Indholdsfortegnelse for February 2021 i Hot Rod

Editor-in-Chief @john.mcgann Like many people around the country, we have had little occasion to travel this year. With car shows and events like the Power Tour and Drag Week postponed and rescheduled due to the coronavirus, we’ve mostly been stuck at home. I recently had occasion to travel to Santa Rosa, California, for a photo shoot with Scott Birdsall, owner/builder of Old Smokey, the Cummins-powered Ford F1 that beat the diesel-engine record at the Pikes Peak International Hillclimb. Motor Trend’s William Walker was the shooter, with me serving as assistant and camera car driver. It seemed like as good excuse as any to make a trip out of it. Santa Rosa is about an hour north of San Francisco and 436 miles from our offices in Los Angeles, by the…

You’ve probably been following the progress of the Lokar/Street Rodder Road Tour 1934 Ford coupe throughout the year. The stunning black and gray 1934 Ford 3-window is finally finished, photographed, and revealed right here. “It seems like just yesterday that we set out on the highway in a blue 1933 Ford coupe with white racing stripes.” –Jerry Dixey, Road Tour director, 1996-2020 In 1996, the idea of building a street rod and driving it all over the country wasn’t really that radical; that’s been the point of the street rodding since the earliest days. But Street Rodder magazine commissioning a car built entirely from aftermarket parts and then putting it on the road for three months was definitely ambitious. That very first Street Rodder Road Tour car was a beauty—a…

To hear owner Byron Tudor tell it, he hasn’t traditionally been a Mustang sort of guy. In that regard he resembles a multitude of car enthusiasts who, whether they love it or hate it, have simply never owned an example of Ford’s legendary pony car. Nevertheless, credit Byron for capitalizing on a good thing when it came his way. The good thing we speak of is the 1967 coupe that was given to Byron by his girlfriend’s sister, Holly. Holly had driven the plain white coupe for a number of years before parking it in the late ’90s due to its declining condition and concerns regarding reliability. After having it sit in her garage for nearly 20 years and concluding she was unlikely to get it back on the road,…

Even with all the LT goodness coming from GM, the go-to mill for engine swaps is still the tried-and-true LS. After all, LS1s and all their variants are turning up more often in wrecking yards. Hundreds of thousands of them out there mean the prices are great, and the LS has amazing aftermarket support. We picked up this LS1 from a wrecked fourth-gen Camaro for just a few grand. We figured with some work and a few parts, it would be perfect for a 1956 Chevy that needed an LS swap. Besides, cleaning up a used LS engine will end up being far cheaper than buying a new crate engine. Sources ARP; 800.826.3045; arp-bolts.com Competition Cams-COMP; 800.999.0853; compcams.com Fel-Pro; felpro-only.com Holley/Hooker/MSD/Accel; 270.781.9741; holley.com Summit Racing; 800.230.3030; www.summitracing.com Westech Performance; 951.685.4767;…

Roadkill @davidfreiburger 25 Years of the Crusher Camaro I’m gonna tell the story of the Crusher Camaro because it’s celebrating 25 years as a project and because it’s presented me with a fresh dilemma. The story begins in 1994 when California law allowed gasoline companies to crush older cars in exchange for smog credits that allowed continued polluting from wells and refineries. The bureaucratic presumption was that killing an old car would take it off the road and therefore stop it from polluting, thereby offsetting the smog from the refineries. The deal allowed private parties to sell older cars for $700. Enterprising gearheads found a way to flip a whole mess of old cars that hadn’t been legitimately driven in a decade or more. I found this wildly bogus and…

PRESENTED BY Billet Specialties Crossover Vintage Series Wheel: The Billet Specialties Crossover wheel is the end result of brickyard styling mixed with some nitromethane attitude. The Road Tour car features 18x7s in the front and 20x10 Extreme Wheels in the rear with a vintage gray powdercoat finish for the ultimate “Hot Rod” look. Available in 18, 19, 20 & 22" diameters with multiple finish options. Visit www.billetspecialties.com to learn more and see all the fine wheels and accessories Billet Specialties manufactures right here in the USA. • Billet Specialties www.billetspecialties.com; 866.317.5935 New from Custom Autosound! Hidden audio system for classic cars and trucks! Features Bluetooth! AM/FM 25 presets, USB, with a powerful 200 Watts, Aux/in, RCA Pre-outs, CD player controllable, just add the CD-1. All of these features packed in…

To get all the benefits of fuel injection, and to ensure the fuel system components work efficiently, the fuel pump should be immersed in fuel inside the tank, and there are several reasons for that. The fuel cools the pump, keeping it from burning up and needing replacement. High-pressure pumps like the kind used for EFI don’t do a good job of sucking the fuel—they work best when pushing it uphill. Noise is also an annoyance with an external EFI fuel pump. As most vintage fuel tanks had no provision for drop-in fuel pumps, this used to require hanging a pump outside and below the tank. Fuel tank manufacturer, Tanks, Inc., solved that problem years ago by developing EFI-ready fuel tanks for a variety of classic car applications. Recently, Classic…

It seems intuitive that if time is not a factor, the most thorough way to change engine oil is by letting the car sit overnight, then next morning allowing the oil to drain out of the sump for several hours. Doesn’t that get every bit of old oil out of the car? Isn’t it safer to change the oil cold instead of when it’s hot, likely over 200 degrees F? Not necessarily. When it comes to the question, “Is it best to change oil hot or cold?” the answer might surprise you. ❚Most oil experts say it’s better to drain the oil when it’s hot instead of when it’s cold, for several reasons: ❚Oil viscosity is thinner when it’s hot, so it drains more quickly and completely out of the…

To contemporary eyes, nothing seems small about 1958 Chevrolets. But put the car next to the imposing figure that was HOT ROD’S technical editor Ray Brock (all 6 feet, 2 inches of him), and the magazine can rightly say the all-new Chevy Impala “displays a low silhouette,” even with a roof height of 4½ feet. Automakers like to throw around the phrase “all new” every time they make even a few refinements to a model. But in this case, Chevrolet’s sedans were truly redesigned from the frame up. The previous ladder-style chassis was replaced by framerails with a central X-member that was “very resistant to the twisting forces that are transmitted to it,” wrote Brock in HOT ROD’s December 1957 issue. In addition, the new frame’s “low-slung design permits minimum…

There is a list of cars that epitomize the idealized notion of the American muscle car, and a 1970 Chevelle is definitely at or very near the top. This one was built by the skilled craftsmen at Alloway’s Hot Rod Shop (AHRS), near Knoxville, Tennessee, and shows what can be done when careful planning, solid execution, and subtle modifications are applied to any vintage car. For those who know their 1970 Chevelles, you can immediately see some of this work. The front bumper was smoothed, removing the license plate relief, making it much more appealing. The front and rear bumpers were also narrowed and tucked tightly to the body, making the bumper-to-body appearance much more pleasing. Instead of the vacuum-operated pop-up air inlet on the stock cowl induction hood, Alloway’s…

So, you bought a “new to you” project car and want to start the build right. That means tearing out the interior and making sure the floor pans are sealed and rust free. If you find Swiss cheese, check out “How to Fabricate and Install Replacement Floor Pans” on hotrod.com on how to replace your floor pans. If you find minor surface rust and the occasional pinhole, keep reading and we’ll show you everything you need to know about classic car rust prevention. If it’s just surface rust, the most effective removal process is to simply use a grinder with a wire wheel to clean up the old sheetmetal. Then, make sure you properly seal the floor pans, otherwise you’ll quickly end up right back where you started.…

Q: I’m in the process of building a 348 Chevy stroker [W-series early big-block] engine with a 4-inch stroke crankshaft, 6.135-inch [center-to-center] H-beam stroker rods, a 0.030-inch overbore, and a 10.5:1 compression ratio. [The top-end] will have Edelbrock large-port heads and a Z-11 intake with a three-deuce fuel-injection, probably Holley. It will be going in a 1964 Impala SS convertible with a T56 six-speed, 3.90s, and a 26- to 28-inch tire diameter. This is a weekend car that we take on 200- to 300-mile trips. I’m thinking I’ll be cruising at 2,000 to 2,300 rpm at 75 mph in sixth gear. For the cam, I want a roller that has a nice lope at idle and strong midrange power. A: A 409 is mighty fine, but a stroker 348 can…