill track. Our monthly HOT ROD/Car Craft Cruise Night in El Segundo, California, recently included a Pinewood Derby competition. We stacked up the competition, from the Adult to Kids classes, to see the creativity it takes to run a Pinewood Derby.…

HIGH-PERFORMANCE PONTIAC: PONTIAC-POWERED FUNNY CAR SETS THE TRACK ABLAZE Arnie “The Farmer” Beswick has spent five decades blazing the quarter-mile. He won his first NHRA event in B/Stock in 1955 driving a ’54 Oldsmobile, then found fame driving and winning with Pontiacs in NHRA, IHRA, AHRA, and ATAA A/Stock, Super Stock, A/FX, S/FX, and the fuel Funny Car classes. Arnie is still making exhibition and match race passes in a re-creation of his ’64 GTO Tameless Tiger today. Other friends re-creating his classic Pontiac drag cars—the Tameless Tiger ’63 LeMans, ’63 Tempest Grocery Getter, ’64 GTO Mystery Tornado among them—has also become popular. Eric Larson and Mike Garblik recreated Beswick’s supercharged, 468ci, Ram Air V, ’71 Boss Bird fuel Funny Car in 2011, and have excited fans with its participation…

With the F100 completed and looking like a true ’60s custom, the search for the next project was on. Although he was looking for a three-window ’36 coupe, a five-window “beater from SoCal” turned out to be a blessing because of the extra legroom. James had Blue Collar chop the ’36, but it went under the knife in his own garage as well. “I proceeded to cut into it myself and keep it a rat for a while. That was really the extent of my skills anyway,” he says. After driving the car to shows across California and racking up the miles, the ’36 was rough around the edges, so he once again turned to Blue Collar Customs. The shop installed a new air-suspension system using Slam Specialties ’bags, a…

Chevrolet Performance had a display at every stop along Power Tour®, but Milford was home base and the kick-off for the event, so there was an even bigger setup of show cars, new cars and rarities from the GM collection. The original Hot Wheels “Custom Camaro” was a 1968 scale model, but the antifreeze green Spectraflame® finish looks just as amazing on a fullsize fifth-gen. Built as a SEMA car, the GM Hot Wheels Camaro has been making the show rounds since last November. We’d like to see this thing do a loop-de-loop at the next X-Games! You may not want to see one in your rearview mirror, but there’s something about cop cars that is undeniably cool, and Chevrolet has a long tradition of outfitting the police with cruisers…

Five years ago, Tim Rinaldi from Armonk, New York, was one day away from departing for Power Tour® when a backyard accident left him permanently in a wheelchair. He says, “As you can guess, for two years after I got hurt, I was just depressed and really didn’t do anything. My wife kept asking if I’d just go to the garage and tinker with my motorcycles, and I’d just think I couldn’t really do it. Finally, I got my head around it and started setting up my shop for working a different way, making it so I could reach everything sitting down. I had to learn to TIG weld all over again.” Just five years after a life-altering event, he drove the entire Power Tour® and scored the cover shot.…

At every cruise night during the Power Tour®, entertainment, giveaways, and sponsor promotions are handled at the Comp Cams main stage, which is always adjacent to the Chevrolet Performance display. Here are some of the cars on display, as seen during the evening at Buffalo Run Casino in Miami, Oklahoma. See all the news on Chevrolet Performance parts, cars, and racing at ChevroletPerformance.com and TheBlock.com. WATCH THE VIDEO Scan the code to see an overview of the Chevrolet Performance show cars that came along on Power Tour®, or visit Videos.HOTROD.com/Video/GM-New-Vehicles.…

The key to a road trip is to always stop and see the sights. Locals are always more welcoming to tourists driving cool hot rods.…

A once-in-a-lifetime opportunity befell three ’12 HOT ROD Power Tour® participants—the chance to have Holley Performance Products’ Senior Product Manager and carb tuner extraordinaire Jay McFarland personally tweak their engines as they drove from Michigan to Illinois. Each car had a carburetor that was either fresh out of the box or butchered by some clueless individual wielding a power drill and a screwdriver. Over the course of a few days Jay improved the driveability of each car using driver feedback, data from the new wideband oxygen sensor and in-car gauge, and power numbers generated by a mobile chassis dyno. The tuning session began in the parking lot of GM’s Milford Proving Ground, where each car was dyno tested to see how much power the engines made and how rich or…

Brian Mackey, owner of Mackey’s Hot Rods (MackeysHotRods.com) in Huntington Beach, California, found time between building customer cars to put together his own minimalist Model T using a less-than-desirable touring body. Here’s the timeline of the car’s yearlong construction. FACTOIDS // The initial price of the original 1908 Model T was $825. That would be the equivalent of $21,250 in 2012, which is not quite enough to buy a ’13 Mustang V6, but it will put you in a ’13 Ford Focus. // As production speed increased, Ford was able to lower the price of the Model T to around $260. // Ford built about 15 million Model Ts from 1908 to 1927, and the Touring body was the most popular, with 6,856,772 produced. // The Model T came in…

I’m semi-lazy when it comes to my personal appearance, so it’s a rare occasion when I get down with some hair gel instead of a ball cap. When I do take the time to not look like a dirtbag, it’s nice to jump behind the wheel of a car that doesn’t blow my dome off when the windows are down. My wife’s ’69 Chevy El Camino has the perfect shape and driver position for hauling butt with 2/80 A/C. That’s two windows down at 80 mph. My daily driver Toyota, not so much. I commute in and haul parts with a ’10 Toyota Tundra pickup. The doors seal perfectly to the cab, giving it a quiet ride when the windows are up. One of the problems with a perfect seal…

THE COMBO Pfafftown, North Carolina’s Jeff Messer has owned his ’32 Ford three-window coupe for five years. A TH350 automatic equipped with a 2,800-rpmstall-speed converter transfers a GM crate 350 small-block’s output back to a 2.79:1-geared, open, 8-inch Ford diff out of a ’72 Maverick. The long-block is basically stock; the only major internal mod is a mild Comp Cams hydraulic flat-tappet cam. Topping off the engine is Messer’s pride and joy: three custom-chromed Rochester two-barrel carbs on an Edelbrock 3x2 intake. The used carbs were from, as Messer puts it, “some guy’s Corvette who wasn’t happy with them.” THE PROBLEM As it turns out, neither was Messer. “At first, I thought it ran OK under full throttle,” he relates. However, idle and off-idle transition were terrible. “It wouldn’t idle…

01] Mechanix Wear Mechanix.com; 800.222.4296; $16.95; PN SFF-91-008 The Safety FastFit is made mainly for the industrial workplace with its high-visibility DayGlo material on the back. It has a Clarino Synthetic Leather palm like the Original glove, but features Lycra panels between the fingers and two-ply fingertips and thumb to reduce wear. It has an easy on/off cuff that is longer than the older style for a better fit around the wrist. 02] Mechanix Wear Mechanix.com; 800.222.4296; $15.95; PN MFF-05-008 The FastFit Glove is the second most common glove and one of the cheapest Mechanix offers. It comes in three colors: gray, blue, or red (all with black fingers). It still has a snug fit even without the Velcro strap, thanks to continuous stretch panels between the fingers. 03] Mechanix…

Caption Contest Fun fact: 1978’s Winston World Champion Top Fuel driver Kelly Brown once played Ronald McDonald in a TV commercial. Turn left! Let’s get outta here. It looks like Mayor McCheese wants his car back.—Troy Bart Test marketing for the new adult Happy Meals with adult-size toys.— Rusty Mason Crap! They forgot to give us straws! I’ll be right back!—Dave Boyer Over one billion swerved.—Phillip Busby We caught some of the guys from Motor Trend doing a road test.— Hien Le Year? Make? Model? A: It’s a ’53–’54 Chrysler Imperial with Airtemp air conditioning, the first successful A/C in a production car. The ’54 was the last Chrysler Imperial; in ’55, Imperial became its own make. HOT ROD TRIVIA Q: 1 Name all the models of U.S. passenger cars…